Grow Journal - week 8

I harvested Pennywise..nice bud structure and the top colas were large and very nicely shaped. Now it's drying and when it's done, I'll make oil. It's the first time I've used a high CBD plant for oil so it will be interesting to see what effect it has on rheumatoid arthritis. Research is suggesting that it does well for inflammation and pain, so I'm eager to see how it works.

My greatest concern over the CBD strains is that state legislators are confused about the need for THC as well for medicine. CBD is not psychoactive in the same way that THC is, so they're all excited...which is great...but they need to understand that THC is necessary as well for healing. As usual, they throw the proverbial baby out with the bath water in an effort to do what feels acceptable to them. But what they all miss here is the fact that they are operating under false assumptions. They need to deal in facts when crafting legislation, not the scare tactics of the anti-legalization crowd. Those people don't care about the truth, only profits, and that's at the heart of the lie. Rescheduling cannabis at least would allow for research, which would ultimately lead to everyone calming down and then legalization will happen. They can't stop it now. It's here to stay.

So, rant over..here's Pennywise outside the room..in front of my awesome new refrigerator. Which I love. My other one made a clunking sound when the compressor shut off.  Poor thing. I waved goodbye as the nice people from Lowes took it away.

day 53

done!

Filly Bean

day 53

day 57

Timewreck

day 53

day 57

The Flav

day 53

day 57

Vortex

day 53

day 57

Orange Vision

day 53

day 57

Last shot of the last 5 plants in the grow

As you can see, the plants are in their final autumning off. We'll harvest the rest of them over the next week. Then we'll clean the area completely before bringing the six young un's in to finish vegging and then flowering. In Oregon, we're allowed only six that we can let grow to finish. We're allowed additional, but they must be no larger than a foot by a foot. So, everything has to be kept small until they can go into the other area. Sometimes that involves re-cloning off of existing clones to stay in compliance. Some of the small plants are used raw in smoothies, so something is always happening medicinally in the grow room. Raw cannabis has wonderful acids in it that are so healing. Everyone should be ingesting raw cannabis. Some use raw bud in smoothies; however, I don't care for the taste, so I just use leaf. And, it has the added benefit of being non-psychoactive, so healing without the high. I like that. Altered states are nice, but sometimes it's not appropriate, so I especially like the versatility of this plant.

Eventually, the worms will give us enough castings to make tea and to use when making our super soil and I won't have to buy them anymore at the grow store. I love that place, but I like to be as self-sufficient as possible, so currently the worms are living in my kitchen. Soon, however, they'll move to the flower room where they'll provide my ladies with natural CO2. 

It's a Lush life in the garden!

~Blessed Be!

Grow Journal - 4th week

Here we are at the end of week 4. My friend, Don, gave us a really great tip that the plants just love! He suggested that we add Organic Sucanat to our water. He said the plants would be in microbial heaven! Guess what! He was right!

Also, people have asked what super soil recipe we use. My husband has modified SubCool's recipe a little bit and this is what we use for our hot mix:

To make half of a batch:

5 - 1.5 cu ft bags of TGA soil or any good soil - ProOrganix is also very good.
2.5 lbs of each:
  crab meal
  bone meal
  blood meal
  bat guano
  alfalfa meal
12.5-25 lbs worm castings
1.5 lbs of each:
  rock phosphates
  oyster shell
  kelp meal
.5 lbs diatomaceous earth
1 T humic acid
4 cups organic brown rice
3 cups green sand
1/2 cup azomite
1/2 cup lime
1/4 cup + 1/8 cup epson salt

We use a turnable compost maker to make this. After a month, it goes into garbage cans for use.

This super soil hot mix goes in the bottom of the pot, then blend in some regular soil, then plant the plant using the regular soil, leaving 4 inches or so at the top to add the super soil hot mix as a dressing later. We still use a little nutrient in the water, and of course take our cues from the plants as to what they need. And now we're adding Sucanat. Very cool stuff.

So here are the ladies after a week..

Filly Bean

day 29

day 22

Vortex

day 22

day 29

Timewreck

day 22

day 29

The Flav

day 22

day 29

Pennywise

day 22

day 29

Orange Vision

day 29

day 22

And lastly..a view of the room..

Oh, we bought a worm farm. The worms arrive next week. We'll probably keep it in the flower room for CO2 release. I'll include pictures next time. Another month..maybe..basking in the lush!

Happy garden..Happy me! 

~ Blessed Be! ~ 

Undermining again..

So now the Oregon Senate has sent a bill giving localities the ability to delay the opening of legal cannabis dispensaries until May 2015 to Governor Kitzhaber's desk for signature. Why did they wait until applications were being accepted? Cynicism suggests that it was intentional to derail new dispensaries from opening..maybe for good. The cost to business owners should the Governor sign this nonsense bill will be huge. It instructs the Oregon Health Authority to refund the $4000 license fee, but that's only the tip of the iceberg for these places. The security measures alone that have to be implemented are extremely costly. To not be able to recoup their expenses may put some out of business before they even start. How is that fair?

I suppose it can be argued that any dispensaries that existed before they were legalized shouldn't have existed anyway because the voters in Oregon voted against them. Yet, they sprung up everywhere. Truth is an interesting motivator. Cannabis will be legal here at some point, and it looks like that just might happen in November. Why not embrace the spirit of the green rush that's coming? Oregon could lead the nation on this. Washington isn't turning out to be a patient friendly state anymore. Why does Oregon have to follow suit? Oregon could show far more compassion and let the dispensaries go forward without any further restriction. Not everyone wants to grow their own medicine. Some simply are too ill to do it and legalizing dispensaries is a godsend for these folks.

And what will happen to the dispensaries that now exist? If a city decides to invoke the moratorium, it must do so by May 1, 2014. Do existing businesses need to then close until May 2015? How many people will lose their jobs in the process? And how can a city that has so far looked the other way suddenly become concerned and impose a moratorium? And will they?

Instead of giving in to fear, why not educate the localities that have concerns over dispensaries? The knee-jerk reaction to cannabis is based upon lies anyway. Isn't time we started living in truth? Delaying the opening of dispensaries won't fix the problem. Only truth will do that. People might as well get accustomed to hearing facts about cannabis given that legalization is likely soon. 

There's a trend developing in this country. When one party doesn't like a law, they do everything to circumvent it by enacting new laws to get around it. Face it. We don't always get what we want and sometimes the majority wins. It doesn't help the situation when the Oregon Senate disrupts prospective new business this way. Even if you remove patients from the equation, dispensaries bring jobs and revenue to whatever city they're in. Preventing that from happening at a time when so many are still unemployed makes no sense at all.

We have to start somewhere. Maybe vetoing this bill is the beginning of reason and sanity returning to the conversation. Please, Governor Kitzhaber..protect patients. Veto this bill. 

Mr. President, patients need your help..

Dear President Obama,

It's me, your unabashedly supportive cannabis patient and adoring fan. And I mean that. I knew you'd be our president when you spoke at the 2004 Democratic National Convention. Seriously..my husband and I were watching the convention and you were the keynote speaker. As we listened to your speech, I got uncontrollably teary and I said to my husband, you know what? He's going to be our president one day. And as much as I love Hillary, I voted for you in Oregon's primary in 2008. My boys voted for you and my husband voted for you. It was the coolest feeling ever! I joined the Democratic Party then as well. I had always registered as non-partisan. I really couldn't take sides, even though my heart was always with the Democrats and what they stood for. At least, I couldn't until you came into view. You see, we share basically the same views on most everything. Everything except for cannabis, it seems. I say, it seems, because although you seem to not support legalization, you also seemed to support the medicinal use or at least you seemed to support state law. In any event, the Ogden memo was nice, and then proved to be something else.

US Attorneys like the one in California appear hell-bent on not respecting state law and, in turn, patients. DEA and other law enforcement agencies appear to look upon raids as a way to increase department funding. All at the expense of patients who are following their state laws and who simply want to get well. As legalization continues throughout the states, which it surely will, at some point, you guys are going to have to figure out how to reconcile federal laws with state laws. Or how about this? Take cannabis out of the federal drug registry completely, and let states decide from there. Unless of course you want to go ahead and legalize federally. That would be the simplest thing to do. That gets the federal government out of the way of states who want to legalize. Fix the IRS and banking laws that interfere as well. Then fire any US Attorney who doesn't comply and continues to harass everyone. That should apply to law enforcement as well, particularly those idiot cops who did the roadside cavity search in Texas.

And now for why you need to take a thoughtful and compassionate look at cannabis as medicine. There are amazing stories of healing out there..google them. This is what I went through and continue to go through. I've probably had Rheumatoid Arthritis for most of my life. It went undiagnosed until 2001. I was severe for almost twelve years. I have taken all kinds of meds for it, including methotrexate (5 years until it damaged my liver), sulfasalazine, Enbrel (7 years), Humira (the last 4 years), various anti-inflammatory drugs, and narcotics. I retained so much fluid in the beginning and over time that my weight increased dramatically. I was always waif-like, so this was really disturbing..excruciating pain and weight gain. None of my doctors believed the whole fluid retention thing..they told me to eat less and exercise more. I ate nothing and exercised when I could because frankly, I couldn't walk very well. The fatigue was similar to mononucleosis fatigue. For my doctors to not believe me was emotionally devastating. I knew I would tread water and never get better. So I did what they wanted and took the drugs. And every day I suffered beyond description. My feet were so swollen that wearing shoes, not to mention walking, was difficult. My energy would happen in short bursts, leaving me exhausted. By 1pm, I was done. Except that we owned a business and I couldn't be done. We put in 98 hour work weeks for the first six years of our business. I experienced excruciating pain 24/7. I don't know how I survived that.

In September 2009, a flare began that would last a little more than a year. Flares are awful because they're far more intense than what your daily pain level would be. They typically last for a short time..a day, or a week maybe. For this to go on month after month was ridiculous. Honestly, I didn't think I would live through this. Eventually it was going to take its toll. So, six months after the flare began, I decided to get my OMMP card. I submitted my medical records for review and received my appointment. You don't get one of those if you don't qualify, so I was encouraged. Upon receiving my card, I began growing. Or I should say, my husband began growing. I wasn't able to help at that point..existing was difficult enough. After the first harvest, I began processing my cannabis into tincture and capsules. I designed a treatment regime that I could track and began medicating. I also vaporized cannabis as well as used raw leaf in smoothies. Within 2 months, much of the fluid was gone (TYSVM!!) and I began looking like myself again. I had immediately stopped the narcotic I was taking when I started the treatment regime. I also began discontinuing the anti-inflammatory drug I was on. I couldn't believe that I was so much better so quickly. I had been researching everything I could find on the endocannabinoid system and I was convinced that properties in cannabis balanced that system and when that happens, health returns. And that's what happened with me. By the end of September 2010, my flare was over. My garden was almost ready for harvest, but I had been medicating during the summer with cannabis given to me by other patients so that stopped the flare. I just didn't have the concentrates yet that would give me the best results. But when I did, my health began to return. 

Mr. President, I know there are really important things that need to be addressed in our country. I understand the obstruction that's happening and I know people may think that cannabis is really not all that important in the broader scheme of things..but it actually is. Patients, growers, dispensary owners are all being targeted in states where they shouldn't be. People with cancer are using cannabis oil and curing their cancer! Children with severe epilepsy are living normal lives for the first time ever! We have a wonderful child here in Oregon, Mykayla Comstock, who is in remission from her cancer because of cannabis oil. We're all healing because of this plant.


Today, I'm healthier than I've ever been. I still have RA, but it no longer controls my life. It's a nuisance now, and that's doable. I'm still on a couple of RA drugs, but everything else is gone. Cannabis allowed me to do all of this. It balances the immune system, and so much more.


Cannabis is a safe and effective treatment for everything. It never should have been made illegal. Legalizing it would stop the arrests and incarceration of people who are doing nothing wrong. At the very least, resolve the conflict between federal and state laws so that states who have legalized as well as those that only have medicinal cannabis laws won't have the issues they currently face. That helps patients in the long run.


I sit here, tears streaming down my face, imploring you to take up our cause. It's emotional when we finally have something that actually heals us when nothing else has. We believe we're safe because we're following state law, only to discover we're not safe at all. Patients need your compassion, your thoughtfulness. We need you to stand with us and clear the way for our healing. We need you to listen to our stories and not view them with that dreaded "anecdotal" label that diminishes our experiences, relegating them to the proverbial dustbin. We need you to take us seriously.

Respectfully,


Jan 

Medical Cannabis Laws are a Blessing...not a Given

I just read an article about a couple in Arizona who have medical cannabis cards and then flagrantly violated state law to open a "bakery" in their home, complete with customer counter and hours of business sign. Great.

I know our economy isn't great. Cannabis is prevalent and it's tempting to make money with it. Growers, in my opinion, violate the OMMP in Oregon all the time when they charge their patients x amount for an ounce of cannabis that belongs to the patient in the first place. To get reimbursement, growers are SUPPOSED to present the patient with grow store receipts as well as the patient's portion of the grower's electric bill.  But they get creative and decide that those fees result in an ounce costing the patient anywhere from $100/ounce to $300/ounce. Far as I'm concerned, this is illegal.  There's no way they can justify this cost. We can say the growers are confused, but it's opportunism at it's most egregious. They take advantage of sick people who can't grow for themselves and are afraid to say anything for fear they'll lose access to their medicine. If voters in Oregon had approved dispensaries during the last election, some of this would have gone away. But we didn't do that.

Thank goodness for the actions of diligent activists who have worked tirelessly to tell the truth about this plant. They are the unsung heroes of our movement. Medical cannabis laws are a blessing. They're not a given. If patients continually violate them, they'll be repealed. Stop it.