Hey,
I’m having a hard time keeping up with 2 blogs. So for now, this blog will be on hold and I will be posting most things on my original blog www.WarOnMe.blogspot.com I like the blogspot format better than wordpress and there are things on wordpress that I cannot figure out. Please join me over there. Thanks.
I got a call from my roommate/landlord saying that my check for two month’s rent bounced. She’s freaking out. Someone was kind enough to transfer me two month’s worth of rent while I get back on my feet after graduating from UCLA.
The funds were transferred out of the original account on January 19th. I got an email from Paypal saying the funds were posted on 1/21. I wrote a check to my roommate for the rent later that day. This morning the check bounced. I went to my bank. The funds were never posted to my account. The check never cleared.
I’m not exactly sure what’s going on but I hope it has nothing to do with my status as a medical cannabis patient. Right now, I have less than $90 in my account and I am trying not to stress out. I’m hoping for any support I can get to help me through these tough times.
If you have some money you can donate, I would be very grateful to accept it. If you’ve got some kind words to spare, I would be happy to accept those too. If I cannot figure this out, I may have to move out of LA and back home with my family in the bay area.
I would really like to stay in LA. The weather is better for my medical condition. My worker’s Comp lawyer is here. And there are relationships here I would like pursue. Donations could be made here: https://www.paypal.com/us/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=_flow&SESSION=_ifuNaVwjExQNqlJRdMqFEePqqCvSVGiIAwigYLiHmySr_ovJe5w13GTbSS&dispatch=5885d80a13c0db1fc53a056acd1538879f614231735d88db02692aa5ce177198
Thurs., Jan. 28 2010 @ 6:10AM
Who says you can’t make a mistakes reporting on medical marijuana?
Despite the protestations of numerous medical cannabis patients, who regularly gripe [and here, and here] that LA Weekly just making huge mistakes in journalism, Los Angeles citizens make a detailed list of the hefty mistakes made on different marijuana articles written by the weekly rag that has been redubbed LA Weakly for its weak coverage of a serious issue.
Over 3 LA Weakly journalists have authored poorly written articles over the last few months related to medical cannabis which they disrespectfully call “weed” or “pot”. Patrick Range McDonald being the most flamingly egregious journalist who attacked medical cannabis patients and caregivers in several distasteful articles dating back to November of last year.
On January 27, Christine Pelisek wrote a sloppy blog post that mistakes “profits” for revenue. A mistake McDonald also made. Maybe the LA Weakly would benefit from educating their reporters on simple economic rules. Pelisek mistakenly discussed “profits” without taking into consideration any expenses.
One of the most eye-opening things that can be said of LA Weakly is that as they attack the medical cannabis community with shoddy journalism they receive untold profits from accepting medical cannabis advertising and are even co-sponsoring the Hemp Expo in February (19-21). So what’s behind this schizophrenic love-hate relationship with medical cannabis?
Maybe it’s so easy to attack the injured and ill patients who consume medical cannabis. Maybe it’s so easy to bite the hand that finds the LA Weakly. Maybe it’s so easy for a LGBT journalist who covers the gross miscarriages of justice made against the same-same community and neglect to see those same sorts of injustice are being made against the medical cannabis community.
Maybe the LA Weakly just cannot afford to do good journalism or mathematics.
Maybe the LA Weakly enjoys bashing a minority group who fight for their rights.
Whatever the excuse, it’s not good enough for this medical cannabis patient. If you want to read the blog post in question, you’ll have to search for it yourself. I’m not going to link to the LA Weakly. They don’t deserve my support.
Tags: LA Weekly, LA Weakly, christine pelisek, Patrick Range McDonalds, gay journalist that bashes medical cannabis patients, shoddy journalism, medical marijuana, Medical cannabis, bad mathematics, lame-ass journalists, boycott LA Weekly
All Citizens Deserve to Know the Truth about Cannabis:
A Citizen’s Proclamation for Medical Cannabis Awareness Day
Whereas: I have been met with remarkable resistance from City Council’s staff members about declaring Feb. 15th as LA’s official Medical Cannabis Awareness Day.
Now, Therefore, as a citizen of this grand city, I, Cheryl Renee Aichele, do hereby proclaim Monday, February 15, 2010 as Medical Cannabis Awareness Day in the City of Los Angeles and encourage ALL city officials and citizens to join in this observance.
Whereas: in November 1996, California voters passed into law the Compassionate-Use Act allowing Californians suffering from deliberating medical conditions to use cannabis as medicine.
Whereas: 14 states have passed laws allowing chronically ill and injured patients to use cannabis with approval of their physicians; and
Whereas: On Sept. 6, 1988, Drug Enforcement Administration Administrative Law Judge, Francis L. Young, ruled that “marijuana, in its natural form, is one of the safest therapeutically active substance known”; and
Whereas: There are over 17,000 published scientific studies on the therapeutic values of cannabis and cannabinoids in the national library of medicine, there are 2,600 patents filed for the medical use of cannabinoids in the United States Patent Office; and
Whereas: Pre-clinical and clinical trials indicate that cannabinoids are useful in controlling Alzheimer’s Disease, Cancer, Chronic Pain, Diabetes, GI disorders, Hepatitis C, Multiple Sclerosis, Osteoporosis, Rheumatoid arthritis, Sleep Apnea, and so many more; and
Whereas: Cannabis has a history of thousands of years of safe use without any recorded deaths attributed to its use, and all citizen deserve to know the truth about cannabis.
[to be continued…]
L.A. City Council Bans All Medical Cannabis Dispensing
After over 2 years of debate, Tuesday Los Angeles City Council adopts an ordinance that puts a defacto ban on all dispensing of medical cannabis by requiring each collective to have their cannabis tested for pesticides by an independent and certified laboratory.
There are NO independent and certified laboratories in the state of California that can do such testing.
On page 14 of the most current draft ordinance, Provision Secetion 45.19.6.5, under a section called “Audits and Testing” B. and C. require collectives to do something that cannot be done.
B. Testing of Medical Marijuana. The collective shall use an independent and
certified laboratory to analyze a representative sample of dried medical marijuana and a representative sample of edible marijuana for pesticides and any other regulated contaminants pursuant to established local, state, or federal regulatory or statutory standards at levels of sensitivity established for the food and drug supply before providing the medical marijuana to its members.
The Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) handles the certificates for testing cannabis – also known as marijuana. The DEA is a federal agency that has opposed cannabis as a medicine since its inception.
For a laboratory to test cannabis they most obtain a certificate from the DEA which specifically allows them to test cannabis in very specific situations only.
The DEA has yet to provide certificates to independent laboratories to test cannabis for patient collectives. Therefore, there are no independent and certified laboratories which could test cannabis for collectives.
Which means, the LA City Council has banned medical cannabis dispensing which forces the black market to supply the medical demand of cannabis in the city.
Even if there was an independent and certified laboratory to test cannabis for collectives, there is no way cannabis will meet current “federal regulatory or statutory standards” because cannabis remains as a schedule 1 substance on the U.S. Controlled Substances Act.
It is impossible for a collective or a cooperative to meet this requirement. Another provision in the ordinance states that if the collective does not meet ALL of these provision, it will be shut down. The city attorney’s office drafted a requirement that would effectively close all collectives.
During public comment, I asked anyone on the council or who worked for the city to name just one independent and certified laboratory in the state of California that could accomplish this testing required by the city. I have not had one city staff member acknowledge even one such laboratory in the entire state.
Why is city council voting on something they know nothing about? Why is the City Council BANNING medical cannabis dispensing in LA?
Due to the astonishing success of the public relations services I provided for Charles C. Lynch, I’ve decided to create the first-ever organization focused on teaching and empowering medical cannabis patients to get their own positive media relations. And you’re invited! At Medical Marijuana Media (M3 or MMJ Media), our mission is to educate and empower medical cannabis patients, providers, and supporters to obtain their own traditional and social media coverage to promote positive public perceptions of medical cannabis topics, products, and projects. And we want to be able to do this for patients regardless of their income and skill level.
Who to include
What to include
How detailed you should get
Where to get media contact information
how your own media list can help you find even more contact info
Figuring out the search engine secrets which will help you the most
My own personal secrets for getting phone numbers and email addresses
How to use IMDB to figure out the titles and backgrounds of TV Producers
Revising and keeping your list up-to-date
And so much more!
PLUS LEARN WHY GOOGLE CAN BE A FRIEND WITH BENEFITS
http://www.medicalmarijuanamedia.com/donations.html
I am deeply grateful for the opportunity to share life-changing information that can radically improve the lives of medical cannabis everywhere. My purpose and mission in life is to empower medical cannabis patients to take charge of their own media and public relations and help them live their lives free of pain and disease, with extraordinary health, outstanding mental clarity, and a passion for life.
We need to talk
Medical Cannabis Crucial Conversations
Failed crucial conversations threaten safe and affordable access to medical cannabis for qualified patients.
What are crucial conversations? They are daunting daily communications in which stakes run high, opinions vary, and emotions are strong.
For example, A defendant’s conversation with a prosecutor; a patient’s conversations with a doctor; a conversation during a law enforcement encounter; a conversation with family and friends; a dispensary owner’s conversation with neighboring businesses; a conversation with a legislator; a doctor’s conversation with researchers and colleagues; a lawyer’s conversation with a judge; and so many more.
In their book Crucial Conversations, leadership consultants Kerry Patterson, Joseph Grenny, Ron McMillan and Al Switzler say that, if you conduct such interactions successfully, you can “kick-start your career, strengthen your relationships, revitalize your community, and improve your health.”
I say, if you conduct your medical cannabis conversations successfully, you can have a profound impact on safe access.
“All communities face problems. Once again, the difference lies in how they deal with problems. In the best communities, key individuals and groups find a way to engage in healthy dialogue.”
What about the medical cannabis community? What crucial issues does your medical cannabis community face? Are there conversations that people are not holding or not holding well that keep you from progress? Do your community meetings look more like a Jerry Springer show than an energetic forum for healthy communication?
If so, both you and the community have a lot to gain by focusing on how you handle high-stakes discussions.
To succeed, it must be “a free flow of relevant information.” A true dialogue can’t take place when participants hold back. Participants hold back because they are afraid of the consequences, want to spare someone’s feelings, or don’t want to escalate a conflict.
So, how do we go about improving our Crucial Conversations? The authors (who spent 25 years in exhaustive research) contend that the free flow of relevant information is the key, and that dialogue is the master skill.
Ironically, the more the crucial the conversation, the less likely we are to handle it well. The consequences of either avoiding or fouling up crucial conversation can be severe. When we fail a crucial conversation every aspect of our lives can be affected – including our medical cannabis lives.
As we learn how to step up to crucial conversations—and handle them well—with one skill-set? What do people who sail through crucial conversations actually do? More importantly, can we do it to?
I say, we must do that to insure safe and affordable access to medical cannabis.
The authors cover a lot of information and would like to cover that info from a medical cannabis patient’s point of view in hopes of helping other medical cannabis patients have successful crucial conversations. And in hopes that I can improve upon my own communication skills as well.
Stay tuned for more information about Medical Cannabis Crucial Conversations and if you buy the book, feel free to join in on the discussion at my blog.
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With my own disabilities, I find audiobook are the least painful formats for me, however, I still like to see the words too. I first got this Crucial Conversations in its audio format and loved it but because the ideas were so important, I was having a hard time memorizing them without seeing the words. So I got this title in its paperback form from Amazon and they also had a digital version of this text for only a couple dollars more when I bought the paperback.
So, I have this title in 3 formats: audio, paper/ink, and digital. It’s really worth the reading.
For those who are looking for Crucial Conversations in alternative formats:
Paperback, Library Binding, audiobook, unbound/import,
Medical Pot Patients Don’t Need to Wait for PR Firms
Do-it-yourself PR for Medical Marijuana Media
On Dec. 29, 2009, Joel Warner wrote an article for Westword— a weekly newspaper/magazine related to LA Weekly which has not been kind to medical cannabis patients— called “The next big pot biz: medical marijuana marketing?” Where he claims existing real-world PR firms are reluctant to do marketing for medical cannabis organizations. Good! Because medical cannabis patients can take control of their Public Relations, marketing, and media. Medical Marijuana Media shows them how.
Medical Cannabis collectives or organizations can differentiate themselves from their “competition” by focusing on being patient-focused, community-based, and by focusing on maintaining positive public and press relations at all times. These are the kinds of establishments that have succeeded in California.
Who needs a stuffy-old PR firm to handle medical marijuana media when the media is more accessible now more than ever due to technologies and social media outlets? Why hire some over-priced publicity hound, when all of these things are within reach?
As Warner points out, the medical cannabis organizations that remain standing after the “shake out” will be those that “developed a loyal clientele and a good reputation”. But what Warner neglects to say is that these locations can do that without the aid of an outside marketing firm. Loyal patients and good reputations are built with providing a valuable service for the best possible value.
Also think Warner perpetuates a fallacy that medical cannabis media or marketing needs a “hint of the counterculture vibe long tied up in the marijuana scene”. That counterculture came about because of the prohibition which took cannabis out of the medical/health field and jailed it in the criminal [in]justice field.
Not all medical cannabis patients fall into the stereotypical typecast of the stupid stoner which the media often associates us with. Many of us are patients, not potheads. And we don’t mind being marketed to and read media that treats us as the reasonable, rational, respectful citizens we are.
Medical cannabis patients and providers are better off leaving the cheech-and-chong nonsense behind and integrate into society as the citizens we are. We are no longer a counterculture but an emerging mainstream culture that deserve the respect and consideration of any other minority group fighting for their rights.
If medical cannabis patients are interested in learning how to take the marketing, PR, and media into their own hands, they can visit www.MedicalMarijuanaMedia.com (M3) for free and low-cost resources which help medical cannabis patients to learn to get their own positive media attention. And if there are organizations that want to hire a PR firm, they should consider organizations that are focused on advancing the medical cannabis movement. M3 offers coaching and full service PR services.
Medical Cannabis Awareness Week 2/15-19/10 in the City of LA
Hello Medical Cannabis Supporters,
I would like to take advantage of this year’s Medical Cannabis Awareness Week in the city of Los Angeles. For several years now, Medical Cannabis supporters have been using the week of surrounding February 15th as a week of awareness. February 15th represents 215, the number of the 1996 proposition which legalized cannabis for medical purposes.
We have a unique opportunity to help our civil servants to become more aware of the medical aspect of cannabis and its effects on individuals and communities here in LA.
It’s apparent— by the public proceedings that have occurred over the last few years and mainly of late— that our city officials have little to no experience with cannabis as a medicine nor any first-hand knowledge of it or the patients who consume it.
Nor do they understand the community-based model of safe and affordable access to medical cannabis.
I believe it’s our responsibility as a community to help educate them on these things. I would like to work with the city to declare February 15th as LA’s official Medical Cannabis Awareness Day. I would also like to see the city work with patients to facility awareness events and activities.
I realized February 15th is just around the corner but if we move quickly we can get a lot done. I’ve planned successful Medical Cannabis events in that amount of time in the past.
It is obvious that the ordinance the City Council is considering is flawed and not only bad for patients but bad for the city as a whole. As a community, we should be a little more proactive with suggesting solutions and working with the city to implement these solutions.
This week, I would like to ask the City to start to prepare for LA’s official Medical Cannabis Awareness Day.
Please let me know what you think. Thank you for your understanding and support through these difficult times. I truly believe we can make a difference, together.
Last MLK day, I rewrote his speech with Medical Cannabis civil rights as its focus. I hope you enjoy my rendition:
I am happy to join with you today in what will go down in history as just another demonstration for freedom in the history of our nation.
Forty-six years ago, a great American, in whose symbolic shadow we stand today, gave a timely speech on freedom and equality. This momentous decree came as a great beacon light of hope to millions of medical cannabis patients and providers who had been seared in the flames of withering injustice. It came as a joyous daybreak to a renewed beginning towards yet still a more perfect union.
But since 1996, there are still Americans who are not free. Thirteen years later, the life of medical cannabis patients and providers are still sadly crippled by the manacles of the government’s war on cannabis and the chains of injustice. Thirteen years years later, the medical cannabis patient lives on a lonely island of intimidations in the midst of a vast ocean of so called freedoms. Thirteen years later, the medical cannabis patient is still languished in all corners of American government and finds himself an exile in his own city. And so we’ve come to remember today to dramatize a shameful contemporary injustice.
In a sense we’ve come to call upon our Government to cash a check. When the architects of our republic wrote the magnificent words of the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence on hemp paper, they were signing a promissory note to which every American was to fall heir. This note was a promise that all men, yes, medical cannabis patients as well as healthy people, would be guaranteed the “unalienable Rights” of “Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.” It is obvious today that the government has defaulted on this promissory note, insofar as her citizens of cannabis are concerned. Instead of honoring this sacred obligation, America has given the medical cannabis patients a bad check, a check which has come back marked “insufficient Governing.”
But we refuse to believe that the bank of justice is bankrupt. We refuse to believe that there are insufficient funds in the great vaults of opportunity of this nation. And so, we’ve come to cash this check, a check that will give us upon demand the riches of freedom and the security of justice.
We also want to remind America of the fierce urgency of Now. Now is the time for Hope to become Change. Just because Obama is a new president, this is no time to engage in the luxury of cooling off or to continue to take the tranquilizing War on Drugs. Now is the time to make real the promises of democracy. Now is the time to rise from the dark and desolate valley of prosecuting medical marijuana providers to the sunlit path of social justice. Now is the time to lift our nation from the quicksands of medical cannabis injustice to the solid rock of civil liberties. Now is the time to make justice a reality for all of God’s children.
It would be fatal for the nation to overlook the urgency of the moment. This sweltering summer of the medical marijuana patient’s legitimate discontent will not pass until there is an invigorating autumn of freedom and equality. Two Thousand Ten is not an end, but a beginning. And those who hope that the medical cannabis patient needed to blow off steam and will now be content will have a rude awakening if the nation returns to business as usual. And there will be neither rest nor tranquility in America until the medical marijuana patients is granted his state and Constitutional rights. The whirlwinds of revolt will continue to shake the foundations of our Government until the bright day of justice emerges.
But there is something that I must say to medical cannabis patients like me, who stand in fear just outside the palace of justice: In the process of regaining our rightful place, we must stand up for our rights. Let us seek to satisfy our thirst for freedom by demanding our vote count for something more than a symbolic jester allotted to us by the government. We must forever struggle for political dignity and democracy. We must renew the creative peaceful protests of those who have won back some of their rights. Again and again, we must rise to the majestic heights of meeting the Government’s force with more soul force than we have been lately.
The marvelous new militancy which has engulfed the medical marijuana community must not help all American people, for many of our neighbors to realize that our medical destiny is tied up with their destiny. And they will come to realize that our freedom to use medical marijuana is inextricably bound to their basic freedoms.
We can no longer sit by and allow these injustices to continue.
And as we walk, we must make the pledge that we shall always march ahead. We cannot be stagnant.
There are those who are asking the devotees of civil rights, “When will you be satisfied?” We can never be satisfied as long as the medical marijuana patients are the victims of the unspeakable horrors of Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) raids. We can never be satisfied as long as our bodies, heavy with the fatigue of injury and illness, cannot gain legal relief from this medicinal herb. We cannot be satisfied as long as patients do not have safe access to medical cannabis. We can never be satisfied as long as our patients are stripped of their medicine and robbed of their dignity by Government. We cannot be satisfied as long as a Medical marijuana provider in California faces 100 years for providing qualified patients with cannabis and a disabled veteran in Kentucky is simultaneously raided by various over-armed law enforcement agencies for just a few plants. No, no, we are not satisfied, and we will not be satisfied until justice takes root in every inch of American soil like a weed and righteousness like a blossoming bud.
I am not unmindful that some of you have no first-hand knowledge of the trials and tribulations of medical marijuana patients and providers. Some of you believe because California passed medical cannabis laws in 1996 that patients are free of government interferences –that they do not fear the intimidation of their Government. We have seen the veterans of cruel suffering. We must continue to work with the faith that unearned suffering is redemptive. Stand back up California, stand up in Washington State, move into action in Oregan, let your voice be heard in Hawaii, protest in Alaska, change the laws in Kentucky, knowing that somehow this situation can and will be changed. Obama promised Hope and Change. Do not let him go back on that word.
Let us not wallow in the valley of despair, I say to you today, my friends.
And so even though we face the difficulties of today and tomorrow, I still have a dream. It is a dream deeply rooted in the American dream.
I have a dream that one day we will rise up against the National government and live out the true meaning of its creed: ” The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people..”
“We the people…”
I have a dream that one day on the golden shores of California, the cancer, AIDS, MS, Chronic pain, Epileptic, and all qualified patients will have safe access to medical cannabis.
I have a dream that one day even the Government, a Government sweltering with the heat of injustice, sweltering with the heat of intimidation, will be transformed into a provider of freedom and justice.
I have a dream that my medical cannabis providers will one day live in a nation where they will not be investigated, raided, arrested, prosecuted, convicted or imprisoned for providing safe access to medical cannabis under state law.
I have a dream today!
I have a dream that one day, down in Kentucky, with its vicious law enforcement raids, with its law enforcement using paramilitary-style raids against disabled veterans. — one day right there in Kentucky a crippled hero will be able to grow a safe and effective herbal medicine to ease his war-inherited pain.
I have a dream today!
I have a dream that one day every patient shall be dignified, and every provider and grower shall be honored, the government will act just, and the DEA will be made straight; with “efficiency, transparency, [and] accountability”
This is our hope, and this is the faith that I hold in Los Angeles.
With this faith, we will be able to hew out of the mountain of despair a stone of Hope. With this faith, we will be able to transform the jangling discords of our nation into a beautiful symphony of Compassion. With this faith, we will be able to medicate together, to pray together, to struggle together, to go to jail together, to stand up for freedom together, knowing that we will be free to use our medicine one day.
And this will be the day — this will be the day when all of God’s children will be able to sing with new meaning:
My country ’tis of thee, sweet land of liberty, of thee I sing.
Land where my fathers died, land of the Pilgrim’s pride,
From every mountainside, let freedom [grow]!
And if America is to be a great nation, this must become true.
And so let freedom grow from the prodigious shorelines of California.
Let freedom grow from the mighty mountains of Oregan.
Let freedom ring from the evergreens of Washington State.
Let freedom grow from the snow-capped glaciers Alaska.
Let freedom grow from the luscious islands of Hawaaii.
But not only that:
Let freedom grow from the blue grass of Kentucky.
Let freedom grow from great lakes of Michigan.
Let freedom grow from deserts of Nevada.
From every mountainside, let freedom grow.
And when this happens, when we allow freedom to grow, when we let it grow from every village and every hamlet, from every state and every city, we will be able to speed up that day when all of God’s children, ill or injured people and healthy people, Cancer patients and Cancer researchers, AIDS patients and Pharmacists, will be able to join forces and provide safe access to medical marijuana patients. I wait for the day we patients can sing:
Free at last! Free at last!
Thank God Almighty, we are free at last!
____________________________________________
Inspired by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and dedicated to those who have, are, and continue to suffer because of the Government’s war on medical cannabis: Like Charles C. Lynch, Virgil Grant, Stephanie Landa, Mickey Martin, and the countless others.
I truly believe we can makes a difference, together. Lets make this dream a reality.
