The BIGGEST THANK YOU I can muster, will never be near enough for all you’ve done for this country and the scientific commuity. Our debt to you as the harbinger of more regrettable pandemic outcomes, can never be repaid.
Farewell Dr. Fauci
2022’s Most Intriguing Cannabis Research Studies
I’ve been seriously doubting why I’m still around for several years. Just perusing the titles in this Leafly Compendium suggests a possibility. I’ve personally seen positive corroboration in all these areas. The vexxing issue seems to be that there is really nothing unusual or special about me, at least medically speaking, as far as I know. The whole damned broughhaha is well documented in all it’s gory detail with the Veterans Administration. Is anybody paying attention?
Treatment-Resistant Depression
If I was a cat, I’d probably be at around #7 or 8.
Ditching Pills for Cannabis
My and many others’ paths might track somewhat different routes, but the outcomes are the same.
“I can move and I can walk, and it’s given me the ability to be a better dad. I was devastated to lose out on a dream job at 21 because of my MS diagnosis. Now I feel like I’ve been given a second chance. For those people who are in pain, have tried other routes to no avail, think about medical cannabis. It’s changed my life.”
Chinese Crackdown
The mainland Chinese have been well known for their harsh Covid control policies. It’s not working. Imagine that: The harshest lockdown regime on the planet is now reeling under the highest case numbers ever. Yeah, they definitely fucked this all the way up, right from the start in late 2019.
Health Status Update
Deliberately sat on my ass most of the past few weeks blaming it on the weather, and got a good baseline. This’ll be it for health complaints on here going forward, unless I decide to get the C-spine fixed, lose a limb to a power tool or something similar.
2 DEC 22: Non-narrative, final long-term rundown.
Radiculopathy from C6-7 and L4-5 – Right thigh, lat, glute, erector and various upper-right back/shoulder muscles stiff and aching sore to the bone 24×7. Limited ambulation based mostly on back brace and cane. Limited neck rotation to the left.
Neuropathy – 1) Random muscle twitching in the right quad and glute based on activity type and level. 2) Various neuropathic itches. 3) Random arm numbing – level PT-based. 4) Calf and foot cramps. 5) Loss of sensation in hands and elsewhere. 6) Minor balance issues standing/walking.
Some of the nerve root damage symptoms listed above spread out to the left glute with activity. There’s a couple more new symptoms from the lumbar fiasco I’m saving to speak about in person with various individuals.
All the same old arthritis and bad joint Stuff I’m not too worried about anymore.
Drugs
Big election news in the NORML pages this morning. It’s no news to me. We went through a shrooms period during my early 20s while trying to attend college in Pennsylvania before joining the Air Force. I naturally gravitated to the weed in recent years with arthritis and bad joints. Spinal injuries only sealed that deal.
The pharma industry’s death grip on healthcare portends no easy path to progress. Looking back at the time in between my hip replacements, I now shudder to think about the toxic cocktail of different substances the VA had me on. Things will improve on the healthcare pharma front after money stops vying for supremacy with science.
EMS Gold Standard
Emergency Medical Services certainly weren’t all that well established and organized during the time I was growing up in western Pennsylvania in the 1960s. I remember more than one frantic drive to the ER. 911 wasn’t even a thing, at least not out in the boonies. I imagine that still holds true in many of the more rural and remote parts of the country today.
“At one point, Pittsburgh’s mayor at the time, Robert Flaherty, pushed to get Freedom House defunded, discredited, and shut down. He and others considered the services that Freedom House provided to be un-American.”
The part about this story I found most interesting was how a black-run operation flourished among the bigoted racists abundantly populating the region.
Colorado Proposition 122
Digging a little deeper, you can find where this all started in contemporary society. Indigenous people been trippin’ all over the planet since forever.
“Cargill has remained a hidden figure of drug history for too long, a ‘cute little honeybee’ who should be rebranded as the brilliant chemist who brought systems and methods to turning America on.”
Health Status Update
21 OCT 22: Recently moving to a strictly-dosed mostly-CBD medication regimen showed me a few things. #1: THC is the neuro-effective pain reliever. That is obvious, with the right elbow now again flirting with sleep-loss-inducing nerve flare. #2: CBD is not necessarily a sleep aid. I’ve been more alert, active and taking fewer naps, although I do seem to sleep better at night with it(?). #3: Eating vs. vaping involves some sort of catch-22. Vaping is fast and effective, never leaving me too stoned to function, but wears off after an hour or two. Edible can last all day, but can’t eat enough without getting blotto half the time, and eventually leads to hyperemesis if I’m not carefully limiting intake, resulting in sub-par symptom suppression. So the regimen now means eating small (5-10Mg) 1:20 CBD flower doses 2-3 times a day, along with a vape bowl of a 1:1 CBD strain spiked with kief. My theory is the kief adds enough additional terps and THC for good analgesic effect. Numbers on the ratio start at 8G kief/Oz. flower.
The flower I’m eating is a near-all CBD strain offered by Terrapin Care Station called Wife’s Lemonade. It’s important to note I am using no processed products of any kind, with the small exception of cold-pressed rosin, and mostly because that stuff is supposed to be naturally pure, just forced out of it’s plant host. Tight controls, few variables and it’s still just an experiment. PT is the only thing really consistent for the past few years, with only minor adjustments. Cannabis medication under most of the different applications I’ve tried is way better than pharma-induced dependency and stupor.
Nerve flare in the right elbow and knee is noticeable again now, but not too uncomfortable. I’m gonna roll with this for the rest of the year to see how it goes. If I can stay out of hyperemesis and maintain some semblance of sanity, we’ll call it good.
Big Weed Money
“In the two states with the most mature adult-use cannabis markets – Colorado and Washington – cannabis excise tax revenues outpaced those collected on the sale of alcohol and tobacco.”
Pros and Cons of Cannabis Taxation.
Here’s Something You Won’t See In Russia
Health Care Poll
Every news outlet across the country had this on the top shelf today, so being retired military, I took the Stars and Stripes version. My personal experiences with the Veterans Administration told throughout the Health Category here over the years supports the issue in uniquely disturbing ways. No question it degenerated into a government-subsidized, insurance company financed, pharma-induced nationwide racket.
Another Cannabis Trope Debunked
Under the circumstances, motivation for me generally speaking, involves the wherewithal to get out of bed. Any medication is long gone, and it takes an hour for me to just loosen up a little. No question I’m highly motivated, always have been. But it’s hard to do anything when you’re paralyzed.
Northwest Fires
Looks like Alaska along with Idaho and Northern California get burned off this season.
Health Status Update
I decided to take a different approach to the tolerance issue this time. I imagine my body runs at close to max Cannabis tolerance more-or-less continually. I have to be careful to avoid knocking myself out eating the de-carb’d flower. It doesn’t really get me high that much any more except just makes me sleepy at some level. So I decided to try a little different approach than just stopping cold turkey for a few days to see if I can detect any clues.
I’ve been titrating down slowly for at least a month, aiming to completely use up all the stash. Haven’t had any rosin concentrate since those ran out a month ago. I like the solventless and cold-pressed rosins. They are probably the only concentrates not potentially adulterated with processing artifacts. I’m not really comfortable with all the pre-processed Cannabis products available in this so-called “regulated” market. I suspect the only thing really getting regulated to any effect is the tax revenue. Finished the Kief last weekend. Had no edible at all past three days, and I finished vaping the last of the CBD flower a few hours ago.
Experienced an excruciating right knee something (nerve flare, or just another bad joint?) holding it in an awkward position trying to dump a big bag of dog food into the storage container yesterday. It was pretty sore for a few weeks right after the lumbar surgery, but this was the first time I ever had a real episode of any kind with it. The last of that CBD flower didn’t contain much THC and seems like nothing to the radiculopathy symptoms. All stiff, cramped and sore up and down the whole right side now.
Early indications seem to suggest the only difference is going to be taking longer to get miserably un-medicated. This weekend is gonna suck.
LATE UPDATE – Sunday Morning: There’s not much wrong with that knee that hasn’t been there for the past 20 years – except maybe the nerve going through it. I can walk on it, doesn’t hurt to move, but starts building stiff resistance with activity – and hurts like hell when it gets pinched. I should probably get it x-rayed just to make sure, but I’m persona-non-grata with the VA orthopedics clinics since the last hip replacement. If there’s anything I’ve learned about healthcare after dozens of VA encounters over the years, it’s that diagnosis for my maladies is best done at home.
LATE, LATE Update – Monday morning. Pretty unpleasant getting out of bed this morning. The real problem is, it only gets worse throughout the day, depending on how much time I spend on my feet. We’ll be heading to Boulder later to pick up some Kief. A new overall medication approach will start today. The last few years was just trying alot of different stuff to see what happens. I think I have the info to start doing real, targeted medication, without getting into hyperemesis and blotto periods. Using Kief in combination with different flower, has been the only thing that showed me clear changes in their effect. I can now confirm what they’ve been saying all along: Terpines must be the key to unlocking whatever it’s doing in the body.