Other than the fact that I find a way to work cannabis into the conversation often, you’d never suspect that I’ve smoked cannabis every day for the past 14 years.
I don’t mean to visually profile, nowadays it’s all but impossible to pick out the cannabis users — we are everywhere.
Unfortunately, the media does this for us. Every time the news shows anything cannabis-related, the pictures are always of smoking, usually big gaggers, or the big clouds over rallies.
Don’t get me wrong, it’s like incense to my hunni and I, but there are a lot of people who abhor smoking, and every time they read or hear about medical marijuana or cannabis, they see young people smoking.
This conditioning goes deep.
I recently gave my co-worker three gelatin caplets filled with my home-made cannabis-infused olive oil.
She has severe insomnia and the last time she took a prescribed sleeping pill she woke up in her neighbour’s backyard (funny, that never happens when she drinks wine or smokes doobs).
The oil in these caplets is like a friendly hand, coaxing you to bed and rubbing your back until you fall asleep. It does not sedate, it only allows your brain to do what you want it to do, when you want it to do it.
And it’s so easy to make.
Last week, I did something to my lower back that pinched a nerve. I took two of these caplets before work and took two for later. I also applied my own home-made cannabis infused coconut oil cream (it contains castor oil and bee’s wax as well, both medicinal) several times throughout my shift, the effects were astounding.
The manufacturers of Ibuprofen pills and muscle creams doesn’t want legalization to happen because making cannabis-based medicines are as easy as baking cookies on a Sunday afternoon. I’ve even made some cream in which I steeped my home-grown hot peppers (my hunni absolutely swears by this stuff).
It’s more than made with love, it’s made with the natural, organic stuff your body easily accepts.
I come from a long line of do-it-yourselfers. I grew up with gardening-genius parents who were partners with mother nature. We had carrots and potatoes buried in the ‘hole’ in the basement into the new year. My mom lined the shelves with preserves, and filled the freezer with vegetables. Home-made is simply better.
Personal freedoms are a core belief that many of us still possess. Deleting the middle-man and truly providing for yourself by making your own medicine and food is at the very heart of this belief. This is a good belief, this is universal. It can bypass boundaries, because health is life, and food and safe medicine is a part of health.
If you want to learn more, Google is your friend. But the best way to really learn about cannabis as medicine is to normalize the conversation.
You might be surprised who’s still in the cannabis closet, they may be waiting for someone else to bring the topic up.
A friend once found this out after telling a co-worker about cannabis being good for so many things. The co-worker replied, “Yep, it’s the only thing that controls my husband’s Crohn’s.”
If I could momentarily bend Parliament’s ear, I would tell them that you cannot mandate personal choice. Otherwise, “personal choice” would be an oxymoron, it is not.
It is a right that we as hard-working, life-loving, and tax-paying citizens deserve.
And we’re here to demand it — we’ve got oil to make!