A Conversation about Cannabis-Melanie Gardener Henry

While in school to be a drug and alcohol counselor, Melanie found herself in the doctor's office with severe complications with her back from a car accident. The doctor told Melanie there might be another option, but it wasn't available in their state.

That conversation started Melanie on a path to finding healing with cannabis. Melanie is passionate about sharing her personal story and what science has to say about using cannabis.

Connect with Melanie

Transcript

Amber: [00:00:00] So you practice reiki, teach it as well

Melanie: I'm math teacher, so I have, I do teach and I do reiki sessions. I started doing that about 2005. And I'm also a certified cannabis educator. I also have a degree in drug and alcohol counseling. So there's this 23 year story of how I got where I am. . I had a car accident on October 6th, 1999. My son was five months old, my daughter was three. I left my daughter, which I never did. I was I just didn't with a friend to go get some groceries and I was in a pretty severe accident.

I was rear ended by someone who was inebriated . I had stopped at a stop light and I had put my arm on the steering wheel and my right leg just stretching, unaware that the person behind me didn't know I was there. She hit me so hard that I don't know if you know that your collarbone is actually a joint.[00:01:00] And it pulled my collarbone almost completely ripped it out of the joint. I have massive trauma to the right side of my body. It compressed my pelvis. It just kind of twisted it and pushed it back. I broke my back And I didn't know it at the time. Not all backbreaking is immediately debilitating.

All I knew was we were hit very hard. I panicked because my baby was in the backseat, flew out. He was screaming it, it fractured his ribs and. Then we went to the doctor and the doctor was like, we need to do x-rays. I was nursing at the time. The baby was my son. He's actually 23 now.

He's perfectly fine. He suffered from some minor fractures in his ribs. But that day forever changed my life. And at the time I thought it was the worst thing that ever happened to me. And [00:02:00] 23 years later, it was the beginning of my awakening and my healing. 

Amber: I'm imagining, cuz I've had some severe car accidents like that.

I just imagining the terror that you had for this baby not probably even thinking about your own injuries, which it probably contributed to your injuries, 

Melanie: Oh the adrenaline, is just surging through you in such a way that you don't realize until about an hour later. The pains, once the adrenaline starts wearing off, like my eyelashes hurts, ,everything hurts so bad.

 I was I was like we were fine. It didn't total my car. You know, all the things that you think of that qualify as a bad accident. It was this moment in time that just fractured everything, but it also opened me up. So this is 1999. I was in. I was in a crap marriage and didn't realize it.

I was raised in a very religious community. I was taught to believe certain things, so I was trying to do the things, but I [00:03:00] also had to start doing physical therapy. I started working with people who were like, you're not even connected to your body. You're just living outside here because of all this emotional stuff.

So I started doing the work of what do I want? It never occurred to me. I don't think at that point, very few people had even asked me that question or how I felt. And all of these people surrounding me are how do you feel? What brings you joy? And I was really confused at first. I was like, is that important ? We get trapped in our trauma sometimes and we don't even know. . 

Then in 2001 my, I had filed for divorce. It became very clear to me that I was dying in the situation. Emotionally, mentally, it was not okay. My kids were not okay. Within that first year after I was divorced every three months. I ended up having a major back surgery because the L five S one joint in my back was the disc had ruptured I was walking [00:04:00] across the floor one morning and I ended up flat on my face and the disc had actually ruptured.

I couldn't feel my right leg. They told my mother when they finally got me out of my apartment and to the hospital and got my kids okay, that I had a 20% chance of ever feeling my leg again, my right leg. And I underwent the first of four back surgeries where I had a discectomy. There's this minuscule chance after you have a discectomy that it can happen again.

And every time it happens, the risk goes down. That same disc ruptured three times. So they finally Put an H cage in my spine and four screws to help stabilize. By this time I was on 13 medications. I was taking everything from Oxy and methadone to benzo, diazepam, antidepressant.

I don't remember a two year span of those. I've seen [00:05:00] pictures and at first it was like, I don't remember any of that, but I was so drugged because I grew up in a family where I had a handicapped brother. You believe what the doctors tell you.

The doctor tells you to take the pill. You take the pill, it's supposed to make you better, right? ? Sometimes the doctors don't always look at us as a body mind, and spirit. and some of the things that were broken were not just my physical body, it was the emotional side. So I just happened to be out in the world and I met these women, these amazing women at a wellness fair. We had this very intuitive conversation that she's telling me all these things about my body and my life that she shouldn't know. I've never met her. And they're like we do reiki and my little brother had attended Shriners Hospital and they actually have some Reiki facilitators there.

Clear Park in the nineties , before it was popular, so I started in 2004 or five, I decided that I was going to go take [00:06:00] myself off of all the pills. I wasn't doing that anymore, which please do not do without medical help. I was very lucky that I survived the process, but I decided that I'd had this awakening and my life was changing and I was going to do whatever it took to make it better.

So I became a Reiki master and very dangerously over the course of a week, took myself off of my own medications, but my brain started to clear up. I could think again and have clear thoughts. It was another huge shift because the energy work that I was doing and these beautiful women that I had met who had helped me learn were helping my body heal.

Amber: So this reconnection, cuz you talked earlier about how you were so disassociated in the car accident from how you felt then moving now to making this connection

Melanie: I was feeling I wasn't just existing or numb to everything I was experiencing.

And I had these two mentors [00:07:00] that I was working with at the time and I ended up working at their salon wellness center for a few years. I did reiki sessions, I helped teach Reiki classes. I learned really to connect with my being and be true to myself and put some of the old stories behind.

And over the course of this time I had worked with them for, I think about four or five years. I decided that I was gonna go back to school because at that moment, my thoughts were if we could just get everyone off of their prescription pills, they could be healed. I still wasn't completely a hundred percent but I was the best I had been for years. So I decided to move from my hometown with my two children. And we moved to Twin Falls, Idaho, where I began going to school to become a drug and alcohol counselor because I have this passion for helping people at this point. I've learned I'm an empath and I was just blocking it all because it wasn't allowed in my childhood and it [00:08:00] scared people so I shut it down. 

 So I went to school to be a drug and alcohol counselor. It felt so driven and it felt connected to me. So I started going to school and within About a year and a half of that process. I met my husband, we've been together for almost 11 years and he was going to school.

We're both at this point, like 38 years old, , so we're not young, but we meet each other in college, . And he's had all these experiences. He lived a very different life than I did. He experimented with Psilocybins and cannabis and all the things, whether they were good for him or not. He just thought I wanna experiment with my brain.

So he was really open to these things. During school we got to this place where I took pharmacology of psychoactive drugs as part of the degree process. This class is about, okay, here's drugs and now here's your brain and here's what happens when drugs interact with your brain. The [00:09:00] teacher she had very black and white views on it, which, you know, that's normal. But she really challenged us to do research. And we had a big debate because by this time we're talking about 2010 medical cannabis is coming onto the scene. You know, people are talking about it.

So we had a debate and I asked my husband and I also did a lot of research, and I'm finding that okay, school says it's bad for you, but there's all this research and all these things that it's not, it's healing, it's earth medicine, you know? And my mother had been very ill. She had some episodes we didn't understand.

So I'm also dealing with the fact that my mother has got kidney failure and heart disease and she's not well. So there's all this stress on me and I'm going to school. I'm in a new relationship. I'm single parenting two kids, and like our bodies do, I disconnected a little and I had a [00:10:00] major flare up and I was in denial slash hiding it from everyone around me because I didn't know what to do.

I'd been doing the things, I was taking yoga, I was eating healthy. I was, I thought I was on the right track. And I went to a, the doctor there and the neurologist told me that really on a, from a surgical level, there's nothing that they could do for me. My spine was under so much pressure and strain and damage.

 I've got a list of conditions that are associated that, but essentially my spine was growing closed with bone to protect myself. And she very sweetly put her hand on my shoulder and told me that, honey, in a year you probably will not walk. We can start you on medications and get you a prescription for a wheelchair.

I sobbed, I just cried. Then she said something that doctors in Idaho and such are not allowed to say that there are other options in other states. Unfortunately, I can't help you here. So I went home [00:11:00] and I told my husband, I said, you know, I'm doing everything. I don't know what to do.

And he smiled at me and he said I guess we move to Oregon. Where at this point Oregon had a medical program for cannabis and they were going recreational within a few months. And so it seemed like the universe was telling us, and we decided we broke our lease with our landlords. Within two and a half weeks we were living with my husband's niece in Bend, Oregon, figuring out where we were gonna live and what we were gonna do.

Because at that point it was what's our best option for me to survive if I stay here? Because I have a degree now as a drug and alcohol counselor, and I've done my practicum at putting in all my hours. If I should get arrested for cannabis. I'm looking at 25 years because legalities say I should know better.

So this face does not belong in prison. We went [00:12:00] someplace that we thought we could be safe. Then we spent eight years in Oregon. My husband started working. He did everything from helping companies grow to harvesting. And now he is a major processor. He's a senior processing engineer.

And both of my kids work at a C B D facility here in Utah. So it was another huge shift. I kind of got to spend those years in living in Oz. I got to be surrounded by people who, at my son's high school almost every family grew cannabis. So at one point, the DARE Program brought in a gentleman to speak and the kids booed him off the stage because he was talking about how everybody was gonna die from cannabis and the administration asked him to leave, which is so far removed from what most of our experiences are with cannabis.

And my husband at this point, [00:13:00] he's you know, you have a story to tell. And I'm like yeah, okay, let's just keep getting better. Here we are, almost 10 years later, I still walk. I've lost about 120 pounds from the steroid shots and everything I've done, I'm still not where I want to be completely, but I walk a couple of miles every day in the morning- that's how I start my day, which they said I wouldn't even be able to do. So I found a program online, and I got certified as a cannabis educator because I'm finding that there are so many people in the world who need help, need someone to give them an option other than scary pharmaceuticals and we wanna be in charge of our health.

 Also this spring I will be starting the program and I will be able to around March I will offer cannabis coaching also, because it took me 10 years to figure [00:14:00] out why you couldn't overdose on cannabis. Cuz no one had the answer. They just said you couldn't. So finding out that we have an endocannabinoid system, that we have receptors in our brainstem that work with opioids and within that space is what controls our breathing and our heart rate.

So in that same place, we don't have the opioid or the cannabinoid receptors, the CB one or two. So even if you take silly amounts of cannabis you can't die .Yet I sat in treatment and watched people die from overdoses. So it really changed my own life being able to really feel good again, to be able to have a job to be able to get, to speak to people like you and to tell people my story is so important to me because it was people like me who helped me find wellness.

Amber: Absolutely. I think it's something we don't really [00:15:00] understand. I didn't either. I kind of thought like you originally did or your teachers at your school where, okay, it's just bad. They say it's bad, so it must be bad.

 It was one of my teenagers that challenged me on this. We had this conversation and and they're like, mom,. I really think that cannabis should be legal and here's why. Excellent, articulated, essay on all these studies are out there that show, okay, you can't overdose the kind of pain relief, all these different conditions that there's documentation that it does help it does work.

And it really shifted my perspective. Some parameters and some things to make sure it's safe because depending on the source, it may not be safe. But that it's a really powerful medicine. Absolutely. Absolutely. It is important and like you said, to have those alternatives.

I have a peer level license in recovery coaching. And I think it is important, multiple paths recovery, right? So if someone is in a position like you were , you're in a [00:16:00] car accident, you have a history of addiction, what makes the most sense to help you with that? Does it make sense to give you something that you can overdose and has a high addictive property to it?

Or does it make more sense to use something like cannabis? Super important conversations to have. 

Melanie: And there's so much stigma. We're, you know, my daughter and I, my daughter's a big Titanic fan and funnily enough, it's been 84 years since the Marijuana Attack Act was passed in the United States.

And not only did they make this plant illegal, the American Medical Association, which a lot of people don't understand, they fought like crazy to stop it from happening. They sent their attorney, Mr. Woodward to Congress and he was also a doctor and explained to them that, like you are saying that there's people outside of schools.

I've talked to the school boards. There's no evidence of it. They're saying that, oh, all [00:17:00] of the prisoners in prison at this point are all doped up on cannabis. He talked to the prison systems. It wasn't true. It was a political agenda that forever changed the face of medicine because up until that point , our doctors had been prescribing cannabis for over a hundred years as medicine. We didn't find out about the endocannabinoid system until the 90 because we weren't even allowed to look at, we are allowing our scientists to really. Do the testing and do the experiments and find out, but we went from more of a holistic kind of using plant medicine to a very pharmaceutical, single molecule, synthetic based pharmaceutical companies. Cannabis is not a single molecule.

There are hundreds of [00:18:00] cannabinoids, there are terpenes, there are flavonoids. And they didn't understand it 85 years ago when it was term of problems and they didn't see the addiction. And so I think the biggest thing that we can do is to educate people. Have the conversations. It's been so stigmatized for 85 years that it's black and white in our head yet when we take a minute and we start really reading and do the research and talk to the smart people and the scientists. Really, we've missed out on 84 years of potential scientific advancements also.

Amber: You're right. I might be using the wrong words here, but the way I understand how cannabis works is it's it's like an adaptogen where it works in your body, where you need it. Am I close on that? 

Melanie: Kind of, yeah. So we have an endocannabinoid system, which for a long time the [00:19:00] medical community thought they were orphaned receptors because they didn't know how they reacted.

The Mayo Clinic has come forward and said that a lot of our autoimmune disorders are directly related to endocannabinoid deficiencies within the body because the endocannabinoid system is a broad regulation system that regulates homeostasis within almost every area of our bodies and our tissues.

We have receptors in our skin, we have receptors in our brains, in our tissues, in our organs. So if our endocannabinoids are low, those receptors, there's a lot of them. That's why some people have first experiences with cannabis that they're like, oh, that was so strong even if they took a little amount, because they have so many receptors.

So the littlest bit gets locked into those cannabinoid receptors and your body it's like giving it water for the first time. It's just hungry for it for some people. [00:20:00] Other people have fewer cannabinoid receptors so they can take really high doses and not feel anything, you know? And it's as unique as a fingerprint. What's happening within your endocannabinoid system is completely unique to what's happening in mine. And that's why modern medicine is we don't know because they can't look at you and say you are 160 pound female woman. Your dose is five milligrams three times a day.

Your body is going to tell us, and that's why we have coaches and educators, is so we can sit down with people and teach them. Titration is the word, which is self-management. I teach people to take notes. So we will journal, we'll sit down and say, okay, we're gonna start really low doses of T H C and a little higher of C B, D and find out where your body is happiest and where you get the most relief.

Because there's also the misconception that you have to be [00:21:00] high for it to work For a lot of people at medical dose I take medicine multiple times a day in small doses, and most people would never even know because you don't necessarily have to get yourself to the point where you're nonfunctional at all to get the benefits.

Amber: So paying careful attention because it's plant-based and because our bodies are so unique that you're teaching people to monitor their own symptoms and get to that optimal dosing 

Melanie: I don't know if you have dispensaries or pharmacies where you are. First of all, I would recommend anyone if it does not have a c o a with it or you can't get the c o a - that's why black market is so dangerous. C OAS are a testing. It says, okay, this is what I have and this is how much pesticides, how much mold if any how much terpene levels are in it. So we get a really good [00:22:00] idea. Say this medicine has a lot of humin, which is a terpene. Cannabis has terpenes in it. Those terpenes help dictate the experience.

If I need a mood lifting, I want something with some ocimene in it. If I need to focus and work and be able to be on, I'm probably gonna smoke something or ingest something with pinene in it. So it's also helping people understand that it's not all black and white. There's a lot of nuance so that they're educated.

So when you go to the pharmacy, you can say, okay, here's what I, and also trying it, I'm sensitive to pinene it accentuates a mild O C D, but if I consume too much pinene, I want to scrub the floors or I feel a little combative. But myrcenes really good for me. So it's really learning the nuances of the plant.

And then it's [00:23:00] not just Indica orSativa or weed or something illegal there, there's so much value to understanding the nuances of each flower and what it has to offer. 

Amber: That's something I didn't know either. There was a client I was working with, and again, it was one of those opportunities to have a conversation and have them explain it to me.

They were actually in a legal situation where they were having to use hemp because of some court things going on.. You gave the scientific reason it's this, but they were explaining to me there's these different varieties and so on my high anxiety days, this is what I use and if I need to go to sleep, then this is one that helps me.

 You mentioned O C D and they're like days that my O C D is really bad, then this is the one. . I never knew that there were probably hundreds of different varieties and they have these unique components that medicinally do different things.

I was completely fascinated because thought weed was weed and I just didn't know any different, I didn't know the complexities of it. \

Melanie: It's crazy the more [00:24:00] I learn and I've I turned into this little science nerd and it's on a molecular basis. There's also a synthetic cannabinoids that they're making and they're finding that if you use concentrated forms of lower cannabinoids, like CBN is great for sleep. C B G is the mother cannabinoid. So every cannabinoid starts with C B G A in the acid form, in the seed.

That's all that's in there. There's no THC, there's no C B D. It's CBG. And as that plant grows the seed is already programmed to become what it will be. But each seed can have a different type of medicine. You talk about hemp, really, hemp and cannabis are no different. The only difference is the legal distinction that the government has given it that hemp is under 0.3% T H C and cannabis has up to whatever.

 CBD or THC that they can get it to grow, [00:25:00] which it's getting higher all the time. There's also the argument. Some people say the amount of THC that they're getting, it's just so dangerous. Maybe for someone who has no pain, who has no medical issues, maybe that is too much.

But for someone who has MS they need high doses. If you're dealing with chronic fatigue syndrome or massive injuries or pain, just like there are differences between an 200 milligram ibuprofen and a methadone. Cannabis comes in all of those varieties too.

 We've just separated ourselves from the natural side of it for so long that most people don't know. We don't understand how nuanced and miraculous one plant can be and how it can help on a broad level. Even children, they're finding certain types of juvenile seizure disorders are treated amazingly well, and the quality of life for these kids goes up.

 Some people will [00:26:00] argue you gave them THC you've been giving them methadone and oxys and all these things that are compromising their mental, emotional, and physical health. So they were a little happy for a minute. Is that really the worst thing we could do for a child?

Amber: But again, it's taking this stigma away.

There's this huge stigma that it just weed and weed is bad because Dare and the war on drugs that's the message that was out there. When in reality there's this tremendous research gap where we don't actually know.

Melanie: Feel like the war on drugs has been a war on wellness.

It wasn't a war on drugs. 

Amber: The thing we do know that many of these drugs that they use for these conditions are addictive, have other serious side effects. you talked about this political push- we're gonna make weed bad, but we're gonna push a lot of these drugs.

I remember learning in one of my classes, that they've done studies that show [00:27:00] that. Ibuprofen and Tylenol together work just as well as opiates, even for people with severe pain. We don't have these conversations. 

The doctor said it's okay, so it has to be okay, but what does the research say? What are the effects? I think that's gonna help break the stigma, is really looking at the science and saying opiates do have these side effects and then cannabis doesn't.

Melanie: I think once we're informed it, it's okay. A lot of people don't ever think about it. Right now, the big argument in the world is do we go medical or adult use or recreational is what some people call it. My argument is this, the number one killer of men, women, and children even is stress.

 Our jobs, our lives, our environment. The one thing that cannabis does very well is help with stress, helps us relax. For some people, it helps them get into a better [00:28:00] head space, helps them process. So if you are using cannabis and it makes you feel better than by all rights, you're using it for a medical purpose because stress is real.

We've been living through a pandemic, the world is not always easy for people. And so if we can have a plant that reduces our stress, then to me, what does it matter if you want to call the program medical or adult use if it helps us be able to function in the world in which we currently are residing?

Amber: Absolutely. Alcohol is legal and we know there's tremendous amounts of consequences for people with alcohol. Driving related, health related 

Melanie: something like 85, 80 7% of violent crimes occurred with alcohol use involved. You don't hear of a gang of 20 year olds all hyped up on the cannabis assaulting people.

They're [00:29:00] gonna go to a movie or they're gonna get some munchies and they're gonna sit around and have existential conversations and that's gonna be, that .Alcohol's far more dangerous than cannabis. Absolutely. 

Amber: So again, this all just goes back to that stigma and moving to this model where, there's some regulation , cause I think that's important to know that it's safe, what they're buying, to know what they're buying, and to make sure, adults that are buying it have some medical options.

 We lived in a state where the states run in the liquor store, which seems so weird to me hearing your state advertise alcohol on the radio . Just because we know there's so many things with it that are so highly problematic violent crimes and addiction. Then we have this resistance to cannabis that's so safe, so fewer side effects. It's hard to see the two sides of that. Like I just laugh whenever I hear these commercials.

Melanie: Oh, it's hilarious to me and to listen to people talk about how dangerous it is. I grew up believing that it would kill me and then [00:30:00] my husband introduced me to it to help me and my own journey of using the energy work and then plant-based medicine. We forgot to listen to our bodies. And the more that I got into the plant-based medicine, my body was happy. My mind, it wasn't clouding, it wasn't putting weird thoughts in my head. I didn't think I was bulletproof and 10 feet tall like alcohol. I just was able to feel better. About seven months after we moved to Oregon and we got settled, my son, who was 15 at the time, he came home one day and at first he was not convinced that moving to Oregon so mom could do cannabis was the best idea.

He was stressed, it, stressed him, but he also knew that I wasn't doing well. And a few months in, he came home from school one day and he said, I'm glad we did this. And I said, yeah, why is that? And he said, mom, you sing in the kitchen again. Something I didn't [00:31:00] realize I even did .But to my children they could see I was happy, I was healing.

I was back to their mom who had a silly song to sing while she was cooking dinner instead of just laying on the couch, semi-comatose from a bunch of drugs, not understanding her, realizing what was happening around me. It gave me control over my own health, my future, my wellness, and my ability to have a quality of life. And a lot of people are lacking that quality of life.

Amber: Oh, absolutely.

 When we're given medicines from a doctor, most doctors work in that allopathic model, which is. Something's wrong. So we're gonna give you a medicine to stop it. That doesn't usually address what's really going on. Creates more side effects.

 With your [00:32:00] use of cannabis, you're working with your body, you're working with the processes, giving it what it needs so that you can have a good quality of life. 

Melanie: Exactly. And I'm not reliant on some doctor or some pharmaceutical company with a God complex who just wants me to keep taking another pill.

I'm working with my body and nature. To support my system to be as healthy as I can be. Modern medicine absolutely has its place. We also are intelligent capable human beings. We don't necessarily need a doctor to tell us what's good and bad for us.

We have intuition. We know what's good. We, those answers are within us to a certain extent. If you break your leg and you need surgery. There are cases where modern medicine has its place, but I think most of us go to holistic medicine as a [00:33:00] last ditch effort because we've tried everything else and we're exhausted and in pain and just aren't sure we can make it when that script needs to flip a little.

Have you tried changing your diet? Have you tried using organic healthy herbs and done those things? Have you worked on your energy? Have you worked on your emotional things before? We just run to the drugs that the pharmaceutical companies are going to make us. Mother Nature did it great first. We don't have to reinvent the wheel. It's available in the world right now. And I think that's such a gift to me it was such a gift to learn that I truly, I want to share it with everyone. I want everyone to understand. 10 years from now, I want to not be able to have a job because everybody has already gotten a coach and had someone help them figure it out and they've already got the education and I [00:34:00] can just sit back and find some new passion in the world.

That would be my dream. 

Amber: can you just imagine too, what that would be like if our medical system did have both if that was presented to people, if it was the holistic and then we're gonna do some traditional medicine. I've had to learn a lot of holistic practices because I have a genetic condition.

And my body doesn't process medications like everyone else's. So it's a lot of trial and error. I've had to learn a lot of these holistic processes because of how my body works. It's so weird that we don't have these conversations. It is so weird that you almost have to have this health crisis to be in a position where you're so frustrated that you're like, I don't know what the answer is, but this isn't it, and I'm gonna find it.

And then learn about diet and emotional work and, , even cannabis. 

Melanie: It should be basic knowledge that we teach kids from the get-go, to manage. my kids [00:35:00] both at, let's see, they would've been 12 and nine, learned reiki. They could put them hands on themselves, help them relax.

It was a great tool for them to use as a single mom. I was trying to give them options that I didn't have that in the world that I grew up in. And to watch my children have learned Reiki from a young age to understand, you know, like I said, they're, they both work in a C B D facility here in Utah and have careers because of cannabis.

If you would've told me even 10 years ago, my entire family is gonna work within the cannabis industry and I'm going to teach, I would've been like, probably not. . I truly feel it's why I was so drawn to get the drug and alcohol degree that I got, the counseling degree because people want to talk to me.

Because they think you have an actual degree which is silly because it doesn't mean anything. It doesn't mean I know any more than anybody else, [00:36:00] but it has given me an opportunity to have the science and to have the big words to speak to these people, to help them really understand that there are options.

 We live in this amazing world with these amazing plants and things all around us that are good for us. There's even a couple of programs in California that they're using psilocybins, ketamine and cannabis to help people who are hospitalized for addiction. 

Amber: That was another mind expander when I learned that was being used.

Cuz again, it's not talked about, there's still this huge stigma. 

Melanie: Yeah, heaven forbid, , they'll put you on all kinds of psychotropics and things that have all of this, but some people, and not everyone, you know. If you're predisposed to schizophrenia, I would not recommend that you use cannabis it can bring that forth a little faster in some people.

But the interesting thing even about that is that the numbers of [00:37:00] schizophrenic people in the world did not increase with the legalization. You either are or you are not going to be schizophrenic. Cannabis just can turn the lights on sooner. That is the one situation that I'm aware of, that people need to walk that fine line.

Other than that, most people can use cannabis in one way or another. So it's just, it's fascinating that it does so much more good than it does bad, and people just need, they need a place like your podcast is such a wonderful thing to introduce people to ideas that they hadn't had before. 

Amber: Absolutely. It's important that we talk about this. With my recovery license, part of that talks about multiple paths recovery.

I don't think that just applies to addiction. I think that applies to trauma. I think it applies to our health. It's incredibly important that when we have these conversations, when, you experienced your car accident and you experienced all these health [00:38:00] issues you went through this divorce. It affects our body too . We're not separate. You talked about being disconnected from your body. There are so many parts of our being, our mind and our emotions and our body, they're so connected it's so important that we understand that and have these conversations of these different things we can do to , be happy, sing in the kitchen again. The more we have these conversations it takes that stigma away a little bit every time we have a conversation about it. 

Melanie: And it gives people who are curious or who are scared, a little bit of permission.

I don't know why as humans we think we need permission for a lot of things, but we do, we've kind of been programmed as such. And I know in my own journey, hearing other people's stories and talking to people who have gone through traumatic, horrible health things and cannabis helped them, or cannabis helped them get through chemo or,, cannabis helped me probably the other thing that it helped me the most was when my mother passed.

Doesn't matter if your mom has [00:39:00] been sick for five minutes or 12 years, she was fine. One day they were going to do a procedure on her and she died out of nowhere. We all knew she had been ill, but she was 65 years old, so I was 45. She's 20 years older than me. There's something energetically that happens when you lose a parent, you feel a bit untethered to the earth. That energetically, our parents kind of ground us to this plane. I didn't know that before this process. And I felt lost. I had guilt. Did I do enough? Was I there enough? I moved away. I'm the oldest, you know, and cannabis and family support helped me really to spend some time and journal these things.

I would use some medicine and sit down and just pour all these feelings, and it truly helped me recover and to really [00:40:00] heal through the process of losing my mom instead of stuffing it and just having it come attack me on a physical level later. Because we also don't realize that the stuff that we don't deal with and the stuff we don't process, and the trauma that we have, if we don't deal with it when it happens and we just push it back then it starts growing.

And it's coming for you. It will attack you out of nowhere. Your health, your mental wellness. Cannabis can help us process those things. There are therapists who work with people on that. it's just such a blessing that I think everyone needs to know if you choose not to, after you completely understand all of the benefits I respect that to the core of my being. But if you don't understand, you probably shouldn't be telling people that it's bad. 

And informed consent, that's the word that's coming to mind. Make a absolutely decision. And I think to just open your mind, open your mind at the possibility that there might be one [00:41:00] thing you didn't know about cannabis

it was my own kids that challenged me . 

That's awesome.

 I 

Amber: think

 that's so easy to just think a certain way because we were told to think a certain way and not just objectively look at it. That's why I like talking about the scientific studies, because it's not an opinion. . It's just facts so that you can evaluate that and then , choose your own path with it. Okay, I see I've read these 10 studies. It says it do this not for me. That's okay, like you said, but at least know that information before deciding 

Melanie: and an understanding that every culture that we have found dating back five, 10,000 years, we see cannabis was used by the shamans.

The medicine men. The medicine women in Egypt pre Egypt. They found medicine women, a woman in Egypt, and she had the little medicine pouch. [00:42:00] In her medicine pouch. There were cannabis seads from thousands of years ago. This is not something that we just one day, oh we found this plant we're gonna use. The history of this planet has been using cannabis since recorded history that we can find.

Every culture has used cannabis as medicine to help them with healing, to help with all of these things when you really understand the history of it.. Most people don't question green teas good for you. That's Chinese medicine from thousands years ago.

So how is cannabis any different? It's still a plant. Yes, it does have a psychoactive property, but it's another word that we're super scared of. caffeine is considered psychoactive. Tobacco is considered psychoactive. Sugar is considered psychoactive. The definition of psychoactive is anything that you ingest that alters how you think or feel.

So how is it [00:43:00] okay that every person in America is out getting their coffee, their soda they're cigarettes, and that's okay but cannabis isn't. Again it's learning what words really mean, what psychoactive really means. We think, oh, I'm just gonna have this trip and I'm gonna be crazy and I'm gonna see things. For 99% of the population, that's not true. 

Amber: I'm likening to this herbal, it's not coffee, but it does some other things like that. It doesn't give you the coffee jitters. You just feel super relaxed. 

Melanie: Yeah. There's like lion's mane coffee made from lion's, main mushrooms that are super good for.

Amber: I had no idea what's in this. I could probably look it up. I just know that it makes me feel like super calm. But we trust other things. Yeah. So why not trust something that's been around for thousands of years? I'm thinking too, we got the message Tylenol is the safest thing on earth, and now what?

There's these huge lawsuits against Tylenol because they found out not the safest thing on earth. Like you said, just keeping that open mind [00:44:00] and thinking it through and deciding if you have, , some emotional things, some physical things, if it might be an option. 

Absolutely. I think we all deserve to be offered an option that is safest and in the world of medications and things. If you're buying you're cannabis from a retailer who has a COA and who has tested and they can prove to you what you're getting, then it's far safer. Have you ever gotten a report with your opioids that says this is what's in it and this is how many of this and this is what it, where it was grown. We can't get that with our opioids.

So isn't it awesome that we can get that information with our medicine? 

So what is a C O A I didn't ask you that, but I think that's important 

, is it like Certificate of Authentic 

Melanie: certificate of Authenticity?

That's what it is. It certifies that [00:45:00] this grower or this processor brought us this material. We've third party tested it. It's safe. There aren't pesticides, there aren't molds, there isn't bacteria present within the medicine. It gives you a list of what is present within the medicine.

And it's been grown in because cannabis is what is called a bio accumulator, which means whatever is in the ground that it is planted in, it will accumulate and draw in. It's why they have planted hemp and cannabis around Chernobyl is because it's actually helping draw the toxins out of the earth.

Which is really cool, but as an ingestion method, we wanna make sure that our medicine was grown in soil that didn't have mold, that wasn't a lot of pesticides, because if it's in the plant and you ingest it, it's in you. So this is how we keep ourselves [00:46:00] safest with our medicine is that's how, like you said, informed consent.

It's saying, I want this plant and I wanna use this medicine. And they're saying, okay, I have this paper that proves that I'm giving you what I say I'm giving you,. For me, that's a really important piece. If people are going out and getting medicine and you don't know anything else, please make sure that you're getting them from a dispensary or pharmacy and make sure that they offer COA

Amber: This is a speech I gave to give to all of my clients for my recovery coaching. If you absolutely have no legal options. I would beg you to please not get this off the street. But if that is your only option, please test it at least for fentanyl and please know the people that you're getting it from because it can be so dangerous when you're not getting it from a dispensary.

Absolutely. 

Melanie: Very few people are actually lacing cannabis with fentanyl because it's more expensive to add the fentanyl than it is to the cannabis. It happens. 

Amber: Specific to my area, it was a huge issue for a while. And that's,, harm reduction. We'd give out some test kits and things like 

Melanie: that [00:47:00] absolutely. And you can get test kits. I believe online there's test kits. When I lived in Oregon we were allowed to grow at our home. But I could take in a certain amount of the flower that I grew and I could have a company test it for me. I think it was like a hundred dollars, but if you have a fairly large amount of medicine that you're growing, that a hundred dollars lets me know that the soil I grew in was okay.

That my medicine is not going to have any heavy metals or any of the bad things in it. It is really an informed consent, a smart way to do it. And if you're in an illegal state at this point that's why we became cannabis refugees is because it wasn't worth the possible consequences of being caught doing something illegal.

 How we change this is your votes matter. Vote for people who are willing and able to help make a difference. Have the conversations in your community. This is how we change it. [00:48:00] Break the stigma, talk to your kids if they're talking to you about it. Even better. How awesome is that your kids came to you with this information?

That just is awesome. But we need to be talking not only to our kids, but our parents. They've lived their whole lives with cannabis prohibition, whether they were part of the hippie movement or not. There's so much stigma, and those are ways on a local level . I'm putting together an online club for people to join so that we can have zoom meetings once a month or a couple of times a month and have these conversations, ask the questions.

I think it's so important to be the voice. I may not have all the answers, but I can sure educate you on the basics and point you in the right direction. And when we have knowledge gives us power. And when we have knowledge and power over our own health, that's when great change happens.

Amber: The more we talk about it the more people are gonna have the opportunity to use it and [00:49:00] take away that legal barrier that's there for doctors, for people, for everyone. I think we'll get there, maybe not as fast as we should get there, but I think there's going to be a tipping point, whether it's from people advocating or whether it's just so much science that this isn't actually bad. .

Such an important conversation. I so appreciate you sharing this. 

Melanie: No, I'm so grateful to have the opportunity. It's one of the most important conversations people need to have their questions answered, have them read the books and understand the history . It changes when we know, the history and we get educated.

If we can see where we've been, it helps us know where we want to go. Good or bad. We've seen that it's not done us as a culture any good to remove cannabis from our diets and from our culture and from medicine. Now that we're bringing that back in, I think it's important to remember how it affected us not having it. So changing the conversations, do it [00:50:00] differently when we know something didn't work. It's our responsibility to do it differently. Learn from our mistakes. We do it in our life all the time, but for some reason, when it comes to politically fueled conversations, we're a little more hesitant to have the conversation and educate.

When we're educated, we're powerful. We have a voice. When we can speak to , our mayors and our congressmen and our senators and have an educated voice, that's when we become more heard. 

Amber: Absolutely important for so many reasons. Do you have anything else? 

Do you feel like you've shared all the things that you want to share? 

Melanie: I just would encourage people to be open. If you have questions, I have a Instagram page under Melanie Henry 1 0 1. I have a Facebook group and that's private that I share a lot of education in called the Herb Community.

And, I'm working on a YouTube channel called The Herb Community to really get the message out there and then I'll be offering in the future, after the first year, I'll [00:51:00] be doing coaching specifically for cannabis coaching. I'll be certified. And I offer education. So if you wanna learn you can always contact me through those portals.

And don't be afraid, there's no harm in having a conversation. We forget sometimes nobody ever died from hearing someone else's point of view. And I think that's important. 

Amber: Absolutely. I will put those links in the notes, in the description so people have easy access and can reach out to you.

 Like you said, it never hurts to have a conversation. We have more to learn when it's someone that we disagree with and we can with an open mind, hear their story and hear their perspectives. 

Melanie: And most of us disagree based on what we've been told from childhood, not necessarily based on actual facts and information. If we can give those facts and information to people, then they can make informed choices. Then they aren't just holding onto beliefs that serve their parents or their grandparents and not have any [00:52:00] really idea why they feel how they do. 

Amber: Right. It's okay to change your mind. It is. 

Melanie: We have the right to change our mind and do something different.

Amber: Thank you. This, I just, I learned a lot from this. , I appreciate you sharing your story. 

Melanie: 

Thank for having me. It means a lot., I'm very passionate about this., I didn't start out to be a drug and alcohol counselor, to be a cannabis educator, but it absolutely perfectly worked out that way.

And now here we are. . 

Amber: Life is full of ironies, right?

Melanie: It is. Had I not learned everything along the way that I did, I wouldn't have made it to this point. So I'll take it . . 

Amber: Thank you for listening in today as Melanie shared her story of healing With cannabis. I invite you to share this conversation and subscribe to this podcast so that you'll be notified when next weeks episode is live.