I’m So Disappointed I Could Cry.

DO I HAVE FRIENDS(?) ON FACEBOOK? NFW!

FRIENDS HELP EACH OTHER- YOU DON’T

TO YOU- MY SO CALLED FRIENDS

YOU WANT A RANT? YOU GOT ONE COMING

THIS IS DIRECTED AT  YOU

Two Days ago I had a brainstorm that verged on genius. I finally thought I had come up with a Request to all my Facebook friends that would actually get a response. Several times before I have requested your cooperation and help for some sort of mass action mailing as a protest to an atrocity or to let some asshole know what you thought of them. Things like the “Help Alexander Stewart mailing Request”was a failure I cannot comprehend.

All I asked everyone to do was simply send a prewritten e-mail to a Minister with copies to a mayor and a Police chief. It was a simple task. I had written all the text all that had to be done was copy and past a single E-maill address, the subject line, the text and hit send. For me that is less than two minutes and 8-10 clicks maximum.

Imagine the impact of a simple request to simply use your influence to create an exception for a dying man. The political impact of jamming three inboxes and fucking up the system for a while would be enormous. I posted the request and waited.

Google+ is an audience of ??? viewers.

Facebook is an audience of ??? viewers

There are 40,000 Licensees watching,

I was proud to have 3000+ Google friends

and

747 Facebook friends.

I waited to see how my friends would respond? I honestly was stupid enough to believe I would get a flood of maybe 50 in the first couple of hours. Less than one minute after I posted the first Facebook “Like” came from my site: Bonus people are watching me! Then “Like”s hit both Facebook comments as well as my mailbox and my expectations of success soared. If each “Like” meant a Request sent to the Minister and the other two top turkeys: then there were three top mailboxes jammed full of individual fingers up their ass! 

My Heil Harper Salute delivered in person. 

I stupidly had not requested any feedback re sending and I was in the dark for a whole hour before I couldn’t stand it and I posted a request for anyone who had sent a request to confirm it by simply sending me a Yup so we could know what was happening.

I already had two acknowledgements, the Yup’s  yielded 3 more and I knew of five others who had done so. That makes a great bif total of TEN for coming up 3 days now. What makes me so fucking mad is that everyone of you out there who sent me a “Like” took the time to read my request, to hit the like spot and probably made a comment of some sort, then just hit the “Ignore!” button and forgot what I requested!

My question to you all!

What the fuck is the matter with you friends anyway? You can’t take time out of your busy schedule posting photos or links to old news, creating pages (that will do absolutely fuck all) and asking me to like them, or spouting rants about your problems and composing long stupid comments?

All it would have taken you, with no physical effort was take the time to just reach out help a friend who needs it. No more was required but you people just ignored it or simply don’t give a shit about others needs, you’re too focused on your own.

I was so disappointed I honestly didn’t know what to do? Is there anybody listening to me out there? Am I getting through to anyone? I have been publishing my blog for 2 ½ years now and I very seldom if ever get any comments or feedback on any of the topics’. What could be a forum for discussion at the bottom of my posts is just a blank fucking page.

I was seriously considering walking away from you all in contempt and focus on my advocacy but that would be letting a whole bunch of sub-standard friends, who now know I am alive; get away without some straight goddamned talk about Apathy and their indifference to others needs.I am talking to you!

I have decided: What I am going to do is speak my mind, no holds barred, on whatever subject I feel like: pro or con.  If you don’t like it , well I’m TheSmeeGoanGuy and you can Goan! LOL

I started my blog and advocacy for Medical Marijuana to reach out and help people find whatever they needed to keep the home fires burning. I joined Facebook in order to find out WTF was going on with Medical Marijuana and make contacts to help with my advocacy.

 I simply watched what was happening on Facebook and I was impressed beyond belief. I thought I’d hit the jackpot. An enormous circling pool of Energy beyond belief: anger, hostility, fear, hatred, confusion, anxiety, depression, uncertainty: all the stresses from an infinite number of sources bundled together in one great big ball of frustration. One problem that was immediately apparent was that there was no focus for all this emotional power. It expended itself in a continual discharge of rage over injustice broadcast to all the parties in the circle of Facebook friends.

Only a very few politically driven groups had any contact with no impact on any external problem target and nobody was hammering the Press who were busy ignoring it all. When I was ready I started my blog, got my ball rolling and then I got distracted from my initial objective of focusing the latent power of the group into a controllable discharge of power at a political or ethical problem that needed a boot in the ass.

Suddenly I was involved in the Kamermans outrage, and a war with the power groups in play, and a continuously changing focus as things developed. That is now at an end and I have decided on about 5 problems. Asking Facebook to do something gets fuck all for results. I intent to verbally bully you into doing what I am ordering or fuck off and keep your mouth shut. I want to form an Army of typists and techs to do some real things using using the focused port of modern communication to draw attention and shame: to above all Harpo. I am going to be the General and I want to recruit you as a part of my army!  What I propose to do is reasonable.

That is all for now. I will be absent for probably a week or so to write out what I am proposing to do as regards several rot spots and present my plans to you.

I was so disappointed I could cry but I got over that! Now I intend to figure out how to lash your asses into line.

While I am composing my Art of Modern Warfare for Idiots I would like you to look at your index finger and realize it gives you a power that no other generation has had. It gives you and only you the power to express your opinion or opposition to what is going on across the country and the world directly to the asshole you disagree with. You can use the internet to strike at the enemy and let him know you are pissed off. 

You can use it right now! Go ahead! Just send an e-mail to Harpo or phone his office and tell him to fuck off. It will be read or heard before they can hit delete and it won’t do much.

Now! What if you can wait for my target and when told send an e-mail to Mr Xyz at Xyz@asshole.ca and if you have time tomorrow? call this number (1-800-FUCKEM1) starting early in the morning. 

What if the other 2500 other Warriors o the 4’F’ Battalion of My Personal “Grin And Bear It Army” all did the same thing. 

In one day an office of a prominent visible opponent will be out of business and incommunicado. Target? Doesn’t matter: Political, governmental, corporate, commercial, ethical and even personal targets if justified are all fair game. The Flying Fickle Finger of Fate Battalion will show no mercy when it strikes

As I said                                   Think About It 

I will be back with my Introduction in due course

Blaine Barrett

TheSmeeGoanGuy

Past and Future Comment from A Heroine

An Update from Jennifer Collett

May She Long Continue!

Take a Stroll With a Friend

My name is Jennifer Collett. Every year I walk 134 kms from Peterborough Ontario to Queens Park in Toronto. I do this to show the medical and political institutions a working model of cannabinoid therapy, that enables extreme levels of activity. I also do this to support those who wonder if it might work for them to show them how it can.

You may think, "so what, lots of people do that." The truth is, they don't. This has been an incredible effort and well worth the journey every year. I couldn't have achieved this before I was able to use cannabis medicines consistently. I am a mother of 5, a wife and a normal everyday gal. I am no athlete, and manage my own health issues in the best way I can. This is one reason it is so important for me to walk. It shows that normal people use this medicine and contradict the stigma.

Over the past three years of doing this, we have walked a stride for every registered patient in Canada, and more. Every year we walk for a particular issue also. This is our 4th year and we will be raising awareness for Pediatric Cannabis Therapies and the kids who cant afford to wait. We need this medicine covered under the provincial formulary to increase access to something that IS saving lives.

Some of you may know that I am also the Executive Director of the Canadian Medical Cannabis Partners. We are a National organization of patients and caregivers who volunteer our time to changing the ways patients are affected by the system. We lobby provincial and federal government to manage our medical cannabis program under healthcare, where it belongs, as the natural, efficacious and safe medicine that it is.
We bring forward the evidence needed to discuss provincial management, and offer effective inexpensive and healthier solutions that complement the transitioning federal program.

For those of you who don't know, The Medical Marihuana Production Regulations that came into effect on March 31 2014, removed the right by policy, of 40,000 patients on fixed incomes or in various stages of chronic illness or end of life care, to stop growing in their legal gardens. (They were expected to destroy what they feel is saving their life.) Thousands of people, some patients and some who are privately and compassionately growing for patients who cannot grow their own medicine, risk arrest in our communities. This will be paid for by our community policing budgets. It will create a burden on our local healthcare systems, as well as our Social services as families are put into distress.

The "System" is how we the people are informed of what is available to us. From human rights to dental coverage, to restrictions and barriers, we must learn to negotiate this in order to have our needs met. We pay our taxes, most attend regular doctor’s appointments, pay our bills, and do our best to put food on the tables for our families. We follow the set of regulations dictating conduct in our society, until it becomes dangerous to us. The law is not intended to put anyone in harm’s way. Laws are not created to do harm in themselves. So, we must learn to negotiate the legislation causing the harm and have it changed in a way that works for all, not some.

The inclusion of cannabis medicines in the Formulary would increase access for our entire population.

The continued personal production that is inspected and regulated is far less expensive than the new program.

Through education and research we have learned of the essential nature of our endocannabinoid system. We must recognize and train our medical practitioners and reflect that in our requirements for medical practice. We must ensure that patients best interests are protected in the development of policy around cannabis in front line care. We must ensure access to the ability to make our medicine into healthier and more effective forms of administration. We must provide protection from the ignorance of the traditional western medical establishment; recognize that cannabis is one of the oldest, most effective, and least invasive forms of treatment for many illnesses, while ensuring there is a regulated quality control.

Affordability is a factor we cannot get around. So either we pay for it in our healthcare, or we request a section 56 for the province of Ontario to accept the download of the medical cannabis program. The alternative to not pre-emptively managing this situation is paying for it through our taxes with policing, housing inmates, court expense, social services, as well as the destruction of lives of thousands of people and their families.
This is how it becomes downloaded to the municipalities also. Every city has tax paying citizens, who pay for a large percentage of the local policing budget. Our taxes go up to the top and trickle back down through transfers. What the police require to do their jobs, is based on current legislation, whether harmful or not.

Current legislation is based on political relationships and aren’t always in the best interests of the people paying for them. Current policies around cannabis are an example of this.

Personal beliefs remain the right of the holder, however one must recognize that others also have personal beliefs, therefor they must also be considered. Speaking to the belief that cannabis should be accessible as medicine for those who need it, we continue to work to educate government, healthcare providers and our communities of the benefits of this medicine.

Please join us September 26-29th for the Cannabian FreedomWalk 2014, as we take strides to further Cannabis Education in our shared community.

Thank You and I will see you on the fly!!
Jennifer

Chief Seattle's 1854 Oration

 

Chief Seattle's 1854 Oration

".. all things share the same breath - the beast, the tree, the man ... the air shares its spirit with all the life it supports."

Chief Seattle, Dwamish

Now why the hell would I want to publish a speech some Indian made away the hell back 160 years ago in Washington.

Because it is one of the best speeches I have ever read!

It was delivered by a master orator and spokesman and its lesson

is applicable today as it was then. In just under 2000 words this perceptive genius perfectly described the basis for the division between the White Man and Native Americans. Culture clash he foresees and the differences between our two societies.

From

His Native Eloquence, Etc., Etc. by Henry A. Smith

Scraps from a Diary: Chief Seattle - A gentleman By Instinct

10th article in the series Early Reminiscences

Seattle Sunday Star, October 29, 1887

Old Chief Seattle was the largest Indian I ever saw, and by far the noblest-looking. He stood 6 feet full in his moccasins, was broad-shouldered, deep-chested, and finely proportioned. His eyes were large, intelligent, expressive and friendly when in repose, and faithfully mirrored the varying moods of the great soul that looked through them. He was usually solemn, silent, and dignified, but on great occasions moved among assembled multitudes like a Titan among Lilliputians, and his lightest word was law.

When rising to speak in council or to tender advice, all eyes were turned upon him, and deep-toned, sonorous, and eloquent sentences rolled from his lips like the ceaseless thunders of cataracts flowing from exhaustless fountains, and his magnificent bearing was as noble as that of the most cultivated military chieftain in command of the forces of a continent. Neither his eloquence, his dignity, or his grace were acquired. They were as native to his manhood as leaves and blossoms are to a flowering almond.

His influence was marvellous. He might have been an emperor but all his instincts were democratic, and he ruled his loyal subjects with kindness and paternal benignity. 

He was always flattered by marked attention from white men, and never so much as when seated at their tables, and on such occasions he manifested more than anywhere else the genuine instincts of a gentleman.

When Governor Stevens first arrived in Seattle and told the natives he had been appointed commissioner of Indian affairs for Washington Territory, they gave him a demonstrative reception in front of Dr. Maynard's office, near the waterfront on Main Street. The bay swarmed with canoes and the shore was lined with a living mass of swaying, writhing, dusky humanity, until old Chief Seattle's trumpet-toned voice rolled over the immense multitude, like the startling reveille of a bass drum, when silence became as instantaneous and perfect as that which follows a clap of thunder from a clear sky.

The governor was then introduced to the native multitude by Dr. Maynard, and at once commenced, in a conversational, plain, and straightforward style, an explanation of his mission among them, which is too well understood to require capitulation.

When he sat down, Chief Seattle arose with all the dignity of a senator, who carries the responsibilities of a great nation on his shoulders. Placing one hand on the, governor's head and slowly pointing heavenward with the index finger of the other, he commenced his memorable address in solemn and impressive tones.

"Yonder sky that has wept tears of compassion on our fathers for centuries untold, and which, to us, looks eternal, may change. Today it is fair, tomorrow it may be overcast with clouds. My words are like stars that never set. What Seattle says, the great chief, Washington [1], can rely upon, with as much certainty as our paleface brothers can rely upon the return of the seasons.

"The son of the white chief says his father sends us greetings of friendship and good will. This is kind, for we know he has little need of our friendship in return, because his people are many. They are like the grass that covers the vast prairies, while my people are few, and resemble the scattering trees of a storm-swept plain.

"The great and I presume also good, white chief sends us word that he wants to buy our lands but is willing to allow us to reserve enough to live on comfortably. This indeed appears generous, for the red man no longer has rights that he need respect, and the offer may be wise, also, for we are no longer in need of a great country.

"There was a time when our people covered the whole land, as the waves of a wind-ruffled sea cover its shell-paved floor. But that time has long since passed away with the greatness of tribes now almost forgotten. I will not mourn over our untimely decay, nor reproach my paleface brothers for hastening it, for we, too, may have been somewhat to blame.

"When our young men grow angry at some real or imaginary wrong, and disfigure their faces with black paint, their hearts also are disfigured and turn black, and then their cruelty is relentless and knows no bounds, and our old men are not able to restrain them.

"But let us hope that hostilities between the red man and his paleface brothers may never return. We would have everything to lose and nothing to gain.

"True it is that revenge, with our young braves, is considered gain, even at the cost of their own lives. But old men who stay at home in times of war, and old women, who have sons to lose, know better.

"Our great father Washington, for I presume he is now our father as well as yours, since George has moved his boundaries to the north; our great and good father, I say, sends us word by his son, who, no doubt, is a great chief among his people, that if we do as he desires, he will protect us. His brave armies will be to us a bristling wall of strength, and his great ships of war will fill our harbours so that our ancient enemies far to the northward, the Simsiams and Hydas, will no longer frighten our women and old men. Then he will be our father and we will be his children.

"But can this ever be? Your God loves your people and hates mine; he folds his strong arms lovingly around the white man and leads him as a father leads his infant son, but he has forsaken his red children; he makes your people wax strong every day, and soon they will fill the land; while my people are ebbing away like a fast-receding tide, that will never flow again. The white man's God cannot love his red children or he would protect them. They seem to be orphans and can look nowhere for help. How then can we become brothers? How can your father become our father and bring us prosperity and awaken in us dreams of returning greatness?

"Your God seems to us to be partial. He came to the white man. We never saw Him; never even heard His voice; He gave the white man laws but He had no word for His red children whose teeming millions filled this vast continent as the stars fill the firmament. No, we are two distinct races and must ever remain so. There is little in common between us. The ashes of our ancestors are sacred and their final resting place is hallowed ground, while you wander away from the tombs of your fathers seemingly without regret.

"Your religion was written on tables of stone by the iron finger of an angry God, lest you might forget it, the red man could never remember nor comprehend it.

"Our religion is the traditions of our ancestors, the dream of our old men, given them by the Great Spirit, and the visions of our sachems, and is written in the hearts of our people.

"Your dead cease to love you and the homes of their nativity as soon as they pass the portals of the tomb. They wander far off beyond the stars, are soon forgotten, and never return. Our dead never forget the beautiful world that gave them being. They still love its winding rivers, its great mountains and its sequestered vales, and they ever yearn in tenderest affection over the lonely hearted living and often return to visit and comfort them.

"Day and night cannot dwell together. The red man has ever fled the approach of the white man, as the changing mists on the mountainside flee before the blazing morning sun.

"However, your proposition seems a just one, and I think my folks will accept it and will retire to the reservation you offer them, and we will dwell apart and in peace, for the words of the great white chief seem to be the voice of nature speaking to my people out of the thick darkness that is fast gathering around them like a dense fog floating inward from a midnight sea.

"It matters but little where we pass the remainder of our days. They are not many.

"The Indian's night promises to be dark. No bright star hovers about the horizon. Sad-voiced winds moan in the distance. Some grim Nemesis of our race is on the red man's trail, and wherever he goes he will still hear the sure approaching footsteps of the fell destroyer and prepare to meet his doom, as does the wounded doe that hears the approaching footsteps of the hunter. A few more moons, a few more winters, and not one of all the mighty hosts that once filled this broad land or that now roam in fragmentary bands through these vast solitudes will remain to weep over the tombs of a people once as powerful and as hopeful as your own.

"But why should we repine? Why should I murmur at the fate of my people? Tribes are made up of individuals and are no better than they. Men come and go like the waves of the sea. A tear, a tamanawus, a dirge, and they are gone from our longing eyes forever. Even the white man, whose God walked and talked with him, as friend to friend, is not exempt from the common destiny. We may be brothers after all. We shall see.

"We will ponder your proposition, and when we have decided we will tell you. But should we accept it, I here and now make this the first condition: That we will not be denied the privilege, without molestation, of visiting at will the graves of our ancestors and friends. Every part of this country is sacred to my people. Every hillside, every valley, ever plain and grove has been hallowed by some fond memory or some sad experience of my tribe,

"Even the rocks that seem to lie dumb as they swelter in the sun along the silent seashore in solemn grandeur thrill with memories of past events connected with the fate of my people, and the very dust under your feet responds more lovingly to our footsteps than to yours, because it is the ashes of our ancestors, and our bare feet are conscious of the sympathetic touch, for the soil is rich with the life of our kindred.

"The sable braves, and fond mothers, and glad-hearted maidens, and the little children who lived and rejoiced here, and whose very names are now forgotten, still love these solitudes, and their deep fastness at eventide grow shadowy with the presence of dusky spirits. And when the last red man shall have perished from the earth and his memory among white men shall have become a myth, these shores shall swarm with the invisible dead of my tribe, and when your children's children shall think themselves alone in the field, the store, the shop, upon the highway or in the silence of the woods, they will not be alone. In all the earth there is no place dedicated to solitude. At night, when the streets of your cities and villages shall be silent, and you think them deserted, they will throng with the returning hosts that once filled and still love this beautiful land. The white man will never be alone. Let him be just and deal kindly with my people, for the dead are not altogether powerless."

Other speakers followed, but I took no notes. Governor Stevens' reply was brief. He merely promised to meet them in general council on some future occasion to discuss the proposed treaty. Chief Seattle's promise to adhere to the treaty, should one be ratified, was observed to the letter, for he was ever the unswerving and faithful friend of the white man. The above is but a fragment of his speech, and lacks all the charm lent by the grace and earnestness of the sable old orator, and the occasion. - H.A. Smith.



Well said:
Blaine Barrett

TheSmeeGoanGuy

Justice Activists Are the Most Rational People

Post # 141- Justice Activists Are the Most Rational People

Science Reveals that Justice Activists

Are

The Most Rational People Around

 

I have looked at myself and the way I think and make judgements and some of this is like looking in the mirror. I’m not alone in Weirderland

 

 

 Despite how often justice activists and protesters are referred to as day-dreaming, irrational, dirty hippies – science just stepped in to show that all those taking an active place in battling injustice are actually acting the most rationally.

A University of Chicago study published in the Journal of Neuroscience has revealed that people who are more sensitive to the ideas of fairness and equity are driven by logic, not emotion.

Social science has spent decades focused on the role of emotion in activist movements. For example, a 1996 study of the 1960s civil rights movement analysed the use of songs and speeches to express anger, solidarity and hope by Freedom Riders to encourage others to become involved in the movement on an emotional basis. Similarly, New York University sociologist Jeff Goodwin wrote in his 2001 book on the subject that animal rights supporters “describe their journey into activism in terms of their emotional attachment to animals.”

But, as many activists have long been saying, seeking equity in life is not an emotional argument – it just plain makes sense!

According to the study, when people who are more responsive to injustice see things happen that they find morally wrong, such as abuse or race-based inequality, their minds respond by accessing the sections of the brain responsible for logic and reasoning. When they view examples of people acting morally just, such as giving equal rights to a marginalized group or protecting animals from harm, their brains respond in the same way.

As Erin Brodwin explains:
A team of researchers led by University of Chicago neuroscientist Jean Decety monitored participants’ brain activity using an fMRI while they watched videos of people exhibiting morally good or bad behavior. One of the clips showed someone putting money in a beggar’s cup, for example, while another showed someone violently kicking the cup away. Those who said they felt more emotionally triggered by the action on the screen also exhibited more action in the areas of their brain associated with planning, organizing and logical thinking.

“Decety’s contributions are clearly important and potentially foundational,” New York University psychology professor John T. Jost, who was not involved in the study, told Mic. The research could have major impacts on how human rights and environmentalist organizations engage with the public to gather support for their causes.  If they listen to the study, they will appeal to people’s sense of logic and reason rather than to their emotions.

This has been borne out in recent years, with efforts to combat global warming seeing a surge in public support after scientists and statisticians began publishing data about how much sea levels and temperatures would rise instead of sad polar bears on a floating iceberg.

But more than that, this data can be used to combat the appalling treatment of justice activists by the mainstream media – lambasted with the same tired abuse from the Million Man March, through the Greenham Common Women’s Peace Camp, to the Occupy Movement, readily absorbed and reiterated by disengaged and resigned fellow citizens who could and should be providing support and solidarity.  We shouldn’t need science to tell us that standing against injustice is rational, but we do. Consider yourselves told.

http://iacknowledge.net/science-reveals-that-justice-activists-are-actually-the-most-rational-people-around/

<><><><><><><><><><>

My Name is Jennifer Collett

Who is this Jennifer?

She’s a Real Friend!

She works her butt off and asks for no thanks.

I asked her to post this because she has a broader view than I do.

She provides a fresh perspective to on the Marijuana Mess.

She can speak for herself !

 

My name is Jennifer Collett. I am the Executive Director of the Canadian Medical Cannabis Partners. We are an organization of patients and caregivers who volunteer our time to changing the ways patients are affected by the system. We lobby provincial and federal government to manage our medical cannabis program under healthcare, where it belongs, as the natural, efficacious and safe medicine that it is.

We bring forward the evidence needed to discuss provincial management, and offer effective inexpensive and healthier solutions that complement the transitioning federal program. This new design really only changed the economics of cannabis distribution, while excluding the people who need to benefit from the medicine, turning it into a product.

The Medical Marihuana Production Regulations that come into effect on March 31 2014, will remove the right by policy, of 40,000 patients on fixed incomes or in various stages of chronic illness or end of life care, to stop growing in their legal gardens. (They will be expected to destroy what they feel is saving their life.) Thousands of people, some patients and some who are privately and compassionately growing for patients who cannot grow their own medicine, will be arrested in our communities. This will be paid for by our community policing budgets. It will create a burden on our local healthcare systems, as well as our Social services as families are put into distress. This will be caused by a policy change, that in reality is about money and monopoly of a medicine, not regulation and increased medical access.

I raise this point because, in no place in this new program is there any consideration for a patients financial ability to cover their own healthcare, while the rest of the country is accessing medical coverage in favour of pharmaceutical treatments. There was no risk involved in patient gardens. There are risks involved in the black market. Patients are not involved in the black market. Patients are growing and doing whatever they can to stay alive and healthy.
We all know there is a black market. I do not suggest that some people have not abused their prescription growing rights. Some of these abuses were indeed contributing to the black market, however most patients have seen the stigma attached to cannabis, for too long. They are not interested in sharing that they use this as medicine, most don’t even tell those closest to them. Of course many people enjoy it, it is most often a pleasurable experience, why wouldn’t they. We have the ability to enjoy a beer in this country also, not everyone is a bootlegger or abuser.

The System is how we the people are informed of what is available to us. From human rights to dental coverage, to restrictions and barriers, we must learn to negotiate this in order to have our needs met. We pay our taxes, most attend regular doctor’s appointments, pay our bills, and do our best to put food on the tables for our families. We follow the set of regulations dictating conduct in our society, until it becomes dangerous to us. The law is not intended to put anyone in harm’s way. Laws are not created to do harm in themselves. So, we must learn to negotiate the legislation causing the harm and have it changed in a way that works for all, not some.

This can be done through a provincial management of Cannabis medicines in the following ways.

The administration and delivery of health care services is the responsibility of each province or territory, guided by the provisions of the Canada Health Act. The provinces and territories fund these services with assistance from the federal government in the form of fiscal transfers. The inclusion of cannabis medicines in the Formulary will increase access for our entire provincial population. The inclusion of continued personal production that is inspected and regulated is far less expensive.

Health care services include insured primary health care (such as the services of physicians and other health professionals) and care in hospitals, which account for the majority of provincial and territorial health expenditures. Through education and research we have learned of the essential nature of our endocannabinoid system. We must recognize and train our medical practitioners and reflect that in our requirements for medical practice. We must ensure that patients best interests are protected in the development of policy around cannabis in front line care. We must ensure access to the ability to make our medicine into healthier and more effective forms of administration. We must provide protection from the ignorance of the traditional western medical establishment; recognize that cannabis is one of the oldest, most effective, and least invasive forms of treatment for many illnesses, while ensuring there is a regulated quality control. The provinces and territories also provide some groups with supplementary health benefits not covered by the Act, such as prescription drug coverage. Here is an example of a budget that exists for just this issue in Ontario.

Affordability is a factor we cannot get around. So either we pay for it in our healthcare, or we request a section 56 for the province of Ontario to accept the download of the medical cannabis program. The alternative to not pre-emptively managing this situation is paying for it through our taxes with policing, housing inmates, court expense, social services, as well as the destruction of lives of thousands of people and their families.

This is how it becomes downloaded to the municipalities also. Every city has tax paying citizens, who pay for a large percentage of the local policing budget. Our taxes go up to the top and trickle back down through transfers. What the police require to do their jobs, is based on current legislation, whether harmful or not. Current legislation is based on political relationships and aren’t always in the best interests of the people paying for them. Current policies around cannabis are an example of this.
I am not talking about anything but medical need here. Personal beliefs remain the right of the holder, however one must recognize that others also have personal beliefs, therefor they must also be considered. Speaking to the belief that cannabis should be accessible as medicine for those who need it, we have worked to educate government, healthcare providers and our communities alike, of the benefits of a provincial managed medical cannabis program.

I Just Avoided Disaster

I Ran Out of Pot

but

I Got Creative and Diverted Disaster

I have Depression andI had a major problem with my pot supply this week. I use pot to keep a lid on my mood and this is a crisis

I am happy to report that my pot crisis is over. I ran out day before yesterday and yesterday was no fun because I could feel my depression setting in and my mood changing as time passed. I too am a casualty of the Down East Freeze. My shipment of super pot from Toronto is stuck and I was facing a whole week shortfall this morning.

In panic and in search od some secret stash I had forgotten I ran across a bag of twigs and stems I had considered using to make oil. They were small twigs and stems, drier than hell and tough as rocks but they were covered with hard little green balls of leaf and resin. I needed a toke badly so I got my mortar and pestle and I pounded the hell out of a pile of lumber bigger than my fist until it was reduced to shreds and then ran it through a sieve.

I got ½ a cup of fine leaf and resin that I proceeded to pestle 200 strokes into a fine powder. I put a pinch in my pipe and did a good hit. Great Jumpin Jesus! A miracle: Really good and I’m back to normal in no time flat and I’m looking at about a two week supply of some pretty decent hoot. My panic vanished.

I decide to tell you about all this because a FB friend sent me a link to an article on FB by a girl, no a mature woman, describing her problems with depression. It was excellent and I could relate to her. I also realized that of all the other readers of her story very few understood what depression really is and what she was talking about. The simple fact is that if you haven’t been there, or been very close to someone who is, you can’t know.

What follows is my story of my relationship with Depression

1.    How I got it.

2.    What I learned it is,

3.    What it did to me,

4.    How it changed me, and

5.    The person I am becoming because of it.

I have become very conscious of how my mind works and I can detect when trouble is brewing. After two days abstinence before I created my miracle cure all the alarms were going and I was extremely concerned about what was ahead for the next couple of days.

I have learned to watch myself in my head and I can see my brain going negative, from creative thinking about my blog and what I was going to do next; to the now, today and all the problems I have in life. I can control this by using my soapstone pipe and taking teeny weeny little one puff tokes like every half hour from from 5AM to 11PM; it levels me out and I get through the day without a hell of a lot of problems. It really is amazing how the first little toke can change my whole mood in about 5 minutes, even less depending on the potency of the pot.

I’ve run out of pot on a couple of occasions and that is not good because it’s a nasty downhill slope to the bottom of the hole and I don’t want to go there but, if it keeps developing, that is where I’m heading. It’s almost predictable in its development and fortunately I’ve only been out for a short time, about three days.

Even in that time you can go from thinking about your problems and the blame game starts: you start to feel responsible for an increasing number of fuckups in your past life. That’s not too bad but if you lose it here, you start blaming yourself for imaginary fuckups that were never your fault but; you remember every bad turn in your life and you start asking yourself  “What if I has only done this? You don’t know the answer but you assume the result would have solved the problem and you start feeling guilty for your sin of omission and on and on until every waking hour is devoted to hating yourself for destroying a mostly imaginary life. You hit the bottom of the hole when you lose hope of ever forgiving yourself and getting back to normal. Thank Christ I’ve only hit bottom once when I crashed in 1999. I avoided it again today when I created a supply of pot.

What Happened To Me

When I crashed in Sept 1999 I hadn’t worked I over a year and a half, had a work accident and ruptured a disc at L4/5 six months previously, weighed 289 lbs. and was completely out of physical shape.. I was sent to a WCB Occupational Rehab Program with extreme demands and collapsed half way through the second day of a four hour exercise program. I was sent to Surrey Memorial Hospital, a suspected heart attack but I had none. I was lucky that my heart specialist was very perceptive an noticed my downcast appearance. At an office visit one week after discharge he asked me to write a very quick test of 30 questions that took less than 2 minutes to answer: As quick as you can, read each question and don’t think, just check the yes or no answer box. I scored an amazing 27 out of the 30 and was very proud until he told me that it was a test for Depression and any score over 15 was bad news. He made a phone call and I walked down the street to see a Psychiatrist a half hour later.

Apparently most depression is the result of a problem with Serotonin, a hormone that controls your moods and their intensity. I can’t remember which gland makes it but nobody knows what goes wrong and there is no cure. Fortunately there are now a number of drug treatments that will help but everybody reacts differently and what will work with you is a psychiatrist guess game. I was lucky to be put on a drug called Serzone, an SSRI (Selective Serotonin Reuptake Inhibitor) immediately and it worked for me. Unfortunately for a lot of depressed patients finding the right drug for them can be a trial and error effort that lasts for years of ups and downs and that can be completely disabling.

I hit bottom about a month after diagnosis of depression and it took me about six month to get back to near normal. In April 2000 I was diagnosed as having a Major Depressive Disorder Recurrent and I had several bad spells over the next two or three years. I have been spell free for the past 7 or 8 years but the worst result was discovering that I was doubly depressed and had Dysthymia, a low grade chronic depression that lasts forever in some instances. It’s not so bad being gloomy all the time but for me it meant the complete loss of interest and ability to do everything that I enjoyed and made my life worth while.

What I Lost to Dysthymia

I bought my first guitar from the T. Eaton Company catalog for $5 when I was 8 and my Mom taught me to play it first as a steel guitar on my lap then as a rhythm guitar and I finally would up as a pretty good bluegrass finger picker. I was a Burl Ives fan and a good singer of his songs and other ballads and I loved to party and entertain. I knew a hundred dirty jokes and songs and I ran with a beer loving crowd of buddies.

I bought my current guitar in 1968 and it’s a pretty rare Canadian Espana guitar made for the T. Eaton Company by a Finnish guitar manufacturer out of specially provided Canadian woods. It’s a classical style guitar but I discovered its body is a little larger and its got a slightly softer deeper tone. Its my baby!

My guitar has sat in the closet for 15 years now with only the occasional attempt to play. I pulled it out about three months ago intending to get back into playing and discovered rusty fingers and a voice that hasn’t been used in years. I’ve been looking at the damned thing in the corner and wondering what to do.

What is the point of playing again? Right now, none! The only audience I have is you my readers and the only entertainment I can share with you is my Joke Collection. They are the best 70 jokes that I have collected over the past 50 years and I managed to post them as a blog to share at TheYarnBarn.Blogspot.ca/. Take a peek when you need a grin. I recommend the following

The Runaway sermon at Crestmont Methodist

http://theyarnbarn.blogspot.ca/2007/06/runaway-sermon-at-crestmont-methodist.html

The moral of the story:  

Don’t piss off the Preacher

I can read 1250 words per minute and I was a compulsive reader. I began reading Zane Grey when I was about ten, in bed at Granddads farmhouse at night by kerosene lantern light. I absorbed the Code of the West and his hero gunfighter’s penchant for pursuing justice. By the time I was 15 I had read every book in the Fort Saskatchewan town and school libraries and took the bus to Edmonton to trade for another load of fiction and fantasy every weekend. My favorites are probably James Clavell, Wilbur Smith, Jeffery Archer Robert Ludlum and Tom Clancy.

I loved books, good movies and TV series that primarily featured characters who overcame great and complex difficulties in the course of their lives. Through the exercise of good character, determination and courage they overcame their problems.

I have not read a book for at least the last ten years. I have the same problem with movies and TV. I try and I get not even a quarter ways through and I’ve just lost interest in these heroes and their problems. Who gives a shit? I’ve got problems of my own and she is watching me right now. LOL

I AVOIDED DISASTER

Up until two years ago I was in total isolation in my room unless I was at work afternoons as a Security Guard watching a bank. I had no beer, no buddies, no social circle at all. My wife was totally unaware of how depressed I was but I damned near hit the bottom of the barrel again and on the way to work just before Christmas I was indulging in suicidal ideation about how I should kill myself. I got a wake up call. I was on River Road and wanted to turn left onto Nordel Way.  I waited until the last truck cleared the orange light, turned left and was T-boned in the passenger door by a kid in a pickup truck trying to beat the light. He was going really fast and spun me around 270 degrees and landed me up on top of the lane divider about 12“higher than the road.

I was lucky I wasn’t killed. I lost consciousness for a very short time but hardly had a scratch: a badly bruised set of right side ribs but nothing else. I was taken to hospital, x-rayed and released with an Rx for pain pills. For some strange reason pot didn’t help with that rib pain and it always was like a stab in the side that took forever to quit hurting every time I coughed or farted or laughed.for two months. It was a wakeup call that it just wasn’t my time to croak. Fate, Kharma, who the hell knows, but the Big Boy didn’t want me yet..

I was familiar to a certain degree about the problems with Medical Marijuana and had some nasty relationships with the MMAD and I decided that if I was stuck here, something had to change, and that was me. Jan 1. I decided to help so I started this blog on Jan 1, 2012.

January 27, I read of the Kamermans bust and I decided to become an advocate for him and that expanded to my current range of interests.

I owe much of my recovery to you commenting readers for feedback that let me know that I am doing some good work and have helped some people. That has provided the incentive and motivation to make more changes and get back to the party animal I was. I have plans for Youtube to play and sing two very good not quite dirty songs that I want to get credit for. I have no idea where they came from but they popped into my head 40 years ago and I think they qualify as Classic Country, Just the title and chorus of each will give you a pretty good idea of what is going to come if I can get my new webcam working and learn to warble and pick again:

.

The first is called:

                                              FLATTULENCE

and its chorus goes:

FART! FART! FART! FART!

Whistle, Bang or Wheeze

Odorous and Awful now

It’s floating on the breeze

The second is called:

THE SHITHOUSE ON THE FARM

and its chorus goes

It’s that little white building by the barn

It’s the most important building on the farm

Where I used to sit at ease

With my elbows on my knees

In that little white building by the barn

Playing them at my funeral would make that a perfect send off, 

everybody would be singing along and stomping their feet.

The last two years of Facebook and the Blog have made a huge change in my mood and outlook and I hope to continue to grow more. It is a remarkable turnaround from shame to once again feeling some self esteem and actually feeling proud of myself for what I have managed to do.

So onward and upward with the Don Quixote imitation and the Code of the West belief. You charge the goddamn windmill and then when you get close enough to see the occupant you quick draw your pistol and shoot the bastard between the eyes before he can shoot you.

(Standard Police Procedure: Claim Self Defense) 

Unfortunately there is no shortage of damsels in distress around here with grow-ops to save and I expect to be busy!

That is my story and how I got here and nobody knows where I’m going until I write my next post.

Until then

Blaine Barrett

TheSmeeGoanGuy