cannabisnews.com: A Harvest and a Celebration





A Harvest and a Celebration
Posted by FoM on November 02, 2000 at 12:23:39 PT
By Jim Wakeford
Source: Globe & Mail
Waiting for guests to arrive, those well enough to come, I was glad my 84-year-old father and I are alive to talk about this crop. I'm his gay son who grew up in Saskatchewan not wanting to get my hands dirty. Dad still lives in Saskatchewan. Tonight friends with Section 56 exemptions and caregivers were gathering in Toronto to celebrate a bountiful harvest of premium strains of marijuana.It was Friday, October 13: my 56th birthday. A full moon was rising. I felt lucky.
My friend Kathy had prepared roast beef, Yorkshire pudding, mashed potatoes and gravy, fresh vegetables, asparagus, onions, red and yellow peppers, carrots, and loaves of sweet nut bread. A divine chocolate cake was set to one side. Candles were lit as we sampled fresh buds of marijuana, laughing and voting for favorite photographs shot at the plants' flowering stage. Sweet smells of marijuana mingled with those from the feast. AIDS drugs would go down easier and they'd stay down tonight. Vision, my favorite cannabis sativa strain, acclaimed for its cerebral "high," was first choice among the photographs.Our exemptions had been well exercised. We are some of the handful of Canadians who've been granted exemptions from the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act by the Federal Minister of Health. I won a constitutional exemption in the Ontario Superior Court, May 10, 1999. Illusory exemptions subsequently created by Federal bureaucrats allow us to use and cultivate marijuana for medical purposes, but as yet we have no legal access. No one is allowed to help us get it or grow it. This right without remedy will be argued again before the Ontario Court of Appeal this year. We are forced to rely on the black market with its risks and prohibitive costs. It's an intolerable situation.Inspired by the work of Valerie Corral in Santa Cruz, Calif., we had pooled our exemptions and formed a medical marijuana collective. Last spring, while in Vancouver researching Wakeford's Wagons, a proposed meal program for people with AIDS in Toronto, I met Hilary Black, founder of the British Columbia Compassion Society. Hilary kindly introduced me to an experienced medical marijuana grower who generously donated some of his finest strains of marijuana sativas and indicas to the Toronto collective.We were given clones, tiny fragile baby marijuana plants, carefully cut from their mothers and gently placed in a cooler. Growing from clones provides more assurance of female plants than growing from seeds. It's only the female plants that yield medicine. Males are good for breeding. Flowering female marijuana plants form resinous aromatic buds, the source of the medicine. I thought of the clones as my little green girls.Secure on the luggage rack above my head, I flew the clones to Toronto. I put them on platters lined with wet paper towels under 24 hours of continuous light and regularly fed them a special nutrient solution to facilitate rooting. Within two weeks long white roots were shooting from the clones' bottoms. They were in potting soil June 8.Vision! Juicy fruit! Northern Lights! Blue Truck! We'd drooled over photographs of them in magazines and here they were, in little pots on my balcony. Oh my god! Is this really happening? Will they survive? Giddy with excitement and apprehension I wondered if I'd be healthy enough to grow them.Early in June I rigged up a clear plastic tarp to protect them from heavy rainfalls. The tarp was rolled up on sunny days. By July small plants had developed. The tarp was no longer necessary. Soon they needed larger pots and by late July even bigger ones. When they outgrew the upstairs balcony, five were moved to the downstairs balcony. They became known as my upstairs girls and my downstairs girls. Weekly feedings of donated nutrients helped them flourish. Late September, flowering plants formed sweet, sticky, scented buds. Leaves yellowed and fell from stems. They'd soon have their last feeding of nutrients. They'd be watered until harvest.If only we'd done so well. Most of us, including me, got sick at different times throughout the spring and summer. One was admitted for short-term care to the hospice. Some had to adjust to changed chemotherapy regimes. It was a difficult, stressful period. Recurring mite infestations threatened the plants. They, too, had to be treated. Sometimes I was too sick. I worried the crop would be ruined.In October, the plants were cut down, hung to dry, trimmed, cured, then weighed and divided among the exemptees. The harvest was over.It turns out what I'd been doing all summer was cultivating an experimental farm. We will determine which strains of marijuana sativas and indicas help and how. Some of us are wasting. We must manage rough AIDS chemotherapy effects -- puking, nausea, anxiety. Some of us are in pain. Some suffer from depression and insomnia. We've had to make do with street-quality marijuana until now. This is a whole new ball game.We've established a medical marijuana research cell. I know this is a temporary measure. It's another small step toward ensuring Canadians' right to use marijuana for medical purposes.People are helping me keep track, as health and circumstances permit, of how this marijuana helps. This research is personal, subjective and anecdotal.I expect my appeal for legal access to marijuana I am legally allowed to use (and for caregiver immunity) will be heard this year.AIDS runs at a faster pace than courts and governments. People with AIDS live with urgency.We're racing the virus.As the celebration drew to a close and we said our farewells I was struck by how little time we may have left."Farmer" Jim Wakeford lives in Toronto.Note: We've created a medical marijuana research cell while I expect my appeal for legal access will be heard this year.Source: Globe and Mail (Canada)Author: Jim WakefordPublished: Thursday, November 2, 2000Copyright: 2000, The Globe and Mail CompanyContact: letters globeandmail.caWebsite: http://www.globeandmail.ca/Forum: http://forums.theglobeandmail.com/Related Articles & Web Sites:W.A.M.M.http://www.wamm.org/Jim Wakeford Medical Marijuana Websitehttp://www.interlog.com/~wakeford/Patient Sues to Obtain Safe Source of Med. Pothttp://cannabisnews.com/news/5/thread5386.shtmlAIDS Patient Tired of Going to the Streets for Pothttp://cannabisnews.com/news/thread5373.shtmlMarijuana-Smoker Going To Court for Safe Supply http://cannabisnews.com/news/thread4405.shtmlCannabisNews Medical Marijuana Archives:http://cannabisnews.com/news/list/medical.shtml
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Comment #3 posted by Antianti on November 03, 2000 at 08:04:20 PT:
That's It!
I can't take anymore! I'm flying to Amsterdam for the Cannabis Cup. My mouth is watering after that article. Before that, I think a trip to Canada is in order!
Itoke.co.uk
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Comment #2 posted by Kanabys on November 03, 2000 at 05:52:52 PT
I'm so happy
that at least some people are getting the needed relief. But I did drool a little when they were explaining thier growing and harvest :-)
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Comment #1 posted by Ethan Russo, MD on November 02, 2000 at 12:30:21 PT:
A Human Face on the Drug War
I suspect that many Canadians will read this, and feel that their government has not responded quickly enough to the need for clinical cannabis.   Compare that situation to the USA. It would be unlikely that a large newspaper here would even publish such an article, and we are light years behind our northern neighbors in federal acceptance of the scene of AIDS patients and others communing together to take their medicine and enjoy a meal.
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