Get Smart about Cannabis™

Culture Magazine

Culture Magazine started to appear in the dispensaries around southeast Michigan around 2012. They have a section called Patient Profiles where patients can submit their own answers to a regular set of questions. I saw it as a great opportunity to share my thoughts and experiences with the world. Like previous experiences I sent in the submission thinking not much of it.

I knew then and now, when a writer submits something to a publication that has requested submissions it’s a lucky writer who actually gets published. So, I sent in my submission and went on with my regular writing for content websites.

In my submission the most important message I shared is the fact that the only way to have truly medical cannabis is to obtain it in a safe storefront dispensary. The reason this is the only way to find truly medical cannabis is because dispensary grade cannabis is tested. If cannabis is not tested it is not medical and you cannot even be sure it’s safe.

Having access to safe tested cannabis is the principle reason for the medical cannabis legalization movement. In the Culture Magazine Profiles in Courage piece I also shared the fact that my mother and I both changed lifelong beliefs about cannabis after my experience in 2008. Having my mother change her opinions marked another defining moment in my life.

While working on a piece, as I recall, I received a call from the editor at Culture. He informed me that he’d like to publish my responses. Then he explained, a photographer would be coming out to my home to take my photo.

It was extremely exciting of course, I had to go to a salon to have my hair done for the photo. When the photographer arrived we walked out to the picnic area behind our apartment complex. There were some large boulders and trees which made an excellent backdrop. The photographer took several shots.

Within a week he forwarded me all of the photos. Those are some of my favorite photos. Though they are a few years old I’ll still use them on occasion. Those photos were the first photos taken after my hysterectomy. Having a hysterectomy in 2012 was yet the ultimate in defining moments of 2012.

2012 was a year filled with major highlights. With the defining moments which happened in 2012 I can tell a story which gives a real good look at who I am overall. Not only am I an activist and patient I am also a barren woman struggling to smile through it.

Yet no matter how much I accept it and try to move forward there is and always will be a part of me that’s missing.