How My Cannabis Compassion Journey Turned Me Into the Ultimate Researcher
Photo Courtesy of Crystal Weed/Unsplash
"You have cancer." These words dig deep into the core of one's soul and change a person forever. You either learn to be a warrior or prepare for your end times. Determined to beat the disease without resorting to conventional treatments like chemotherapy and radiation, I turned to cannabis oils, as they were the only route I thought I could take against three different cancers running concurrently - and still have a fighting chance of surviving.
This cancer tilt-a-whirl ride that I wanted off of in 2015 wasn't my first go at the disease. I'd already been down the cancer road in 2003, and the treatments had devastating effects. Surgery cut out misbehaving lymph nodes, but preventative treatments caused the return of paralysis that had initially resulted from a 1995 auto-racing wreck, after which I ended up spending three years in a wheelchair.
When they gave me the diagnosis in 2015, there was no way I could consider employing treatments that would likely cause a third go at life in a wheelchair. In 2013, with the help of cannabinoids, I successfully stopped my severe epilepsy in its tracks and dumped eight pharmaceutical drugs - with none of them ever to be used again. I knew there was an answer to healing within cannabis oil, and had already given away quite a few products to people while researching - but nobody's life depended on anything I was doing except for my own.
Prior to the existence of cannabis oil, people seldom chose the path of becoming a criminal by giving away the same illegal medicine they decided to use for their own healing. Indeed, that was the decision I made in early 2015. Many have touted the benefits of the famed RSO (Rick Simpson Oil), and shared the story of this man who made cannabis oil for himself and some friends about 2.5 decades ago. Due to the legend of Simpson, many healers have taken it upon themselves to make and give away oils just as he did. But that wasn't a motivation I ever considered at the beginning of my journey. I had no desire to do anything other than pave my way to heaven.
"What if you don't win this war? It's not a battle; life will be no more, over, caput." This question-and-answer routine would be a continual thought loop once I hit the road to give away as much oil as possible before I kicked the bucket. I'd never made any list of things to do before I died. Instead, simply living life seemed to be the way to go, and, in the end, it seemed that giving life back to people who were sick and could beat their disease was the best way to earn myself a ticket to the pearly gates.
I spent my time digesting as much information as possible every day, continually digging into research studies online and visiting libraries to try and find information that was never available. This was the way of life for me in between giving away more and more cannabis oils to people in need of healing.
Learning about other cannabinoids and working with some of the providers that made them was the next step I took. Watching how it was done, analyzing the oils, learning how they worked, and discovering which issue they could resolve became more accessible when I began to interlace my research with my mission. Formulations, at first, were created in the most archaic ways. "I'll mix some of this with some of that and see what helps," was the thought.
More research was required to then learn about cannabinoids, terpenes, and plant types. It also became apparent that every patient had something different going on, and quickly I could see the holes in the “take 60 grams in 90 days” RSO memes and consumption directions often given online. Learning medical terminology and various treatment modalities became of utmost importance, and leaning on information found only on social media became borderline dangerous for the patients I was helping.
Photo Courtesy of Crystal Weed/Unsplash
Day and night, while the Amtrak wheels screeched, I'd have my two cell phones going - one talking to patients and the other taking me deep into websites like Academia and Researchgate. I had already developed a relationship with Dr. David Bearman, the advisor for Illegally Healed and the founder of the American Academy of Cannabinoid Medicine. Little did I know that several years later, I'd end up working with him as a director there.
I moved my efforts onto the professional network, LinkedIn, where I was initially only known as a former civil rights lobbyist. This very uptight network had always warned about why you shouldn’t treat LinkedIn like Facebook, so it was quite the dare to step out among those I knew in law and start rubbing shoulders with the cannabinoid medicine research crowd simultaneously. Keep in mind that this crowd has evolved, and now includes many that use the plant.
The professional network allowed for interaction with researchers around the globe as I traveled the train tracks throughout the U.S. With a big trunk of illegal full-extract cannabis oil by my side, I was always looking for the next crowd on the compassion map that was waiting for some fuel to feel better. My partners and I had a system and followed hashtags, and I had no problem being the delivery man knowing that my time on earth was ending.
I had officially become a cannabinoid medicine researcher by the summer of 2016, and, on a very fateful day that season, a phone call came through asking me to visit a child with severe autism and epilepsy. At the time, I had been evading doctors, labs, and imaging while the pounds continued to drop off my body - I knew I was really sick.
Then came Genevieve, and the Cannabis Love Story began. As I used the knowledge I had gained over the past year on the road to care for others while fighting for my own life, an angel who needed my help gave me my life back in its entirety. I survived that final bout of cancer because of love, research, and cannabis oil. Compassion taught me to be a researcher of a magnitude I never thought possible, and the story only continues from here.
