Who would have thought that in 2016, we would be talking about legal, recreational marijuana in the United States? Not me!
Coming from a conservative family, my parents only knew of marijuana. It’s true, they were ignorant of Cannabis. But can you blame them? In the 1980’s, the research was just not there or was it? That’s a whole other issue but it was not until the 1990’s, that Israeli researchers learned of the endocannabinoid system. And the lack of the Internet at the time enabled the government to communicate their message. Fast forward 25 years and the research has proven that Cannabis is a viable treatment and cure for illnesses including Cancer.
The polls for favoring Legalizing Marijuana* are at their highest and continuing to rise. With modern Internet, we still find it difficult to communicate and educate about Marijuana. And worse, the Federal government is a big anti-believer and continue to push their rhetoric. Believe most, if not all of this, is due to MONEY. Cannabis is a Schedule 1 Drug: Substances, or chemicals are defined as drugs with no currently accepted medical use and a high potential for abuse. Schedule I drugs are the most dangerous drugs of all the drug schedules with potentially severe psychological or physical dependence. Some examples of Schedule I drugs are: heroin, lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD), marijuana (cannabis), 3,4 methylenedioxymethamphetamine (ecstasy), methaqualone, and peyote. Deemed no medical use is 100% PROOF of this.
To increase the effectiveness of communicating our message, Marijuana needs to be re-branded to Cannabis. Medical Marijuana should become Medical Cannabis.
Rebranding To Cannabis Gives the Power of the Message to Us
If you are unfamiliar with the history of the word Marijuana, in short, while Cannabis was used in the United States medicinally and the upper echelon dabbled in hashish, Cannabis was not really smoked. That was until the early 1900’s when immigrants fleeing the Mexican Revolution, came to the US with Cannabis. The weed was given the name “marihuana” and the stigma was born. Without going into full detail, Harry Anslinger who was the U.S. Treasury Department’s Federal Bureau of Narcotics first chief, was the lead proponent against the evil locoweed, as it was called too. In public, he would brand Cannabis, Marijuana.
To this day, Marijuana is a negative word. Like it or not, it is fact! As the population ages and information is more readily available, yes, the numbers for favoring legalization will only increase. We are educating but how effectively? When talking with strangers or acquaintances, and the topic is brought up, a lot of the time when the person hears “Marijuana”, their brain turns off. It doesn’t matter if you bring a boat load of facts and research, they don’t hear it. Don’t accept it! We have lost before we even began.
However, if you change the script and brand it Cannabis, it tends to throw people off. They are sometimes not familiar with the word or had not made the connection (fast enough). All of sudden, they are not in a position to be closed minded. When a person believes they “know” everything about a topic, it’s easy to be closed off, but when presented with an opportunity of awareness to the fact that they don’t know everything, it opens them up.
I learned this when talking about my father and his Stage 4 Renal Cell Carcinoma. I noticed a difference when using the words Marijuana and Cannabis. When saying the “M” word, I would be asked usually two things, does he like to get high and does it give him the munchies? The negative image of a “stoner” emerged.
But this was not fun and games! I was talking about life and death, and my father. He took Rick Simpson Oil for 12 months. For the first time publicly, my father passed February 2, 2016. The Marijuana Extract Oil was a god send. For the 12 months that he was on RSO, he did not have the pain that a normal patient with Kidney cancer would have. Usually, it is very painful and makes the lower back ACHE. We did real well against the cancer and made some tumors shrink but he got a stomach tumor that was a bit too much for him, he was 78. My father did not suffer at all. He had some discomfort at the end, but that is to be expected…and he did have a late battle with pneumonia.
When using the word Cannabis, I immediately noticed a difference in their reaction. It was not negative. Why? Because they had not heard any “negative” news about Cannabis or they weren’t exactly sure what it is. Either way, we have won!
There is a lot to communicate. To most, they have not heard of the endocannabinoid system and how the mammalian body naturally accepts cannabinoids. More now have heard of Cannabidiol (CBD) or should I say they have heard of Charlotte’s Web, but do they know that it is a cannabinoid. They usually have no idea that roughly 60 different molecules from cannabinoids to terpens to flavinoids and over 400 compounds in Cannabis and how they work together. This topic, Entourage Effect is foreign.
Fighting Illness With Cannabis
To be Continued…
* Undecided on Sean Parker’s California Adult Use of Marijuana Act