A completely natural medicine exists that is putting prescriptions in the grave.
Oftentimes I have people that come into our store, and all they're looking for is relief. They want a way out of the pain, the anxiety, the stress, the insomnia. These are discomforts every one of us can experience, and discomforts none of us should need to. We live in the modern world, we should have the means of bringing comfort to these ever-so-common problems. I’m here to tell you that we do have a solution, and we have for thousands of years.
Today, a completely natural medicine exists in our world that is putting prescriptions in the grave. This is a product of many forms, a product for everyone. It can ease any physical discomfort, treat epilepsy, lessen or treat the symptoms of almost every mental ailment, stimulate or suppress appetite, act as an aphrodisiac, or a painkiller. The plant fibers can be turned into textiles like rope or fabric, which is four times stronger than cotton. The seeds can be harvested and eaten, as they are high in protein and essential fatty acids. It can be turned into paper, and it grows more than 60x faster than trees. The plants I’m talking about are from the cannabis family.
Cannabis has been in our lives as humans for the last 12 millennia, with anthropologists finding and tracing cannabis seeds and remnants along the path of nomads. Twelve thousand years is a long time. That’s the rise and fall of entire civilizations, and cannabis has survived through all of them. Cannabis records have been found in Israel, Egypt, China, India, Japan, Indonesia, Africa and both Americas. That’s almost every continent humans have been on. Cannabis has been used by us for all of recorded history, and it’s worked. So why has it become such a political issue in our modern day?
The brief history of modern cannabis originates in what is now modern day Mexico. In the year 1530, Spanish conquistadors were given permission by Spain to begin cultivating cannabis. For the Spanish, cannabis was used solely as a fiber.
plant. In this time period the production of cannabis was extremely common because of how strong the fibers it makes are; it could be used to make the clothes on their backs, ropes, and the sturdy sails that made them one of the greatest seafaring empires in the world. It wasn’t until the late 1700s that the re-understanding of its medicinal purposes came to, and this time it was the indigenous peoples of the Americas that partook in cannabis ritually, to produce an altered state, or in natural tonics they created for illness. The population of natives using the plant for ceremonial purposes was growing, and curiosity among the masses were growing, but the mindset of orthodox Catholicism, which was the majority religion of the Spanish, was not in favor. Keep in mind, witch trials didn’t end until the early 1900s, when psychology first began to understand the human mind. Before then, the ideas of demonic possession and communion with evil spirits was a scapegoat for most illnesses or altered states that couldn’t yet be understood.
Cannabis was shunned for the next 100 years, and in that time it spread across the Mexican landscape like it was right at home. In the 1850’s, this plant was everywhere in Mexico, and botanists were fascinated. Finally, Mexican scientists began to put attention towards this plant. These were the first people to use the word “marihuana,” and some saw the medicinal value in cannabis that the natives did, but their research papers were overpowered by others’ with the spreading idea that cannabis made people act out maniacally or violently, in accordance with the Catholic agenda of demonic possession. The era of reefer madness began, and Mexico outlawed cannabis in 1920. The USA outlawed cannabis in 1937, just 17 years after. The popularity of cannabis didn’t reemerge until the 1960s, at the beginning of hippie counterculture. President Nixon began the ‘War on Drugs’ in 1971, which just allowed for more aggressive enforcement, putting tens of thousands of people in prison for cannabis. In 1988, Judge Francis Young concluded that marijuana “is one of the safest therapeutically active substances known to man,” and pressed for it to be removed from Schedule 1. In 1996, California was the first state to legalize cannabis medically. In 2023, cannabis is still federally illegal in the United States, but over 20 states have it as at least medically legal.
Today, the people that come to me, in a state legalized cannabis store, still take a risk. They have the risk of federal imposition if they’re a government worker, some companies still drug test for cannabis and may not accept someone who drops dirty for cannabis, they risk being judged by their peers, and since they risk potentially purchasing a product that doesn’t do exactly what they expect it to do. The legal cannabis industry is still in it’s birthing stage, and we won’t experience the full-scale until global legalization occurs. More research studies arrive every day about the benefits and risks of cannabis, and the results continue to repeat. Cannabis use is one of the safest psychoactive substances known to man. Nobody has ever been recorded to overdose on cannabis, cannabis doesn’t induce violence or manic behavior, and cannabis doesn’t have very many side effects whatsoever. The ‘side-effects’ of one product for one person, could be used to treat other ailments for another person. If someone uses cannabis for pain, and the ‘side effect’ of what they used is that they fall asleep, then that means whatever product they took would also work to treat insomnia.
It’s been a wonderful learning experience for myself to show my customers all of the new, exciting, and effective products they have the option of choosing from. My mission with these texts will be none other than to share what I have learned about cannabis and the industry I work within. I have been blessed with the opportunity to help thousands of different people with all types of different problems, and I have found most people use cannabis for a combination of these reasons:
Pain Relief, Stress Relief, Anxiety Relief, Relaxation, Sleep Aid, Mood Elevation, Creativity, Focus, Energy, Exercise, Appetite Control, Intimacy Aid, Social Experiences, Physical Recovery, Mindfulness, and Spirituality.
If you are someone that would benefit from any of these things, you are someone that would benefit from cannabis. You don’t have to smoke weed or be a stoner to take advantage of what this plant has to offer medicinally and recreationally. The perspective of stoners being lazy or uneducated is something that needs to be broken within this generation. The perspective that if you smoke weed you’re a stoner, needs to be broken altogether. Plenty of very functional members of society regularly consume cannabis, including myself. I use cannabis for every reason you can use cannabis, including just to understand how it will affect me. After being in the industry for three years and seeing all of the new products that have hit the market, and having tried them, I have developed a large array of tastes between strains, or cultivars, a great sense of what to look for when anticipating the onset of edibles, and I’ve also become very familiar with how topically applied products will affect me. With all of the different experiences under my belt, I would consider myself a connoisseur of cannabis, a ‘cannaisseur’ if you will. This statement is only relevant because of the position I am in. If I was a cannaisseur just for myself, there would be little social value to my pursuit of experience.
Jontae Yost
Brand Specialist
City Hall Provisioning Center
222 S Maple St, Fennville, MI 49408
(616) 236-3366, Email: jontae@cityhallpc.com