Lorenzo’s Hash Oil

Maybe you saw the movie with Nick Nolte about a parent’s quest to find a cure for their son’s diseases. Failing to find a doctor capable of treating their young son Lorenzo's rare disease, Augusto and Michaela Odone sought their own cure. They set out on a mission to find a treatment to save their child. In their quest, the Odones clashed with doctors, scientists, and support groups, who were skeptical that anything could be done about ALD, much less by laypeople. But they persisted, setting up camp in medical libraries, reviewing animal experiments, badgering researchers, questioning top doctors all over the world, and even organizing an international symposium about the disease. Despite dead ends of research, the horror of watching their son's health decline, and being surrounded by skeptics, they persisted until they finally hit upon a therapy involving adding a certain kind of oil to their son's diet.

The same could be said about Medical Marijuana. Right now the Medical Marijuana Movement can sight many heroes who have led us to this very juicy moment in history, where the WEED may actually become legal, but to remember our roots, we have to thank Valerie and Michael Corral.

If you don’t know their names, you shouldn’t be allowed in a dispensary. While high I’m on my tall horse, I should mention that I just learned about them a couple of weeks ago.

In 1973, Valerie was in a terrible auto accident that left her with severe head trauma. This brought on seizures, sometimes as many as five a day. Not to minimize her experience, but through the assistance of her soon-to-be husband, Michael, Valerie Corral would be one of the first leaders in bringing the issue of Medical Marijuana into the light.

Because of the standard approach to disease by the medical establishment, Valerie Corral was given medication that not only didn’t work, it made her nauseas and feeling depressed. Then she tried Marijuana. It worked. But she got busted in 1992 by the police. Sent to drug detergency program, to get her off WEED, Valerie notice that her health dropped dramatically when she wasn’t dosing with Marijuana. This was brought up in her trial, but to no avail.    

I am jumping ahead greatly, but as the Corrals were fighting their case, the city of Santa Cruz, where they live, voted and accepted the first Medical Marijuana Collective for patients.

After their bust and subsequent freedom, they started to get calls from other people who were suffering from all kinds of painful maladies, and all wondered, “Did Marijuana really help?”

The Corrals help draft Proposition 215, the “Compassionate Use of Act of 1996.” Valerie Corral has been published in many fine medical journals and Michael is known for his organic horticulture contributions.

If I have a point to all of this, it is this; we have to do it on our own. As the American Medical Association states concerning Marijuana, “just because something makes you feel better, doesn’t mean it’s a medicine.” Quote-unfucking-quote.

Think about that. What that means is, you are not in charge of your medication…we are. We will say what is good for you and not. We will tell if the side effects are tolerable and if it’s worth it for us to invest in this…so-called medicine, even if it works.

Marijuana has been around since people first starting saying, “It hurts when I do this…” There is evidence of Marijuana use in early China and swinging Egypt. Actually Marijuana was used for the treatment of many diseases until the end of the Nineteenth century when the American Medical Association came along.

Funny thing about WEED, it’s very female. We cultivate the female plants, and even talk about the WEED like she was a woman with her alluring scent and the crazy places she gets us in. But for centuries, it was women who dispensed Marijuana as herbalists and other folk-practitioners. Then the AMA came along, and the first two things they did, outlaw herbs and restrict women from joining the AMA.

At the start of the 1900’s, opium and cocaine fell out of flavor  favor, (no more in coke in Coke) and a new word, addiction was invented.

Traditionally, young, white women were the image of innocent addicts of America in our early times. (Like Kurt Russell’s wife in Wyatt Earp.) But as the medical establishment took control, and went from being a resource as in prescribing drugs, the AMA felt the need to weigh in on social issues too, like abortion and drugs. We then opened a new chapter in our history. Instead of drugs being fun and giving us ‘A pause that refreshes…’ we now have Negros and Mexicans walking our streets in a drug-hazed zombie state with Jazz music and machetes . Now, drugs are bad and the people who do them are bad too.

And it hasn’t changed that much in one hundred years.

As we approach a vote for Legalization of Marijuana, and that is a different topic than Medical Marijuana, but for all of the bitching by both sides of the issue, and I’m talking the in-house bitching done by Potheads AGAINST Prop. 19 (and I do understand their beef), we do have to band together for Prop. 19.

Forget that the Beer Boys and the correctional officers of American prisons doesn’t want to see it pass. Why is that? Really, because you’ll lose money? So people have to go to jail so you can make a profit. What’s next? Health-care for profit?

This weekend is the Cannabis and Hemp Expo in San Francisco. This is the perfect opportunity for people to band together, to get our collective heads on straight and go forward as one. Thanks to the work of Valerie and Michael Corral, Dennis Peron, Richard Lee and many, many others, we are this close to seeing something happen that a lot of us never thought we’d see in our lifetimes.

Whether it is Medical Marijuana or the Legalization of Marijuana, the right to smoke, for whatever reason, is not going to be handed to us. Far from it. They are going to try to take it from our sticky little hands.

We have a little over a month to get this right. Maybe Proposition 19 isn’t perfect. Maybe we’re not all on the same page when it comes to our idea how this legalization thing should roll out. But can’t we all agree on one thing- Smoking Indicas early in the morning will trash the rest of your day.

See, you have to be a Pot smoker to get that. If you do, please vote because you do understand the basic physics of Pot.

Maybe that we can all agree on.

See you at the Expo!!!!



Comments

[Gary Butane]

wow i find this very insightful. i will try and get the movie to watch myself.

Thanks
Gary Butane