While it is natural, unfortunately its often pretty polluted with some nasty chemicals that can really be detrimental to our health. Obtaining a medical grade, or pure clean source would be ideal.

Its a pretty controversial subject. I do think it can be a powerful healing herb, especially for severe pain and nausea, but I personally wouldnt use it when many brain/CNS symptoms are involved. I think it can cause more damage in many cases.

I find it gentler and more effective than pharmaceuticals for my symptoms and experience far less side effects.

I had many neuro symptoms and they are all resolving.

In addition to the cautions already mentioned, I would also watch for unwanted weight gain and decreased blood pressure if these are issues for you.

BTW I am also on abx.

I am considering moving to California now!

I ditto the advice given above about being careful for any nasty "additives".

Also, with some people, maryj can mess with the immune system in a way that is not favorable....don't know why...I just read it somewhere...and also know of someone who experienced negative effects...but I'm not telling who!

since i developed neuro symptoms the herb makes my symptoms much worse!

no go for me. neither smoking nor eating it.

cannabis studies are very very mixed. some studies show immune enhancement, some show immune decreasment. there is absolutely no consensus on it.

at the very least, eat it instead of smoking it.

but you really should stop the weed. and if you have some left over, email me and I can give you a shipping address.
just kidding.

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Originally posted by zipzip:
i used to be a joker, a smoker, a midnight toker.

since i developed neuro symptoms the herb makes my symptoms much worse!

no go for me. neither smoking nor eating it.

cannabis studies are very very mixed. some studies show immune enhancement, some show immune decreasment. there is absolutely no consensus on it.

though i highly doubt any drug interaction. don't smoke the seeds.

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anti-cancer, anti-tumor, and other many many benifits have been published by the bbc. this is not a harmful drug. this is a divine healing plant.

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Originally posted by break the chains:
cannabis is a neuro protective. this has been shown clinically. it actually stops degeneration in MS. those that consumed cannabis did substaintially better than those that did not. some studies show that 50% or greater of people with MS have very active mycoplasma infections. the same is true with lyme alhtough the numbers are even higher. montel williams has MS and uses cannabis. his results have been inline with the studies. he claims that it stops him from getting worse and allows him to do his show and live fairly normally. i personally have good reason to believe he has mycoplasma from vaccines. supposedly cananbis is such a strong neuro protective agent that it is an antidote for nerve gas. the government has studied it for this and many other reasons. the government has done massive ammounts of secret research on cannabis including producing a geneticially altered strain which is of unequalled potency.
cannabis also stops and reverses the grown of brain tumors in mice. just last week the bbc published that cannabis can greatly help you avoid stroke and heart disease.
"Cannabis chemical 'helps heart'
Cardiac testing
The cannabis chemical helps ward of heart disease, scientists say" http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/4417261.stm

anti-cancer, anti-tumor, and other many many benifits have been published by the bbc. this is not a harmful drug. this is a divine healing plant.

[This message has been edited by break the chains (edited 15 April 2005).]

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Magical healing and teaching plant

enhances cerebroperfusion

antioxidant more powerful than Vit's E and C by at least 40 orders of magnitude

In mice with experimental autoimmune encephalomyelitis (EAE), the murine model of MS, ALL improved by ~90% and many developed no sypmtomology whatsoever.

Enhances bronchodilation

Anti-herpetic

Combats wasting syndromes

Anti-inflammatory

Anti-neoplasltic

And the list goes on and on...

it's been shown that individuals with organic mental disease are more prone to substance abuse. so this is something brainlymes should be very careful with.

now, that being said, there may be some positive benefits to marijuana. cook and eat. do not smoke. even then I advise against it because regular use of marijuana can contribute to lassitude, fatigue, and anhedonia, which are major symptoms already of CNS lyme. you're making your problems worse. you are also making yourself more prone to eating junk food and being lazy when you need to be eating well, losing weight, and exercising.

marijuana use can contribute to memory lapse and paranoia, other prime manifestations of lyme disease.

some people handle it better than others. I've seen friends bench press 250 lbs while they were stoned.

however, I wouldn't personally endorse the use of weed by anyone with serious CNS lyme disease as I feel it is counterproductive when examined from every perspective.

So educate yourself, pay attention to your body's response, don't use lyme as an excuse to abuse it etc.

It has really helped me, however I don't need very much at all on the rare occasion when I do use it.

In addition to there being different strains, there are also different qualities. And as with any herb, the fresher the better.

The dispensary I go to has over a dozen kind in one catergory and about a dozen in another category.

If it wasn't for the lyme I wouldn't go near the stuff, but I'm sure glad to have it when I need it.

Of great importance is if you tend toward manic/depression or bi-polar disease it will make these worse! In this case I would definitely say it's strongly contraindicated.

I don't smoke pot anymore, it gives me panic attacks, but Montel and a lot of other people like him are most certainly not lazy!

Lazy, how can someone who's stuck in bed or on the couch due to this &^%$ disease be lazy and who cares anyway.

I am not promoting the use but you can't say with any certainty at all that it is out. You can't know anything with that much certainty, nobody does.

As far as us being prone to drug abuse, what the &^%$.Well you got us, we all are druggies and speaking for myself and others I know personally we will and do take anything we need no matter how strong it is to relieve the pain, fear, and anziety that goes with lyme.

There are a lot of us on time release morphine and similar drugs to treat the pain and I bet every one of us would give up the drugs in a heartbeat if we got well.

I am personally in favor of legalization.

I am just basing on my own history here. It's not appropriate for me to get too much into, but I can assure you that in the realm of marijuana and other hallucinogens I know what I am talking about, OK? It's just my opinion. never did heroin, coke, or meth or ecstacsy. other than morphine for medical reasons.

The laziness factor, what I meant was that if you are trying to recover your energy level, you are probably best off not doing weed. I know what regular pot use does to people. On the other hand, if you are being denied antibiotics and have no real hope for recovery, go for it. If I was in this position I would probably smoke myself silly, get some peyote from an indian friend, and go out to the desert to fry.

I just have a strong feeling personally that if you are trying to recover, pot can interfere with that. you only get so many chances for IV antibiotics before your insurance company screws you over, so my opinion is get exercise, lose weight, and try to be as healthy as possible to increase your metabolism and energy level.

what I said about organic mental illness and substance abuse is based on scientific studies. it's not a criticism of anyone. It's something to look out for. a damaged brain is more sensitive to these things. and if you've suffered severely from paranoid delusions or other neuropsychiatric manifestations of CNS lyme, I can't possibly see how pot could help you. I see it as intensifying certain negative effects.

and by the way, I'm as lazy as anyone out there. lately I've been spending entire days in bed again. sleeping. I'm in the same boat, OK? I had a day recently when my back hurt so badly I couldn't get off the ground.

I apologize if my comments upset anyone. I didn't mean for them to sound malicious.

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Originally posted by tikbit:
Boy do you have a lot to learn.

I don't smoke pot anymore, it gives me panic attacks, but Montel and a lot of other people like him are most certainly not lazy!

Lazy, how can someone who's stuck in bed or on the couch due to this &^%$ disease be lazy and who cares anyway.

I am not promoting the use but you can't say with any certainty at all that it is out. You can't know anything with that much certainty, nobody does.

As far as us being prone to drug abuse, what the &^%$.Well you got us, we all are druggies and speaking for myself and others I know personally we will and do take anything we need no matter how strong it is to relieve the pain, fear, and anziety that goes with lyme.

There are a lot of us on time release morphine and similar drugs to treat the pain and I bet every one of us would give up the drugs in a heartbeat if we got well.

People who need pain meds or any other so called addictive substance don't take them to get high they take them to be able to live.

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they were trying to do a study to prove that cannabis causes a-motivational syndrome, so they went to jamica where they smoke the most.
to their disapointment they found that productivity with workers was greater with higher ganja consumption.

they were also trying to prove that cannabis causes birth defects. what they found is that the jamaican babies born to ganja smoking mothers ( even durring pregnancy ) were healther and in better shape than other babies.

i posted previously that cannabis is not a drug. it actually binds to receptors we have in our brains that help regulate hunger, happiness, and the autonomic neverous system (ANS.) we have lipids in our brains which are continually used in the same receptors as cannabis. its a different key that opens the same lock. the chemical is called anandamide.
this checmial as well as other cannabinoids are found in all types of breast milk!

Marijuana? where?

while you may have good points about different strains of weed, how many lyme patients are going to be able to afford the $100+ it costs (at least in my neck of the woods) for a quarter ounce or even less of these strains? and most people unless they are tied into the system or live in a big city are not going to be smoking high grade strains. it's a question of access. you'll be smoking either local product (referred to as McCurtain county gold around here) or that mexican crap.

my experience with severe CNS lyme and extensive hands on experience with many types of cannabis would indicate to me that marijuana use is a BAD idea in general. you could experience a psychotic paranoid reaction, for instance.and how many scientific studies have been done on the efficacy of marijuana use in diffuse organic brain syndromes? I don't know the answer to this question, but my guess is the numbers are small or nonexistent. maybe I'm wrong here, and I'm sure that will be pointed out in the very near future.

It's well established that chronic marijuana use can result in an amotivational syndrome. I don't need scientific studies and neither should most people who have taken an adequate number of bong hits to realize that pot use can make you lazy. and it's not good for your lungs if you are smoking it.I would tend to discount a study done in the kleptolaziness capital of the world the tropical paradise of jamaica whose major products are cannabis, rum, flowery shirts, and really cool music.

the study was not one done by jamaicans, but instead our government on a cuture where ganja is considered sacred and is accepted socially. futhermore the study did not look at just jamaica, but the carribian islands. this is how a comparison was made.

"if marijuana use helped CURE lyme, I would be in training for the olympics. can it help? can it alleviate symptoms? I'm sure it can in some cases. so I'm not attacking people, I'm just saying be careful, and for god's sake don't smoke it."

personally, I have to say that of everything I've done, mushrooms are the coolest. I think it sucks that our stupid laws prevent responsible adults from using the same spiritual substances our ancestors used i.e. weed, mushrooms, peyote, etc. I've had new and meaningful insights into nature and myself.

although one thing I would never do again is salvia, as bizarre as that sounds...I haven't really done any of this stuff in about two years, but I did have a moment last year where a friend talked me into salvia, I thought, what the heck, it's legal. so then we smoked a big fat salvia joint, I inhaled like there was no tomorrow because I thought I'd have to in order to feel anything, and then suddenly I could barely crawl, and I felt like I was going to dissolve. really disturbing fortunately brief experience, with racing horrible thoughts about my imminent death from a disease that is hardly acknowledged. and since then, I've decided no more for now until my situation improves. and that influences my views on others.

and hey, no problem man. I can be a very big sarcastic jerk. no hard feelings.

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Originally posted by tikbit:
not to mention it works really well for the nausea and Although it may be listed as a halucinogen I have never nor do I know of anyone who has ever had a halucination unless of course it was lace with something else. Bruce I'm sorry I was so catty I was having a bad day and took what you said wrong.

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Originally posted by trevor:
What's "nutrijoint" HappyCarl?

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Making tea from ganoderma mushrooms seemed helpful. Cut pieces off the fruiting bodies and boil them in a cloth teabag, in a couple cups of pure water, for about 4 minutes. The tea has a pleasant flavor.
There are several species of ganoderma that seem good. Ganoderma are large "shelf fungus" that grow on wood. The best known is the "reishi", that you can buy dried, in health food stores. (as well as occasionally find growing on a log or dead tree). Another species of ganoderma is the "artist fungus" which has a very white underside that darkens when bruised. And there's a ganoderma that grows at the base of pine trees that seems to be very healing, when tea is made from it. It has the latin name ganoderma tsuge.

DaveS

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Originally posted by ivebeentricked:
Does anyone know the risks of mushrooms that cause one to hallucinate? I have heard from a number of people (none of them have any basis for making the claim) that mushrooms are thought by many to be good for the body, antibacterial and anti viral, when taken on occasion?

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Originally posted by ivebeentricked:
Vaporizers reduce some of the toxins that get created at temperatures high enough to cause combustion but they do not take away all of the harm in smoking. Smoke from a vaporizer is still smoke and it does do some damage, just not as much as a joint, pipe, or bong. Eating cannabis is the safest way to go but its expensive to buy enough to cook with usually. Marijuana really does relieve some of my symptoms, especially when I eat it. But it can make others worse for me when smoked.

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this is totally wrong. a real vaporizer does just what it says. it vaporizes the essential oils without producing any smoke whatsoever. instead of flame and combustion, a mild heat is used. the only thing that happens is that essential oils vaporize at these temperatures. on the volcano you can adjust the temp. all it does is blow hot air through the ganja into a bag to cool. the whole point is to completely avoid flame and the harmful by products of combustion. the optimal temperature for vaporizing cannabis is around 350 degrees. you could easily bake something in the oven at this temp, the cake isnt going to go up in flames. you can feel your lungs completely clear out and clean up when switching to a vape. once i found it there was no looking back.

good vaporizers have been shown to be very very efficent and safe. a little bit of ganj goes a loong way with a vape. this is partially because combustion destroys everything including those essential oils you are after. a good vape does not even smell like smoke, in fact they hardly smell at all. i have used a vaporizer in college dorm rooms with no worries.
eating is nice once in a while, and can be amazing for getting rid of symptoms, but it has its downsides. for example you need to use many many times more of the same expensive product. in addition you need to have something to injest it in. i along with others are avoiding the kind of treats you would typically put buds in. just the fact that you have to use so much makes it a rare thing for myself and those that i know.

try smoking the antibiotic, and get back to me with a report on this.

Shares in GW Pharmaceuticals rose nearly 10% after the UK biotech firm's prescription cannabis drug was approved for use in Canada.

Sativex is used to treat the central nervous system and alleviate the symptoms of multiple sclerosis (MS).

The Salisbury-based company said this was the world's first approval of a medicine derived from cannabis.

Delays in development of the product - its first to come to the market - has hit GW's stock price in the past.

Shares in GW shares were up 12 pence at 133p in early afternoon trade on the London Stock Exchange.

Sativex, administered by a mouth spray, will be marketed in Canada by German company Bayer.

GW said it hoped to launch Sativex in Canada in late spring.

"The approval of Sativex reflects the urgent need for additional treatment options in the field of neuropathic pain in MS," said Dr Allan Gordon of Mount Sinai Hospital, Toronto, in a statement issued by regulators Health Canada.

Secret field

Some MS patients already smoke cannabis to relieve their symptoms.

Satifex consists of a cannabis extract containing tetrahydrocannabinol and cannabidiol.

GW had originally hoped to win UK approval for Sativex in 2003.

The UK government granted GW Pharma a licence to cultivate cannabis for medical research purposes and plants are grown at a secret location in the English countryside.

Last December, however, the UK authorities said they wanted more evidence about its benefits before they approved it.

"We very much hope it wont be long before those in the UK are sharing the benefits which people with MS in Canada can now experience," said Mike O'Donovan, chief executive of the Multiple Sclerosis Society.

GW spokesman Mark Rogerson said the company would look to market Sativex in the EU after UK approval is granted.

This year, he said GW would take the "first steps" to seek approval for a cannabis-derived drug in the US.

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Legally growing your own organic cannabis and then eating it is really the best way to go. [/B]

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there was a study done on the volcano vapor by norml/maps http://www.canorml.org/healthfacts/vaporizerstudy2.html

Previous studies have found that vaporizers can reduce harmful toxins in cannabis smoke. However this is the first study to analyze the gas phase of the vapor for a wide range of toxins
...
The new study used a gas chromatograph mass spectrometer (GCMS) to examine the gas components of the vapor. .The analysis showed that the Volcano� vapor was remarkably clean, consisting 95% of THC with traces of cannabinol (CBN), another cannabinoid. The remaining 5% consisted of small amounts of three other components: one suspected cannabinoid relative, one suspected PAH, and caryophyllene, a fragrant oil in cannabis and other plants. In contrast over 111 different components appeared in the gas of the combusted smoke, including a half dozen known PAHs. Non-cannabinoids accounted for as much as 88% of the total gas content of the smoke.

Their site www.gwphar.com is full of great info, especially if you go to the "research and development" section and click on "cannabis-based medicines" to find pages like:
http://www.gwpharm.com/research_cannabinoids.asp

and under "product pipeline" you'll see the myriad conditions the whole plant extracts with different ratios of the cannabinoids they use are indicated for, at:
http://www.gwpharm.com/research_pipeline.asp

I mean we're talking about a revolution in pharmacology here. And God willing the political and economic interests of, for example, the alcohol, agricultural and tobacco industries and the war on drugs, will not further stifle development of such crucial medicines nor greater awareness of the potential of cannabis.

We're talking everything from MS, diabetic neuropathy and CNS injury to arthritis, IBS, epilepsy, drug dependancy, chronic pain and even psychosis. Manipulate the ratios, as GW has, and you've got different medicines with different indications.

As far as the volcano, the last time I used one was at the 2002 Cannabis Cup in Amsterdam. It was fine, I'm just more fond of the heat guns and most fond of oral consumption.

Just wanted to add that today, 4-20, is international cannabis day.

Don't worry be happy. Love is the only Truth, everything else is an illusion.