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LETTER: Reader trumpets benefits of cannabis therapy, but it's never been easy

'I have had to fight virtually every institution and organization, as well general stigmatization, regarding cannabis use and I'm still having to fight that fight on a daily basis'
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BarrieToday welcomes letters to the editor at [email protected]. Please include your daytime phone number and address (for verification of authorship, not publication). The following letter is in response to a story titled 'County councillors think it's high time feds amend Cannabis Act' published on Nov. 27. 
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Since going on cannabis therapy, I have managed to eliminate virtually all of my symptoms of diverticulosis, osteoarthritis, psoriasis, nerve pain, and immobility, due to disc damage from C3 to C6, nerve pain and immobility due to damage of L5 vertebrae, anxiety, depression, and high blood pressure, and have gone from 60 per cent functionality at best to better than 95 per cent functionality.

I have had to fight virtually every institution and organization, as well general stigmatization, regarding cannabis use and I'm still having to fight that fight on a daily basis simply to maintain access to a safe and natural plant that has returned me to a complete state of health that I had previously not thought possible!

I have come to realize that virtually most of what I have been taught about cannabis was, and often still is, based on decades of a pervasive negative bias against all cannabis use that has been perpetuated at a systemic level in virtually every institution and organization in our society.

Through self-study, research, and application of cannabinoid therapy, I have learned of the true nature of how phytocannabinoids interact with the human endocannabinoid system and come to realize that there is a great deal of misunderstanding, and blatant misinformation, in regards to human cannabis use.  

This contradiction stems from decades of perpetuated negative assumptions about how cannabis affects the human body and individual human physiologies via interaction with the human endocannabinoid system.

As a result of this proliferation of misinformation — and the absurd prohibition of cannabis use that has existed for decades due to the designation of cannabis as a Schedule 1 drug in the U.S. in the early 1970s — people such as myself, who instinctively have gravitated toward cannabis as a medicinal treatment, have suffered stigmatization, persecution, detention by law enforcement, incarceration, and a systematic indoctrination into thinking of ourselves as ‘addicts and criminals’ all simply because we use a natural plant, (with historical reference of human use going back 5,000 years), to benefit, improve, and heal, our health and well-being and virtually eliminate the need for many pharmaceuticals.

During all of this process, I have had to deal with constant resistance, stigmatization, and the prolific ignorance on the health benefits of cannabinoid consumption from government, industry, medical associations, as well as the general public.

Enough is enough.

J. Tripp
Grand Bend, Ont. 

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