You don’t have to smoke to get medicated.
One of the most common misconceptions about medicinal cannabis is that everyone is just smoking and calling it medicine. Though we do have medical trials that prove even smoked cannabis has medicinal values. There are people out there who truly need medicinal Cannabis. But because of other health problems are not able to smoke. So today we are going to cover some of the many ways you can ingest and utilize Cannabis without smoking.
( Great Educational video on the endocannabinoid system )
( Edible‘s ) - Cannabis infused confections
Infusing Cannabis into your food is one of the safest ways to ingest medicinal cannabis. Though a warning must be issued ! If this is your first experience with Edibles lets take it one step at a time. First time edible users have never used their CB 1 receptors in their digestive system before in regards to cannabis. So it can be a little scary for first time edible users. Just remember, NOBODY HAS EVER DIED FROM CANNABIS, EVER ! You will be OK after your slumber, I promise !
Most first time edible users tend to eat the entire edible in one sitting. I always recommend to patients who are interested in trying edibles to just take a few bites and wait about 30 minutes to an hour. Then you can judge for yourself what your tolerance level is at and can adjust accordingly. In a self-regulated Industry like the Medicinal cannabis industry. It is hard to find exact dosages of THC, CBD, CBN on a lot of products out there today. Though I would have to say there has been a large push in the last 3 years for better, Testing, Labeling and dosages.
( Tinctures ) – Cannabis infused Glycerin‘s and Alcohols
( information below provided by http://patients4medicalmarijuana.wordpress.com/ ) <—- Click the link for recipes
Tinctures are not new. Until cannabis was banned in 1937, tinctures were the primary type of cannabis medicines. Tinctures are essentially alcohol extractions of whole cannabis (usually the flowers and trim leaves). Tinctures are easy to make and very inexpensive. Tinctures contain all 80 of the essential cannabinoids instead of only one with Marinol. Some of the cannabinoids such as cannibidiol (CBD) actually reduce the psychoactive effects of THC while increasing the overall efficacy of the preparation.
The best way to use tinctures is sublingually (under the tongue). Titration or dose control is easily achieved by the number of drops a patient places under the tongue where the medicine is rapidly absorbed into the arterial system and is quickly transported to the brain and body. All a patient need do with tincture is use a few drops, wait for the desired medical effects, and either use more or stop as the situation indicates. Tinctures can be flavored for better taste. They are best stored in dark bottles in the refrigerator. Since tinctures average some 75% ethanol there is little worry of bacterial or other biological contamination. Those who wish to avoid alcohol can instead use their tincture as a base for making a concentrated elixir (recipe).” (from Smokeless Medicine)
( Vaporizing ) – Vaporize the Compounds without burning the plant matter.
( information below provided by http://www.theweedblog.com/ )
( Special thanks to Johnny Green )
Vaporizing is a common technique for consuming marijuana, while at the same time negating many irritating respiratory toxins that exists within the grown marijuana flower and are released when smoked. Conversely, vaporizing allows one to get at all of the psychoactive ingredients available within that specific strain of marijuana , minus the combustion that ordinarily takes place during consumption.
The basic design of the average marijuana vaporizer is to allow marijuana smokers to inhale the many active Cannabinoids, while at the same time avoiding any of the harmful elements that may exist on that specific flower… although invisible to the naked eye.
While most don’t know it … There is a vast difference in the quality of smoke that one receives when they vaporize versus igniting their plant matter. When one smokes a joint, or hits their bong approximately 88% of the combusted smoke gases contain non-cannabinoid elements, most of which do not get you high and provide potential health risks.
Conversely when one uses a marijuana vaporizer the smoke/gases that they are inhaling consists of approximately 95% cannabinoids, otherwise known as the psychoactive ingredients that both calm the mind and soothe the body.
Those are three different methods that are all safer ways of ingesting your medicinal cannabis instead of the usual smoking. I hope that this post helps all of those in need, and a special thanks to http://patients4medicalmarijuana.wordpress.com/ and http://www.theweedblog.com/ for the amazing info which I was able to share.
Fresgro Unified Patients Alliance
Our mission here at Fresgro Unified Patients Alliance is first and fore most make sure every individual member feels truly cared for, valued and respected. We strive to provide our members with only the cleanest and highest quality medicinal Cannabis products. We know you have choices when selecting a medical marijuana collective in Fresno, so we stay on top of the latest developments and products within the medical cannabis industry.
Since 2009, fresgrounified.com has been informing 215 patients with education, advocacy and empowerment to help share knowledge about cannabis and its many healthful benefits. We also strongly suggest you learn more about hemp, as the cannabis plant has many beneficial uses outside the realm of medicine. Our friendly, helpful, knowledgeable staff also can assist you with any cannabis questions you may have.
So give us a call today
Fresgro Unified Patients Alliance is a California licensed, Non-profit Mutual Benefit Corporation formed in accordance with Prop. 215 and operating within the California Attorney General’s guidelines. In order to receive deliveries you must register as a member of our collective, which involves signing an agreement stating your intention to relate with Fresgro Unified Patients Alliance as such. This in no way limits your ability to cultivate your own medicine, infringes upon your legal limits, or prevents you from joining another collective. The agreement simply states your intention to be an active member of the collective.
Pot 5 Reasons: Cannabis Should Be Legal Part 1
Here in California, the legal cannabis debate is often superseded by the fight for Medical Marijuana, which appears reasonable as ill patients are in need of medicine for their aliments more so than the casual user wants his civil liberties. However we should not forget that the legality of cannabis effects both our medical and civil rights.
While I hate to say that one right is more important than another. Rights are like our children or creations, we must love them equally or at least see them as equally important. Yes, the patient’s right for their doctor agreed upon medicine is more important than the wants of the recreational user. Yet, their want for open civil rights is still important and should not be overlooked.
Not to mention that the medical debate leaves the casual user stone cold sober, while the quest for legalization is all-inclusive.
To further the push for legalization, I give you five reasons why marijuana should be legal. They are not the only reasons for a legal cannabis country but a selection that I have deemed most shocking and/or logical to unlock the doors to a world of cannabliss.
Pot Five Reasons Why Marijuana Should Be Legal
#5 – End The Underworld’s Cannabis Profits
Currently, every week a news outlet somewhere runs a story about how the Cannabis trade is the largest profit maker for the Cartels. If we are to take these numerous reports to be true than One is left to assume that legalization is the only way to wrestle our marijuana money from the black market.
In the halls of history, we can find one example of how the largest profit maker for a black market was changed into an above-the-board non-profit organization that benefits society. I mean, of course, the lottery.
Long ago in the days when televisions had dials, one of the largest money makers for outlaws was to run illegal lotteries, or “running numbers” as was the term of the time. A Numbers racket worked like this:
How Numbers Ran:
1. A customer would walk into a bar / candy store / retail outlet.
2. They bought their numbers at the counter.
3. A mobbed-up “underworld type” would go around to the various outlets and collect the numbers.
4. On a prescribed day, a number would be picked and the customer with that number got cash.
This system worked for a long time. However since the 80′s, running numbers is no longer a profitable venture for the underworld. The lottery changed the game. You can no longer profit from running numbers as anyone, who is anyone, can now go into any convenience store and buy a lotto ticket. Yet, not only a lotto ticket but a legal, state verified lotto ticket.
How Lotto Runs:
1. A customer walks into a convenience store.
2. Customer buys lotto ticket at the counter.
3. Lotto Numbers are collected by state run machines.
4. Lotto numbers are picked and winning numbers collect cash!
As you can see from the example above, America did not stamp out the citizens ability to gamble. Instead we made the lotto legal. We took the profits out of the black market and put them to good use in our school and public health systems. Thus to END the machine of terror that collects our cannabis proceeds, we need to take the profits out of the black market and put them to good use in the general and legal economy.
#4 Cannabis Industry Means More Jobs
When we put the Black Market‘s cannabis proceeds into the general economy, then we also add all the jobs that once where part of the Black Market. Just look around the medical marijuana industry and see at all the different jobs that are created.
Sure, there are the growers and the dealers. On the farm, there are helpers, trimmers, and baggers, oh my. On the streets, there are wholesalers, drivers, and street-level traders. These are positions that directly trade over from the black market.
However, the industry in the medical marijuana industry create even more jobs. Here in California, there are bud tenders, security guards, and administration at all the dispensaries. There are labs, filled with scientist, that test the potency of cannabis. There are kitchens filled with cooks who make medicated snacks. Factories who make containers. And the list goes on.
Where the underground market sees marijuana as a commodity, with maybe three different levels; schwag, Beasters, and Nugs, with one basic effect. The medical marijuana industry sees an ever-growing list of strains and byproducts where each one comes with at least one taxable employment slot.
I was at the San Francisco Medical Cannabis Cup and I marveled at the number of booths and the range of products displayed. As from above, each booth and product is another job that was added to the economy directly from the impact of Proposition 215.
Cannabis Numbers #3, 2, and 1 to Come…
Our first two reasons to end cannabis prohibition are down. We need to end the black market’s cannabis profits. If we end the illegal profits by legalization, then we will create an industry from the ashes of our misguided past.
While these two reasons maybe enough of a justification for Legalization, we still have three more reasons to go.
Join us next time for Pot 5 Reasons: Marijuana Should Be Legal Part 2
By: Red Eyed Kracker
( UPDATE ) Fresno city’s BAN on outdoor cultivation.
Recent chatter in the airways suggests the Ordinance regarding outdoor cultivation of medicinal cannabis within the city limits of Fresno Ca, will be on the June 21st Agenda. So here we go again! Only this time it’s with the city council and not the county. The one thing I can say is that the city of Fresno’s ordinance is a lot less restrictive by leaps and bounds. The Fresno County medical marijuana Ordinance is extremely restrictive. Here is a quick summary of the Fresno County medical marijuana ordinance in regards to cultivation.
So any patient that has the poor misfortune of living in the county has to meet all the requirements listed above. Even for personal cultivation? Yes! Fresno county’s ordinance is one of, if not the states most restrictive ordinance in regards to Cultivation, Use, distribution and possession in the entire state of California. Well now we have the city of Fresno planning to do the same thing.
( Here is a link of the proposed ordinance )
http://www.fresno.gov/planningdocs/May162012/VIIIA.pdf
So for all of those patients out there who provide themselves with outdoor grown medicine on their own property every year will no longer be allowed to grow directly under the sun within the city limits. They will now have to spend 100′s to 1000′s of dollars building a secure structure for their medicinal garden. Much like the county’s ordinance we see they have chosen to restrict access to the cheapest and most affordable way of providing yourself with quality affordable medicinal cannabis. Cultivating your own medicinal cannabis is one of the only fail safe ways to ensure the patient knows the quality, the strain, and the grade of the medicinal cannabis.
Once again the local Fresno governing bodies choose to restrict patients access instead of addressing and correcting the real underlying issues. Most of the qualified patients that use medicinal cannabis are on a limited income, disability, social security, chemotherapy patients, cancer patients, H.I.V Patients, and many more ailments that already restrict their access and ability to cultivate their own medicine. Now the city of Fresno is telling those “Over-Qualified” patients they can’t even grow those plants on their own property. Most of these patients are already suffering in these low economic times from there overpriced healthcare costs. Now the City of Fresno wants to tack 100′s of 1000′s of dollars to an already struggling patient.
Does any of this seem fair to you ? Sure as hell don’t to me! What if the only relief or cure you found for your ailment or sickness was kicked around like a political football up and down the state. And your local city council or county supervisors decide that your medicine is too much of a health and safety risk for the citizens. Now the only thing that increases your appetite after chemotherapy, or relieves your completely disabling migraines, or help to stimulate and increase the function of your weakened immune system from the H.I.V Virus that is attacking it IS GONE. Walk a mile in the shoes of a qualified medicinal patient before you come to such restrictive ordinances and regulations.
The people and qualified patients of Fresno City and county deserve better than this. These qualified patients need acceptance, understanding and compassion, not restrictive ordinances that go against the very purposes of a voter approved proposition passed 16 years ago. I am only 1 man! But I am able-bodied and willing to fight and educate on behalf of those medicinal cannabis patients that can’t. We need the medicinal cannabis patients and community to show up at the Fresno City Council meeting this June 21, 2012. These elected representatives need to see that the medicinal cannabis patients really have a face and in fact are, Mothers, Fathers, daughters, Sons, Grandfathers, grandmothers, Black, Hispanic, White, Hmong, Asian and everything else I left out. We are the medicinal cannabis community, and we aint going nowhere. We are here to stay ! And I will be damned if I allow this to happen in my hometown without a fight. So I urge all patients and supporters of medicinal cannabis to start educating the masses here in Fresno, Ca. Sit down for an hour and put your thoughts to paper. Create a respectful 3 minute presentation on how this will affect you and the medicinal patients of Fresno, Ca. Then show up at the city council meeting and share that with the Fresno City Council members. Nobody is going to show up and do it for us. Untill the City of Fresno Understands the struggles of the medicinal cannabis patient and forms regulations and ordinances that truly address these issues in a compassionate and respectful way, I WONT STOP, AND NEITHER SHOULD YOU !
By: Dustin F. Lowery
No outdoor cultivation in Fresno ?
This past Wednesday, may 16 2012. The Fresno Planning Commission voted 4-2 on Wednesday to recommend passage of a permanent ban on growing medical marijuana outdoors anywhere in the city of Fresno. I was one of three people to speak against the proposed ban and some of the underlying legal issues. I myself did not submit anything in writing because I felt that speaking from my heart works best for me. I asked the planning commission to please consider who will be effected the most by the passing such a restrictive ordinance. What about the patients who are on disability ? What about the patients who can barely afford to grow a few plants under the sun each season? The patients on fixed incomes who are already having a hard time scraping by ? Such a restrictive ordinance affects the poorest and most neediest of the medicinal cannabis patients here in Fresno, Ca. 
I then went on to say that I am not here to advocate for thousand plant grow sites in the city limits. I am here to stand up for the patients right to legally cultivate their own medicine, on their own property. I told them that I was all for sensible regulations on outdoor cultivation within the city limits. But what the city currently had drafted was way to restrictive and would only further restrict patients access to affordable quality medicinal cannabis. Transplanting even a small 2 or 4 plant garden from outdoors to indoors can be very costly. It’s not as simple as ripping the plants from the ground, Throwing them in the bath tub and hanging a light bulb above it. Which by the way where the actual words of a judge here in Fresno recently, and also prior statements of the Law enforcement official giving the presentation before the planning commission just minutes before.
Actually to Give Lt. David Newton of the FPD narcotics division credit, he actually said cheap Led lights, which some growers are switching to, but are rarely used due to little information about production and output. personally there isn’t enough proven evidence to switch anything just yet. I also stated to the planning commission board that I myself do not hate Law enforcement, nor do I blame them for the position they have been in put in. But I am here to advocate Law enforcement does serve and protect the legal medicinal cannabis community like everyone else. I went on to say how I did agree that we needed to work with law enforcement to reign in those who are abusing the medicinal cannabis industry. But we also should not throw away the baby with the bath water. Dont punish the patients for the actions of the criminals.
After Comments from the other 2 whole speakers in opposition Diane Valdovinos ( Local Advocate ) and Micheal Green of Cal pot news. The commission board commended us for our statements. They then proceeded to vote on the ordinance. Many of the members of the planning commission said they understood our concerns but that they didn’t feel it was as restrictive and voted in favor. 
But one planning commissioner statements specifically hit home for me and made me feel as if we did have a very small victory in the overall battle. Luisa Medina of the planning commission said she was going to vote in favor of the ordinance but after hearing the statements in opposition from the three of us she had changed her mind. I was overjoyed with pride when I heard her say that. The fact that the statements of mine and that of my friends made a difference that day. Though we lost the overall battle, but through education and compassion we changed the heart and mind of just one person who would have otherwise just gone along with protocol and passed the ordinance.
After the planning commission meeting was dismissed we retreated to the front of the city hall building to gather our thoughts. We where then greeted by Luisa medina and Andy Hansen-Smith of the planning commission. they had some great words of encouragement and thanked us for coming out voicing our concerns to the commission. But the real highlight of that evening for me personally was when Lt. David Newton of the FPD confronted me outside of city hall and thanked me for coming. He also told me that I was a very good representative the for medicinal cannabis community and that he actually voted for prop 215 back in 1996. Lt David Newton also said that he looked forward to seeing me again. I jokingly replied, well I hope its at the next city council meeting and not anywhere else. We both laughed, shook hands and parted ways. Now those are the kinds of encounters with law enforcement I would prefer happen. 
But for those who believe the opponent has the upper hand and it’s just to large a hill to climb. Dont give Up ! Three dedicated cannabis activists didn’t win the overall battle this past Wednesday, but they are winning the hearts and minds through the power of compassion and education. The key to ending patient discrimination in local counties and city’s here in the central valley is through education and compassion. Through this blog and various other social media I will keep you posted on when the ordinance will be going before the Fresno City council.
By: Dustin F. Lowery
