You may have heard that there is a medical cannabis bill in the State Legislature this year — or maybe you haven’t heard at all. Either way, S. 6265 is moving fairly quickly through the Washington State Senate. It was voted out of the Senate Health and Long Term Care Committee on January 30th and was sent to the Senate Ways and Means Committee. But instead of holding a public hearing and committee vote on the bill, Ways and Means Chair Sen. Ed Murray (D-Capitol Hill) decided to move the bill directly to the Senate Rules Committee, a formal stop before the bill goes to the Senate floor for a vote by all 49 State Senators. While we don’t know the exact date of the floor vote yet, it looks like it will happen in the next week… Read More…

At 4E we are always looking for food that can pair nicely with our medicinal regiment that day. Seattle and our surrounding areas are foodie hotbeds, great chefs come for the Tom Douglas restaurants and choice herb for therapy. It doesn’t surprise us that many of the best chefs medicate, and the historical connection between our powerful plant and culinary success hardly raises an eyebrow. It takes an icon like Anthony Bourdain to talk straight on this issue, he is after all the guy eating “Happy Pizza” in Cambodia on his “No Reservations” show. Chefs are rarely drug tested, chronically overworked and with some help from the NY Times we look at the storied history between great chefs and cannabis… Read More…

Lately 4E has been in the enviable position of touring Western Washington to check out several access points. One of our favorites is the CPC in Georgetown, owned by Jeremy Kaufman and Ben Regan. While visiting with Jeremy, who happens to be the Seattle Weekly’s 2011 Bud Tender of the year, we were introduced to THC pills for the first time. The concept makes plenty sense, as many people consume cannabis for medical use and do not enjoy or simply cannot smoke. At the same time, many people don’t want to consume a brownie or cookie either. So, a pill? How convenient indeed. Read More…

You may have heard a large explosion around the question of cannabis legalization recently, complete with activists of every stripe making all kinds of accusations and counter-accusations. That’s because an email written by Allen St. Pierre, the longtime executive director of NORML, was leaked to the CelebStoner.com website, which published it in early January. In it, St. Pierre appears to trash medical cannabis and, to some peoples’ thinking, medical cannabis patients while trumpeting legalization efforts. There’s always been tension between medical cannabis advocates and legalization advocates on all kinds of front going back to the early-1990s — disputes over rhetoric, politics, fundraising and pretty much anything else you care to name. Read More…

Recently 4E visited the medicine jar to pick up some medicine and visit with the guys who work there. During our visit one of our party had a stiff neck that was sore for no apparent reason. The same stiffness that re-occurs in his neck and back periodically every year since his sports playing days. One of the workers noticed the pain and offered me something called Cayenne Muscle & Joint Balm. He had never tried something like this, and refused to take muscle relaxing pills so he was eager to try it. Read More…

Tmz.com reports that over the weekend legendary rapper Snoop Dogg was busted by police in Texas for possession of cannabis. This has got to be about the 9,000th time that Snoop has been popped for possession. Word is he had less than one-half of one ounce in his possession on his tour bus, which was searched by authorities at a Border Patrol checkpoint in Sierra Blanca, Texas. Read More…

In a closely watched ruling yesterday, a federal district court judge in Arizona tossed out that state’s lawsuit over its voter-approved medical cannabis law. The ruling certainly has implications for Washington State. Read More…

Although it sounds like a joke, anecdotes keep cropping up of older persons claiming that cannabis is an integral part of their healthy longevity. Most recently comes this news item from India where one of its oldest citizens, a 125-year-old woman, recently died. Named Fulla Nayak, she claimed that daily cannabis use was her secret to a (very) long life. Read More…

“It cures cancer!” “It treats deep chronic pain effectively.” “It gets people off of methadone and morphine and other addictive pain killers.” Those are the kinds of claims being made for what’s commonly known as “Rick Simpson oil,” but is also known as “hemp oil” in some circles. The short story is that the oil is a highly-concentrated cannabis extract that’s ingested or applied topically and is quickly developing an evidence base as a cancer cure and chronic pain treatment. Read More…

I don’t often begin science-y postings with a question mark, but in this case I must. That’s because a video came to my attention over the Holidays in which some credible doctors — one of whom teaches at the UCSF School of Medicine — claim that juicing with cannabis is the way to go for a number of ailments including cancer. I have no way of evaluating their claims and there’s no published research on the efficacy of cannabis juice that I know of, but still the idea is intriguing enough to pass along. Read More…