So I got sent home from hospital with a bottle of liquid morphine and no other help in sight. I remember being very frustrated after reading a paper by Professor Mike Barnes about the medical uses of cannabis. I had been ranting on twitter and in the process I had made some new friends who were cannabis activists and I was invited to Brighton Green Pride, which is a peaceful protest against the archaic cannabis laws in this country. Luckily CBD Brothers offered to pay my train fare or I wouldn’t have been able to make it. In my last blog I failed to mention that I had been taking CBD for anxiety and CBD Brothers was the main brand I was using at this time and because I had been a bit vocal on twitter, I caught the owners attention and they kindly offered to help me get to my first cannabis event. I travelled by myself to Brighton, 5 hours on train return journey in my wheelchair and then a taxi to the field where I met the lovely couple who had invited me, Stacey and Dan.
(Stacy and Dan at a Seed Our Future protest 2019)
They helped me from the taxi and onto the field, where loads of people were sat publicly smoking cannabis. There were also lots of little stalls round the outside of the field, where people were selling cannabis edibles, CBD and other smoking paraphernalia. We soon found the CBD Brothers stall where I found Ben who had paid for my train fare. He knew I was keen to try a cannabis edible for my pain and I had been saving at least 3 doses in the bottle of morphine I had been given by the hospital, I had managed this far without using it but I was in quite a bit of pain. Ben recommended a stall selling edibles by Nannies Gourmet Edibles
(The sticker that came with my first piece of cake)
and Stacy and Dan helped me over there, having to push my wheelchair around the field bless them, I spoke with the person on the stall, they informed how much THC was in each cake, I can’t remember how much it was now, but I remember they were £15 each, so I just bought one to try. We found a spot in the field and sat down and Stacy and Dan proceeded to roll up, I was using my hand held vape. We had a few smokes while we ate our cakes, I remember eating half and waiting for it to do something, I probably should have waited but me being me, ate it all 🫣 I had some really effective pain relief for the rest of the afternoon and I even went back to the stall and bought another two cakes to take home. Unfortunately I couldn’t stay long, I used to get tired very easily and I still had a long journey home. Stacy and Dan helped me out of the field and I took a taxi to the station. It was at this point the cake finally hit me full on and my stomach dropped 😳 I spent my time waiting for the train in the toilet and I really didn’t feel well for about half an hour and yes, I admit it, I asked the conductor to call me an ambulance I felt so bad 😳🫣 luckily they didn’t, as I soon started to feel better. I think I fell asleep for a bit on the train home but I can’t actually remember. The one thing that did stand out for me was that I didn’t use any of the morphine I had saved and I didn’t need my cocodamol for the next three days! 🤩 This was the point I realised that cannabis used properly can replace opiates! 🥳 At this time I was on a Brutrans patch as well as amitriptaline, codine and cocodamol. I decided I wanted to reduce my opiates by using cannabis, I had been doing some research and read about RSO a strong THC cannabis oil made using whole plant and I had found someone willing to sell me some. So I went to my GP and told him about the cake and what I wanted to do, this was the GP that finally explained why I was always told no when I asked for more opiate medication, I was in a permanent state of opiate withdrawal, I asked him to change my patch to tablets so that I could start reducing at home and after some persuading he did. The first day without my Brutrans patch I took a small dose of cannabis oil and I found the pain actually subsided pretty much straight away. But then a strange thing happened, I took my first dose of codine and found the pain came back. 🤔 I decided then to just go cold turkey and after that I stopped taking all the opiates and just used the cannabis oil and some high strength THC vapes I had sourced. I spent the next five weeks feeling a bit crap but not too bad, it was like having a bad case of the flu and I couldn’t get warm but the cannabis oil made the withdrawals tolerable and the fact that I was no longer getting the pain from my knee and hand I could cope with it. Also because I had been in a permanent state of withdrawal from being on opiates for such a long time, once they were fully out of my system I was no longer feeling constant mild withdrawal pains 🤩 I did try to find the edibles company again online but I couldn’t find it and I assumed they had gone out of business. Until last year 2023 when me and my fiancée went to Product Earth a massive legal cannabis expo
(me and my fiancé Mike outside product earth)
I had gone for one day the previous year after winning a competition, but this year we went for the full weekend and actually camped in a tent, something I never thought I would be able to do! 🥳 One day I had put my roller skates on to pop and see a friend on one of the stalls and while I was skating through the indoor area I spotted a stall called Nannies and I thought, surely it can’t be? 🤔 I went over and spoke with the girl on the stall who informed me that it was indeed the same company, they had just changed names. I was lucky enough to finally meet the lady who had made the first cannabis cake that had started me on my journey of healing! 🤩
(Me and Dee from Nannies at Product Earth)
Up next: The fight for freedom!