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The Economist: "If (Marijuana) were unknown, it’s discovery would no doubt be hailed as a medical breakthrough. Scientists would praise it’s potential for treating everything from pain to cancer and marvel at it’s rich pharmacopoeia; many of whose chemicals mimic vital molecules in the human body."

 
Thanks for all of notes and concern about my struggle with Eczema. Sam suspected Butter to be the trigger culprit, so I haven’t eaten butter in almost 72 hours. I know to be certain, I should eat a bit and see if a reaction takes place, but I don’t feel like the fury it could cause me.

I am a butter fiend. I love the stuff… but I’m not missing it. I start the day with my lemon water, and raw fruit smoothie, no dairy, no supplement, just straight fruit smoothie, I do have coffee, with a bit of milk, but my eczema doesn’t react to it.

I asked him if he thought it was because we drink organic milk, but we don’t eat organic butter. Maybe, we’re not sure though, why one and not the other?

The older I get the less interested I am in processed food, and chemical ridden foods. My body doesn’t like it. I wonder how people can go a lifetime eating all of that junk and have no issues, and I’m not even 30 and my body is teaching me some hard lessons.

The good news, is that after a really awful night, two nights ago, my eczema is seeming to settle. I haven’t scratched it since my last entry… and it actually seems to be healing. I’m using Coconut oil as a moisturizer (Organic, cold pressed, Pure coconut oil) and Miracle Oil, which is a hemp oil, and aside from the occasional dryness, it’s not itchy, and it’s not flaring up. It has a little bit of a flare at night (??) and it settles after a drop of Miracle oil.

It looks amazing. I can’t even believe it. It’s ugly, yes, but it’s not red or angry and it’s not as dark. Yesterday I used a lot of the Miracle oil, but today I just dropped it on when I woke up, and coconut oil and its fine.

For the first time in a long time, I’m feeling hopeful about it. I was bawling when Sam left for work after short change… I was like "What if I have to live like this every day, for the rest of my life?! What if it never settles??" That was probably as bad as it got, before it started to take a turn for the better.

But it HAS taken a turn for the better. That I’m thankful for.

I was initially blaming CoCo, but it seems unlikely (from the research I’ve done) that it would appear this late after having her, when I hardly have regular allergy symptoms around her anymore. She’s likely not the trigger, but she doesn’t help whatever is triggering it. But to be safe, she’s not sleeping in the bed anymore.

We make the salve tomorrow. Jesus its expensive to make. You need close to 500.00 worth of Weed to make it, and we’ve got the good, good stuff so we’ll have left over Cana-Coconut oil. I’m going to make a lip balm from it also.

It supposed to be amazing for everything from minor cuts/burns to serious skin conditions, to arthritic pain associated with Rheumatoid Arthritis and even cancers tumours.

I hope it helps me!

Another encouragement not to scratch my arms bloody (although the itchiness is gone) is that the slave isn’t supposed to be used on broken, bleeding skin. For the regular reason, that the moisture could trap bacteria and accelerate infection.

Anyone who reads me knows 1) I smoke weed every day
2) With age, I’m growing concerned with the social stigma associated with Marijuana and the users of marijuana

I can only speak from my personal experiences, which are all good. It’s hard for me to see the dangers of something that is a regular part of my life, when none of them have befallen me.

As I get older I find most of the opposers of Marijuana, be it recreational or Medical use, are people who have no vested interest, and are mostly people who haven’t smoked and don’t really know anyone who does.

The older I get, the more my body reacts to fake foods, and pharmaceuticals the more I’m concerned with the bad reputation people are attaching to Marijuana.

Would I use cannabinoid salve on my children? Yes I would. There’ is more to Marijuana than smoking it and watching movies or lazing around.

It can be drank in a tea. Often used by, brace yourself people, pregnant women who suffer from intense nausea/morning sickness. Shervy told me that a girl we worked with, drank the tea under advisement from her Midwife when the nausea kept her from anything and everything. Obviously tea is safer because it’s not smoked, and absorbed more naturally, and it’s not as concentrated.

It can be made into creams; balms; salves for repairing broken skin, burns, cuts, bug bites etc. Some cancer patients have even reported a shrinkage in size of their cancerous tumours. These balms can also be used for muscle/joint pain ranging from mild muscle pain, to severe arthritis and other joint pains.

What I have learned in my almost 30 years of roaming this planet, is that people are terrified of things they don’t know anything about.

One of my exes said "I’m afraid of the unknown", and it’s true, People tend to be… but in regards to Marijuana, there is a lot of great research out there. People also tend to believe what they want, and what their social groups do. I feel awkward around friends I know have an issue with weed, but if they made a big deal of it, words would be exchanged, and I’d win 😉

Personally, I’m terrified of the things I know are dangerous. Like, spiders or falling from a tall building.  If it scares me, i want to know everything about it, so I can understand WHY it scares me. Ok, I’m also terrified of not-dangerous spiders, but come on, 8 legs? 

Intravenous drugs are scary, because their negative effects are easily visible. What is scarier, is that while the government is busy wasting time and money on fighting Marijuana, (which is less dangerous than alcohol), people in other parts of the world are developing chemical ‘knock-offs’ of Heroin/ Crystal Meth and Cocaine to suit the growing demand of drugs that are becoming too expensive in failing economies.

In Russia people are smoking/Injecting/sniffing something called "Krokodil Tears" (Pronounced Crocodile tears) which if I’m not mistaken is sweeping the streets as a more affordable, synthetic Heroin. It delivers a similar euphoric feeling of heroin, but for a shorter time and less intense, or more intense… I need to check this out again. 

The side effects? It eats away your flesh from the inside. I’m not kidding. This is a REAL street drug just across the Ocean in Russia. It eats away at you, literally. Your mind, your physical body.

In Greece, they’re smoking a synthetic Crystal Meth, that causes violent outburts, memory loss etc. Because the situation in Greece is becoming so dire that people are on the streets and turning to drugs for comfort.

I think it’s awful that people assume that if someone is on the streets and they’re using, they’re using is the reason they are there to begin with.

When we were watching VICE I turned to Sam and I said… "Can you even imagine living on the streets?"

Seriously, can you? Can you imagine not even have the smallest of your comforts, like toothpaste? I change the my toothbrush all of the time. If I’m in bed reading and I start to doze off, I can’t even sleep if I haven’t brushed my teeth… it haunts me until I get up and do it.

Can you imagine not having  enough food? Or a warm place to get out of the rain? 
It must be a nightmare. As many people who find themselves out there on their own, there are probably just as many that find themselves there as a matter of chance, one bad move, one bad day.

We can all be self righteous and say that ‘they don’t need to turn to drugs", but what the fuck do we know? What do we know about what their lives are really like everyday?

And we’re worried about weed?! A plant that grows naturally?! We’re worried about HEMP? Hemp isn’t even a drug. It sickens me that people are making natural plants evil, when people are smoking battery acid in Greece.

You think it’s not going to happen here?

When I was young I was so in love with Greece. The history, the beauty, I always told myself I was going to go and see it myself.

When Sam and I met, I told him if I could go back in time anywhere, it would be ancient Greece. Once a powerhouse, the birthplace of higher education, and home to famous philosophers… it’s turning into ruin.

Doesn’t the US kind of look like it’s heading that way? The social classification and money hungry attitude is causing a divide.

I look at older civilizations, India, Greece, China. Let’s learn from that no? Let’s focus on important things? Like the hunger problem. Canada is large by mass, but small by population and 1 in 5 kids are living below the poverty line, without enough to eat… and what they are eating is what? Chemical garbage??

Marijuana legalization could be money for the government. It would create jobs. In the case of existing growers, legitimize their jobs.

How long do we waste time on unimportant things?

In the US you get a longer jail sentence for possession over a certain amount, than you do for being found guilty of Child Molestation.

I’m not talking pounds either. Small amounts.

WHAT THE FUCK?! We’ll let this guy out in 2 years, because the effects of Child Molestation are less dangerous than the effects of Marijuana? How does that make sense? 

Someone who poses or uses Marijuana is no where as close to someone who preys on Children.

The problem has become the non-education about Marijuana. The personal attacks because people fear that Weed will threaten their way of life.

Let me tell you, I’d feel a lot safer living next a Marijuana Grower/Dealer/Supplier than living in the same neighbourhood as a convicted child molester.

I’d rather treat my kids with marijuana than Advil. Prescription drugs wear on your liver. Tribal cultures have been using cannabis to treat health conditions for a long time. Yes here we do modify to intensify the THC, but thats for recreational use, and to modify strains for different ailments.

People against weed, you have a lot of reading and educating to do. Get it out of the way, and lets move on to more pressing matters in Society.  

With all of the chemicals in our environment, why eat more, and put it into your body, BY CHOICE?! 

Sometimes I wonder what kind of person I would’ve been if I wasn’t born dark skinned in a white majority, or if I had never tried weed. But I’ll never know that. I hope I wouldn’t have been a closed minded racist or something, but who knows if I didn’t overcome the hurdles in my life that I have, if I wasn’t so curious, maybe I would be in the place of someone else… someone who just doesn’t know.

I know people disregard my opinion because as a user of Marijuana, they assume that I only want it legalized for my own benefit. But that’s not true at all… because legal or not, I’m going to smoke it, and I’m going to use it for all that it offers, I’m going to reap the benefits that are there.

I don’t even understand the war against weed. I just don’t. I have tried to look at it from the opposition, but I know what I know, from my own experience… and I hate that sometimes I allow myself to feel pressured by society and the expectations of people who have no experience in the matter.

So I’m not going to anymore. If someone wants to judge me for using it, fine… I’m not going to judge you for not using it… just if you want to voice your opinion to me, you have a lot of reading on both side of the argument to catch up before I would even consider hearing them out.

I worry that I come off closed minded… but someone who disagrees with me usually plants that doubt in my head… and I’m so open that I even wonder myself, maybe it’s time to revisit the other side of the argument and see what process they made.

 Much to my dismay it’s nothing usually. It just concerns me how people will jump to believe things with no proof, no rational reasoning, and discount science. SCIENCE.

I’m not diving into a religious debate, but my point is that there is no rational proof of God, or an afterlife or any of that. There’s a lot of smoke and mirrors we can make happen. If someone cried Jesus NOW people would discount it in a second. Our intelligence has grown in the last 1000 years, in huge part to Science.

How can you trust Science for all of the things that make sense, and discount it when it comes to religion so easily?
I have a stronger belief in the healing power of cannabis than I do that any God exists anywhere.

And, if God created us all equal, why are we fighting Marijuana… which she put here to grow naturally with us? Maybe she left it for us to take advantage of.  I’m just saying Big Mama would be looking out for us I would assume.

Anyways, enough about that tangent.

I think I’m done here for now. I went on a writing tangent because I’m still trying to figure out what BA to take… yikes Isha, get it together.

***So I wrote this 2 hours ago. My Mother phoned me and we got to talking. I’ve been really weary about discussing education with her. I love her, butshe’s a little bit in denial about how she comes across when she’s giving me advice, which is more telling me exactly what to do, and making decisions.

I come from a community of Doctors. As in, all of the Indian kids I grew up with successfully completed University and went to Medical school, my oldest friend received her Masters from Columbia and just finished her dissertation from Dartmouth. I am the unequivocal black sheep of the Indian community, also coming from a family where neither of my parents are doctors.

I stacked the odds against myself a long time ago. I told myself, I’ll never be as smart as them, I’ll never fit in. I don’t, but now I don’t want to. So I took a leap of faith and told my mom that. I want to be educated for me, study something I want to, and not do something because everyone has expectations of me. 

I told her that I’m in conflict because there are so many things I want to study, that maybe I’ll let everyone know what I decide… at my graduation. She uses teaching as a means to an end. Any 4 year degree and teachers college. But, I can’t see myself as a Teacher. I can’t see myself teaching high school or middle school. I can’t see myself looking at Education as a means to an end and being successful.

So I took that leap of faith, and let her in, and I told her, I’m taking it one year at a time, or one degree at a time. I want to leave myself open to get my masters, and then my PhD. I’m leaving myself open to it, but that’s what I want to do ultimately.

To my surprise she answered with "I think you would make a good Professor." Which is the world of complements from the woman who nitpicks all of my behaviours and my appearance. 

She also said "I know you’re capable of achieving it, if that’s what you want to do"… but she’s still pushing me to tell her in what. IN WHAT. Just let up please, if I haven’t been able to make that decision in the past few days, I doubt this phone call is going to determine the next possible 10-12 years of my academic life.

She thinks I’d best in Math (no…, and no!), English or any Social Science or Science. I told her about my fear of Physics. I love Physics, but I can’t apply it to anything properly. If I studied Science I would want to study Physics and I’m not confident in my success there.

I know this much, I want to do an English Minor. My mom thinks I should make English my major, but I’m leaning towards Sociology.

She told me not to discount Law, but I don’t see myself practicing Law… She said that doesn’t mean I should count it out, because if I get a Doctorate there’s still other things in regards to Law I can do.

Off I go check out the branches of Sociology.  Right now, I’m stuck between Criminal Justice with an Minor in English or Sociology with a Minor in English.

I don’t want to make a hasty decision in July because I’ve run out of time. I like the idea of Sociology because it’s more broad, and Criminal Justice makes me feel limited.

I have a moral issue with Law, in that, Laws themselves and the practice of Law can sometimes be easily manipulated. There are people (this site included) who  do just that, or use that as a means to push propaganda and their own agenda. That makes me want to both study Law, and run for the hills. 

I feel like Law will be easier for me, but Sociology gives me more options.

Ok, research time. Maybe I’ll read Constructions of Deviance… its sort of a mix of both… and see how my mind works.