In his casket was his red Gibson Les Paul guitar, a football, a Bible opened at Psalm 23, and a stalk of ganja placed there by Rita Marley.
On the day before the funeral, the coffin was placed on lit de parade allowing the public, an estimated 100,000 people to file past and get a final glance of The Gong. Marley’s long locks had been replaced with a wig as his own hair had been lost during cancer treatment in New York, Miami, Mexico, and finally the Bavarian clinic of Dr Josef Issels, following the diagnosis of a malignant melanoma four years earlier.
The Rastafarians told the mourning people that there was no reason
to grieve as death meant nothing. Bob had not gone anywhere – he was still among us.
The day of the funeral began with an hour-long service for family and close friends at the
Ethiopian Orthodox Church of the Holy Trinity, presided over by His Eminence Abuna Yesehaq, the church’s archbishop in the western hemisphere, who had baptised Marley in New York the previous November, just after his last triumphal concerts at Madison Square Garden. Bob’s baptismal name was Berhane Selassie – Light of the Trinity. Bob Marley & The Wailers – Stir It Up (Live at The Old Grey Whistle, 1973) – Bing video
Mary Jane Rathbun and her punchy brownies
There was a real Mary Jane.
Mary Jane Rathbun (December 22, 1922 – April 10, 1999) claimed to have invented the Marijuana Brownie. She started mixing marijuana into cakes in the 1950s. In the early 1980s, Mary Jane (yes – it was her real name) was cooking over 4,000 brownies a week for AIDS patients at the San Francisco General Hospital. Despite multiple arrests, she remained an active advocate for the medicinal properties of marijuana until the day she died.
An insight into her indomitable character can be glimpsed in this vignette from
August 25, 1992. The Sonoma County district attorney tried to charge the then 69-year-old with two marijuana possession felonies. Her response was concise: “If the narcs think I’m gonna stop baking brownies for my kids with AIDS, they can go fuck themselves in Macy’s window.”
Three years before her death, Mary co-authored a cookbook with fellow activist Dennis Peron (April 8, 1945 – January 27, 2018), Brownie Mary’s Marijuana Cookbook and Dennis Peron’s Recipe for Social Change. The cookbook featured recipes for black bean soup, chip dip, spaghetti sauce and chestnut stuffing. Her famous brownie recipe was
not included. Why not?
“When and if they legalize it, I’ll sell my brownie recipe to Betty Crocker or Duncan Hines,” she said, “and take the profits and buy an old Victorian for my kids with AIDS.”
One man paved the way for medical marijuana
In 1982, a man with a rare and painful type of bone tumor condition, Irvin Rosenfeld,
sued the federal government for access to marijuana medicine and won, paving the way
for others with qualifying conditions. Today, he gets his marijuana from the federal government, picking up 300 joints every 30 days.
After California changed its marijuana laws in 1976, prankster Danny Finegood hung curtains over the Hollywood sign to change it to “Hollyweed. It happened again on New Year’s Day, 2017, when another prankster scaled Mount Lee to change the sign.
39 surprising facts about cannabis (msn.com)
Cannabis is good for the soil.
In 2017, farmers in Italy started cultivating cannabis in order
to decontaminate polluted soil. The plants helped pull heavy metals out of the ground.
TARANTO, Italy — Farmers in a region of Italy once known for cheeses have turned to cultivating a type of cannabis — not to smoke or sell — but to decontaminate polluted soil. The hemp they’re growing contains very little THC — compound that makes people high.
Vincenzo Fornaro showed CBS News an empty farm, once packed with more than 600 sheep. “For generations, our family produced ricotta and meat,” Fornaro recalled.
It wasn’t until 2008 when Italy’s government discovered the toxic chemical dioxin
in his sheep and slaughtered the entire herd. The culprit was just a mile away.
Contaminants spewing from a massive steel plant — Europe’s largest — meant Fornaro could never have grazing animals again. To clean up his land he decided to try a rather unusual experiment.Fornaro planted industrial hemp to try to leach contaminants from the soil. The science is called phytoremediation — a process where contaminants are absorbed by the fast-growing roots of the cannabis plant which stores or, in some cases, transforms toxins into a harmless substance.
“You think this marijuana is the future of your farm?” Doane asks Fornaro. Although Fornaro’s crop is past harvest and doesn’t look like much now, phytoremediation is proven to pull heavy metals from soil. It was used following the nuclear disaster at Chernobyl to remove radioactive strontium and cesium.
Cannabis’ future
Claudio Natile sells some of the thousand’s products made from industrial hemp
including hemp oil, beer and pasta. “We want to eliminate the prejudice against
cannabis usage” Natile said.
He took CBS News to an apartment complex built from hemp composite materials.
So passers-by don’t miss the point, the grass out front is cannabis. “We must innovate,” Fornaro told CBS News, “and develop in a way that’s ecologically sound.” It’s in the shadow of the steel factory in Italy that Fornaro is pegging his future to a very different type of plant. Source: Italy farmers fight contamination with cannabis plant.
Weapon of war
During World War II, the Office of Strategic Services investigated marijuana as a means of inducing detainees to spill their secrets. The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) has always been depicted as a shadowy organization. All of its actions are top-secret, classified assignments. Therefore, it is only natural that it gets linked with various plots, such as the assassination of John F. Kennedy. While most of these conspiracy theories are unfounded nonsense, a little nugget of truth gets uncovered every so often.
However, in the case of the CIA and marijuana, it is more like an entire warehouse of information is available! The link between our nation’s intelligence agencies and cannabis predates the 1947 formation of the CIA. Ever since then, the CIA has publicly decried marijuana. However, in private, it has used cannabis for a wide range of purposes. Allegedly the organization went as far as creating its own strain!
Want to learn more about the CIA’s covert marijuana actions?
Well, then, we suggest that you light up a joint, sit back, and read on.
The CIA Used Cannabis as a ‘Truth Serum’
During World War II, the CIA’s predecessor, the Office of Strategic Services (OSS), began to actively seek out drugs they could use to help interrogate POWs. The National Research Council (NRC) began looking into the matter. The NRC formed a committee that included the Federal Bureau of Narcotics (FBN) Commissioner, Harry Anslinger. Anslinger was the architect of Reefer Madness and appeared to believe every word contained in this propaganda piece.
The FBN provided the OSS scientists with several drugs. Eventually, the team settled on an active chemical compound in marijuana called tetrahydrocannabinol acetate. While the OSS hoped that the cannabis compound would act as a ‘truth serum,’ it did nothing of the sort. However, it did make prisoners high and distracted them to the point where interrogators could extract information occasionally.
An FBN and OSS operative named George White became a vital part of the search for
a reliable truth serum. In May 1943, the OSS and FBN tested the super-pot on George White, which knocked him senseless. One of the program’s goals was to determine which drug traffickers were helping the Nazis in France and which ones were part of the Resistance. White then tested his ‘truth serum’ on a mobster named August Del Grazio.
According to Douglas Valentine, the author of ‘The Strength of the Wolf,’ it worked incredibly well. Del Grazio revealed a remarkable amount of information about the drug trade. Valentine claims the details were so extraordinary that the OSS redacted them from documents before their release decades later. After that, the OSS used the super-pot on Nazi POWs. They continued using the drug on people until at least 1947. Eventually, though, they determined that cannabis was not a reliable truth serum. Source: The SHOCKING Truth About the CIA & Cannabis [Uncovered] (wayofleaf.com)
Overdosing on Marijuana Is Technically Possible But Extraordinarily unlikely.
In theory, a person would have to consume almost 1,500 pounds of marijuana
in just 15 minutes to overdose, making it a practical impossibility.
Source: Can You Overdose on Medical Marijuana? | Marijuana Doctors
Warning; it can cause deadly brain seizures??
As of 2020, 34 U.S. states have legalized marijuana in some form.
Sales of marijuana are on the rise.
Sales in 2020 grew 46% according to one report. Sales could top $12 billion this year …
By 2026, yearly marijuana sales in the U.S. could hit $56 billion. This is partly due to
more and more states opening medical and sometimes recreational marijuana markets.
This State Could Legalize Cannabis In 2023. Plus: APhA Backs Decriminalization &
More Regulatory Updates (msn.com)
Source: Legality of cannabis by U.S. jurisdiction – Wikipedia
In 2015, legal marijuana outsold Girl Scout cookies.
The legal marijuana business in the US raked in between $3 billion and $3.4 billion
in sales in 2015, according to the newly published 2016 Marijuana Business Factbook.
As Quartz’s Ana Campoy points out, that means US consumers spent more money on medicinal and recreational weed last year than Girl Scout cookies, which saw $776 million in sales. To put this in perspective, in 2015 legal cannabis outsold Girl Scout cookies. The total cannabis market in the U.S., which includes illegal sales, is estimated
to be in the range of $40-$45 billion. This means the marijuana market is bigger than
craft beer, wine and organic food.
Sales of recreational marijuana could surpass medical marijuana as early as 2018, according to a new report from Marijuana Business Daily. MBD estimates that retail
sales for recreational and medical marijuana combined will be between $3.5 billion
and $4.3 billion in 2016.
That would mean growth of 17%-26% over last year’s sales. Recreational marijuana will account for roughly $1.4 billion to $1.7 billion in sales in 2016, and MBD projects sales will climb to $2.6-$3.8 billion by 2018. While medical marijuana sales are expected to grow as well, it is only forecast to be in the range of $2.3-$4.0 billion by 2018.
Source: Legal Cannabis Outsold Girl Scout Cookies Last Year (forbes.com)
The Strange Case of James C. Munch: Demonizing Cannabis (dispensaries.com)
Convincing the country that cannabis posed such a danger to society and that only prohibition could save it was never going to be easy. Remember that, in the years before the peak reefer-madness era of the 1930s, marijuana was generally considered a benign, medically efficacious substance that was widely available in American pharmacies. However, the nation’s nascent drug warriors in the newly formed Federal Bureau of Narcotics, led by an enterprising propagandist named Harry Anslinger, were able to
co-opt a number of sensational crimes and disingenuously tie them to cannabis.
With the help of marijuana “experts” like Dr. James C. Munch, the FBN succeeded in creating an anti-cannabis campaign that left an indelible mark on the American psyche, ultimately resulting in pot’s prohibition. In reality, the crimes used in furtherance of Anslinger’s crusade often had little or nothing whatsoever to do with cannabis.
These are the true crimes of reefer madness.
“After two puffs on a marijuana cigarette, I was turned into a bat.”
Such was the testimony of Dr. James C. Munch, a marijuana “expert” who was called as a witness in two murder trials in 1938. Munch was a Temple University pharmacologist who’d ingratiate himself with Harry J. Anslinger and became his unconscionable henchman at the Federal Bureau of Narcotics—the predecessor of the Drug Enforcement Administration.
Munch had experimented with the reefer himself, and he explained its allegedly psychosis-inducing effects at the trials of Ethel “Bunny” Sohl and Arthur Friedman. Both were on trial for murder, and both attempted to blame the devil’s weed for their deeds.
“After the first cigarette, I felt as if I had wings,” Munch said of his experience. “I seemed to have great blue wings and I was flying around the world.” Source: The Crimes of Reefer Madness (hightimes.com)
What is cannabis hyperemesis syndrome?
My experience of cannabinoid hyperemesis syndrome (CHS)
(medicalnewstoday.com)
By Regina Denny
NOTED: Marijuana can cause “cannabinoid hyperemesis syndrome,”
a condition characterized by “cyclic episodes of nausea and vomiting.”
Cannabis hyperemesis syndrome (CHS) is a condition caused by long-term cannabis (marijuana) use. People who have CHS experience recurring episodes of nausea, vomiting, dehydration and abdominal pain, with frequent visits to the emergency department.
Hyperemesis means severe vomiting.
Another name for CHS is cannabinoid hyperemesis syndrome.
Cannabinoids are compounds found in the cannabis plant that bind to cannabinoid receptors found in our brains, gastrointestinal tracts and immune cells.
The most studied exogenous cannabinoids are tetrahydrocannabinol (THC),
cannabidiol (CBD) and cannabigerol (CBG).
CHS is more than just a side effect of marijuana.
It is a condition that can lead to health complications if left untreated.
Who might get cannabis hyperemesis syndrome?
People who use cannabis chronically are at risk of developing CHS. It tends to occur in people who use cannabis at least once a week and occurs more often in adults who have been using cannabis since their adolescent years. Typically, there is a delay of several years in the onset of symptoms preceded by chronic marijuana misuse in nearly all cases.
How common is cannabinoid hyperemesis syndrome?
Only a small portion of people who regularly use cannabis develop CHS.
Because CHS is a newly discovered condition, many people may have it and
not report it or are misdiagnosed. One study found that up to 6% of people
who visited the emergency room for vomiting had CHS.
SYMPTOMS AND CAUSES
What causes cannabis hyperemesis syndrome?
Experts don’t know exactly what causes cannabis hyperemesis syndrome.
Some researchers suspect genetics may play a role. Others believe CHS may occur due to overstimulation of your endocannabinoid system (ECS). The ECS is a network of receptors
in your body that respond to compounds in cannabis.
What are the symptoms of CHS?
The primary symptoms of CHS are intense and persistent nausea and vomiting. People with this condition vomit extensively, often without warning, and can vomit up to five times per hour. They may also experience diffuse abdominal pain, often report weight loss, and appear dehydrated.
People with CHS self-learn to take hot showers, which helps reduce or curb some nausea they experience. Many people with CHS will compulsively shower or bathe — often for hours every day — to relieve cannabis hyperemesis syndrome symptoms.
There are three phases of cannabis hyperemesis syndrome. Slightly different symptoms occur in each stage:
Prodromal phase: This phase is most common in adults who have used cannabis since they were teenagers. You may have abdominal pain or morning nausea. You may also fear throwing up but never actually vomit.
Hyperemetic phase: Usually lasting 24 to 48 hours, people in this phase have overwhelming, recurrent vomiting and nausea. You may start compulsively bathing, and avoid certain foods or purposefully restrict your food intake.
Recovery phase: During recovery, people stop using cannabis (even in small amounts). When you are in the recovery phase, symptoms lessen over a few days or months. Eventually, they completely disappear.
Estrogen increases cannabis sensitivity
Females more likely to see tolerance and addiction while males get the munchies
Peer-Reviewed PublicationWASHINGTON STATE UNIVERSITY
REBECCA CRAFT IS A PROFESSOR OF
PSYCHOLOGY AT WASH STATE UNIVERSITY.
. view more CREDIT: REBECCA E. PHILLIPS
PULLMAN, Wash. – Smoking today’s concentrated pot might be risky business for women, according to new research from Washington State University. The study is the first to demonstrate sex differences in the development of tolerance to THC.
Psychology professor Rebecca Craft showed that, thanks to their estrogen levels, female rats are at least 30 percent more sensitive than males to the pain-relieving qualities of THC—the key active ingredient in cannabis. Females also develop tolerance to THC more quickly. These sensitivities could increase vulnerability to negative side effects like anxiety, paranoia and addiction.
The findings were recently published in the journal Drug and Alcohol Dependence.
The research was supported by a grant from the National Institute on Drug Abuse.
Many unknownsCraft said other researchers, like Margaret Haney at the Columbia University Medical Center, have shown that women are more susceptible to cannabis abuse and dependence than men. Haney has documented a cannabis withdrawal syndrome of irritability, sleep disruption and decreased food intake that Craft said tends to be more severe in women. Women also have a greater tendency to relapse when trying to stop using the drug.
Despite the known differences in how marijuana affects the sexes, Craft said most THC tolerance studies have been done on males.
With recent legalization of recreational marijuana in Washington and Colorado—and many more states allowing medicinal use—Craft said there is greater burden on researchers to understand the effects of cannabis and ferret out differences between males and females.
She said the “munchie effect” appears to be the only THC reaction where males show more sensitivity than females. Studies in California found that THC stimulated the appetites of male animals more than those of females.
Cannabis complexThe marijuana plant contains more than 60 compounds known as cannabinoids. THC, or tetrahydrocannabinol, is the psychoactive ingredient behind the characteristic mental high. Cannabidiol and cannabinol occur in smaller amounts but may be useful for medical purposes. All three compounds are present in the most common species of marijuana, Cannabis sativa and C. indica, but in varying proportions.
Craft said most medical marijuana patients prefer a balance between the cannabinoids.
But when it comes to recreational pot, selective breeding has resulted in THC concentrations double or triple those seen in the 1960s and 70s. “Marijuana is very different than it was 40 years ago,” she said. “It’s much higher in THC and lower in cannabidiol, so a little bit goes a very long way.
“We’re more likely to see negative side effects today like anxiety, confusion, panic attacks, hallucinations or extreme paranoia,” she said. “And women are at higher risk.”
One of the few female studies
Most clinical drug trials have been conducted on men due to their more stable hormonal profile. Despite the recommendation of the National Institutes of Health in 1993 to include more women in studies or give good reasons not to, many researchers still avoid dealing with the hormone swings inherent in a woman’s biology.
But Craft has been studying drug sensitivities in females for years.
Working with rats in her laboratory, Craft said she and her team “routinely manipulate hormones and follow females across their cycles to see if their drug sensitivities change along with their hormones. And they do…very frequently.” Estrogen is the culprit. “What we’re finding with THC is that you get a very clear spike in drug sensitivity right when the females are ovulating – right when their estrogen levels have peaked and are coming down,” she said.
Surprise finding In the current study, Craft and her team examined the pain relieving effects of THC in male and female rats. After 10 days of treatment, tolerance to THC was shown to be significantly greater in females than males. Tolerance occurs when the rat “adapts” to THC so that larger doses are required to produce the same pain-relieving effects initially seen with the first dose.Because Craft already knew that females were more sensitive to THC, she adjusted their doses to be 30 percent lower than doses for males. The females still developed more tolerance. “This is the lowest dose anyone has ever used to induce tolerance,” she said. The team also found that a low dose of THC did not disrupt the reproductive cycle in female rats, something that has been under debate and, Craft said, needs more study.
Medical marijuana
Hoping to gain greater insights into marijuana’s medical potential, Craft and her team are also studying the effects of cannabidiol, which can counter some of THC’s negative side effects.
The THC and cannabidiol studies will be extended to include chronic types of pain typically seen in people who request medical marijuana—such as those with debilitating back or joint pain, cancer, Crohn’s disease, multiple sclerosis, severe muscle spasms and more.
“These people have pain that lasts for months or years,” Craft said. “Tolerance develops differently and sometimes you get a lot less tolerance to a drug when people are in chronic pain.”
Craft uses a standard research formulation of delta-9-THC for her studies and is approved by the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration to work with Schedule I drugs such as cannabis.
Estrogen levels may make some people more sensitive to THC, the active ingredient in cannabis. Female rats were at least 30% more sensitive to the properties of THC, including pain relief.
Can you be allergic to cannabis? The answer is yes.
You can develop an allergy to the pollen and other proteins
in the marijuana plant just like you can to pollen from trees and grasses.
Allergic reactions can occur not only from smoking marijuana, but also from oral ingestion and from contact with your skin. It’s estimated that up to 10% of people using marijuana may have an allergy to it.
Symptoms associated with marijuana allergy are the typical ones that we see with other allergies: sneezing, nasal and eye itching, nasal congestion and runny nose. Lung problems like wheezing can be seen, too. Handling marijuana can produce itching, hives and other skin rashes in people who have a sensitivity.
When you eat a product that contains marijuana, there can be gastrointestinal problems like vomiting and diarrhea. In very rare cases, a severe life-threatening allergic reaction called anaphylaxis can occur. Several foods, such as bananas, almonds, tomatoes, peaches and citrus fruits, have cross-reacting allergens with marijuana. This means that people with marijuana allergy may see an allergic reaction called oral allergy syndrome when eating these foods.
Use of cannabidiol, or CBD, oil is very popular. CBD oil does not contain the substances that cause the euphoric effects seen with marijuana use. And while it’s thought to be helpful in many medical conditions, there is little scientific proof at this time.
But CBD oil can trigger allergic reactions in people with marijuana allergy,
as it may contain the allergens from the marijuana plant.
It can be used for pets, but use caution ©Doin Oakenhelm – stock.adobe.com
Marijuana may have some therapeutic benefits for sick pets.
But Dogs and cats can also die from marijuana toxicosis.
The number of cases of marijuana intoxication in dogs has risen dramatically in recent decades. Fortunately, it’s rarely fatal, but it can bring about some worrying symptoms, and you should always seek veterinary advice if you suspect your dog has ingested this drug.
Why Has There Been Such a Drastic Rise in Reported Cases?
In 1996, California became the first state to legalize cannabis use for medicinal purposes. Marijuana is now only prohibited in a few states, and an increasing number also allow its use for recreational purposes.
As a result of the drug’s increased accessibility, there has been a significant increase in the reports of dogs suffering from marijuana toxicosis. The Animal Poison Control Center, for example, reported a staggering 765% increase in calls about pets ingesting marijuana in 2019, compared with the same period the previous year. The Pet Poison Helpline also saw an increase of more than 400% in the number of calls they took about marijuana-related incidents over a six-year period.
The increase in reported cases even prompted a retrospective clinical study that evaluated the trends of marijuana toxicosis in dogs living in a state with legalized medical marijuana usage between 2005 and 2010. There was a concerning four-fold increase in the number of cases reported to the two Colorado veterinary hospitals that were the focus of the study.
Marijuana Toxicity Exposure
There has been a much higher incidence of dogs suffering from marijuana toxicosis
than those of cats. This is because users often mix the drug into palatable baked goods,
which is a particular problem if a dog is a renowned counter surfer.
However, your dog can also suffer poisoning from eating any part of the actual plant (including the leaves, seeds, stems, and flowers), from smoke inhalation, consuming hashish oil, or even from eating the feces of an individual that has ingested cannabis.
Symptoms of Marijuana Poisoning in Dogs
Stumbling and crossing over feet
Dull and lethargic
Dilated pupils
Urinary incontinence
Vomiting
Tremors and shaking
Agitation
Tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) is the potent psychoactive substance in marijuana,
and dogs have a much more severe reaction to this than humans. Symptoms are typically
visible within 30 minutes to an hour after ingestion of the drug, or sooner if inhaled.
Dr. Stacy Meola is a criticalist at Wheat Ridge Animal Hospital in Colorado and was also one of the lead veterinarians involved in the previously-mentioned study. She explains that “the most common sign is stumbling and crossing over their feet, and walking like they are drunk (ataxic).”
In the study, 88% of the dogs presented with this symptom.
Around 50% of dogs will also likely appear dull and lethargic with dilated pupils,
and will flinch in reaction to fast movements toward their face. “The most interesting
sign in dogs is urinary incontinence,” says Dr. Meola, adding that around half of the
dogs studied dribbled urine uncontrollably when they had marijuana in their system.
“My guess is the drug would not be as popular if 50% of people dribbled urine when
they used marijuana!” Other possible symptoms include vomiting, tremors & shaking,
and agitation, and some dogs can become comatose.
What Really Happens When You Stop Smoking Weed: What To Expect (msn.com)
What Are Cannabis Trichomes And What’s Their Importance (msn.com)
A High Yield Guide to Growing Cannabis at Home (msn.com)
Weed Basics: What Are Flavonoids In Cannabis? (msn.com)
Cannabis for Sleep Comfort – Bing images