Cultural Baggage, March 7, 2010

Broadcasting on the Drug Truth Network, this is Cultural Baggage.

It’s not only inhumane, it is really fundamentally un-American….. ‘NO MORE’ ‘DRUG WAR’ ‘NO MORE’ ‘DRUG WAR’ ‘NO MORE’ ‘DRUG WAR’ ‘NO MORE’ ‘DRUG WAR’

My Name is Dean Becker. I don’t condone or encourage the use of any drugs, legal or illegal. I report the unvarnished truth about the pharmaceutical, banking, prison and judicial nightmare that feeds on eternal drug war.
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Alright, my friends. Welcome to this edition of Cultural Baggage. Big night for the Drug Truth Network. A bit later on the Century of Lies show we’ll have, from the Brookings Institute, Vanda Felbab-Brown author of "Shooting Up - Counter Insurgency and the War on Drugs". A bit later on this program we’ll hear from Sandy Moriarty, who’s in charge of the cooking curriculum at the Oaksterdam University. We’ll hear from Mr. Tom Daubert to tell us about progress in Montana.

But right now we have from Patients Out of Time, Nurse Mary Lynn Mathre and Al Byrne, to talk about all the great progress going on around this nation; around this world, in regards to Medical Marijuana and about their forthcoming convention up in Rhode Island. I’d like to welcome them to the program. Who are we speaking to?

Mr. Al Byrne: Hey, got Al and Mary Lynn here, Dean. Nice to talk to you.

Dean Becker: Well, it’s good to hear your voices again. As I indicated, there’s just all kinds of positive breaking news about marijuana going on around this world. Am I correct?

Ms. Mary Lynn Mathre: You got that right. It seems to be in the news almost every day.

Dean Becker: It does, it does. Tell you what. If we could get one of you to tell us about your organization, Patients Out of Time. What’s that about?

Mr. Al Byrne: Patients Out of Time is an educational charity and non-profit that we founded, actually this coming April, fifteen years ago and what our mission was, and which we continue to exercise is, the education of doctors and nurses in particular, but also the US public, about the medical uses of Cannabis.

We do this in a variety of ways. We’ve published books. We’ve made some videos, that we started with, and now we’ve moved on - matured, if you will, to a system where we produce a series of educational conferences for the general public and for medical professionals. We video those conferences with professional videographers and those videos than end up on the internet for general public use on Google, Youtube, etc. and also for professional use in conjunction with the University of California’s education system.

Dean Becker: So it’s where these professionals can go and get their continuing credit fulfilled and educate themselves about medical marijuana?

Ms. Mary Lynn Mathre: Exactly right. That’s kind of our ‘breakthrough’ we think. We’ve had the Conference series since 2000. It’s a bi-annual conference series, every even year. This April will be our sixth Conference. But these conference… if you’ve got your audience there, that’s great. But we wanted to get it to reach more people. So through our website you can link directly to the University of California’s online educational system and physicians and nurses, for only seventy-five dollar, can go online and catch a whole conference. Very inexpensive and at the benefit of ’on their own time’.

Dean Becker: Indeed. I want to tell folks, I was at the one in Monterey now, a couple of years back and it was just chock full of information and I’m looking here at the registration; the outline of the events at this conference and it is a literal ‘who’s who’. There’s Dr. Donald Abrams, there’s Dr. Raphael Mechoulam. He’s out of Israel, is he not?

Mary Lynn and Al: Right. That’s right.

Mr. Al Byrne: Yeah, Raphael Mechoulam was the researcher that found the original THC compound, in Israel back in 1964, and he’s spoken at a previous conference of ours. He’s collaborated with us. He’s kind of a friend of ours now, I guess. But he’s coming back this year to do two things. He’s a Keynote Speaker in Rhode Island on April 15th and 16th.

But he’s also going to talk about the whole history of Cannabis since he discovered the original THC compound and how it has matured over the years. He’s going to announce that he believes Cannabis is truly a medicine of the future, for several reasons and he‘s also going to concentrate on how well Cannabis works for veterans of the Israelis’ Conflicts.

Dean Becker: Post Traumatic Stress.

Mr. Al Byrne: They have Post Traumatic Stress problems or Head Trauma problems. The Israeli Government actually grows Cannabis for their war veterans with Dr. Mechoulam assistance and provides this Cannabis for their Veterans as a treatment for these issues. He’s going to address that and so is this conference. We’re going to spend a good twenty-five/thirty percent of this conference, talking about veterans.

Dean Becker: This brings to mind, you mentioned the conflict in Israel and their need for finding a means to heal those suffering from Post Traumatic Stress. But here in the US we have, through better medical attention and through extreme efforts, been able to save the lives of many who would have died in previous wars. We have a lot of people out there who could use this sort of treatment. Correct?

Ms. Mary Lynn Mathre: Exactly, exactly. I think that’s an issue… you know we clear at Patients Out of Time, as our name says, it’s a… patients need this medicine, they need it now and… Both Al and I are ex-military. He’s a retired naval officer and I served six years in the Navy as a Navy Nurse.

So we’ve got a soft spot for veterans and whether it be Post Traumatic Stress or pain lingering from the terrible injuries they’ve suffered, whether it be loss of limb, head trauma, whatever… and exactly right. Cannabis is a medicine that should clearly be available to our veterans and again, that’s the basic goal of our conferences is to provide this education to let the world know, especially in the United States.

The efficacy of Cannabis has been verified by research. It’s safer than most any medication you can find available today. Even safer than over-the-counter medications and it certainly has a wide variety of uses.

Dean Becker: My favorite quote is from Judge Francis L. Young, a former DEA Law Judge who said, “It’s perhaps one of the safest therapeutic agents known to man.”

Ms. Mary Lynn Mathre: Exactly.

Mr. Al Byrne: That’s correct. That’s right and to go back to your initial point. Dr. Mechoulam’s going to be there. Dr. Abram’s going to be there. We’re also going to hear from Dr. Andrew Weil.

Dean Becker: World famous.

Mr. Al Byrne: Yeah. World famous. The pioneer of alternative medicine education, here in the United States. An old friend of Mary Lynn and I. He’s going to talk to us all in Rhode Island from a remote site. I don’t exactly know where he’s going to be, but he’s going to be with us for an hour. The other folks that are coming are from Brazil, from Canada, all over the United States. We have folks coming from Europe. We have speakers that are the absolute experts of Cannabis Research worldwide and worldwide is what we all count on.

We want everybody’s input here, to make sure that what we’re doing is correct and worldwide what I hear year after year after year, and I’m going to hear it this year I know is that, Cannabis is a great medicine and we need it and we need it now, for our patients under medical supervision.

Dean Becker: Alright. Let’s address the conference itself, one more time. This is going to be on April 15th through 17th at the Crown Plaza Hotel in Warwick, Rhode Island. Give them the website where they could learn more.

Ms. Mary Lynn Mathre: Yep. medicalcannabis.com Very simple. That’s medicalcannabis.com and you’ll see a link, real easy, to the conference. You can get conference information, view the hotel, check things out, see who’s speaking and then on Friday the 16th there’s also, besides the conference proceedings, there’s another event on Friday evening, a benefit dinner for Patients Out of Time.

Dean Becker: OK. Now once again, we’re speaking with Nurse Mary Lynn Mathre and Al Byrne of Patients Out of Time. You’re listening to the Cultural Baggage show on the Drug Truth Network.

I wanted to come back to another segment of the conference. I was noticing here, Steve DiAngelo, he heads up the Harborside Health Center there in Oakland, perhaps the worlds largest Cannabis dispensary and he kind of exemplifies the fact that all this truth, that you guys have been disseminating and helping to share, is starting to gain traction that people are not as frightened. People are more willing to try to help people without sending them to the back alleys, right?

Ms. Mary Lynn Mathre: Yeah, and one of the reasons we have Steve coming there is he’s a great example of clinics trying to do the right thing for patients and at Harborside, one of the things they ensure is that all of their Cannabis that they have available for patients has been tested. It’s been tested so that the patients know what they’re getting, in terms of how much THC and how much another cannabinoid, Cannabidiol, how much Cannabidiol is in the plant and then of course it’s been tested to make sure it’s free of mold and free of any other kind of contaminant.

So patients can come there, get their medicine, be assured that it’s going to be of quality and when they find out which strain works for them, they’ll be able to go back and get that same strain of medicine to take care of the symptoms that they’re trying to manage.

Dean Becker: Now let’s talk about the strains. That’s a topic that gets brought up every once in a while and I want folks to better understand. There are two basic types, Sativa and Indica, and each one has a basic propensity on what it might solve or salve or otherwise provide solution for. Right?

Ms. Mary Lynn Mathre: Right. It seems like a lot of the Sativa strains tend to have more of an ‘up’ effect, whereas a lot of the Indica is more of a ‘down’ effect, settling things down. But I think the real important thing is… the drug warriors what to keep claiming about how strong and potent Cannabis is. Over the years, people have tried to put more and more TH… you know, get a higher THC content and what we’re finding is, it’s other cannabinoid in the plant are just as effective, or more effective for certain therapeutic results, than the THC.

The other thing about Cannabidiol specifically, the CBD in Cannabis is that it helps modulate the ‘high’ effects of the THC. So when patients use Cannabis, say it is fifteen percent THC but it’s got a CBD content to it. That CBD will help balance out the effects; modulate. Kind of decrease the ‘high’ from the THC so patients don’t get that ‘real high’.

One thing that they found though is, a lot of people who use it recreationally want that really high THC content and I think that’s one of the surprises that we’ll learn a little bit from Steve’s report. He’s finding that in California there seems to be a lot of strains very high in THC and that’s not what the patients want. That’s not what they need, and so they’re trying to help bring in those strains that have more of a mix and a better overall therapeutic value.

We’ll also be hearing from Philippe Lucas from Canada where they, over the years, kept track of the various strains they’ve used and then the patient preferences. So he’ll be able to be a little clearer about… from years of documenting this, whether it be ‘nausea and vomiting‘, what would be the better strain as compared to for ‘chronic pain’, as compared to something for ‘seizure control’ or ‘appetite stimulation’.

So depending on what you want it for, patients will get better educated about this. We’ll be able to recommend the appropriate Cannabis, specific to a patients issues.

Dean Becker: Yes, and I would like to point out, when I toured Harborside, Steve DiAngelo’s place, they have labels that indicate the exact amount of THC that’s in each one of their products and, as you say, they are doing what the government should be allowing for; or demanding and that is they are doing the safety tests and they are doing everything possible to make sure they are delivering a safe product to their patients. Right?

Mr. Al Byrne: Right, right and that’s what Patients Out of Time wholly endorses. We work with Steve and we work with two other Cannabis Dispensaries in California that are in the Santa Barbara area and the reason we do it is ‘cause all three of these outfits are non-profits, that really do it right. They, like we just heard about Steve’s, the other guys have RN’s onsite, everyday. Every patient gets to talk to an RN, everyday. That kind of professionalism.

We also work with MAMA, up in Portland, Oregon area. Mothers Against Misuse and Abuse. We’ve been partners with them and any number of enterprises for twenty years and the reason we do, is because Sandy Burbank and MAMA have always exercised the same professionalism when they deal with therapeutic Cannabis, that any medical professional would, discussing any drug at all and we will never loose sight of the fact.

We want everybody out there to understand, we consider this stuff a medicine and it’s going to be treated like a medicine, grown like a medicine would be grown. Dosage, we’re going to understand what’s in it and what’s best about it for everybody and only at that level of professionalism will we have a really good marijuana program for patients.

When we get to the recreational issue, we don’t talk about that and frankly, recreational people can do what they want. But what we want is a product that medical professionals will accept as clean, doseable and they understand it effect, all it’s effect.

Dean Becker: Exactly right and that’s why I love you guys, you know. I’m hoping to ‘swing the cat’ somehow and get up there for this conference. We’ve got about a minute left. I want to kind-of turn it over to you guys once again to let folks know what is going to happen on April 15th and how they can participate.

Mr. Al Byrne: Well first of all, it’s going to be really good education We’re going to also have some fun. We got comedy. We got rock and seven piece reggae band that’s going to be there…

Ms. Mary Lynn Mathre: Sole Shot.

Mr. Al Byrne: …called Sole Shot. Look them up on the web. They’re sensational. We’ve got a live auction and silent auction of all kinds of Cannabis stuff you never even believed existed and we’ve got the best education in the world. Mary Lynn…

Ms. Mary Lynn Mathre: Just a great time. medicalcannabis.com April 15th is a kick-off with the reception. The 16th and 17th are two full days of a lot of information and as Al says, the benefit dinner comes with a lot of fun and entertainment.

Dean Becker: Alright. Well, Mary Lynn / Al Byrne, I thank you so much for participating here on Cultural Baggage. I wish you great success with this conference, whether I can make it or not and I do hope that folks will join in and educate themselves to this need for change.

Ms. Mary Lynn Mathre: Thanks much and we sure hope to see you there.

Dean Becker: Alright, y’all. Take care.

Mr. Al Byrne: Take care, Dean.

Dean Becker: Alright. Bye, bye.
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It’s time to play: "Name That Drug - By It’s Side Effects!"

Severe depression, cancer of the breast, stroke, dementia, blood clots in the lung, prolonged bleeding, high blood pressure, heart attacks and congestive heart failure.

(((gong)))

Time's up! The Answer: Prempro.

A combination hormone replacement.

Approved by the FDA.
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We’d like to welcome all of you and interest all of you in ‘Cooking With Cannabis”. I’m the Professor of Cooking over at the Oaksterdam University located in Oakland, California and we are a full service Cannabis University that has all the current updated cooking techniques and I’d like to just kind of let you know that there are many ways of infusing Cannabis into edibles.

Number one, I could definitely teach you how to make the Gen-X kind of very, very potent psychedelic butter. But also there are mild ways of cooking and one of the first things I did, which is a mild form is, I created a Cannabis herb by taking the dry green leaf shake and putting it in the blender. As simple as that, it blended it down to a fine powder which has a beautiful aroma and this you can use in any of your recipes along with any of your other fine herbs. Let’s say, Basil, Rosemary, Parsley. Put it in a little jar and put in right in your spice rack, because it is a beautiful herb to infuse into any sauces or anything.

This would be a mild form of medicating through the herb because you haven’t cooked it into any other kind of form. So you’re just taking the dry herb and appreciating it as a mild form and also the flavor of the herb itself is pleasant and what I did was use it in the breading and I did my fried chicken with a little bit of egg wash and then I mixed the Cannabis flour along with (?) flour. Then you would just roll the chicken in the herb, the Cannabis herb. You would eliminate the flour. So therefore, when you bake it or fry it, you have a beautiful herbal piece of chicken, and it really is delicious.

Another thing I did with the herb itself, just the Cannabis herb, I used it to make herbal bread. I didn’t want to mess with the magic of the yeast. So what I did is made the bread itself. Then, when it got to the point where I put it in the dish to rise, I at that point rolled it in the Cannabis flour and then put it in the pan to rise and I put it the oven and baked it and it turned out to be the most delicious herbal bread you’ve ever had. You’ll have still room to medicate with maybe a potent brownie or something that has a little more potency to it, for desert.

So this is a nice way to plan your meals and you just don’t get wiped out for the day. You want to be able to slowly graduate the potency.

In the coming weeks, look forward to a lot of great recipes and different techniques. There’s so many ways to infuse Cannabis into edibles and we’re going to have fun learning all of them. I hope you enjoyed learning how to make the Cannabis herb and try some experimenting cooking with it.

This is Sandy Moriarty from Oaksterdam University, looking forward to our next session.

Happy cooking!
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This has been: Life, Liberty and Happiness, from Oaksterdam University dot com. oaksterdamuniversity.com.
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My name is Tom Daubert. I’m founder and director of Patients and Families United in Montana. We are the states public education advocacy and support group for Medical Marijuana patients, regardless of their condition, as well as pain patients, whether they use marijuana or not.

Dean Becker: Tom, you have made great strides, there in Montana, as have many cities and states across the country and it shows that, it is possible to do this in most any state. I mean…

Mr. Tom Daubert: Well yes, we’re in Montana. But I would say, for the benefit of the people who are elsewhere in the country, Montana does not fit the stereotype that most outsiders have of it. Yes, we are a conservative state. We have a pattern of typically voting republican in Presidential elections. But we have a rich progressive history and this is much more of a libertarian minded state, both as regards liberals and conservatives.

So I was not surprised that Montana voters passed the Medical Marijuana Initiative six years ago. I guess I was a little surprised that we set the National Record at that time. But it was indicative of the libertarian minded attitude of Montana. Which is, leave people alone.

Dean Becker: Now Tom, if you would, kind of outline some of the scenarios, the provisions, the implementation of these laws there in Montana, and where you’re going.

Mr. Tom Daubert: Well the Montana Medical Marijuana Laws are not particularly different than most of the others. It specifies a series of medical conditions under which are appropriate for Medical Marijuana if a person could obtain a physician recommendation, and then register with the Health Department.

The program has grown steadily since it began and has actually exploded in the last year or so. There are on the order of eight to nine thousand registered patients now in the State of Montana. All over the state based on the recommendations from on the order of two hundred and thirty physicians and the program continues to grow rapidly. There’s a lot of interest, a lot of involvement and we have greatly improved over the last few years, the public image, which already started off pretty strong.

But we’ve improved in the standing of the program in the publics mind; in the legislatures mind. Until the last six months or so and at this point, we’re facing the prospect of growing backlash against the law resulting from, what I call, ‘ganja-preneurialism‘. A flashy in-your-face opportunistic behavior by some producers and distributors of Medical Marijuana and it is causing political problems that are of great concern to those of us who passed the law and who have been working for six years to fight for patient rights.

Dean Becker: Now the states of California and Colorado have a very wide open dispensary type model. Describe for us how it is in Montana. The distribution system.

Mr. Tom Daubert: Well the Montana Law allows a caregiver to be compensated reasonably, for his or her services and other than that, it’s basically silent on whether the dispenser needs to be non-profit or can be for-profit or any of those nuances are really pretty wide open. However, the Montana Law also make it clear that patients can only obtain medicine from the plants they grow themselves or from the person they register to be a care giver for themselves.

So there are some quasi dispensaries now popping up around the state. By law, they’re not suppose to serve anyone except the patients that have registered with them. That is actually an issue. Some of those dispensaries/caregivers are freely selling to any patient and that is causing legal problems ’cause it’s part of the backlash that I mentioned. But there are, as I said, a growing number of such facilities. Although the vast majority of what goes on, in the way of production and distribution to patients, is all under the radar in private. Home deliveries and that sort of thing.

Cities all over this state have been alerted to this scene, if only because some of the operators had sought business licenses and so what we’re seeing now is a pattern whereby city after city is adopting an emergency moratorium on such businesses and then developing zoning ordinances to apply to Medical Marijuana growers and distributors.

Dean Becker: Is there a website where folks could learn more about your work?

Mr. Tom Daubert: The website for our group, Montana Patients and Families United is mtpfu.org.
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Tom also told me they have a reciprocation rule within their laws, that allow those who live in the other thirteen states and Washington, D.C., to come to Montana, to bring their recommendation and to go fly fishing in the back country while having easy access to the medicine they need.
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Diggin’ in the Dirt

{fiddle playing in the background}

While I’m diggin’ in dirt, {don’t ya know}
Gonna plant some seeds {watch ‘em grow}
Gonna watch my marijuana grow like the back of my tree
Gonna watch my marijuana grow and be happy

{Dean - Some advice from Sean Reefer and the Resin Valley Boys. Spring is just around the corner.}
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Alright, my friends. You are listening to Cultural Baggage on the Drug Truth Network. This gives me a chance to talk to you a minute. You know, man to man / man to woman, what-ever. Look, there’s going to be many other reports this week on the 4:20 Drug War News about progress in the various states, about medical marijuana and I would urge you to attend that conference, if you can. Look up/Google, Patients Out of Time. It will lead you right to them. It would benefit you and your community, I would think, in the long run.

This next week I’m going to Oakland / San Francisco. I’m going to go to Oaksterdam University and tour their facility, get some more interviews and a new look at their building. I think they’ve got a six story building now. They’ve been moving each year to a bigger and bigger local and I’ll also be attending the Students For Sensible Drug Policy Conference, there in San Francisco. A lot of great people there to interview and to share with you.

I guess it really boils down to this, my friends. We own the truth. We own the morals. We own the science and the medicine. What we don’t own is the gun, I guess. But that’s not how we’re going to solve this, is it? We need to work together and bring it to an end and there’s only one way to do it. That’s for you to stand up and speak up and to help bring this to an end. You know there’s only one way, and I think it’s up to you. I’ve done my best. I’m waiting on you now.

As always I remind you, that because of prohibition, you don’t know what’s in that bag. Please, be careful.

To the Drug Truth Network listeners around the world, this is Dean Becker for Cultural Baggage and the unvarnished truth.

This show produced at the Pacifica studios of KPFT, Houston.
Tap dancing on the edge on an abyss.

Submitted by: C. Assenberg of www.marijuanafactorfiction.org