Garbling the dandelion
Saturday, 22 August 2015
Medical marijuana is NOT herbal medicine
It's just not.
Cannabis derived products look like herbal medicine to some, but that is simply because of the way herbalism itself has been twisted and corrupted. Cannabis derived products are drugs - but then so are most of the supplements sold these days - and so although I have nothing (much) against pot per se, I am increasingly outraged by the mainstream hoax surrounding it.
It's wrong on so many levels I hardly know where to begin, but I think it best to point out that the fingers reaching into the marijuana jar belong to Big Pharm/Big Herb and yes, Big Brother too. The Powers that Be see opportunity here - and it's not just in the cash value of the products, which is considerable in itself.
It's about control of everything that we put into our bodies, and by extension, our minds. They want to control the message of marijuana. Worse, this is the thin edge of the wedge. Once they control pot, they will have more ammunition to go after the other medicine plants.
It is already illegal in many places to sell comfrey for internal consumption, which is ridiculous and impossible to enforce - for now. But as the practice of licensing medical pot growing expands, it will "make sense" to government and to the sheeple that any and all medicinal plants should be left only to the experts. There will come a day, I guarantee it, when there will be licenses required to grow many more plants.
In fact, the rules in Great Britain have become positively draconian, summarily putting many excellent herbalists out of business. If they don't have the "correct" education certificate, they may no longer dispense the products they've been making for decades. It is a terrible loss.
My despair over this issue is not only about control, it is about the deception involved. I have yet to see an illness that medical marijuana is not cited to relieve. This is so much hooey, of course, cynical marketing of the magic bullet that the public craves, and it's working. It's simply wrong. There are some ways it might - might - be appropriate, but in most cases there will be another of the medicine plants that is more so. Not only in terms of effectiveness but in safety.
Ah, safety, the one thing no one talks about when it comes to pot. I'm not talking about the levels of THC here, I'm talking about the drenchings of antifungals and pesticides which are essential to green house grown plants of any kind, but especially this one. Take any cannabis product and you are ingesting these things as well. I could go on for many, many paragraphs on this one topic alone, but I will spare you and mostly myself, the grief. For now, you see, the laws in place would make it dangerous for me to tell you what I know - and how I know it.
I have made a point of not even researching the legalities of what I do now - chatting with y'all about my experience with dandelion is one thing. Making and selling dandelion root tincture may well be illegal, if not now, then likely soon. Ignorance of the law would be no excuse if I'm raided of course, but I ignore it all because it is meaningless and wrong.
Herbal medicine is people's medicine - actually, it's God's - and it's about integrity, not what is legally required. I have not, nor will I, ever cut corners, diluted or used poor quality materials, not because I'm afraid of what would happen if I did, but because it would be immoral. No law can touch the heart, and if you buy from a big distributor of anything, there is no heart there.
Learning to harvest and make our own remedies is heart-based healing. Medical marijuana as it is touted today is not. If you want to grow your own of any herb, I say have at 'er. We each have our own allies and if cannabis is one of yours there will be no judgement from me. I advocate for the plants themselves; I want to see them treated with respect and yes, love. I'm just as outraged by how Echinacea and St John'swort have been whored out by Big Herb as I am by what is happening to pot.
However, cannabis is one of our teaching plants. All plant medicines change our consciousness on subtle levels, marijuana is far more obvious about it. This change in consciousness is the point. Healing of the spirit requires it. The plants - all of them - speak to spirit.
The message of marijuana is a mirror. It gives us the opportunity to see ourselves more clearly by enhancing our personality traits. Smoking pot doesn't make you paranoid, it brings out your natural paranoia - if you have it - hence it only having that effect on some. It doesn't give everyone the munchies, either; in some people it will destroy the appetite. It is a mirror, and if you are someone who uses it, you might want to look into that mirror it is offering you. But the pot grown commercially is a fun house mirror. You will see a distorted version of you; the you who, like the plant, is twisted into a sickening conformity. Consistent exposure to the poisons marijuana now contains is dangerous to health AND it can and will destroy the spirit. The spirit of the plant we once knew as a teacher is now more of a demon than most of us would be willing to admit.
Medical marijuana is a whore, not a healer. It is a seductive tool of those who care nothing for hearts or spirits, but only control and cash.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Amen! I have been thinking the same things for a long time now. Marijuana has just become legal here in Alaska, they are in the process of regulating who can grow, sell, and tax it. Soon, it will be sold in stores just like booze.
ReplyDeleteI happen to think pot is good for you, but the last 30 years of drug wars have resulted in a plant that contains ungodly levels of THC. This is a result of needing to have a product that is very potent and commands high dollar on the illegal market. When the DEA tightened up the Mexican border, all that "normal" pot went away and these homegrown strains appeared.
But back to pot being good for you:
The gut and brain are filled with endocannabinoid receptors and we produce (and our gut bugs!) cannabinoid hormones at certain times to bind with these receptors. Numerous modern factors (diet, toxins, habits) interfere with our natural production of these ECBs. Quite possibly, smoking a bit of marijuana is a very helpful way to keep everything running smoothly. Smoking pot has a very long history.
Yes, I have seen those lists and cringed..."Pot cures everything!" BS. That was just invented to get recreational pot legalized. Now, read this next paragraph on what pot really does to us, this is one of many such scientific articles, just Google "NIH cannabinoid gut" you will see a laundry list of research cataloged by the National Institute of Health on the subject...fascinating!
I just wanted to illustrate that there are people studying these ECB structures in the gut and brain and that the medicinal effect is very real.
I have no idea how to utilize this now legal pot, but I think making very potent strains available to people so they can "get high" non-stop is not a great plan. My hope is that now that pot is becoming accepted as a means to "get high" it will also become accepted as a drug, and its true healing powers can be explored by both Big Pharma and wildcrafters alike.
From: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15100166
"From a historical perspective to the present day, all the evidence suggests that activation of cannabinoid receptors (CBRs) is beneficial for gut discomfort and pain, which are symptoms related to dysmotility and visceral perception. CBRs comprise G-protein coupled receptors that are predominantly in enteric and central neurones (CB1R) and immune cells (CB2R). In the last decade, evidence obtained from the use of selective agonists and inverse agonists/antagonists indicates that manipulation of CB1R can alter (1) sensory processing from the gut, (2) brain integration of brain-gut axis, (3) extrinsic control of the gut and (4) intrinsic control by the enteric nervous system. The extent to which activation of CB1R is most critical at these different levels is related to the region of the GI tract. The upper GI tract is strongly influenced by CB1R activation on central vagal pathways, whereas intestinal peristalsis can be modified by CB1R activation in the absence of extrinsic input. Actions at multiple levels make the CB1R a target for the treatment of functional bowel disorders, such as IBS. Since low-grade inflammation may act as a trigger for occurrence of IBS, CB2R modulation could be beneficial, but there is little supporting evidence for this yet. The challenge is to accomplish CBR activation while minimizing adverse effects and abuse liabilities. Potential therapeutic strategies involve increasing signaling by endocannabinoids (EC). The pathways involved in the biosynthesis, uptake and degradation of EC provide opportunities for modulation of CB1R and some recent evidence with inhibitors of EC uptake and metabolism suggest that these could be exploited for therapeutic gain."
Wow Tim, fascinating. I have never seen that information about its benefit for the gut before, nor did I know that our gut bugs produce those cannabinoid hormones. Surely, then, they can do so without introducing them from the outside, but I see that in a very disordered gut this would be helpful.
DeleteIt's true that wildcrafters and herbalists mostly shy away from using this plant, or at least talking about it. It is difficult to find strains that are not going to make the client wacky, and we're more about grounding people back into reality than helping them to escape it.
By the way, I am told that moose are rather fond of this plant. There are moose in Alaska, yes? They might be pleased to find more of their favourite delicacy available in people's gardens now that it is legal to grow!