 I'm going to tell you a little bit about Clint. He's a San Francisco author, and while he was researching, he found that in peer-reviewed articles on medical marijuana, he discovered surprising information and evidence that marijuana has anti-tumor properties and protects the brain from injury and aging. Clint wrote Marijuana, Gateway to Health, How Cannabis Protects Us from Cancer and Alzheimer's Disease, documenting the hard science that is often ignored. Clint has degrees in journalism and library science, studied diet and health at the Kushi Institute in Boston. And besides being a journalist, an activist, a microbiotic chef, he's also a Dashund enthusiast. Two of them. And many more, right? Relocating to San Francisco, Clint coauthored the San Francisco Police Department's 1987 Health and Fitness Plan and worked to create healthier diets and lifestyles for AIDS, cancer, and heart disease patients. Clint's writing has appeared in many books and journals. His awards include the 2012 Peter McWilliams Award for Activism and Outstanding Achievement in Advancing the Cause of Medical Marijuana by the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws. And in 2013, the Galileo Award by the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies for his achievements and persistent efforts to research, study, educate, and promote the use of medical marijuana. Please welcome Clint Warner. Thank you so much, Ruth. It's really an honor and a pleasure to be here because, of course, I have a background in library science. I'm in the city I love and have lived in for a few decades now. And I was here at the opening of the library with my partner, Donald, my spouse. And we were talking about that being 1997, I believe, 1996, a long time ago. But I'm really honored to be here. And I want to thank Ruth Amronik so much for putting this together. She not only has done everything to make this happen, this talk, but she also has secured some of my books for the library. So I don't want to cut myself out of any sales. But if you're tight and you can't buy it, you can still read it and learn the data by checking it out from the library. And I also need to thank Janet, Tom, for coming and giving me posters and promotional material and helping put this together. And David, my sound and AV guy back here who's filming this. So thank you all very, very much for having me here. And it's really an honor to be here. So I thought I'd start out today talking about where we stand in the world today with marijuana because it seems like everywhere we turn, we're hearing about marijuana. It's really quite amazing to be here speaking about this at this point in time. When we put this talk together, we had no idea we'd be at this point where so many marijuana events have collided and come together to make it a really primary focal point in the news and sort of the media realm. So first I'd like to talk about Colorado and Washington State, two states. It's great. Here we have two states that have finally said no to prohibition and have legalized marijuana. And while it might not be the optimum way of legalizing marijuana, it really has started the ball rolling and begun conversations that were very much impossible to have just a few years ago about what it means to be a responsible marijuana user and how do we provide marijuana for the people who want it and when do we stop locking up people who enjoy marijuana. And these are topics we've need to have come into the public arena for a while. And so this is great. And it's really stirring things up. It's normalizing the talk about marijuana. Marijuana is no longer completely a forbidden, demonized topic and substance. And so we're hearing more and more about marijuana as a viable commodity and substance for use. And it's also pretty interesting now that we have a really smoking Super Bowl coming up because we have the two Super Bowl contenders, our teams from legal marijuana states. And it's probably one of the small constellations I took from that horrible loss of the 49ers. At least I could say, hey, the Niners didn't pull it off, but we're going to have Super Stoner Bowl. And so this is really going to be interesting to watch because this whole idea of the two legal states being in the Super Bowl, it's normalizing things in the media. The discussion is lightening up. It's not this dark, reefer madness, drenched mythology being trotted out so much anymore. People are having rational conversations about marijuana as a viable substance for use. And that's really great because it changes the milieu. It changes the zeitgeist. And we're at about 55% of Americans supporting legalization. And this helps push it along, helps alleviate the fears that people have and really changes the way people will look at marijuana. It sort of undoes a lot of the brainwashing we've been subjected to for well over 60 years. But still you have the pushback now because you've got the irrational reefer madness and proponents, the people who now are really frothing and writhing and having a terrible time of it because we're not talking about marijuana as though it was a radioactive waste or something. We're talking about it as a viable substance that adults can enjoy and use. And so we have the opponents, the Nancy Graces, the David Brooks, the Pat Buchanans really going over the top. Nancy Graces, amazing. I finally sat down and watched. The woman, she's so tacky. And she's just so offensive. And I just, if I'm flipping, I don't watch a lot of TV, but if I'm flipping through looking at something, I can't stop at her for more than a minute. And so I had to force myself to go and watch the clips of her reefer madness spiel. And she's talking about killing families and destroying lives and wrecking havoc and shootings and strangulations that occur because of marijuana. And I'm just like, this is so bizarre. This really is like so far back to the 30s, reefer madness, completely over the top and hysterical, and no foundation for it. And I saw someone posted, they called her Harriet Anslinger, which is a reference to Harry Anslinger, who was the sort of a federal dick who got a marijuana banned and promoted the Marijuana Tax Act that banned marijuana back then. So these people are really going crazy. And the problem is that they don't have a lot of ground to stand on. They're losing their arguments. They're losing an audience and support. And so what they're doing is turning to a few tried and true horror stories that marijuana causes psychosis. That's sort of their fallback. Their last great hope to steer people away from legalization is to convince the public that using marijuana causes schizophrenia or psychosis, it drives people mad. And there's just no substance for that. There's no support whatsoever for this. Because when you look at the rates of schizophrenia and psychosis in the country, they remain stable from before the marijuana era in the 60s when it went from very much a niche subculture sort of thing to more mainstream popular use, especially by college students, and then through the 70s where the popularity really, really exploded and on through the 80s. Then you just never see a corresponding increase in psychosis or madness or schizophrenia. And in fact, there was an interesting study, 2012, that found that psychotic patients who use marijuana regularly actually live longer with a better state of health than psychotics who do not use marijuana. Another interesting aspect of that study was that the marijuana using psychotic patients in a follow-up review of the data, none of them had died of cancer, whereas four of the controls had died of cancer, which I'll talk about a little later in terms of anti-tumor properties. But so the whole psychosis is their last best hope because it's slippery, and it's hard to disprove, and they can talk to it, and it's scary, and parents don't want crazy kids. And it's just not valid. There's no support. What there is support for is that a lot of people who have proclivities for developing psychosis will self-medicate with cannabis. Once they try cannabis or they hear word of mouth that it works and they try it, they find it helps. It reduces their anxiety. It reduces the problems they're having, and it really helps them. So that's why you have such a large number of psychotic cannabis users is because it works for them and they're self-medicating. It's not a causative agent in psychosis. One of the other objections that they raise to legalization is that marijuana is much stronger and that it really is dangerous and damaging because it's not your parents' marijuana. And the way they play off of this is that good marijuana is much more readily available these days than it was in the 70s and 80s. So what they're trying, I heard Patrick Kennedy today on the radio, and he just, you know, this guy, he needs to stop embarrassing himself because he doesn't know what he's talking about. He said that these kids are using GMO marijuana that's so much more powerful than what their parents used. It's not the same thing, it's GMO. It's GMO, so, you know, he's heard that hippies are afraid and young people and activists and people who are conscious and thinking about the world, you know, have a real concern about GMO. So he's glommed on to this word and put it on to marijuana as a real scare word, marijuana, GMO, but I posted on his Facebook page that, come on, really. Where in Humboldt, Colorado, Mendocino, Big Sur, anywhere that people are farming cannabis has one of those farmers established a multi-million dollar genetic engineering lab. You know, the hippies are back there somewhere in Humboldt, right, in a trailer, and they've got gene splicers and they've got, you know, different kinds of lights that reveal the philip fibrils of DNA and they've got specially designed pipettes and all of these, this really advanced equipment, electron microscopes and they're genetically engineering marijuana. No, that's not happening at all. What's happening is good old tried and true selective breeding. The same thing that turned thistles into artichokes and wolves into doxins and this is just picking out the genes you desire and creating breeding for those traits and that's what's happened with marijuana. In the 60s and 70s, marijuana was not as strong in general because it was grown on plantations and it was not really cultivated as an art but when you cultivate cannabis with an artistic hand and a deep appreciation of it and you optimize all the elements that go into it, you get really good cannabis and really good cannabis was available in the 70s and the 80s. It just was only available if you knew someone. You know, you had to know someone. If you were like with high times or you lived in California and you knew someone, you were on Grateful Dead Tour, you got good cannabis. It was really strong, believe me. It was not two or 3% and it has been bred to optimize it and it's gone up, you know, a few points maybe in potency but nothing profound from what the really good cannabis was and it's just more available. Strong cannabis is healthy cannabis because you have to ingest less smoke to get the effects you want whether it's for euphoria, relaxation or for medical use. So this whole idea of the new GMO marijuana is a ruse and in fact we had hashish for hundreds thousands of years which is the concentrated resin of the marijuana plant which is two to three, four times stronger than the source marijuana that it was gathered from and so that's, you know, even stronger than the marijuana today so that's not been a problem other than the risk of getting arrested for it. And it is nice, good hash. So Obama, Obama talked to David Remnick, publisher, editor of The New Yorker and he's gotten a lot of attention about that because, and it's great because I was pretty shocked after his unkind history to medical marijuana dispensaries. He came out and he said that in his opinion marijuana is not more harmful than alcohol and he also dialed it back a lot but thankfully the sound bite that's getting the attention is that marijuana is not more harmful than alcohol and it's a great start and he also said that, you know it's something I don't want my kids doing he sort of played up that idea that you're not really a great person if you use marijuana and I object if I use marijuana and I am a good person thanks to Mickey Martin for that quote and so he said this wonderful quote that's gotten out there but I don't think he took it far enough because marijuana is not more harmful than alcohol it's far less harmful than alcohol and it's far more beneficial than alcohol and so when we look at what the science says about this cannabis, cannabis protects us from the brain damage caused by binge drinking alcohol causes neurotoxicity and destroys white matter in the brain it's neurotoxic alcohol small amounts not a big problem but for binge drinkers, alcoholics they're killing off their brain cells there was a study done out of a group in San Diego and they were hoping to show that this poly drug marijuana and alcohol coupling did more damage than alcohol alone they wanted to have some fuel to work against marijuana legalization but when they cooked their data and looked at it they found that the teenagers who were binge drinkers who used marijuana had a significant reduction in the impairment to their white matter it shielded the brain against the poisoning of alcohol this was a pretty significant amount of protection for the brain from alcohol by marijuana also there was research that showed that alcoholics who go through withdrawal the hardcore alcoholic who goes into withdrawal it is such a profound toxin that your body adapts to that taking it out really upsets so many of your bodily systems and one of those deficits is in the brain what happens is this withdrawal process triggers what's called excitotoxicity in the brain cells they're agitated, they're agitated their adaptation to alcohol you know the alcohol is removed and this adaptation isn't working with brain chemistry and they agitate themselves to death essentially and this causes a whole cycle and chain reaction of neurodegenerative malaise and damage because the toxins that are released from these brain cell deaths they go and they change the way other receptors in the brain and cells process neurotransmitters and react to them and they open up too much and they receive too much calcium and it's this whole process of death and then you get more cells dying and what cannabis does is it goes in and it quiets down the brain cells it soothes them down same thing it does to us when we're like been out of shape you know have a little cannabis take a breath and relax it soothes them down it attenuates this excitotoxicity and if there's been excitotoxicity that's already released these toxins that are causing this chain reaction downstream of this then it actually neutralizes these toxins and shields other brain cells so that you stop you stop this whole chain reaction of death and brain impairment and it's very effective for that also there was a report from a national health agency that said that there is no safe threshold for with regard to alcohol use for cancer risk in other words all exposure to alcohol carries with it some risk of increased carcinogenesis you're a lot you're more likely the more you drink the more likely you are to develop a number of cancers and so we see that alcohol is very much a pro cancer substance now you can have it in moderation and generally you're not going to suffer from that hopefully what we also see is that cannabis marijuana has profound anti cancer activity anti tumor um... it inhibits the vascularization of tumors and keeps them from growing and changes the environment that actually leads to the development of cancer so it prevents the development of cancer and it attacks cancer cells inhibits their ability to survive and actually kills them off so when we really look at the oh and one more aspect of this alcohol recent study uh... was came out about three weeks ago that showed that with regard to dating violence alcohol definitely significantly increases the likelihood of violence in dating situations where there is no correspondence with marijuana marijuana does not increase the likelihood of dating violence so you know when you look at this you can see there's really no comparison in terms of alcohol and marijuana marijuana is not only safer it's more beneficial and that's one of the messages we need to carry with us out into the public um... people scoff sometimes that marijuana users i know drinkers somehow sort of sneer and look down on pot heads but there's an old line from a song in the thirties about vipers who were pot smokers in that uh... subculture and it said the uh... pot smokers said to the boozer i'll be standing on the corner high when they bring your body by so that's very very true and uh... so i'd just like to talk a little bit about who it is that's resisting legalization and then move on to more details about the medical effects and it seems to me we have basically three types of people who are resisting legalization we have the profiteers the law enforcement officers who get huge infusions of cash to fight cannabis we have the drug treatment uh... profiteers who have a very profitable funnel right into their treatment programs from the courts police courts treatment if you get caught in places smoking adjoint maybe you smoke it once a year wanna go see a movie once a month you're not anywhere near dependent you get arrested you go to court you get option jail time or treatment you're gonna take treatment this gives them stats to claim that marijuana has some throw so many people into treatment and it's a big profit um... agency you know an industry a drug profit industry and those are some of the most vicious and intense people opposed to legalization they are going crazy and they're really i mean they're beginning to talk about the threat of now that it's legal people be injecting marijuana and of course i guess at the gmail claim and they're really losing it and discrediting themselves when what they need to do is to stop look at the science and come and join us having a conversation about how to keep the most vulnerable populations from using marijuana which i think are young teens and i think we could probably get together on that and have a productive discussion instead of all this excited toxicity that they're going through so the profiteers and then we have the authoritarians the people who don't want you to do what they don't approve of you know this is david brooks people like that there are things i don't like people doing i don't like people eating junk food and garbage and corporate crap that they put in their mouths like a stream of poison but you know what you don't i don't think you should go to jail or be arrested is sent to treatment because you don't choose to eat like i do you know you're free and we should be free to use a beneficial substance for our health or pleasure without fear of having our lives ruined and for some reason these sad sad cases these authoritarians really want to continue using the law to bully us into behaving the way they think we ought to behave and that's not what this country is about i believe in liberty and freedom and i believe adults can most adults can make a pretty good decision about how to live their lives and we don't need david brooks or rush limbaugh or nancy grace or any of these other people you know using the law to make us live the way they think we ought to so those are really the two main people and then the of main people who are opposing legalization and then the third are the ignorant and the fearful there are people who are decent people good-hearted people but they don't know the truth about marijuana they're still wallowing in the uh... residue of the reefer madness era and they think this is going to hurt people it's going to cause misery it's going to really wreck havoc in our society and they believe that it causes cancer that it causes um... psychosis and misery and will uh... increase car accidents and they're just not aware of what the science is saying and that's where those of us who support the use of marijuana come in because we have to be the educators and we have to reach them and tell them what's really going on and it amazes me all these benefits and all of these uh... real protective properties and the media hasn't seized upon this yet they're still you know they're they're lightening up it's true but they still you know acknowledgment to the myths and the hysteria and they haven't really started to promote the benefits which are far more valid and documented so that's what i want to talk about now and i thought i'd start out with cancer talking about how marijuana really can help us avoid and maybe even treat cancer this is so fascinating because we were told that this is such a dangerous substance and research into marijuana's medical properties was suppressed from the thirties through the sixties and really the research was looking for harm and there was one that was trying to find that marijuana increased the rate of cancer growth back in the early seventies and the study was published in seventy five and it showed that rats who were implanted with lung cancer cells and dosed with thc and cbd had a longer life expectancy than the controls the ones who are implanted with lung cancer cells but didn't get cannabinoids so the cannabinoids from marijuana slowed down the growth of the lung cancer cells in these rats and gave them a longer life expectancy great study lots of promise nothing happened it was nixon's war on drugs nixon's war on marijuana as it was you know amped up by that point and ford was carrying the torch and that study was ignored it wasn't you know it seems like it should have been uh... a manhattan project uh... trigger to start some really dedicated line of research into using can't cannabinoids to treat cancer nothing happened in that realm uh... no one knew there was a endocannabinoid system until about not the night early nineteen nineties the first receptor was found in ninety eight and this means that we produce cannabinoids in our bodies and we have receptors through our brain and in peripheral tissue nerve tissue and certain organ tissue and the activity of these compounds we make they activate these receptors and communicate they send in communications that regulate different aspects of our physiology in our biology so these were all found really were found in and uh... mapped out in the early nineties mapped out through the nineties and then looked at uh... up through the early two thousands as to what the activity of these receptors were and one of the interesting stories is manuel guzman and his research team in spain we're looking at uh... brain cell metabolism and they knew that you know t h c had been found to work with receptors in the brain so they were curious how t h c affected brain cell metabolism the studies they were doing were done with brain cancer cells because they reproduce really quickly and you can have a line of cells to study without having to keep buying normal cells you have your own dedicated line reproducing really quickly and it's much cheaper than buying them and you can get basically the same data so when they started trying to research t h c with brain cancer cells they couldn't do the research because all the brain cancer cells died off they were what's this about they tried again brain cancer cells died off complete death so they said wait wait wait wait they went to the literature they found the study from seventy five so that gave them a clue that they're you know what they were seeing uh... was valid and they redirected their study away from brain cell metabolism into cancer brain cell cancer and uh... how cannabinoids affected and they found that t h c and synthetic cannabinoids have the ability to change the signaling at a genetic level so that the cancer cells change their biochemistry instead of making pro-survival chemicals within the cancer cell the genetics are flipped so that they start making chemicals that are hostile to their survival and then they die off another thing that the uh... cannabinoids do is to impede the ability of tumor cells to produce blood vessels in order to eat because they divide rapidly they need a lot of nourishment that's why cancer patients waste they um... these tumors tap into the host and suck the blood their vampires they drink you know tap into the blood system and draw off nutrients t h c inhibits the ability of the uh... cancer tumor cells to produce a compound necessary for producing these blood vessels this inhibits their ability to thrive and to spread and once they spread to get a doc and to survive as uh... a metastasis so they were really amazed by this and continued their research and other at once they published other uh... researchers started looking at it they found similar activity for breast cancer cells for colon cancer cells for head and neck cancer cells bile duct cancer cells pancreatic cancer cells so many different lines of cancer cells all responded to t h c or synthetic cannabinoids that activate these receptors and so it really suppressed activity was very effective you know for killing off these cancer cells but this was all done in cell cultures and in some in animals and so what you have to do to see if that's really translates into a human population is look at population studies epidemiological studies and what we see when we look at those studies is uh... with bladder cancer there was a study with anything was about forty five thousand male subjects from kaiser in southern california and this study found that marijuana smokers have a significant about a forty five percent reduction in the risk of developing bladder cancer compared to people who don't smoke marijuana they also found that the risk is increased by using tobacco is lowered in marijuana smokers almost to baseline almost to normal in other words marijuana protects tobacco smokers almost completely from developing bladder cancer and so and then you look at the tashkin study where he was going to prove once and for all down in uh... uh... u c l a that smoking marijuana causes lung cancer that heavy marijuana smoking has to cause lung cancer how else could you know what else could it do they did the study this state of the art population study believes about thousand subjects and they found that marijuana smokers regular chronic marijuana smokers have up to a thirty seven percent reduction in the likelihood of developing lung cancer compared to non smokers so uh... there was a study that found uh... marijuana smokers have up to a sixty three percent reduction in the likelihood of developing head and neck cancers there is a study that found uh... kaiser uh... here in san francisco that marijuana smokers have significant protection from developing lymphomas so we see that there is solid evidence in the human population to support the preclinical data that shows anti cancer activity from cannabinoids and we've also seen that the rise of cbd which is uh... become a popular uh... cannabinoid for use in research and what it does is unlike t h c it does not bind to the cannabinoid receptors but i like in it to an orchestra conductor because it's a really amazing compound cbd is so amazing because it says t h c we're moving you a little bit away from the first receptor to the second receptor and we want you to work over here and it says uh... to other receptors we're gonna tone down your activity level or we're going to increase it it and so it's sort of like the conductor of an orchestra saying okay we need some wood winds up here bring the brass down strings we're gonna need you right here and it really has this overarching homeostatic regulation of so many systems in our bodies through all these different types of receptors that it's fairly mind-blowing t h c in cbd together seem to work better than a part so it's not a question anymore that cannabis has anti tumor activities and there's some evidence that certain types of chemotherapy that don't have a really effective uh... response in patients work better when you include cannabinoids with them that it's like the t h c in the cbd go in and uh... sort of soften up the uh... cancer cells and get them ready for the attack and then also protect the healthy cells create something of a shield that shields them from damage from the chemotherapy so this is a really amazing field that we're seeing and uh... i think it's really going to blow our minds and the people who have been against cannabis are going to have a lot to answer for and a lot of shame and maya culpas so another area i'd like to talk about is neuro protection that's really fascinating with cannabis you know because you know for years we were told it kills your brain cells why do you think they call it dope it makes you stupid it ruins your ambition it takes you down it uh... you know it wrecks your cognition you can't use marijuana it's one of the worst things you can do for your brain and this is the real irony of it is the researchers who have been doing the studies on this have found just the opposite cannabis using cannabis regularly is one of the best things you can do for the health of your brain and this data kind of came about because while manuel guzman was looking at what happens with brain cancer and how the uh... cannabinoids thc and the synthetic cannabinoids go in there and kill off the brain tumors the glioblastoma cells they noticed as i said a moment ago that there was some protection for the healthy cells they seem to be in a better condition in the presence of these cannabinoids than they were before so they initiated research into what happens in the brain and how cannabinoids affect brain cells and how they create these really positive responses within the brain and basically it comes down to the underlying causes of brain damage are inflammation uh... harmful inflammation abnormal oxidation and uh... immune dysfunction so what we have is a situation where you can either with brain damage you either have uh... from a genetic component because you have a gene that uh... uh... has faulty transcription of certain proteins which aggravate the uh... structure of the brain and interfere with certain neurotransmitters or receptors or else you can have it from an insult to the brain which can come from an injury a head injury or um... a toxic toxic exposure or certain types of infection and um... these are the primary sources of brain injury and what's fascinating is that cannabis really benefits all of these areas and protects the brain from all of these types of damage so you you have your brain your brain is really a dynamic and amazing organic organized amazingly organized uh... unit cells and electrical impulses and neurotransmitters and enzymes and all of these compounds that work together in a very delicate specific balance and when something gets out of kilter it tends to throw other things in the brain out of kilter and start these chain reactions so the uh... the underlying causes inflammation that can come because of uh... toxicity from bad genetics producing bad proteins in the brain as i said it can come from uh... insult from toxins poisons carbon monoxide uh... other insecticides have certain toxic reactions in the brain and um... oxidation is is uh... abnormal oxidation oxy it's uh... sort of reactive oxygen that is harmful and throws everything out of whack damages the brain uh... and then you have your immune dysfunction in which you have immune cells in the brain and they become dysregulated and begin to attack other cells in the brain and harm certain areas of the brain these all play together and play off of one another and it's hard to tease them apart what causes what because your inflammation will trigger you know an immune response and this immune response gets out of hand because of the inflammation and then that you get oxidation because of the toxicity and so it's this whole mishmash of misery and suffering that comes from the stimuli and cannabis has amazing effects against them uh... in all timers disease what we tend to see is inflammation and uh... perhaps from genes there's a bad there's a bad uh... snipping of a protein in the segment is toxic when it's not uh... transcribed right when the proteins not snipped uh... right because of a genetic problem it becomes very toxic it's a bait called beta amyloid and it gathers in plaques in the brain and this plaque causes inflammation and it's also toxic to the cells with uh... to the nerves within the brain cells and it disrupts them and causes them to tangle and get confused and so then you get the uh... immune system in the brain the immune cells the uh... glial response and what happens with that microglia they get over excited and they start attacking the brain and damaging the brain and then you have the oxidation and as i've said this all plays together and it's hard to know what causes what i spent like three days watching john hopkins you tubes and trying to figure out what causes what couldn't figure it out called a neurologist and he says well you can't figure it out because we don't know uh... you know it's not clear what the a b c of this but it it is uh... a reaction that uh... cannabis can attenuate there was research from the scripts institute and they found that t h c is uniquely effective at disrupting the enzyme that causes the toxicity of this amyloid this beta amyloid protein so it inhibits the production of the toxic protein and it also it's like a scrubbing bubble goes in and breaks up the plaque that enter that interferes with nerve transmission because of these um... this toxic protein that gathers and it tends to reduce the formation of the tangles of nerves within the brain cells so it's react it's working at to prevent the damage to stop the damage and to even correct the damage because cannabinoids have been shown to trigger adult hippocampal neurogenesis which is the production of healthy functional new brain cells yes t h c c b d seem to produce new brain cells that can replace the damaged ones this is pretty big news uh... after we've been told that t h c is you know brain cell killer and all of this nonsense we've been brainwashed with to find out that the opposite is in fact true that uh... t h c shields brain cells and triggers the production of healthy functional new ones yeah and so this has been shown to uh... you know this has been shown as i said in cell cultures and and rat and uh... animal models and they've also shown that the use of cannabinoids in rats and mice they either can breed them so that they have these cognitive deficits or else they use uh... certain chemicals that they inject that cause the same type of damage that you see in alzheimer's disease and then they test them with uh... mazes and cognitive tests and they find that after administering cannabinoids to them they have a significant improvement in their cognitive ability that's great because we have this wave of dementia that's facing us the tsunami of dementia and it's going to be hugely expensive for the health care structure of the united states it's going to cause so much misery and heartache alzheimer's is possibly one of the worst diseases there is the loss of self and consciousness while the body remains essentially viable is just a disaster and miserable and horrible and anything we can do to stop that is it's really our duty to do it if you know someone with a family history of alzheimer's they need to be using cannabis they don't have to get stoned they don't have to get high but they need to be introducing these compounds in their body on a regular basis they can use a tincture or a low dose edibles or capsules but gary wink who did a lot of this research at the university of ohio uh... with his companion his uh... collaborator uh... yannick marshalant who's in france they collaborate between marci france and ohio and uh... actually wink says that you know it's really remarkable that people what what cannabinoids do for the aging brain it stops this it's the only thing they found that works in the aging brain to reduce neuro inflammation other things work in youthful brains but to really attenuate inflammation in the aging brain is the key and cannabinoids do it and they do it very effectively so his uh... colleague marshalant coined the motto a puff is enough because one puff of marijuana a day is enough to offer significant protection for the aging brain from age-related dementia diseases and i think we really need to get that out there there's no reason people can't use cannabis to protect themselves from Alzheimer's no reason whatsoever so other near the interesting thing about neurological diseases is that they seem to have these common components of oxidation inflammation and um... immune dysfunction they take place in either different parts of the brain or at different rates uh... and so you have different syndromes that uh... manifest themselves from all of these uh... degenerating effects and another one that's really really uh... becoming a problem is parkinson's disease uh... it's got a large number of people who are suffering from it in our country and you know michael j fox jannet reno sad irony for jannet reno who refused to call a moratorium to the arrest of AIDS patients who use medical marijuana but uh... maybe she's wised up and is helping herself now so parkinson's disease is an impairment of specific brain cells uh... dopam monergic neurons uh... it impairs the ability of neurotransmitters to relay signals it affects coordination and stability and causes tremors and there have been positive effects uh... from a drug called satavex that's being produced from whole cannabis plants that they have found it really does help to stop some of this inflammation excitotoxicity and what's called uh... mitochondrial dysfunction where the mitochondria energy producers of the cells are not able to produce energy and so what we have to look at is with some of these uh... ailments is so you have your cb1 and your cb2 receptor and some ailments respond better to cb1 stimulation some respond better to cb2 stimulation with minimal cb1 stimulation and researching parkinson's disease i found it works both ways you know cb1 stimulation with thc has benefit but then cb2 stimulation without so much cb1 uh... stimulation with a cannabinoid called thcv also has benefit so if you have parkinson's and this is the terrible thing about the repression of research in human subjects with cannabis we don't know we can't sit here and tell you what to do what to use how much when you're gonna have to wing it and the same thing with many of these other ailments is you're gonna have to try different strains and find out which one works in which delivery method for you and you can talk you know network with other other parkinson's disease patients and see what they found and this is the great benefit of dispensaries because the dispensaries allow for consistent constant access to medicine that works for patients once they find out what works they can continue to receive it and uh... you don't get that from a dealer a dealer you know you get what what they got and so we really need to encourage uh... support for dispensaries and up in washington state that's one of the problems with legalization is they're trying to get rid of the dispensaries to funnel people into making money for the commercial tax you know cannabis distribution system and i think that's terrible patients need to have dispensaries that are dedicated to medical use because the staff knows how to counsel the patients and steer them to what might help they're really good resources for this so it's hard to say you know what to use for parkinson's disease there is effects you know there are effects excuse me and there is a reason to rely on it and you want to turn to it and see what works if you think you could benefit from it you know i can't recommend but i can say that if it were me i would start trying some forms of cannabis and seeing what really helps there's no need to wait for the fda to approve you know sat of x i mean i think they'll be benefit for having pharmaceutical cannabinoid products because doctors are going to want to give people exact doses that work for them in exact patterns of cannabinoids that doesn't say that it can't be done for less serious ailments on a community level you know we don't have to pay the inflated rate that big farm is going to charge when we can do it ourselves in our backyard or our friends and families yards so the other element i really wanted to talk about that cannabis is amazing for and this has come out since i published my book i have a little mention of it in there but the data is really quite stunning that's pouring in and that is diabetes diabetes is one of the most pressing health concerns we have in our country uh... the obesity rate is through the roof it's going to cost us so much money in terms of health care because diabetes and obesity you know they're they set up problems with your heart your kidneys your liver your brain you know you're more likely to manifest alzheimer's early with obesity because of the increased inflammation with cancer so this is really amazing amazing fascinating data to me that thc cbd and this really amazing uh... cannabinoid called thc v have powerful anti diabetes activity there was a study uh... done uh... it was the in pain study and it is a huge huge study tens of thousands of subjects over many many years and they published uh... it was two years ago the data that found that regular marijuana smokers have a profound decrease in the likelihood of developing diabetes a really significant level of protection from developing diabetes and research is also found that marijuana smokers are much less likely to be obese and so what you see is this interplay in the met you know metabolit with metabolism and also uh... the whole ability of the body to process sugar so what we see is in type one diabetes which is a more genetic autoimmune disease uh... it looks like cannabinoids can delay the onset of type one diabetes and decrease the severity of the onset of type one diabetes uh... preserving what happens is uh... you have your insulin producing cells in the pancreas and the body turns on them and starts to kill them off and cannabinoids slow or stop that that activity and can preserve some of the function of the insulin cells in the pancreas and then with type two diabetes you see before when if someone's in uh... has metabolic syndrome and starts using cannabis it really looks like this can delay the progression to full diabetes and if you're using cannabis and you have a family history of diabetes there's a pretty good chance you can avoid or delay uh... diabetes it really is uh... quite amazing because once again you see this influence of inflammation oxidation and immune dysfunction that cannabinoids address and attenuate they adjust they uh... calm it all down they bring it to where it should be they bring it back to a homeostatic balance they make everything harmonious and so with diabetes you get less what happens is the with diabetes you can't process your blood sugar you don't have the insulin you're not taking up the uh... energy from the sugar into the cells and using it so the glucose circulates glucose is very very toxic it causes damage to cells that's why your body wants to use it get you know get it out of the blood use it and balance things out so you start to see terrible terrible damage to uh... nerve cells organ cells from this inflammation that comes from glucose toxicity and then oxidation cannabis shields us from that it really can protect us and so what's really promising and wonderful is not only do you have with the diabetes protection from developing diabetes uh... a delay in the development of diabetes but for people who are already diabetic cannabinoids like thc can work to prevent diabetic retinopathy what you get is you know a toxification and damage to the um... the optic nerve from the glucose uh... inflammation and so you see that cannabis stops that it you know attenuates it and it significantly reduces the threat of going blind from diabetes it also preserves nerve function and circulation and uh... so you're gonna have less risk of losing a limb having amputation and uh... diabetics are increased risk for cancer it's gonna dial that down and help protect diabetics from developing various cancers so it's just you know with this disease this terrible terrible disease and all the misery it causes and the expense and the uh... you know the harm that it does one's daily life having to monitor your sugar and inject yourself worry if you're going to go into a coma and have a candy bar and juice or whatever handy you know to really prevent this or delay it and to alleviate this kind of misery from our society i think is imperative upon us and we really need to be proactive in promoting cannabis use and uh... encouraging people to use it for their health uh... i've said and i'll before and i'll say it again and i'm gonna keep saying it adult marijuana use equals health positive behavior you're not going to get away from that the data is not going to turn around it's not going to change we're just going to see more and more of this health preserving health uh... improving behavior because this is what is at the root the foundation of so many illnesses inflammation oxidation immune dysfunction it's like the trunk of a tree you know you've got your bark your cambria your heart would well you got inflammation oxidation and immune dysfunction that's the trunk of your tree and then what you have your branches your branches are cancer uh... dementia alzheimer's parkinson's huntington's disease uh... arthritis all of these type of illnesses uh... diabetes metabolic syndrome even you know glaucoma they all are branches that really uh... extend off the tree of inflammation oxidation and immune dysfunction and cannabis really works to encourage proper balance in the body to attenuate these and bring them back to the level because we need these uh... we need the process of inflammation as part of healing but when it goes out of whack it causes a lot of damage oxidation it's a valuable process we need that too but out of whack it's a problem so that's one thing to keep in mind is that's how it works for years we were told that we're crazy we just get high and don't think about that we're suffering medical marijuana couldn't possibly work for such a broad range of ailments it's a delusion but now we know it's the endocannabinoid system our own cannabinoid system our internal cannabinoids that we generate and then the plant cannabinoids from marijuana that we can ingest take into our bodies that amplify the health preserving health reclaiming effects of our own natural cannabinoids it's a supplement it's a tonic and that's what it's doing i think that uh... we need uh... some last thoughts before i wrap this up we need to think about legalization as uh... uh... moral justice a human justice uh... project and not for tax you know to increase tax revenue uh... this is a moral moral cause it is to free people there is no reason on earth white people who enjoy using marijuana or benefit from using marijuana who enjoy growing marijuana or who distribute marijuana there's no reason these people should be arrested and taken into custody and have their lives ruined for uh... dealing with this incredibly beneficial plant that is not only as i've said far less harmful than alcohol but far more beneficial uh... it's a it's a sin it's it's just terrible to wreck someone's life and they said oh well you know very few people go to jail for marijuana well that's because they're forced into treatment but even getting arrested for it increases your level of stress it takes away from your physical reserves your monetary savings because you have to hire a lawyer you might lose your job it stresses your relationship every aspect of your life it puts in stress stress produces inflammation and it produces excitotoxicity in the brain and so keeping someone from using cannabis and then by by imprisoning them or arresting them it's carcinogenic you know it's neuro uh... it's a neurodegenerative act it causes neurodegenerative actions and it's harmful it hurts people it damages their health and the irony is you cause all the stress in people who are maybe using cannabis to treat themselves to lower their chances for developing diseases by attenuating stress you take the cannabis away you put more stress in their lives and then you make them go to these programs where they have to they're in conflict because they have to pair these lies the treatment center demands to get out of the center with a clean bill of so-called health that's just wrong it's wrong in every level the other thing i want to talk about is driving laws driving laws per se driving laws have no foundation with cannabis that means that if you have a certain level of thc in your blood you're guilty of driving while impaired that's not going to hold up the only way to work with cannabis and problems in driving is to test people for impairment and use that as a way to prevent harm on the roads there's when you have you know when you're using cannabis for pleasure or for medicine you're going to have residual cannabinoids in your blood that may go over the level that the some states have said it like it at one mill one microgram whatever it is nanogram nanogram that's it sorry one nanogram which is you know you can get that i think by getting second hand smoke and they're going to charge you and through in jail for impaired driving driving while under the influence and there's no basis for that there's no we have to fight this push to use uh... per se marijuana driving laws to stop people from using marijuana that's the goal of this it's not to make the road safer it's another way that the authoritarians can stop marijuana use there was a study that was published in the job journal of law and economics that found in medical marijuana states there was a significant decrease in traffic accident deaths following implementation of medical marijuana laws uh... nine percent about average of nine percent drop in traffic accident fatalities and it was primarily due to a displacement of alcohol use but there is even a little bit of evidence that showed it was independent of that and that is because people who use cannabis either refused to drive when they're very high or they drive far more carefully than someone who's on alcohol uh... they're aware of their impairment actually uh... study found that people who are high on cannabis and asked to drive over estimate their level of impairment and are very cautious slow down and don't pass and uh... do not have the same type of risk that alcohol uh... consumption causes and so we can't there's no reason to punish people who enjoy cannabis by using traffic laws that don't make the roads any safer anyone who's driving impaired and causes trouble you know harm someone kill someone lock them up punishment but you know there's no reason to punish the innocent uh... because of misguided values in a lab test other aspect is youthful use i personally don't think young people teens should be using cannabis i had a couple people come up to me once we're really accomplished professionals and said you know i disagree i used it when i was fourteen fifteen and it opened up curiosity about the world and my intellectual uh... my desire for intellectual exploration and i really think it helped who i am but i just really think that it can be a distraction for teens they can get to involved in it when they're really need to be learning it's the time where they need to be finding out who they are where their skills lie where their proclivities for you know uh... having uh... job skills are and developing those and if you get you know they have less ability to modulate their behavior in terms of marijuana use than adults do their more likely to get kind of obsessed with it and uh... i think it can be a real distraction from maturation so that's the reason i don't think that there's a lot of proof of the IQ drop that the study there was a study that showed IQ drop among teens who are very heavy users of cannabis that was refuted the refutation was refuted and then the refutation has been refuted so you know i don't think there's a lot of evidence but i just i don't think it's really necessarily great for teen brains it could be that there's a evidence that an adults who use cannabis have increased functional connectivity in the brain and in teens there's a point which all these connections branch out and they have to be brought back maybe the increase in functional connectivity inhibits the ability of the teen brain to sort of dial it back and tighten it up i don't know but i just think that uh... it'd be better for teens to delay it till they're eighteen or twenty uh... there's also evidence that they had net cancer protection really kicks in at age twenty for marijuana smokers but i don't think that teens need to be lied to and abused and locked up necessarily for using cannabis if they're getting good grades and they have a good social life and you find out they're using some talk about it be a parent uh... and that's what it comes down to keeping kids off marijuana is the parents responsibility i shouldn't have to go to jail because you aren't doing effective parenting it's the parents who are going to make the difference and my parents were networked and they knew who i was and what i was doing when i was a kid and kept constant you know contact with that and i wasn't able to use marijuana till i was seventeen so the last thing i'd like to say is that marijuana reduces our chances for developing cancer reduces our chances for developing dementia reduces our chances for developing diabetes it reduces our chances for developing a number of other inflammation based illnesses it makes eating pleasurable sleeping wonderful sex transcendent it makes going to a museum a revelation and uh... i think we should promote it responsible marijuana use in order to improve the health of our society and that promoting marijuana use is an act of love tell your loved ones and your friends that they can use cannabis they don't have to smoke they don't have to get high but they can really acquire some significant health protection by using cannabis thank you very much questions and if you have questions and if you could write them down and then pass them over in between this we want somebody uh... an aide from senator lennon's office is here and she'd like to say a few words to clinton hi everyone good evening uh... my name is anna i'm here from senator lennon as ruth said and i just want to say thank you to clinton and i do have a little certificate of recognition for him because it's very important uh... to acknowledge the work of people that help all of us and his work obviously will go a long way to continue a very important conversation and the medical field and then in humanity and it's the beginning i think ways of how we can change the world for everyone and make it a better place for everyone to live and so with that i have a certificate of recognition for you acknowledging you on the publication of your book and thanking you for all your work and helping to make a better life for so many people uh... for once in my life i am speechless that's an anomaly i have an envelope for you i just want to say thank you thank you so much for this honor this is really a complete surprise and i just want to acknowledge uh... senator mark lennon's work in this he's been with us from the beginning he never shied away from working for medical marijuana because he saw what the aids crisis did to people how it affected the gay community and the broader community the whole city of san francisco and the world and he saw what marijuana did for aids patients and learned what it did for other patients and he didn't neglect to act like so many other representatives have or very disappointing he took it up and he fought for it and he's worked to implement prop two fifteen and to defend it and to expand it and i think that we should all give a salute to mark lennon com's also been there too we'll do as many as we can we do have a time factor so okay um... what is your opinion of low t h c high cbd strains of cannabis great question so cbd is the cannabinoid that doesn't have psychoactive effects as such might give a sense of well-being you know just a little sense of well-being but not the psychoactive effects of t h c uh... and it's been used it's being used in seizure disorders i think you've seen with dr gupta uh... with children and so i think it's great to have uh... high cbd low t h c uh... strains because there's going to be ailments for which this is uniquely suited but the problem i have is that there are some people who want to do this sort of manikin uh... approach to t h c and and cbd t h c bad cbd good and that's invalid you know that's this re for madness attitude circulating through again because t h c is not bad t h c has profound anti tumor effects pretend found neuroprotective effects profound uh... immune modulatory effects cbd can amplify that uh... and cbd has its own properties where it might just need a little t h c for certain ailments that's what we have to research and learn and uh... but yeah i think it's great that we have cbd i think it's wonderful it's changing the whole conversation about cannabis completely changing the nature of the discussion how do i see how do i see the industry going forward will the current dispensary model prevail will the fed step in and allow only big farm to dominate the space i think that's what the feds want to do i think that we're going to have to make sure that doesn't happen it's up to us and you know the more people who don't know this information that you convey it to and bring into the you know circle of cannabis healing the better off we're going to be in terms of building a bulwark against federal intervention i love the dispensary model i hope it stays uh... if it transforms into you know uh... more social use recreational use hybrid with it where they still keep the medical emphasis i don't have a problem with that you know if they're also selling uh... marijuana for social reasons but i really think that the dispensaries are so valuable for educating people and for making a broad range of products that was uh... i'd be in mcpeak who uh... established uh... seattle hip fest asked me to write an opinion piece about the attempt by the alcohol control board in uh... washington to squash medical marijuana and move everybody to commercial taxable marijuana and you know it's it's misguided that that idea is wrong we really need to preserve the medical use uh... for its own good uh... there's so many products that don't get you high topical we have uh... look into these topical for pain topical sprays topical bombs tinctures that you can take t h c a tincture it's not psychoactive it's a form raw form of t h c that's not been heated you smoke it you bake it it gets you high if you take it without heating it to a certain level it doesn't get you high but has its own type of anti-disease properties and i just don't think that the recreational social dispensaries stores are going to want us dedicate shelf space to cannabis products that don't get you high that's why we need to keep dispensaries what is the correlation between cannabis use and heart disease interestingly there's studies that showed very very very ultra low doses of t h c offer significant protection for the health of the heart the brain and the liver those are the ones they've looked at and uh... you're going to see it also for the colon the pancreas because it's the same process this reduction of inflammation oxidation and the problem with marijuana smoking is you do get carbon monoxide if you're using cannabis and you have heart disease already have heart disease you're going to want to vaporize or do tinctures you're not going to want to smoke because there are harmful gases in marijuana smoke they're carcinogenic and they're hard on the heart muscle but the great thing is that the cannabinoids t h c and probably some of the other components the terpenes in marijuana block the harmful effects of the uh... smoke so that you still get some benefit that if you take the smoke out of the equation and vaporize you're just getting the good how far have we come with regards to nursing home well god uh... patients being routinely medicated i don't you know as the sad i know that there is a really big figure in the cannabis movement who's uh... written books on cultivation as a brother who has all timers and he's in assisted nursing home living and they will not let them give him cannabis they will not allow it and it's insane and i have parents who are in nursing home in north carolina and my mother has all timers i know it could help her how am i going to do it you know what i'm going to go to prison in north carolina now uh... you know so it's very hard to try and they're not going there and you know they're not going to allow it to be distributed so more work to be done more education and uh... outreach we have to convince people of the truth and very refer madness yeah well you know and you might have seen on gupto they had the people in israel who are in the nursing home and we're using it and it's been official it helps it helps with the suffering it helps with mood you know it provides a levity oh yeah it's been for a serious hospice care especially in place like the bay area it's pretty well been tolerated for a while uh... are there adverse consequences that marijuana can have on memory any other long-term cut there's you know heavy-duty cannabis use has been shown to impair uh... short-term memory uh... but it recovers once one stops also the people who are regular constant chronic cannabis users uh... adapt to it and do not seem to have uh... uh... effects i think a lot of that is distraction with you you know especially when you're first getting high it's sort of that oh wow uh... colors everything the insight the uh... you know you'll everything's inspiring an amazing in your senses are just opened up and you know it's distracting you where i put my keys oh god i'm so high word i leave my key you know so it but you don't you either you you know if you're a regular cannabis user medical or for uh... social reasons you develop coping behaviors and you don't have those spacey moments i i'll put my memory recall up against pretty much anyone i'm you know i just uh... i i i do think that you know it's it's it's a little distraction and uh... the interesting thing is that your long-term memory is preserved by using cannabis and enhanced you know if you're dialing back this narrow inflammation you're doing good uh... let's see uh... yeah well i mentioned this about the development of the brain you know gary wink who's pro marijuana for alzheimer says that before fifteen there are problems the developing brain is much different than the adult brain and cannabis uh... has an impact on it how severe is not clear but uh... i know that uh... arresting some kid for cannabis and take him to youth detention is not really going to be good for their psyche or their development the other thing is that legal marijuana that's tested and you know certified free of toxins is healthier if it's diverted to teenagers then black market marijuana because pesticides that are used on marijuana are far more harmful for neuro cognition then is the marijuana itself so black market marijuana that's been sprayed with these pesticides that really actually interrupt cannabinoid receptor activity and damage the brain are far more different uh... you know dangerous so if marijuana is being diverted from a dispensary or a store to teenagers it is some level of harm reduction but you know put in laws that if you get an adult who's providing cannabis to fourteen fifteen-year-olds hammer them i mean i'm sorry maybe that's the only law you know maybe not the first time but if you have someone who's doing that maybe that's the only ought to retain with regard to cannabis you know use is to discourage people from providing it to very young kids for you know might be for nefarious reasons i remember the song have some madera my dear you know i wanted her to have madera uh... what is your opinion of low ugly recycle okay i hear that cannabis is good for are great sickle cell anemia thank you how does it work for this condition well my spouse donald abrams who is one of the only people researching whole cannabis use in human beings on earth is looking to do a study with uh... sickle cell patients with uh... doctor all look who's here polka so we have a doctor group uh... uh... uh... so he's he's uh... collaborating with a doctor who has uh... done research in a animal model of sickle cell and uh... what i learned that i didn't know is sickle cell is where your blood cells are misshapen instead of being round and disc like their warped and they gather up in the joints and in the narrow part of the circulatory system in cause pain but what i didn't know is that another problem with it is as they move through the body because they're not this nice smooth spherical shape they were against the vessels in the body and rubbing against the vessels creates irritation which creates these inflammatory compounds that are so harmful to the body cytokines and such and so then you get the circulation of these inflammatory compounds which causes uh... neurological problems more nerve problems uh... makes you more susceptible to diabetes and cancer so it's not just the physical uh... activity of the clumping of the blood cells it's actually this irritation this inflammation it creates and of course marijuana reduces inflammation really effectively so thank you very much for that question uh... for bringing that up and hopefully donald will be able to do the study and get some good results and there's been some resistance to legalizing marijuana in the african commitment american community because some people within the community see it as a way of keeping uh... black folks down sort of the idea that you know with uh... crack cocaine being introduced into minority communities and i don't that you know that's necessarily valid i think we need to open discussions about that see let people know that it can be a benefit you know that people with sickle cell could really benefit from this so that might turn some of the hostility to legalization around uh... dispensaries uh... don't allow anyone without a physician's prescription to purchase there uh... um... anyone what's the just should that change is that the question i'm not sure what they well let me tell you yeah it's true you need not a prescription but a letter of recommendation from a physician practicing physician so what i encourage people to do you know these it i'm sorry idiot doctors who are so hostile and fearful of recommending marijuana when it's one of the best things they can suggest for their patients you know it's bad medicine they're practicing bad medicine kaiser i think is really hostile to writing any letter but there are doctors who you can go to you take your paperwork for your ailment and you present it to them and they will write you a letter that you can use you don't have to get the car just use your letter you don't need to get into the state system pay more money but uh... doctor steven ellis has an office down at union square he's a wonderful physician he's a wonderful guy i recommend him i think there's a doctor barth in the east bay that people talk about you know i think you can go to the back of one of the uh... san francisco weekly and these are the people that are opponents decry they call them script doctors because they'll write out a prescription for you foreign you know you tell them your complaint maybe you show them your paperwork and they'll give you uh... not a prescription but a recommendation i think they're great i think they're wonderful because they're making marijuana available to people who need it they're going around these cowardly doctors who are practicing bad medicine and people chris as well what about the young men who use marijuana they get their letter and they just use it to protect them so that they you know can go and buy marijuana you know what it kind of a health risk and threat being arrested for marijuana is you using a letter to keep from getting arrested from marijuana is help positive behavior you know it it's reducing your likelihood for developing disease and it's certainly preventing you from sinking into a terribly miserable state uh... so i say that the dispensaries uh... are great the doctors who write easy uh... recommendations are great let's use them so yeah if you know someone here can help you i'm not taking questions from the audience but ellis el l i s and he's been a really big uh... promoter of reform in medical marijuana for years and years since you know the real beginning of it uh... and bodies produced in my senior gravest you know i couldn't find anything about that uh... that was the one neurological disease that i couldn't find any information on cannabis for i'd i suspect it would help because you know they're similar uh... degenerative processes going on uh... i can't i'm not a doctor i can't recommend anyone with it use it but there should be some research done and i'm gonna go back to pub med and double-check that because it was a few months ago when i did check that we have the pub med if you really wanna see what's happening you can keep up with me on facebook or whatever uh... i have a website that's kind of tenuous now it got hacked and uh... attacked by viagra cialis promotions uh... so it's kind of being rebuilt now uh... but my website marijuana gateway to health dot com i put a lot of things up there recent studies on face book marijuana gateway to health page clinton warner page but pub med if you go to pub med and you can type in cannabis comma whatever disease and a lot of studies are going to come up in there pretty scholarly but you might be able to get an idea and um... you know don't overwhelm me but if you know if you don't get it send it to me and maybe i can help interpret it uh... so yeah there's not really much about that yet that i've seen my son has grabbed it but like i said these syndromes all have similar you know degenerative origins uh... please elaborate on the refutation of the new zealand studies uh... okay the new zealand study uh... was done there's there's a whole group of people in australian new zealand who are sort of authoritarian paranoid about marijuana and they throw a lot of money into trying to produce results that show it's harmful and sometimes are really dishonest i mean i it's it's sad to say but they're very dishonest at times about this and so this study came out and it said that uh... teens who smoke marijuana heavily heavily heavily have a significant drop in their iq and my thought is well they shouldn't be smoking it heavily where the parents how can you smoke it heavily if you have good parenting um... and then there was a researcher uh... ross rossberger someone from i believe sweden or scandinavian countries and he uh... he read he refuted it he said that they hadn't uh... counted for you know variables in economic background and social uh... standing and education and that they had really not accounted for these variables and that the there was no validity to the results on iq drop then the uh... people who did the study responded to him and said oh but we did this and that and that's why it's valid and then he responded and said uh... yeah well you may have accounted for that but you didn't account for this and you're still wrong so it's just a back and forth and i think it comes down to uh... kids shouldn't smoke marijuana young kids and they should be prevented from it by their parents primarily and the culture at large you know their parents friends have a network of parents who are keeping an eye on the kids get off your devices and parent uh... i think eighteen is generally uh... i mean i'm you know i don't think people should be like i said if they're if it you know don't panic if they're younger and they're getting high occasionally and they still got good grades and their you know socially interactions social interactions and let me see real quick and uh... clint is going to be signing books if you want to buy a book or go back and talk to him or answer some of the questions uh... have your questions answered uh... clint will be in the back signing books and will be able to talk to different people so i want to thank clint this was incredible thank you all for coming we hope to see you again soon thank you all i really appreciate you coming this made that made it wonderful to have so many people turn out