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Thoughts On Coca, Cannabis, Opium & Tobacco – Gifts Of The Great Spirit

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Who Cares?

by Pat Krug (from) Marijuana Foods, 1981

Every one of us needs tender, loving care more than anything else when we’re badly hurt, or severely sick, or grieving deeply, or very old, or caught in any of life’s other painful, terrifying traps. While we all need loving care at some time in our lives, unfortunately caring for others seems to be a rare natural resource, a quality of the heart, mind and soul possessed by relatively few people. And yet tens of millions of us are growing older and will inevitably need care. Whether that “care” is institutional, custodial care that is little more than prison, or it is loving, attentive care from a Caregiver who is giving freely, is really a matter of economic opportunity as much as it is motivation. Our society desperately needs to invent ways for Caregivers to be able to stay home and care for those who need their constant care. I believe that the natural Cannabis medicine revolution and the accompanying regulatory structures may finally offer Caregivers such an economic opportunity.

Not Our Job!

The problem with getting love and care when you need them most is they aren’t actually a part of the job description of the so-called caring professions – medicine, nursing, rehabilitation etc. For the most past we are only truly cared for when an individual chooses to give it to us out of their heart’s kindness, not because it’s part of their job.

Of course there are professionals with large personal reserves of caring in the medical industry, but most people who have dealt with hospitals, clinics, nursing homes and the like would probably agree that caring is generally absent at most levels in these places most of the time. This is critically unfortunate, because without caring all the medical skills and technology in the world give small, cold comfort at best to people living their days in pain, fear and sickness, or who are confused and feeble, or those who have been broken and disabled.

It’s All Yours! Long Hours, No Pay.

Throughout history in all cultures giving love and care has been the role of women and slaves, which all societies have considered a domestic duty with little economic value, rather than being treated as a valuable resource. This deliberate pretense has robbed those with immense stores of love and care of their economic birthright, because the truth is that they possess what is ultimately most valuable, and most needed by almost every person on earth no matter how rich and powerful or poor and impotent.

Interestingly enough, a quick look at any group of health care industry messages reveals that most of them compete on the basis of caring about you personally – yet who actually delivers that caring if it gets delivered at all? The objective answer is that when caring is given in medical settings it is given disproportionately by women. It’s a tragic continuation of history’s irony that the people who own and control this most critical factor in competitiveness in the health care industry tend to be the lowest paid and most exploited workers in that industry.

Who You Gonna Call?

Increasing numbers of people have to face the rest of their life with severe illness and disability, dependent only upon whatever insurance and social services payments may provide and whatever network of family, friends and social services they may have available. There are 43 million homes in America where someone, usually an older person, is being cared for by someone who loves them and has taken on the responsibility – usually a daughter but increasingly, a loving son. People in this situation often have no other financial income resources than insurance and social security payments, and normally can’t work in any way to supplement their income. If the person is institutionalized the institution typically gathers in all available income and other assets in return for the care and treatment being provided – too often a cruel joke. If the person lives independently the health care services provided at home typically eat up all available cash flow leaving little left for quality of life support.

Any one of us not in need of loving care at this moment could, before the sun rises again, find our entire life changed with our independence and abilities gone forever. It happens every day to thousands of people worldwide. It comes as a diagnosis like cancer or AIDS, or it comes as an event like a stroke or an accident, or it comes on gradually as we simply age until one day we’re on our back or our backside forever. Yet when such a terrible thing happens most of us behave like animals struck dumb with terror by a nameless shadow dropping from the sky. We are paralyzed with fear, praying that the dark shadow isn’t heading straight for us but we know that it is. When it strikes, we are helpless, and for far too many people that moment is only the beginning of helplessness.

A Tale Of Two Worlds

During Wiley Johnson’s final life experience the only other people he saw regularly, other than his family and a few friends, were two hospital staff people named Ernest and Betty. Ernest was an orderly and Betty was a nurse’s assistant, and both were in their fifties. Betty was an African-American woman from Oak Cliff, and Ernest was a Latin American man originally from Sonora, now from East Dallas. They became Wiley’s friends, saw him every day, fussed over him, joked with him, and listened to him. They cared for Wiley physically and personally, cleaning and grooming him, doing small kindnesses for him, and most of all, treating him like a person.

In the month he spent in the hospital Wiley was attended to by a steady stream of high priced specialists. Although many of them were professionally pleasant and “caring”, they were each very busy, and they never listened very well as Wiley kept complaining of a pain in his stomach. Both Ernest and Betty took Wiley seriously enough to express concern to the family, and we made inquiries to the doctors as they zipped in and out. Finally, to deal with Wiley’s complaints and the family’s concerns a “heart man” was brought in and, sure enough, he announced that Wiley had a heart problem. But he’s never had a heart problem, we protested, and received the standard “doctor knows best” routine. Despite our objections Wiley was started on an intravenous blood thinner drip. Within 24 hours a massive undiagnosed clotted ulcer deep in his bowel let go, and after nearly six weeks of suffering and loss of dignity and nearly a hundred thousand dollars worth of professional medical “care”, Wiley quickly died of his stomach pains.

As my wife, her mother and I left the hospital garage after Wiley’s death, we noticed the expensive foreign car ahead of us being driven by Wiley’s heart specialist and remarked on the irony of his life-style and our situation at this moment. Then as we pulled out into the early evening streets, we saw another person, standing at the bus stop, holding a lunchbox. It was Betty, waiting for the bus to Oak Cliff, which pulled up just as we came around the corner so she never saw us. So one small family went home without its husband and father, the heart man went home in his expensive foreign car, and Betty and, no doubt Ernest, took the bus home to whatever home they could afford on their meager salaries.

Value In Use & Value In Exchange

This story may seem to be about hospitals, and doctors who sometimes heal and who sometimes kill – but it isn’t, it’s about a system of care-giving turned upside-down, where people who give the thing of greatest value, who give care, attention, friendship and sometimes love to lonely, frightened people in pain, rarely benefit in economic terms from their personal expenditure of this precious human capital, although it is exploited to their enormous benefit by institutional employers. Those who because of character, nature and culture possess the two principal forms of human capital – care and love – are rarely in a position to benefit from the exploitation of those rich sources of economic benefit.

Adam Smith wrote in “Wealth Of Nations”:

“The word value, it is to be observed, has two different meanings, and sometimes expresses the utility of some particular object, and sometimes the power of purchasing other goods which the possession of that object conveys. The one may be called “value in use”; the other, “value in exchange”. The things which have the greatest value in use have frequently little or no value in exchange; and, on the contrary, those which have the greatest value in exchange have frequently little or no value in use.”

He goes on to point out that salt is essential for health, and water is essential for survival, but that they have little value in exchange – except, of course, in arid regions of places like the American west where water rights are a distinct separate form of property rights.

Ladies! Get To Work!

For many generations, love and caring have been little valued and poorly rewarded, and at the same time they have been both demanded and coerced from those who possess these resources in greatest concentration. There has been no “value in exchange” for love and care, and instead there has been a vast pretension that these two resources are worthless. There has been very little “value in use” because love and caring were treated largely as domestic, wifely, or household tasks rather than core economic activities in the public domain.

For endless generations what little love and care there was in the world was delivered primarily by women in their roles as mother, wife, big sister, nursemaid, nanny, teacher, nurse, laborer, prostitute, and slave to their children, men, and family, and to their exploiters, owners, and employers. In return for this love and caring women have historically been paid little or nothing, and for most of history it has simply been expected of women by males and their institutions, and women have had no choice but to go along with this elaborate, degrading, and ultimately destructive pretense.

It’s About Time

However, the wheels of history turn, and circumstances are now right for millions of naturally gifted caregivers, primarily women but increasing also caring men, to take advantage of a revolution in need that is coming rapidly and predictably. Quite simply, the revolution is coming because there is a rapidly growing acute demand for the human capital resources of love and care in our society.

The medical Cannabis laws in increasing numbers of states offer independent Caregivers not only the opportunity to grow a small crop of medical Cannabis for the person who they are caring for, and for themselves if they also have the right paperwork, but in many states a Caregiver can grow medical Cannabis for a limited number of other patients who qualify for medical Cannabis. This offers a tremendous opportunity for Caregivers to generate welcome additional income from legal sale of medical Cannabis to patients in addition to the person they are caring for.

This is also an area where the huge numbers of Caregivers & Patients can have a dramatic impact on Cannabis laws. Caregivers who are sacrificing their ability to earn an income in order to take care of a loved one should be able to have a license to cultivate as much Medical Cannabis as they can grow, and the freedom to give or sell that Cannabis to any other legal patient and also to medical Cannabis dispensaries. With over 40 million Caregivers in the US caring for over 40 million patients, none of whom have the ability to earn an income because of the 24/7 nature of Caregiving, legalized home cultivation of Cannabis could be a powerful source of economic liberation for a huge number of Americans who have no other possibility of earning a decent income.

Hey! What About The Guys?

It’s not news to anyone that it is almost exclusively men, and male-dominated institutions in every culture which make war, exploit people, create suffering and pain, rape, desecrate, pollute and destroy, and promote anger, vengeance, hatred and cruelty. While there is little room in this tough, mean male world for men who express love and caring, it is expected, demanded, and coerced with little or no compensation from all women. In every major world culture deeply ingrained male institutions assure that the benefits of love and caring are available essentially for free to men from childhood onwards – on demand, so to speak.

It’s All Changing

I believe that we are entering a period in the early 21st Century when this can change in ways that can also revolutionize the harsh, male-dominated society that now rules, and Cannabis consciousness can be a key breakthrough factor in this revolution. And I believe that women and their enlightened male counterparts who are caregivers to the sick and elderly can lead the way forward.

I believe that for the first time in history it is possible to design workable ways for people who have an abundance of the human capital resources of love and caring to organize and put these resources to work for their own economic and social benefit. Medical Cannabis can be the center of a new home-based economic revolution.

I believe that groups of Caregivers working within religious and non-profit institutions, will be able to leverage the medical Cannabis laws to enable them to compete effectively with the so-called health care industry for the Trillion-dollar residential long term care market about to be created by the aging baby boomers and their parents.

And I believe that the economic opportunities offered by legal medical Cannabis are going to be the foundation of a new, home-centered, patient-centered, natural medicine revolution in how old, sick and damaged people can be cared for by those who love them.


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Insomnia, Inflammation Of The Blood, Cannabis & Coca Leaf

The roles of Coca Leaf and Cannabis in controlling systemic (whole body) inflammatory conditions in the human body have been discussed in a number of posts on this blog, and there is a growing understanding in the medical community of the links between systemic inflammatory conditions and major diseases, including heart disease, diabetes, obesity, cancer, dementia and depression.

These are among the leading causes of death in the US and the rest of the so-called advanced civilizations, and for the most part the medical and scientific communities of these nations seem to be either just saying “Oh well, that’s what happens when you get old” or else “Hey, we have this new, expensive, dangerous drug that will give you an extra week or two of life strapped to a hospital bed and invaded by tubes.” Oh thank you medical saviors!

However, the interaction between systemic inflammation and Insomnia, or chronic sleep deprivation, has rarely been explored, and considering that systematic inflammation is a key factor in so many debilitating and fatal diseases and conditions this is an area of research that desperately needs attention.

Since there is already substantial documentation that the right strains of Cannabis are effective sleep aids, as well as safe and effective treatments for many of the diseases and conditions related to the inflammatory processes that arise as a result of chronic Insomnia, I’ll forego reciting that evidence here and concentrate on the potential of Coca Leaf as a complimentary natural medicine. The key word here is “Complimentary”; while there is much that Cannabis can do to aid the healing process, there is also much that Coca Leaf can do, and while there is some minimal overlap each has its own place in an apothecary of natural medicines.

So first, let’s take a quick look at the existing evidence that Coca Leaf is a safe and effective treatment for systemic inflammation and many its consequences.

Here are links to some of my posts that discuss the scientific and medical evidence from the 1800s that Coca Leaf can be a safe and effective treatment for the underlying systemic inflammatory conditions that drive a wide range of deadly diseases and conditions, whether these systemic inflammatory conditions arise from Insomnia or from other known causes including diet and environmental toxicity.

Coca Leaf & Chronic Low-Level Whole Body Inflammation

Coca Leaf & Congestive Heart Failure – Part One

Coca Leaf & Congestive Heart Failure – Part Two

Coca Leaf Tea – A Possible Treatment/Cure for Alzheimer’s & Dementia?

Coca Leaf & Muscular Energy

Coca Leaf As A Potential Treatment For Deadly Forms Of Fatigue

A Simple Natural Cure For Obesity – Coca Leaf Tea

Finally, for a more comprehensive view of the medical and scientific applications of Coca Leaf please consider reading my book “The Coca Leaf Papers” which includes an extensive bibliography with hyperlinks to original sources of the writings by doctors, scientists, and intelligent lay persons from the 1700’s and 1800’s on virtually every aspect of the healing powers of Coca Leaf – including, by the way, its very useful role in helping people sleep when sleep is made difficult or impossible by a wide range of problems including chronic illness, chronic pain, exhaustion, and nervousness, among others.

A recent major study ( see an abstract of the study below) has just been published that followed people suffering from persistent insomnia for over 20 years and has found solid evidence that persistent lack of sleep is associated closely with many of the major killer diseases and conditions in the US and around the world. And most relevant for those of us who advocate the medical use of both Coca Leaf and Cannabis the link between insomnia and disease and death seems to be a startling level of systemic inflammation in the body – specifically in the blood.

It is especially interesting, as mentioned earlier, that Coca Leaf and Cannabis are highly complementary but only minimally overlapping in their healing properties. In other words, it isn’t a question of having to choose between these two natural medicines. For almost every medical application, current medical and scientific research on Cannabis and historical medical and scientific research on Coca Leal make it quite evident that these two natural medicines can be most effective, and offer the greatest potential for healing, when they are used together.

With regard to the Insomnia study that we’ll examine in a moment, it’s important to note also that the researchers controlled for “confounding factors” like cigarette smoking, alcohol use, sedative use, age, physical activity levels, etc. In other words, they eliminated any role that these “confounding factors” might play so that they could say with confidence that they were looking at just the effects of persistent insomnia. This means that when they point to inflammation of the blood as a major effect, they are looking just at inflammation that is being caused by insomnia and not by other factors.

However, as they also point out, “the role of systemic inflammation in such an association is unknown”. Translated that says “We know that it’s there, and that it’s being caused by persistent insomnia, but we don’t know precisely its association with death.”

I do love scientific verbal precision because in the search for truth its important not to claim you know something for a fact when all you really know is that it seems to be a fact, but you can’t prove it. In that same vein, I don’t know for a fact that Coca Leaf controls systemic inflammation and therefore heals hearts, controls diabetes, helps the body to shed obesity, perhaps helps to reverse some forms of cancer, and reduces or eliminates dementia and depression – all I can really say is that according to my interpretation of the evidence in the writings of doctors and scientists of the 1800s, it sure looks like it could. And of course, increasingly, the healing powers of Cannabis are now being documented, and it seems like every week brings new evidence for increased efficacy in existing applications for Cannabis and findings that support new applications as well.

And it would be so damn simple to investigate and document the efficacy and safety of Coca Leaf, confirming what is still only hints and bits of historical evidence from the 1800’s, so that people could finally see that BOTH Coca Leaf and Cannabis deserve a place in the hands of people suffering from literally dozens of serious, life-threatening and life-ending diseases. We’re not talking about huge, expensive studies here, nor about massive government programs, nor about regiments of over-priced consultants, nor about the participation of Pig Pharma control freaks.

We’re talking about a few simple studies under controlled conditions among groups of people who suffer from each of these conditions using simple infusions of pure, natural Coca Leaf in the form of tea or tonic. The Coca Leaf studies probably would not be done in the US – at least at first they would have to be done in Peru, Bolivia and Uruguay, because these are the only countries in the world where enlightenment has illuminated the human mind on the subject of Coca Leaf as a natural healing medicine. Once these studies were done and published however, I can’t imagine that people in the US and Europe would allow their governments’ “War on Drugs” to continue to keep Coca leaf from assuming its rightful place in the pharmacy of natural medicines alongside Cannabis. And at the same time, since Cannabis is illegal even in countries that recognize the legitimacy of Coca Leaf, the same complimentary political, scientific and medical processes would have to take place there also.

However, there is another possibility that needs to be discussed and examined. There are many countries in the world where Cannabis is now legal, but where Coca Leaf is not. If people in any of those countries recognized the good common sense of having both Cannabis and Coca Leaf available to treat disease then it would be no problem to begin Coca cultivation in those countries.

For one thing, as pointed out in a recent post, Coca species are already widely distributed around the world, but of course only a few are really suitable as potent medicinal plants. Nevertheless, where one species of Coca flourishes as an indigenous species, the more useful spcies could also be brought into cultivation either in a natural or artificial environment.

In the 1800s Coca was widely cultivated around the world, and with modern growing technology even in those countries where Coca might not grow well in the natural outdoors environment it could easily be cultivated under indoor growing conditions. There is a vast literature available from the 1800’s on experiments that were conducted on growing Coca across the planet under a wide range of conditions. In fact one of the most successful indoor growing projects was that of Angelo Mariani, inventor of the then-famous “Vin Mariani”, whose conservatory greenhouse in the center of Paris was one of the wonders of the botanical world.

In one of my recent posts I discuss how this “Journey To Healing” could be organized as an ongoing project that would enable groups of people suffering from the same diseases to travel to Peru, Bolivia and/or Uruguay to be treated with not just Coca Leaf but with the whole range of Andean ethnopharamacological resources – and in the case of Uruguay patients who are already on Cannabis treatments would not have to be concerned about legal issues as they would have to be in both Peru and Bolivia, at this time.

When this happens, and when medical and scientific researchers can begin studying and documenting the healing powers of both natural medicines, as well as individual people taking the initiative into their own hands even before the formal studies have been done, perhaps then at last millions of people who now are victimized by the medical industry, Pig Pharma and Pig Government will be able to break free and heal themselves.

Let’s work together to make that day come as soon as possible.

So here’s of the Insomnia study I referred to earlier. If you want to read the full paper Elsevier will be happy to charge you an obscene amount for access, but personally I have never, and will never, pay those ripoff artists a penny for access to their chattel.

“Persistent Insomnia Is Associated With Mortality Risk”
(By) Sairam Parthasarathy, M.D. et al, published online Oct. 14, 2014 in the “American Journal of Medicine”.

Abstract

Background
Insomnia has been associated with mortality risk, but whether this association is different in subjects with persistent versus intermittent insomnia is unclear. Additionally, the role of systemic inflammation in such an association is unknown.

Methods
We used data from a community-based cohort to determine whether persistent or intermittent insomnia, defined based on persistence of symptoms over a six-year period, were associated with death during the following 20-years of follow-up. We also determined whether changes in serum C-reactive protein (CRP) levels measured over two decades between study initiation and insomnia determination were different for the persistent, intermittent, and never insomnia groups. The results were adjusted for confounders such as age, sex, body mass index, smoking, physical activity, alcohol and sedatives.

Results
Of the 1409 adult participants, 249 (18%) had intermittent and 128 (9%) had persistent insomnia. During a 20-year follow-up period, 318 participants died (118 due to cardiopulmonary disease). In adjusted Cox proportional-hazards models, participants with persistent insomnia (adjusted Hazards Ratio [HR] 1.58, 95%CI: 1.02-2.45) but not intermittent insomnia (HR 1.22, 0.86-1.74), were more likely to die than participants without insomnia. Serum CRP levels were higher and increased at a steeper rate in subjects with persistent insomnia as compared with intermittent (p=0.04) or never (p=0.004) insomnia. Although CRP levels were themselves associated with increased mortality (adjHR: 1.36, 1.01-1.82, p=0.04), adjustment for CRP levels did not notably change the association between persistent insomnia and mortality.

Conclusions
In a population-based cohort, persistent, and not intermittent, insomnia was associated with increased risk for all-cause and cardiopulmonary mortality and was associated with a steeper increase in inflammation.

End of abstract

So there you have it. A well crafted longitudinal study that unequivocally makes the point that anything that prevents you from getting a good nights sleep on a regular basis is moving you swiftly toward an early grave. And all it would take to head off this morbid end of life would be a nice pipe of Cannabis at bedtime and a nice cup of Coca Leaf tea upon rising. Sounds entirely too simple, too unprofitable, and too straightforward to be worth the attention of all those important people in boardrooms and government offices worldwide, doesn’t it.

Or maybe they have a different agenda. But the marvelous thing is – they are insomniacs too. So whatever their agenda, they are as much victims as those who they are intent on victimizing. The planet is tight.