Talking Medical Marijuana Blues

An Introduction

Since 2007 I’ve been a member of a number of different collectives in Long Beach.

I’ve volunteered, built websites, taken photos of over 300 different strains of medical marijuana, and grown to care about a number of incredible people.

I’ve also watched one collective after another crumble under the burden of legal fees, changing city regulations and other costs associated with always having to fight to stay open…

My personal history with medical marijuana goes back much further than that however, back to when I first started using marijuana in 1983.

I’ve spent a lot of years watching the medical marijuana story get to where we are today, and in this series I share my motivation for being an activist, talk about being a collective member, and about my own medical use of marijuana.

And then there’s this – RIGHT NOW, in Long Beach, our collectives are facing the prospect of having our city council ban them on Tuesday evening, and all my thinking about this has given me the talking medical marijuana blues – Enjoy!

Talking Medical Marijuana Blues – Part One

Includes the story: The Man On The Other Side Of The Wall

“On Tuesday night, November 18th, I got home from work, sat in my big chair, kicked back, and for the first time in my life smoked marijuana legally…”

Talking Medical Marijuana Blues – Part Two

I Get By With The Help Of My Friends - a brief look at my personal history with medical marijuana…

“There was a time, not very long ago, when I would often have to wait for days, sometimes a week to get my medicine. Sometimes nothing would be available from the few friends I knew, who knew a friend, who knew a friend who could get marijuana for them…”

Talking Medical Marijuana Blues – Part Three

Talking ‘Bout My Medication – looking at the different ways to use medical marijuana and how I use it…

“I wasn’t diagnosed with Bi-Polar Disorder until I was 33 years old. This revelation – that there was a medical reason, of some kind, behind my most confusing moods and actions – caused a paradigm shift that made me look back over my life through a new perspective…”

Talking Medical Marijuana Blues – Part Four

Rev. Martin Luther KingWe Shall Overcome! – talking about the situation here in Long Beach, right now – about the City Attorney’s effort to ban the collectives, and how you can help!

“Rev. Martin Luther King stated over 40 years ago in a speech that “the arc of the moral Universe is long, but it’s bent towards Justice…”

During my long, personal civil rights march towards medical marijuana justice I’ve seen that this statement is true, just as I also believe that one day ‘we shall overcome!’”


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25 Years of Love!

Adding another photo to last year’s Anniversary Day post…

The Jon and Tania Story – In 25 Photos!

We started going out on October 12, 1986, got married on October 12, 1992 (our sixth anniversary) and now 25 wonderful years have gone by…

To celebrate our Anniversary today, here’s a gallery of photos of us together from 25 years of love – From 1987 until now, with one photo representing each year of the journey.

Enjoy!


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24 Years of Love!

Adding a photo to last year’s Anniversary Day post…

The Jon and Tania Story – In 24 Photos!

To celebrate our Anniversary today, here’s a gallery of photos of us together from 24 years of love – From 1987 until now, with one photo representing each year of the journey.

Enjoy!


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My Wife – The Cover Girl!

The District - Tania on Cover - December 9, 2009

Above: Tania on the cover of The District – December 9, 2009

The District Weekly – December 9, 2009

The new issue of The District came out yesterday with an article that has been much anticipated around our home…

Rachel Powers, a writer for The District, has been putting this article together since the summer, and our friend and professional photographer, Russ Roca, took the photos several months ago.

We had no idea when the story would come out, or that they would choose this photo (above) for the cover shot…

I think it’s a great photo. That’s my beautiful wife, doing what she does everyday – giving her time, energy and love into making other peoples lives better.

I’m very proud of her!

The story is about the amazing place Tania works at called “The Village” which serves the homeless, “mentally ill” population with real care and true compassion.

Long Beach is finally learning about this world-famous and very successful resource in their own downtown.

People who work in the mental health field come from all over the world (right now there is a group from Japan visiting for a week) to do an “Immersion” and find out how the philosophy of The Village works.

The article does a great job of explaining the simple, but radically different approach The Village uses to help remind people that they are somebody of value, to reawaken their forgotten dreams and to both start and continue on that road back to health and stability.

Tania started working there in September of 2005 – how she got there is a story for another time – and since then she has grown in amazing ways.

I feel honored to be a part of her story and to be able to offer her my unconditional support for the work she does.

Article Links

Best Practices – The District Weekly, December 9, 2009

The Village Website – Information Page


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Updates to The MMJ Lists

Note: the project known as The Medical Marijuana Lists is now using a shortened version of the name – The MMJ Lists

From The MMJ Lists…

Catching Up…

vaderkush_04_30_2009_full_2

I’ve been dusting off the files, photos and various materials of The MMJ Lists to move it closer to how I envision it…

Since January I’ve been taking photos at A Soothing Remedy Collective and more recently, AAC – Apothecary’s Assistants Collective, where I also volunteer as a bud-tender, front desk clerk, joint roller, or whatever else is needed while I’m there for my shift.

Monday (April 27th) I was there for the afternoon and evening shifts… and spent most of the evening rolling joints of White Widow to give away to the members.

AAC gives you a free joint every time you stop by to get your herb… it’s part of the “member-focused” approach to the Medical Marijuana dispensary movement and an effort to slow down the collective-hopping (see below) that goes on.

(read more here…)

Also… I’ve added to the “About” page…

About The MMJ Lists

In June of 2008 I started taking photos and posting menus on WeedTracker.com for a local, Long Beach collective called CCLB, Canna Collective Long Beach.

The whole thing started as a fluke – I just wanted CCLB to keep up with their menu posting because gas prices were soaring and online people wanted to know what was available before they made the long drive – sometimes coming all the way from San Diego – a nearly 300 mile round trip.

My round trip to CCLB was only 10 miles, so during June I started my volunteer gig as the Menu Guy for CCLB. Over the July 4th weekend, through a series of events I’ve written about elsewhere, I officially became an unpaid, community volunteer at CCLB and through October of that year I photographed nearly 80 different strains, some of them several times.

It was almost an overwhelming situation, and it started to seem like I spent all of my time photographing, preparing the photos, posting them and then posting the menu… and by the beginning of November I had to halt the project as it was going, and think about how to present the photographs. (The price of gas had fallen too, so my original reason for posting menus had ended.)

(read more here…)

The link to The MMJ Project is: http://mmj.onehumanbeing.com/


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