Many Benefits of Cannabis

 

“Many Benefits of Cannabis” is my title for a section of a submission that a friend of mine made to the cannabis legalization commission in British Columbia, Canada. Cannabis is due to be made legal in Canada by July 2018. Each province and territory is charged with coming up with its own laws and regulations for some aspects of production and distribution. The author, a local businessman, is using the initials K.L. for this (indicating that we’re still not in the clear regarding stigmatization in “straight” circles.) Read on please.

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Cannabis is one of humankind’s oldest plant allies and friends. We’ve been learning from this plant about healing and harmony and “what works” for thousands of years. Only now it seems more needed by humanity to help us stay in balance with Nature, the Earth. For it is being celebrated, welcomed, legalized, mainstreamed, normalized in many regions now—including B.C. in 2018.

In very general terms, let us accept that cannabis can (and already does) benefit humans—some of us–in these ways:

v  To slow down… de-stress… and relax.

v  To feel good; to enhance the pleasure of being alive—of any experience.

v  To enjoy working and getting things done.

v  To bring us back to our senses and amplify sensory intelligence.

v  To enhance artistic inspiration and performance.

v  To spark interesting conversations (and facilitate difficult conversations too).

v  To enrich lovemaking.

v  To be more in touch with our bodies.

v  To be more in tune with our feelings.

v  To learn to pray in a deep way.

v  To love Nature and to love people better—starting with ourselves

v  To fight less and to smile and make friends more.

v  To be in awe and wonder… with the miracle of life… as it happens.

v  To live our present moments more creatively.

v  To broaden the spectrum of sensual and spiritual exploration.

v  To sleep better.

v  To soften many types of physical and mental pain.

v  To make music really come alive.

v  To do our best in any craft or endeavor, be it work or play.

v  To mediate conflicts and to foster peacemaking.

v  To facilitate body learning and movement healing.

v  To help us appreciate gardening and the natural world.

v  To be a little more open-hearted and open-minded.

v  To generate “good vibes” –goodwill, love for all: “lightening up the earth”

v  To listen more carefully—to ourselves and each other.

v  To inspire festivals of community joy and celebration.

v  To age and die with comfort, dignity, and friendliness.

v  To reduce opioid addiction and deaths.

v  To reduce dependence on expensive prescription drugs.

v  To help us treat some of our most crippling and lethal diseases.

v  To welcome Cannabis as an ally in not only nutrition and medicine, but in materials (building, cloth, paper, etc.) as well—so we can use and need less fossil-fuel-derived materials in our civilization. It’s a big key in the lock of future agriculture.

v  To help us breathe more deeply and enjoyably.

v  To help us know what meditation is for.

v  To help us get perspective when we’re troubled.

v  To help us know and practice our religion better in our heart.

v  To help us solve some kinds of problems in our lives.

v  To facilitate healthier and happier childbirth.

v  To create meaningful ceremonies for life passages, transitions, and renewal.

v  To reduce alcohol and tobacco addiction and deaths (and costs to society).

v  To help us be happy where we are, and not waste resources trying to “get somewhere else.”

v  The basic meditation of following your breath is the most effective way to work with the plant, but it can also be a supporter, enhancer, and strengthener of a variety of spiritual practices, meaning anything that enters you more deeply into the now. Whether that’s yoga, Tai Chi, chanting, or anything else, if you can keep focused and breathing, cannabis can enhance it.

Not that “Mary Jane” is required for any of these good things, but that millions of us use her in at least some of these ways, and can testify to the results. Now if all these good things came to pass on a large scale, we and the earth system (Mother Earth) would be in much better shape