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LEAF
Approx. 106,000 Americans die yearly from prescribed medications. Source: Journal of American Medical Association
I totally believe in what we're doing and I think it's the most important thing that I can be doing right now
There are so many people who are sick and if this can help them people have to know about this.
Research is finding that there's an alternative.
It's fantastic that I have to share this with my family that we are doing this together
and that we both feel so passionately about it
Dr. William Courtney, MD: She was on over 40 different medicines, she had been on Methotrexate and Plaquenil,
one of those which nearly destroyed her vision
potent anti inflammatory Brexin
was on all sorts of painkillers and all sorts of antibiotics
she had classic steroid toxicity
her face was the shape of a moon because there is a lot of swelling that occurs in the face
At the age of 16 she was diagnosed with juvenile rheumatoid arthritis that evolved into a lupus condition
with diagnose of interstitial cystitis and autoimmune disorder, in bed for 4 years
her mother thought she would never survive
Kristen began juicing using raw cannabis leaves.
I went to talk to William as a friend and as a doctor
about his experience with patients and how they used cannabis
Seeing what the juicing did for me, using it in this form was so significant, it changed my life.
U.S. DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE finding:
"In strict medical terms marijuana is far safer than many of the foods we consume."
About 4 to 6 weeks after I started on juicing everyday I had no more back pain,
I didn't need pain pills, I felt the best day I ever had.
A lot of people think cannabis and pot are not medicine
The SCIENCE
I stumbled on an article in Scientific American, december 2004
they had an article on marijuana as The Brain's Own Marijuana and introduced the idea
that the body produces compounds that are very similar to those found in marijuana or cannabis
Cannabis actually goes up stream, it provides feedback from the postsynaptic nerve
to the presynaptic nerve which is unheard in neurochemistry where
all neurotransmissions were unidirectional and all of the sudden swimming
against that force a little cannabinoid molecule that tied the hole system together.
The phytocannabinoids from this plant augment the body's attempt to restore
and increase function to a normal level.
So it mimics the regulatory system of cellular physiology
and recently the Food and Drug Administration has approved of CBD
which is a cannabinoid like THC, one of 80 cannabinoids.
The federal patent compares vitamin C, vitamin E and CBD or cannabidiol.
CBD turned out to be more potent than either of those two.
Non Psychoactive
...thing that I warn my patients out is
if you're going to be juicing this flower and this leaves you're going to be doing this high dose,
non psychoactive, cannabinoid dietary approach, please do not heat it.
When you heat cannabis you make it psychoactive which for a large part of the community
the psychoactivity of a plant is the measure of its medical quality but its really quite the inverse.
To heat cannabis in any way you're destroying some of the medicinal proprieties of it
To use the plant effectively we have to use it the way it evolved over 34 million years,
which is raw, because when is raw the THC is bonded as THC acid
it requires aging, drying, so as a hunter-gatherer we gather this plant, we know as well
as this plant ages it changes character and suddenly has a psychoactive effect.
Dr. Brett Wright, M.D.: I think that's the most exciting area of cannabis research:
is looking at non psychoactive cannabinoids.
Because if you do heat it you'll decarboxylate the THC acid and you're going
to have 600 mg of THC acid with the CBD acid and be unconscious probably the better part of the week.
Between heating the plant whether that's in a sucker, a cookie or baked good, butter,
vaporized, smoked, all those techniques convert THC acid which is not psychoactive into THC
and provide you with that 10 mg dose,
but if you eat the plant raw then THC acid is the way is found in the plant and not psychoactive.
The juicing allows to get up to the 500 to 600 mg which is 60 times more than you can tolerate if it was heated.
This treatment is not psychoactive where people would have to be stoned when they take it
they can take it and go to work and play with their kids
It's hard for me to understand the laws against something like green leaf therapy
and to think that Prednisone is legal.
We're still fighting the stigma of marijuana back from the 20-30-40-50's
The Controversy
Attorney Keith Failder, Former Prosecutor: I was a prosecutor for 8 years in Mendocino County so I know it
it from both as a defense attorney and as a prosecutor that the 1972 Controlled Substances Act
said that marijuana had no medical value whatsoever
But the Government has a Patent on its medical proprieties,
the Food and Drug Administration has approved that it is investigated as a drug...
I have not found the United States to be very open about cannabis research.
In order to print an article in a journal you have to use cannabis that they certified for your study
and there are physicians who waited 3-4-5-6 years, some even longer then that to just get a sample.
The Federal Government has been kind of schizophrenic in the way it looks at marijuana:
it says it has no medical value under that act but at the same time
the Federal Government has been funding research on marijuana for years and decades and
even patented certain strains of marijuana because they recognized it has its medical value.
The California Narcotic Officers' Association does not believe in Medical Marijuana,
they believe it's all a big scam and that's how they train law enforcement officers.
Law enforcement is allowed to take a percentage of all assets that are forfeited and seized
under the state and federal asset forfeiture law,
so it takes the really enlightened passion of law enforcement officer to recognize that they use
the Medical Marijuana laws are designed to protect patients.
Tom Allman, Mendocino County Sheriff: I was trained: when somebody had marijuana you took them to jail.
It was no medicine. The use for marijuana as an illegal substance and the people went to jail for.
In 1996 California took a huge leap. I didn't support Proposition 215 because of the education I had,
the experience I had and what I've seen through the illegal marijuana gardens that I've seen throughout my career.
Since 1996 I have changed my opinion somewhat: I believe there is a very clear medicinal use for marijuana,
that being said I believe that there are a large percentage of people who use marijuana as an excuse
to either make profits or for recreation. The people who use marijuana for the true intended use
that the voters passed, medicinal, I'll do anything I can to support their rights.
Proposition 215 (or the Compassionate Use Act of 1996) is a California law concerning the use of medical cannabis. It was enacted, on November 5, 1996.
There's many more things that law enforcement can be focused on than Medicinal Marijuana.
I don't want to give the impression at all that I support people who are growing marijuana
for medical purposes 364 days of the year and then 1 day a year they make a big sale for a couple of hundred
thousands dollars and they are commercial sellers a day of the year. They are the people that are causing
problems for the people who really and truly need and can use medical marijuana.
Baby Amber 2 years old - Diagnosed with terminal brain tumors
Terrified! When you're told as a parent that your child does have a tumor in her brain. It took 24 hours
in an operating room, they gave us a 10 percent chance of survival with treatment.
Arlene Casen - Hospice Coordinator, 30 years experience: The Oakland Children's Hospital where they called me
and they said they had a baby who they were discharging home, this baby had completed all treatments
that would be useful for it had brain tumors
had surgery, had radiation and chemo and the tumors were still growing, still multiplying and therefore they
said to the parents: just take this baby home and make it comfortable because there's nothing more that
we know that would help its condition.
...it's hard to accept to the point where they wanted us to take her and try to find some acceptance
A month went by and I got in contact with the family and they said: well, we just got back from
the children's hospital, they did a CT scan, the tumors had shrunk and there are fewer of them
and they said: I'll tell you what we've been doing, we've been juicing the fan leaves of the marijuana plant
and given to our baby a shot glass of this juice everyday.
This is like this wonderful hospice story that she's no longer on hospice,
I brought the oxygen concentrator back. It's just one of those wonderful success stories.
You know, the plant is a pretty amazing plant because it appears
that the juice of this plant is saving this baby's life.
Here we have something that can really change people's lives
I mean I was laying in bed catheterized thinking that, physicians were just trying to make me comfortable,
they really didn't think that there was anything more that they could do,
and: I mean I lived to be 30, which I am now...
That was the best I could hope for...
the best I could hope for was taking enough Methadone and Percocet everyday that I just didn't feel anything at all.
Mary Ellen Jerkovich-Director Humboldt Patient Resource Center: I've been long in touch with Doctor Courtney
because we have received a doctor's recommendation from one of his patients and in it: as they start juicing
So after I contacted him I was really excited to hear that there might be
some other alternatives to smoking the cannabis.
These are friends we had the past year, they said: your father is not the same as he was when we first met him,
he seems to be much more alive, doing a lot more, more active.
And I have informed them it was because of the juice he had been taking.
Right after we start juicing he seemed to be more active, we would do things out in the garage more
and he wouldn't spend so much time in his chair.
We have run out periodically in the last year and a half and that's what made me convince that he needed it,
because when he ran out he would have trouble to get out of the car.
I had four doctors tell me that I should have a hysterectomy.
You either have no ovaries or at very least you're sterile.
...I wouldn't be able to have a child
Despite the very potent birth control, despite being sterile, a baby decided to come join the party.
We like to distinguish ourselves while being extremely scientific and people know that if they're gonna come
to us they're going to go through a lot of hoops but they're also going to get the most up-to-date scientific
knowledge on this subject and they are going to see a physician who is an expert in the field
of non psychoactive cannabinoids and there are plenty of people that want that and are looking for that.
We opened our fifth office in Luxembourg, their government is really sympathetic and open
There's an international group studying autism and CBD in Luxembourg
There is a physician there who is writing cannabis scripts who is also a senator
The Government is actually funding experiments in a research center using cannabis in large part because
of Dr. Courtney's work with non psychoactive cannabinoids and senator Colombera's work with cancer patients.
There are now facilities for testing of plants and there's been more progress made in the last 5 or 6 months,
a new strain in from Spain called "Cannatonic", 6.9 percent CBD.
That's 700% increase over "Northern Lights" which is our previous high producer.
I would like to find strains that have all of the cannabinoids present in an amount that's useful
I'd like to produce strains that are adapted to environment
In Luxembourg we're producing thousands of thousands of thousands of seeds to raise the money
to give away half a pound of seeds, because if that person grows an acre of cannabis and feeds a family
the proteins and the fat acids
an incredible food source, an incredible preventative medicine source and an incredible therapeutic source
and at the same time they're sucking 5 times as much CO2 out of the environment as an acre of trees
First we have to change Convention Treaty no.1 which was the convention that the UN put out in 1961
that says cannabis is a crime, if you have it, if you grow it, if is in your possession you should be in prison.
That dogma has dominated the world.
Right now, they're asking for input from the World Health Organization and the process of writing a letter
stating that this is a dietary essential, it's not a criminal thing, because we have to change
that treaty before we can go into Central South-America and say:
you grow an acre of this plant, feed your family, prevent illnesses.
So, Cannabis International wants: legalizing the plant globally, giving it back to people as a food source,
prevent illness is so much better then waiting until you have disease.
With my own experience, in all the patients that I've spoken to,
I believe that it's not an isolated incident, that this is the best medication.
The producers of this film recommend that you consult with your physician before attempting to juice cannabis.
For more information visit: CannabisInternational
A film by Patrick Norris and Sergio Vasquez
Producers: Eric Stromberger, Patrick Norris, Sergio Vasquez, Dr. William Courtney, Kristen Peskuski
Caption: Ford Turani for www.TurismoAssociati.it/dBlog - Trilingual World Observatory: italiano, english, romana. GLOBAL NEWS & more...