Hits from the Bong: Part One

Before you turn your nose up and think this is an article about 420 and getting bitchfaced high in your basement let me reassure you it’s not. As fun as that is, that’s not the reason I decided to write this article.

In social situations apart from my own inner circle I usually find myself in the same place. Smoking a joint alone, outside, and  hoping the wind doesn’t change directions and give me away. I’ve never been much of a drinker and often prefer a quick toke rather than a drink at the bar. When I offer to share my luscious bud with someone else I’m typically met with the same judgmental response, “Oh, I used to smoke when I was in high school but I’ve outgrown that now”.

Really, Drunky McFalldown? Tell me again how weed is for losers while I hold your hair back as you pray to your porcelain god. He’ll answer you tomorrow with an epic hangover and a world regret.

Rewind to 2008. I’m in the hospital with a Demerol drip again. Severe migraines had been pwning my ass  for over a decade and this particular one was going on day 6. From Advil to T3’s, the dosage needed to deal with the pain had become debilitating and I really didn’t want to be one of those ladies with a tackle box full of meds.

Tired of watching me suffer, my husband suggested that I try smoking weed to see if it would help.
At first I resisted. I was proud that I’d never touched drugs in my life until I realized that wasn’t true. I was taking a handful of drugs every day for my stomach, my head, allergies, anxiety etc. I was completely dependent on them. I was so worried about becoming addicted to illegal drugs I wasn’t paying attention to the fact that I was already addicted… to Big Pharma.

At the end of my rope, I decided to give marijuana a shot.

Weed not only kicked my migraines in the face but, it kept them from coming back. Now, 4 years later, cannabis continues to elevate the quality of my life. #AllThePuns

HEMP FOR VICTORY
“Marijuana, in its natural form, is one of the safest therapeutically active substance known to man” Judge Francis Young, DEA-1988.

“You would not believe how expensive cancer medication is, those pills are like 80 bucks a pop.”

There are a number of suppressed facts, misinformation, and outrageous lies surrounding the topic of cannabis, some published as early as last month. Here are a few:

• Industrial hemp and marijuana are not the same thing. They look completely different they grow differently, and if hemp is grown anywhere near marijuana, the marijuana crop is ruined.
• Industrial hemp cannot get you high. Not even a little.
• In its natural, unprocessed state, marijuana is beneficial to over 200 medical conditions with no negative side effects.
• Marijuana does not kill brain cells. In fact, a study conducted in 2005 at the University of Saskatchewan reported that marijuana could possibly stimulate brain cell growth.
• Marijuana does not give you cancer. There has never been a case of cancer or death linked to marijuana use in the history of anything. Any study suggesting otherwise is questionable, and you should consider who owns the source of that information.
• Marijuana is not a “gateway” drug. The gateway theory is a direct result of marijuana’s illegal status. If you could buy your marijuana from an authorized establishment, you’d face the same safe guards that are already in place for beer and cigarettes, thus, keeping marijuana out of the hands of kids.
• Marijuana does not make you useless to society. There are plenty of highly successful people who are out and proud pot smokers. In the Marie Claire article, Stiletto Stoners, female corporate attorneys speak candidly about how they prefer to unwind with a nice relaxing blunt rather than a drink after a long day of lawyering.
• Marijuana is NON-addictive. Yes, it can become habitual, and you might get a little bitchy if you’re a regular smoker and you suddenly find yourself dankrupt but, you’re not gonna be down on the street corner offering blow jobs for a dime bag. Are dime bags still a thing?
• Hemp seeds are edible and contain 80% essential fatty acids and 33% protein.
• The Declaration of Independence was written on hemp paper due its superior quality.
• The Shafer Report, commissioned by Richard Nixon in 1972 states that marijuana is harmless and should be legal.
• Hemp was once labeled the “Billion Dollar Crop” by Popular Mechanics Magazine in 1938. The articled cited that the use of industrial hemp and the abundance of new products [which is in the thousands] would be in direct competition with other sources. Sources like the timber, cotton, oil and pharmaceutical industries.

I like to think of myself as a progressive person. I’ve always been interested in the latest technologies society has to offer especially when those techs are world changing. When you hear the word cannabis, its uses as a technology are rarely the first thing that comes to mind. Fact is cannabis is the most widely underused resource in the world today, yet we’ve known about it for thousands of years.

So, you’re probably asking yourself the same question I’ve been asking…

Why is this illegal? We’ll get more into that in Hits from the Bong: Part Two.