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Speaker 1: Now here's a highlight from Coast to Coast AM on

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Speaker 1: iHeart Radio and welcome back to Coast to Coast. George

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Speaker 1: Norri with you and CLINTA. Werner was with me six

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Speaker 1: and a half years ago and now he's back. He

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Speaker 1: has degrees in journalism and library science. He's worked in

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Speaker 1: the field of preventative healthcare for more than twenty five years.

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Speaker 1: Studied macrobiotic cooking and practice in Boston back in nineteen

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Speaker 1: eighty five. Then he relocated way over to the West

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Speaker 1: Coast in the San Francisco Bay Area, where he co

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Speaker 1: authored the San Francisco Police Department's Health and Fitness Plan

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Speaker 1: back in eighty seven and worked teaching AIDS cancer and

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Speaker 1: heart disease patients how to improve their health with diet

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Speaker 1: and lifestyle change. He was named an Activist of the

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Speaker 1: Month by Normal, the national organization for the Reform of

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Speaker 1: marijuana laws. And here he is back on Coast to Coast.

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Speaker 1: Been awhile, Clint, welcome to the show. Thank you so

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Speaker 1: much for asking me back, and I'm glad to be here.

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Speaker 1: And it's hard to believe it's been six and a

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Speaker 1: half years, it really is. And in those six and

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Speaker 1: a half years. Have things changed for getting marijuana used

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Speaker 1: the medicinally? I would think yes, But how about you?

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Speaker 1: It has? It has changed pretty rapidly and radically, I

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Speaker 1: would say, because there's so much evidence growing from research

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Speaker 1: but also anecdotal and as one person finds relief and

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Speaker 1: tells another person and it just spreads by word of

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Speaker 1: mouth because it works, then this movement just advances. And

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Speaker 1: with the move that's gone from medical to legal, the

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Speaker 1: legal has made it much more accessible to more people

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Speaker 1: who might have been hesitant to have to go to

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Speaker 1: and pay a doctor for an approval. Of course, there's

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Speaker 1: some other problems with that we'll talk about, but it

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Speaker 1: is opening up and it certainly is becoming more available

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Speaker 1: for far broader range of people. Clinton. I got an

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Speaker 1: email from one of our listeners who said, why are

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Speaker 1: you supporting the use of drugs? What are you doing?

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Speaker 1: And then I've gotten about fifteen other emails from people

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Speaker 1: saying that this works for medical purposes beyond anything we've

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Speaker 1: ever tried. But how do you address that first email?

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Speaker 1: What do we say to them? Well, we use a

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Speaker 1: lot of drugs for healing and treating different maladies that

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Speaker 1: we have. Cannabis can be considered a drug. It's not

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Speaker 1: a hard drug, and that's the interesting thing about it.

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Speaker 1: It sort of has a foot in both camps. It

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Speaker 1: has a foot in the more herbal folk medicine remedy world,

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Speaker 1: but also in because it's so effective and these compounds

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Speaker 1: are so promising that it's becoming embraced by the pharmaceutical world.

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Speaker 1: And of course there's also the other aspect, which is

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Speaker 1: the recreational use that people enjoy. Boy draw a pleasure

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Speaker 1: from the experience of smoking or ingesting marijuana, and some

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Speaker 1: people resent that they are fearful of that because it's

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Speaker 1: been driven home to them that this is a sort

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Speaker 1: of degenerate activity and it has a whole lot of

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Speaker 1: terrible effects from the body and mind. And so I

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Speaker 1: would say that there are definite amazing healing properties with

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Speaker 1: this plant. And the interesting thing is for those people

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Speaker 1: who enjoy it recreationally socially, it also has some protective

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Speaker 1: effects that come from those same actions in the body.

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Speaker 1: So don't be so quick to be negatively judgmental about it.

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Speaker 1: There's some real positives. And of course everything that has

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Speaker 1: the front has a back, So there's another aspect to

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Speaker 1: it that we always need to be aware of, but

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Speaker 1: to just dismiss it as sort of a worthless part

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Speaker 1: of drug culture is not really effective or beneficial for anyone.

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Speaker 1: How can one plant have so many incredible effects on

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Speaker 1: ailments and diseases. It is stunning and amazing that this

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Speaker 1: plant does embodies so many healing potentials for such a

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Speaker 1: broad range of ailments and the well it's been used

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Speaker 1: for centuries and centuries and centuries. It really found its

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Speaker 1: first home in India, where it was grown and used

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Speaker 1: extensively in their pharmacopeia for all sorts of ailments, cancers,

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Speaker 1: seizure disorders, and topical ulcerations of the skin. So it

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Speaker 1: has that history, but no one really could understand and

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Speaker 1: after the repression that came in the early part of

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Speaker 1: the twenty century where it was blocked off from use socially,

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Speaker 1: recreationally but also medicinally, it kind of went dormant until

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Speaker 1: the sixties. And what people found when they started looking

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Speaker 1: at the claims, the anecdotal claims that people had of

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Speaker 1: benefits is that this plant produces these sticky, resinous compounds

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Speaker 1: that are exuded from the flowering tops primarily, and these

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Speaker 1: compounds are loaded with what are called cannabinoids. And the

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Speaker 1: fascinating thing about cannabinoids is in their structure and function.

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Speaker 1: They match up almost identically with compounds in our bodies

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Speaker 1: that are called endocannabinoids, so they have they amplify the

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Speaker 1: effects of endocannabinoids, and the effect of the endocannabinoids in

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Speaker 1: our body are to regulate our systems. We have all

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Speaker 1: these varied systems digestion or logical, the blood, your circulatory,

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Speaker 1: your liver, all of these different metabolic and functional organ

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Speaker 1: functional systems that are integrated, and these compounds help to

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Speaker 1: regulate and keep all those in harmony and also adjust

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Speaker 1: our natural internal environment away from disease the states that

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Speaker 1: give rise to disease. And it's really remarkable that this

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Speaker 1: plant has these incredible complementary compounds that are so similar

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Speaker 1: to our own and match up and work as protective

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Speaker 1: agents as well as treating medicines well. And I don't

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Speaker 1: want to use the word cure because we really can't

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Speaker 1: for things like this, but a lot of people are

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Speaker 1: saying that cannabis has remarkable properties to help fight off ailments,

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Speaker 1: and you would agree with that, Oh, it really does.

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Speaker 1: There's no denying that. Now the fascinating thing is that

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Speaker 1: so much research, a lot of research that was intended

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Speaker 1: to find harm as found benefit. They didn't expect to

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Speaker 1: find benefits. When they started doing this research, they were

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Speaker 1: pursuing harm because that's what's allowed by law, and they

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Speaker 1: just the researchers in the field kept doing these there's

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Speaker 1: a lot of money for doing harm assessment research, and

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Speaker 1: they kept getting these anomalous beneficial results. And also they

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Speaker 1: matched up with the anecdotal reports from the social users

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Speaker 1: who were getting good reports for some of their ailments.

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Speaker 1: And then when researchers really started to look at it,

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Speaker 1: they found these compounds. And it's just amazing that so

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Speaker 1: many positive effects can be had from excuse me, one plant.

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Speaker 1: And you just really have to stop and say, what

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Speaker 1: an amazing thing nature is to produce a plant that

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Speaker 1: can complement our health in so many ways. It is

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Speaker 1: truly truly remarkable. And how did you get involved in

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Speaker 1: this point? Well, it's interesting because I was kind of

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Speaker 1: a slob kid, a junk food junkie, and I had

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Speaker 1: no interest in health. But after I started socially smoking

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Speaker 1: marijuana and I sort of got a triggered interest in health.

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Speaker 1: And one thing followed another I started. I went to Boulder, Colorado,

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Speaker 1: and saw a lot of healthy people there and went

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Speaker 1: home and researched health and I got into the field.

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Speaker 1: And I just always enjoyed cannabis. I didn't like alcohol.

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Speaker 1: I've never had a cup of coffee in my life,

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Speaker 1: so I'm not really drawn to a lot of mood

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Speaker 1: altering substances. But this worked for me, and I found

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Speaker 1: that when I stopped because I thought it was unhealthy

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Speaker 1: and it didn't wasn't harmonious with my lifestyle, I ended

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Speaker 1: up with manifesting psoriasis, which is a genetic ailment, and

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Speaker 1: that was a real problem, and so I started back. Eventually,

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Speaker 1: I just decided to try it again, and I found

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Speaker 1: it helped with some of the pain and inflammation. And

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Speaker 1: then I had a friend who had AIDS. I was

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Speaker 1: his caregiver, and it kept smoking marijuana kept him alive.

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Speaker 1: He could eat food when he could not previously, just

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Speaker 1: a couple of little puffs, and I would make him

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Speaker 1: a macrobiotic whole foods meal, one pot meal, really rich

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Speaker 1: in nutrients. And so I just saw how this worked.

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Speaker 1: And at the same time, the science was coming through

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Speaker 1: because people were wanting to know why why this happened? Why,

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Speaker 1: you know, why are these results that are beneficial and

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Speaker 1: you know positive for help coming through? And so there

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Speaker 1: is just an inquiry and more research free places in

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Speaker 1: the world, especially Israel, and here we are. We know

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Speaker 1: that there are some real positive benefits. Where are we

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Speaker 1: clint right now? In terms of legalization across the country,

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Speaker 1: And it's a state by state thing, isn't it? It is.

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Speaker 1: There are several states that have legalized fully Let's see

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Speaker 1: Colorado being one of them, Colorado, Washington State. Let's see California, Oregon,

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Speaker 1: I believe is also fully recreational. I think Vermont has

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Speaker 1: recently gone. They're about eight of them that have gone

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Speaker 1: full on legal. And then there's a whole assortment of

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Speaker 1: states that have varying degrees of medical allowances different laws.

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Speaker 1: Some are very well written and are very broad, and

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Speaker 1: others are really really really restrictive, almost superfluous. Because they're

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Speaker 1: so restrictive, it's growing by leaps and bounds. What is

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Speaker 1: the federal government doing about this? Well, you know that

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Speaker 1: is pretty amazing in some ways, because they seem to

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Speaker 1: be at this point hands off. The Trump administration has

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Speaker 1: not gone after the state programs. There was some concern

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Speaker 1: when Jeff Sessions was the Attorney General because he was

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Speaker 1: very much against any softening of laws against marijuana. He

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Speaker 1: is really a hardliner, and it's kind of surprising that

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Speaker 1: he apparently was held in abeyance by Trump to keep

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Speaker 1: him from descending on this social experiment that's going on.

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Speaker 1: And so that's an interesting aspect of this, that the

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Speaker 1: brains of freedom or in this sense, being loosened up

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Speaker 1: a little bit so the experiment can continue. Listen to

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Speaker 1: more Coast to Coast AM every weeknight at one am Eastern,

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Speaker 1: and go to Coast to Coast am dot com for

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Speaker 1: more