Weed & Sex

Every once in a while, growers will run into a “trileaf” seedling. This is a relatively common mutation, and you’re likely to run into it if you germinate a lot of cannabis seeds. 3-leaf cannabis seedlings should generally be treated like any other seedling.

They will grow about 1/3 more side branches than regular seedlings, so a 3-leaf seedling might be a good candidate for cannabis plant training or a ScrOG setup.

Tri-leaf cannabis seedlings (3 leaves per set)

2.) Two-Toned Leaves

Two-toned leaves usually have split coloring in a relatively straight line. This mutation often affects just one or two leaves on the whole plant, though sometimes you’ll get a whole stem or part of the plant that displays this characteristic.

The two-toned leaves don’t seem to have much effect on anything, but it’s kinda cool looking!

I believe this happens due to a type of “variegation” (wikipedia link) and may be due to “sectorial chimera”. Other plants besides cannabis plants can have this happen, too!

Not to be confused with a nutrient deficiency, this mutation usually affects just one or two leaves on the plant. Nothing to worry about! Sometimes half of the leaf will turn purple….

More commonly, half of the leaf will turn light yellow or even white.

3.) Buds Growing From Center of Leaf

Here’s a normal cannabis leaf. Unfortunately, as beautiful as these leaves are, they normally contain no THC.

Normal Cannabis Leaf
(no buds growing from the base)

Cannabis leaves that are growing buds
(these cannabis plants have THC-encrusted buds growing from center of leaves)

This is a mutation I’d love to see on my plants one day 🙂 Though strangely placed, these buds are like any other buds found on the plant. You just get a couple extra buds encrusted with THC & trichomes!

The following leaf-bud has grown a single calyx with a few pistils

Here’s another amazing plant – imagine what you could do with all the trim!

The following nug is almost 1/2 gram – Talk about a bonus!

4.) THC-Filled Trichomes Can Grow Just About Anywhere on a Budding Cannabis Plant

Growers are breeding strains that produce more and more trichomes all over the plant.

Trichomes are small, glandular stalked resin glands that carry the majority of cannabinoids and THC produced by the cannabis plant.

A bud covered in trichomes will have an almost “sparkly” or “glittery” appearance. Cannabis breeders are selecting cannabis plants which produce more of these sparkly trichomes not just on buds, but on leaves and stems close to buds This is done with the purpose of getting more potency with the same amount of time, effort and space.

Crazy trichome closeup, thanks to Koma Trichome (find Koma on Facebook)

5.) Some Buds Make “Fox Tails”

Bud with little foxtailing – common with Indica-based strains
(buds are rounded out, sometimes one foxtail visable near top)

Massive foxtailing can be a genetic trait, and certain strains will tend to produce foxtails all over their buds no matter what. This seems to happen most commonly with Haze and Sativa-based strains.

This way that buds can grow is named after “fox tails” because the buds tend to grow in a rounded shape with the fluffy hair-like pistils coming from the end.

Example of healthy foxtailing based on genetics
(notice how there are fox tails all over the bud, instead of just at the top)

However, massive foxtailing is often the result of heat or stress. You know that’s likely the case when the foxtailing seems to be happening most in the parts of the plant that are close to a heat or light source.

When a single foxtail keeps growing longer and longer, it is almost always a sign of some sort of major stress to the buds, most often heat.

This massively long foxtail was caused by heat
(it’s basically a very long and thin bud, and will likely never fill out)

Here’s another foxtail that was triggered by too much heat

The following bud erupted with foxtails after a heatwave
(the plant also suffered from nutrient stress, which can trigger foxtailing on its own)

6.) This Is What Cannabis Roots Look Like

This incredible roots picture was taken by grower Ramon. The plant was first grown in hydro (with the roots grown directly in water), then transferred to soil.

7.) Cannabis Seeds Can Carry “Twins”

Twin tap roots can sometimes emerge from one cannabis seed. This is sort of like your seed having twins, because each new root has the potential to form into a separate plant.

“I had one of those on my first grow. Plant it, and once it sprouts up, you can GENTLY and CAREFULLY seperate the 2 plants and transplant one to a new pot. If you leave them both together, the stronger one will “starve” the weaker one, so to speak. When I split mine apart, they both grew nice and big :D”

~ J_Justice

From the grower, “When I got the seed it looked really deformed.”

“[Twin seeds are] fairly common. I’ve had some seedbatches that had ’round 30% ‘twins’. However, what I haven’t seen yet* is a set of twins that come out one male and one female. It’s odd, because the twins usually differ in various traits, they’re not really clones of each other. If one were to get a M/F pair of twins, an apomictic (wiki apomixis) cross could be made between the two, which would (in theory) produce a strain with stable traits in just one generation. “

~ duggreen

*yet has been 46 years so far….

8.) Vegetating Cannabis Plants Have an Amazing Ability to Heal

“This is a white widow a couple of weeks into flower, quite nice, but look to the bottom of the stem and you see a big ‘knuckle’.”

“This lady was snapped mid veg by accident. She was completely on her side and connected to the main stem by a few fibers and a sliver of ‘skin’. The ‘connected’ tissue was around 1mm, (around the thickness of a credit card).

“She was roughly taped upright with some very haphazard wrapping with electrical tape and forgotten about. Not only is she looking pretty good, (for a small pot and relatively modest light), she’s not at all delayed or less healthy than her sisters. I guess the message is never give up…”

~ DrWeedington

9.) It’s Possible to Bleach Plants With Too-Bright Light

Light Bleaching – most common with high-power LEDs, but can also happen poorly ventilated HPS lights that are kept too close to the tops of the plants. Basically, this is what happens when plants get too much light, kinda like how hair on top of your head can turn lighter if you spend a lot of time in the sun.

Buds which have been bleached tend to be low potency or even have no potency (no available THC or other cannabinoids). Therefore you should avoid light-bleaching your plants at all costs!

Sometimes light-bleached cannabis will get mis-labeled as “albino cannabis” or “white cannabis” but the truth is that the white color is not healthy, so this is not a desirable trait (even if it looks pretty cool).

10.) Flowering Cannabis Plants Can Make “Sap”

Sap – there’s lots of speculation about what it is. No one knows for sure. Many growers who have run into this agree that the type of sap produced is sweet and doesn’t contain much (if any) THC. It is mostly made of sugar and water and so is not smokable. Seems to be related to the plant over-producing sugars, and sap productions is more common when

Using sugar supplements like molasses, Botanicare Sweet, Sugar Daddy, etc.
Big temperature difference between night and day, especially if it gets cold at night
Certain strains or individual plants seem more likely to produce sap

“Strain: Kosher Kush. Flowered her for 70 days and she was covered in trichs. When we harvested her we noticed about a dozen of these sap like globes. They range in color from clear to amber.”

~ DC514

“The plants had already been flushed properly – I let the soil dry completely and fed the plants 2TBSP/gallon of molasses, let them eat and then flushed them out again and waited 2-3 days before harvest. Both plants started producing excretions all over. I’ve seen this before, sap leaking from the stem of plants, however personally I’ve never seen it on the buds themselves. What I believe happened is the pores of the plants either get clogged and therefore “pop” for lack of a better word. Or, the plant liked the molasses better than it’s natural sugars and forced some of those out. Either way I’m going to try this on another plant and see what happens. Is there a benefit to it? Probably not, but I’m going to get the substance tested. I’ve ingested all of the little sap pockets I’ve found and while it tastes like canna, it doesn’t seem physchoactive. Who knows, it could be loaded with CBD or something else.”

~ SeriousSports

Stem Sap (more common) – often appears to seep out of injured parts of the stem, but not always! Sometimes sap seems to ooze out of uninjured parts of the stem.

Bonus: Uncommon mutation – Plant naturally topped itself

What’s interesting about this case is that the plant naturally did something that the grower would normally have to do themselves. Cannabis plants normally grow in a triangle tree shape, and growers often must cut or train the plant in order to grow more low and bushy.

Growers sometimes accomplish a low and bushy growth pattern with a plant training technique known as “topping.” Learn more about topping

Here’s two normal young cannabis plants, each with a regular growth tip (set of leaves) at the top:

Normal cannabis plants

So to get rid of this top growth node, a grower would normally cut it off, like this

Now the following plant had a strange mutation…

This plant randomly grew a leaf instead of a growth node, so it naturally topped itself, take a look!

View more pictures of this unique plant: http://imgur.com/a/PqpTu

Check It Out!

Fact: Certain Strains Are Easier to Grow Than Others

3 Recommended strains for beginners

Motavation – hardy and short strain that produces – even if you run into problems, she’ll bounce back quickly.

Aurora Indica – potent indica that is easy to grow.

BlackJack – get the effects of a Sativa or Haze with a plant that is actually suited to indoor growth, short and easy to train. BlackJack produces a potent soaring effect that hits hard, fast and is long-lasting – unbelievable number of trichomes on the buds and leaves. Suitable for medicinal purposes.

Beginners – Avoid these strains!

The following strains are considered “advanced” and while they produce amazing buds, thy tend to be difficult to grow and/or finicky

Durban Poison – Tends to grow tall and shows a variety of unusual phenotypes, can be tough to clone. You don’t know what to expect when growing a Durban Poison seed. This strain originates from Africa and buds produce a unique “up” effect. Buds tend to be incredibly potent though not often “pretty” in the conventional sense with longer sugar leaves. Unusually quick to harvest, especially for a Sativa-leaning strain.
Jack Herer – Famous medicinal strain that is great for anti-anxiety, you cannot get the original Jack Herer strain as a feminized seed so you will need to buy regular (unfeminized) seeds and manually pick out all the male plants. Yields are on the smaller side but the quality of the buds produced are exceptional.
Liberty Haze – Genetics are not completely stable and many growers report different growth types with this strain. Can stretch tall in the initial stages of flowering, though does seem to respond well to supercropping. Unique flowery scent with citrus lime undertones. Unlike what breeder specs state, this strain needs about 10-12 weeks in flowering before she’ll be ready for harvest. When grown right, this strain produces thick dense colas with THC levels above 25%.

Ready to Start Growing for the New Year?

Get Your Stuff!

First, choose your grow type…

Ultra Small, Cheap & Stealthy: DIY Space Bucket
Setup Cost: ~ $100
Easy First Grow: Coco Coir & CFL Grow Lights
Setup Cost: ~ $300
Go Pro with HIDs: MH/HPS Grow Lights
Setup Cost: ~ $400- $1000+
Mad Scientist: LED Grow Lights
Setup Cost: ~ $400-1300+

Did You Know? – 5 More Fun Facts For Cannabis Growers

Cannabis plants are always moving

This constant movement is something that all plants do, and is known as “Circumnutational Movement” (wikipedia link).

Nothing can really show you as well as watching a time-lapse video:

This video shows several incredible time-lapse videos of growing cannabis plants, set to music

View 10 more time-lapse videos of growing cannabis plants

Cannabis plants can “see”

Think about this: plants see you.

In fact , plants monitor their visible environment all the time. Plants see if you come near them; they know when you stand over them. They even know if you’re wearing a blue or a red shirt. They know if you’ve painted your house or if you’ve moved their pots from one side of the living room to the other.

Of course plants don’t “see” in pictures as you or I do. Plants can’t discern between a slightly balding middle-aged man with glasses and a smiling little girl with brown curls.

But they do see light in many ways and colors that we can only imagine. Plants see the same ultraviolet light that gives us sunburns and infrared light that heats us up. Plants can tell when there’s very little light, like from a candle, or when it’s the middle of the day, or when the sun is about to set into the horizon.

Plants know if the light is coming from the left, the right, or from above. They know if another plant has grown over them, blocking their light. And they know how long the lights have been on.

This is an except from What a Plant Knows: A Field Guide to the Senses by Daniel Chamovitz. I highly recommend this book if you want to learn more about plants and exactly how they perceive the world!

Read reviews about some of the better cannabis growing books available today

No one knows exactly how cannabis plants determine gender

Environmental sex determination is known to occur with cannabis plants. Many researchers have suggested that sex in Cannabis is determined or at least strongly influenced by environmental factors. Ainsworth reviews that treatment with auxin and ethylene have feminizing effects, and that treatment with cytokinins and gibberellins have masculinizing effects. It has been reported that sex can be reversed in Cannabis using chemical treatment.

Learn more about cannabis sex determination on wikipedia.

Learn how to use these unique properties to make your own feminized cannabis seeds at home

A cannabis plant can grow taller than a tree in just one summer

Here’s an cannabis plant that produced 11 pounds 3 ounces worth of bud – grown in a 400 pound smart pot and filled with Vermisoil.

Look at the base of a cannabis plant this size, it looks just like a tree trunk with bark!

Cannabis seeds can germinate almost anywhere warm and wet

Life Finds A Way

“My friend accidentally grew this in her sink. How is this even possible?”

Seedlings have enough energy (“food”) stored in the seed to make their first set of leaves. After that, they need light and nutrients to grow further. Unfortunately, this seedling won’t make it unless transplanted to a more suitable growing environment.

Learn how to germinate cannabis seeds right here

Bonus pic: Closeup look at cannabis trichomes – some of these ones are touched with purple

http://www.growweedeasy.com/weird-or-what

Dietary and Medicinal Use of Cannabis

Posted on December 1, 2013December 1, 2013 by Ganja Vibes™

Net Resources

Websites with Useful Information
Related To The Dietary And Medicinal
Study And Use Of Cannabis

Cannabis Connections / Links to Links: International Association of Cannabinoid Medicine Links
National Cancer Institute Reveiw of Cannabis: A definitive and current reveiw of cannabis, signalling a change at the top. Excellent lists of references.

Wikipedia Highlights: Online Education

The sites of action of Phytocannabinoids: ECS modulates cellular function, the more one knows about the range of cell structure and function the better one can conceive of phytocannabinoid influenced cellular modulation. Up and down regulation of the cell specific physiologic and pathophysiologic function.
The Endogenous Cannabinoid System: A group of neuromodulatory lipids and their receptors that are involved in a variety of physiological processes including appetite, pain-sensation, mood, and memory; it mediates the psychoactive effects of cannabis.
Cannabinoid Receptors: The Cannabinoid Receptors are one of several sites of actions of the Phytocannabinoids.
Enzymes: Phytocannabinoids also have direct action of enzymes & channels. This article covers the generic principals.
Overview of cannabis limited to psychoactive uses: I hope if you are at this level at Cannabis International you are interested in anti-oxidant anti-inflammatory, anti-neoplastic, or other uses ideally in a preventive or therapeutic mode, more accurately in a phrase, developing recognition of cannabis as a ‘dietary essential’. Other than the initial comments, an incredible series of links.
Medical Cannabis: More on point, this medical cannabis page does not emphasize the cannabinoid acids that act at GPR55, affectionately known as the Orphan Receptor. There is no doubt it deserves to be CB3, the Phytocannabinoid Receptor, where the delicate cannabinoid acids act as an antagonist producing their potent anti-inflammatory effects.

Organizations

Versativa: A pleasant reveiw of the diverse uses of cannabis.
Beckley Foundation: A well thought out global policy on ‘victimless crimes’.
Search the Beckley Foundation library: The Beckley Foundation online library comprises an extensive scientific bibliography, with research papers on consciousness and drug policy research.
Patients out of Time: Every two years, Patients out of Time presents a national CME qualified conference.
ICRS / International Cannabinoid Research Society: 20 years of rigorous research, presented in North America and Europe on alternating years. This year in Chicago. The annual ICRS Programme is an excellent overview of the breadth of research on the Endogenous Cannabinoid System, Exogenous ligands including synthetic and phytocannabioids. Go to the particular year and in the side bar is the Programme PDF. Drop on a CD, print & bind and pull up a very comfortable chair.
International Association of Cannabinoid Medicine: A bi-annual conference held in Germany, with affiliate conferences in other European countries.
O’Shaughnessy’s Journal for Cannabis Clinicians
US National Library of Medical Publications
Google Patent Search
Clinical Trials site: Review of anti-oxidant trials
Institute of Medicine
Schaffer Library of Drug Policy
Schaffer Library Table of Contents

Companies

List of medical conditions, developing patented products

Online Education

GGECO University
Medical Cannabis Conference – Speakers: Kristen Peskuski and myself presented, at some point they may be available online
707Cannabis College
Oaksterdam University

Source: http://www.cannabisinternational.org/index.php

Cannabis International

A Resource For The Dietary And Medicinal
Study And Use Of Cannabis

Cancer and Sexual Health

Posted on December 1, 2013December 1, 2013 by Ganja Vibes™

Sexuality is a complex characteristic that involves the physical, psychological, interpersonal, and behavioral aspects of a person. Recognizing that “normal” sexual functioning covers a wide range is important. Ultimately, sexuality is defined by each patient and his/her partner according to sex, age, personal attitudes, and religious and cultural values.

Many types of cancer and cancer therapies can cause sexual dysfunction. Research shows that approximately 50% of women who have been treated for breast and gynecologic cancers experience long-term sexual dysfunction. Nearly 70% of men who have been treated for prostate cancer experience long-term sexual dysfunction.

An individual’s sexual response can be affected in many ways. The causes of sexual dysfunction are often both physical and psychological. The most common sexual problems for people who have cancer are loss of desire for sexual activity in both men and women, problems achieving and maintaining an erection in men, and pain with intercourse in women. Men may also experience inability to ejaculate, ejaculation going backward into the bladder, or the inability to reach orgasm. Women may experience a change in genital sensations due to pain, loss of sensation and numbness, or decreased ability to reach orgasm. Most often, both men and women are still able to reach orgasm, however, it may be delayed due to medications and/or anxiety.

Unlike many other physical side effects of cancer treatment, sexual problems may not resolve within the first year or two of disease-free survival and can interfere with the return to a normal life. Patients recovering from cancer should discuss their concerns about sexual problems with a health care professional.

Factors Affecting Sexual Function in People With Cancer

Both physical and psychological factors contribute to the development of sexual dysfunction. Physical factors include loss of function due to the effects of cancer therapies, fatigue, and pain. Surgery, chemotherapy, and radiation therapy may have a direct physical impact on sexual function. Other factors that may contribute to sexual dysfunction include pain medications, depression, feelings of guilt from misbeliefs about the origin of the cancer, changes in body image after surgery, and stresses due to personal relationships. Getting older is often associated with a decrease in sexual desire and performance, however, sex may be important to the older person’s quality of life and the loss of sexual function can be distressing.

Surgery-Related Factors

Surgery can directly affect sexual function. Factors that help predict a patient’s sexual function after surgery include age, sexual and bladder function before surgery, tumor location and size, and how much tissue was removed during surgery. Surgeries that affect sexual function include breast cancer, colorectal cancer, prostate cancer, and other pelvic tumors.

Breast Cancer

Sexual function after breast cancer surgery has been the subject of much research. Surgery to save or reconstruct the breast appears to have little effect on sexual function compared with surgery to remove the whole breast. Women who have surgery to save the breast are more likely to continue to enjoy breast caressing, but there is no difference in areas such as how often women have sex, the ease of reaching orgasm, or overall sexual satisfaction.

Colorectal Cancer

Sexual and bladder dysfunctions are common complications of surgery for rectal cancer. The main cause of problems with erection, ejaculation, and orgasm is injury to nerves in the pelvic cavity. Nerves can be damaged when their blood supply is disrupted or when the nerves are cut.

Prostate Cancer

Newer nerve-sparing techniques for radical prostatectomy are being debated as a more successful approach for preserving erectile function than radiation therapy for prostate cancer. Long-term follow-up is needed to compare the effects of surgery with the effects of radiation therapy. Recovery of erectile function usually occurs within a year after having a radical prostatectomy. The effects of radiation therapy on erectile function are very slow and gradual occurring for two or three years after treatment. The cause of loss of erectile function differs between surgery and radiation therapy. Radical prostatectomy damages nerves that make blood vessels open wider to allow more blood into the penis. Eventually the tissue does not get enough oxygen, cells die, and scar tissue forms that interferes with erectile function. Radiation therapy appears to damage the arteries that bring blood to the penis.

Other Pelvic Tumors

Men who have surgery to remove the bladder, colon, and/or rectum may improve recovery of erectile function if nerve-sparing surgical techniques are used. The sexual side effects of radiation therapy for pelvic tumors are similar to those after prostate cancer treatment. Women who have surgery to remove the uterus, ovaries, bladder, or other organs in the abdomen or pelvis may experience pain and loss of sexual function depending on the amount of tissue/organ removed. With counseling and other medical treatments, these patients may regain normal sensation in the vagina and genital areas and be able to have pain-free intercourse and reach orgasm.

Chemotherapy-Related Factors

Chemotherapy is associated with a loss of desire and decreased frequency of intercourse for both men and women. The common side effects of chemotherapy such as nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, constipation, mucositis, weight loss or gain, and loss of hair can affect an individual’s sexual self-image and make him or her feel unattractive.

For women, chemotherapy may cause vaginal dryness, pain with intercourse, and decreased ability to reach orgasm. In older women, chemotherapy may increase the risk of ovarian cancer. Chemotherapy may also cause a sudden loss of estrogen production from the ovaries. The loss of estrogen can cause shrinking, thinning, and loss of elasticity of the vagina, vaginal dryness, hot flashes, urinary tract infections, mood swings, fatigue, and irritability. Young women who have breast cancer and have had surgeries such as removal of one or both ovaries, may experience symptoms related to loss of estrogen. These women experience high rates of sexual problems since there is a concern that estrogen replacement therapy, which may decrease these symptoms, could cause the breast cancer to return. For women with other types of cancer, however, estrogen replacement therapy can usually resolve many sexual problems. Also, women who have graft-versus-host disease (a reaction of donated bone marrow or peripheral stem cells against a person’s tissue) following bone marrow transplantation may develop scar tissue and narrowing of the vagina that can interfere with intercourse.

For men, sexual problems such as loss of desire and erectile dysfunction are more common after a bone marrow transplant because of graft-versus-host disease or nerve damage. Occasionally chemotherapy may interfere with testosterone production in the testicles. Testosterone replacement may be necessary to regain sexual function.

Radiation Therapy-Related Factors

Like chemotherapy, radiation therapy can cause side effects such as fatigue, nausea and vomiting, diarrhea, and other symptoms that can decrease feelings of sexuality. In women, radiation therapy to the pelvis can cause changes in the lining of the vagina. These changes eventually cause a narrowing of the vagina and formation of scar tissue that results in pain with intercourse, infertility and other long term sexual problems. Women should discuss concerns about these side effects with their doctor and ask about the use of a vaginal dilator.

For men, radiation therapy can cause problems with getting and keeping an erection. The exact cause of sexual problems after radiation therapy is unknown. Possible causes are nerve injury, a blockage of blood supply to the penis, or decreased levels of testosterone. Sexual changes occur very slowly over a period of six months to one year after radiation therapy. Men who had problems with erectile dysfunction before getting cancer have a greater risk of developing sexual problems after cancer diagnosis and treatment. Other risk factors that can contribute to a greater risk of sexual problems in men are cigarette smoking, history of heart disease, high blood pressure, and diabetes.

Hormone Therapy-Related Factors

Hormone therapy for prostate cancer can decrease normal hormone levels and cause a decrease in sexual desire, erectile dysfunction, and problems reaching orgasm. Younger men do not always experience the same degree of sexual dysfunction. Some treatment centers are experimenting with delayed or intermittent hormone therapy to prevent sexual problems. It is not yet known if these modified treatments affect the long-term survival of younger men.

The effects of tamoxifen on the sexuality and mood of women who have breast cancer are not clearly understood.

Psychological Factors

Patients recovering from cancer often have anxiety or guilt that previous sexual activities may have caused their cancer. Some patients believe that sexual activity may cause the cancer to return or pass the cancer to their partner. Discussing their feelings and concerns with a health care professional is important for patients. Misbeliefs can be corrected and patients can be reassured that cancer is not passed on through sexual contact.

Loss of sexual desire and a decrease in sexual pleasure are common symptoms of depression. Depression is more common in patients with cancer than in the general healthy population. It is important that patients discuss their feelings with their doctor. Getting treatment for depression may be helpful in relieving sexual problems.

Cancer treatments may cause physical changes that affect how an individual sees his or her physical appearance. This view can make a man or woman feel sexually unattractive. It is important that patients discuss these feelings and concerns with a health care professional. Patients can learn how to deal effectively with these problems.

The stress of being diagnosed with cancer and undergoing treatment for cancer can make existing problems in relationships even worse. The sexual relationship can also be affected. Patients who do not have a committed relationship may stop dating because they fear being rejected by a potential new partner who learns about their history of cancer. One of the most important factors in adjusting after cancer treatment is the patient’s feeling about his or her sexuality before being diagnosed with cancer. If patients had positive feelings about sexuality, they may be more likely to resume sexual activity after treatment for cancer.

Assessment of Sexual Function in People with Cancer

Sexual function is an important factor that adds to quality of life. Patients should discuss their problems and concerns about sexual function with their doctor. Some doctors may not have the appropriate training to discuss sexual problems. Patients should ask for other information resources or for a referral to a health care professional who is comfortable with discussing sexuality issues.

General Factors Affecting Sexual Functioning

When a possible sexual problem is identified, the health care professional will do a detailed interview either with the patient alone or with the patient and his or her partner. The patient may be asked any of the following questions about his or her current and past sexual functioning:

How often do you feel a spontaneous desire to have sex?
Do you enjoy sex?
Do you become sexually aroused (for men, are you able to get and keep an erection, or for women, does your vagina expand and become lubricated)?
Are you able to reach orgasm during sex? What types of stimulation can trigger an orgasm (for example, self-touch, use of a vibrator, shower massage, partner caressing, oral stimulation, or intercourse)?
Do you have any pain during sex? Where do you feel the pain? What does the pain feel like? What kinds of sexual activity trigger the pain? Does this cause pain every time? How long does the pain last?
When did your sexual problems begin? Was it around the same time that you were diagnosed with cancer or received treatment for cancer?
Are you taking any medications? Did you start taking any new medications or did the doctor change the dose of any medications around the time that these sexual problems began?
What was your sexual functioning like before you were diagnosed with cancer? Did you have any sexual problems before you were diagnosed with cancer?

Psychosocial Aspects of Sexuality

Patients may also be asked about the significance of sexuality and relationships whether or not they have a partner. Patients who have a partner may be asked about the length and stability of the relationship before being diagnosed with cancer. They may also be asked about their partner’s response to the diagnosis of cancer and if they have any concerns about how their partner may be affected by their treatment. It is important that patients and their partners discuss their sexual problems and concerns and fears about their relationship with a health care professional with whom they feel comfortable.

Medical Aspects of Sexuality

Patients may be asked about current and past medical history since many medical illnesses can affect sexual function. Lifestyle risk factors such as smoking and high alcohol intake can also affect sexual function as well as prescribed and over-the-counter medications. Patients may be asked to fill out questionnaires to help identify sexual problems and may undergo a variety of physical examinations, blood tests, ultrasound studies, measurement of nighttime erections, and hormone tests.

Treatment of Sexual Problems in People with Cancer

Many patients are fearful or anxious about their first sexual experience after cancer treatment. Fear and anxiety can cause patients to avoid intimacy, touch, and sexual activity. The partner may also feel fearful or anxious about initiating any activity that might be thought of as pressuring to be intimate or that might cause physical discomfort. Patients and their partners should discuss concerns with their doctor or other qualified health professional. Honest communication of feelings, concerns, and preferences is important.

In general, a wide variety of treatment modalities are available for patients with sexual dysfunction after cancer. Patients can learn to adapt to changes in sexual function through reading books, pamphlets, and Internet resources or listening to and watching videos and CD-ROMs. Health professionals who specialize in sexual dysfunction can provide patients with these resources as well as information on national organizations that may provide support. Some patients may need medical intervention such as hormone replacement, medications, or surgery. Patients who have more serious problems may need sexual counseling on an individual basis, with his or her partner, or in a group. Further testing and research is needed to compare the effectiveness of various treatment programs that combine medical and psychological approaches for people who have had cancer.

Fertility Issues

Radiation therapy and chemotherapy treatments may cause temporary or permanent infertility. These side effects are related to a number of factors including the patient’s sex, age at time of treatment, the specific type and dose of radiation therapy and/or chemotherapy, the use of single therapy or many therapies, and length of time since treatment.

Chemotherapy

For patients receiving chemotherapy, age is an important factor and recovery improves the longer the patient is off chemotherapy. Chemotherapy drugs that have been shown to affect fertility include: busulfan, melphalan, cyclophosphamide, cisplatin, chlorambucil, mustine, carmustine, lomustine, cytarabine, and procarbazine.

Radiation

For men and women receiving radiation therapy to the abdomen or pelvis, the amount of radiation directly to the testes or ovaries is an important factor. Fertility may be preserved by the use of modern radiation therapy techniques and the use of lead shields to protect the testes. Women may undergo surgery to protect the ovaries by moving them out of the field of radiation.

Procreative Alternatives

Patients who are concerned about the effects of cancer treatment on their ability to have children should discuss this with their doctor before treatment. The doctor can recommend a counselor or fertility specialist who can discuss available options and help patients and their partners through the decision-making process.

Cannabis can help in countless ways.

Source: http://www.medicinenet.com/script/main/art.asp?articlekey=21642&page=3

Nude Yoga on Tonight’s agenda and yours?

Posted on November 23, 2013 by Ganja Vibes™

The Treasure of Human Body

The human body is complex and beautiful. It gives you pleasure and pain, and it is both strong and fragile. While we all come into this world wearing nothing, nudity is one of the strongest taboos that have ever existed in our society. We cover and protect our own bodies, but do we really cherish them?

Nude yoga is a form of yoga practice that accentuates the perfection of the human body. It teaches to understand, appreciate, and cherish your physique. It’s the simplest and most natural way to start a healthier and happier life by learning the techniques of gentle workout and meditation.

Nude yoga isn’t mainstream and it really isn’t for everyone, but it can turn you into an artist who rediscovers and rebuilds his body beautiful.

source: http://nudeyoga.org.uk/

Post by: HeatherB

The struggle is real!

Posted on November 23, 2013June 20, 2014 by Ganja Vibes™

This fits into the sex and weed demographic quite nicely.

Source: http://www.bforbel.com/2013/06/one-womans-struggle-to-reuse-her-penis-cake-mould-im-dyingggg.html

Posted by: HeatherB

Baking Bad: A Potted History of ‘High Times’

Posted on November 1, 2013November 1, 2013 by Ganja Vibes™

The editors of the nation’s most popular pot magazine on its four decades-long fight to end cannabis prohibition.

Atossa Araxia Abrahamian

October 30, 2013 | This article appeared in the November 18, 2013 edition of The Nation.

The High Times staff, circa 2005 (Steven Sunshine)

High Times was conceived in classic outlaw fashion. Founded by a successful pot smuggler and radical ’60s activist named Thomas King Forçade, it was intended as a one-time parody of Playboy, complete with centerfolds of exotic, voluptuous cannabis plants. But that first issue was a runaway hit, selling more than half a million copies and paving the way for what has become a stoner-American institution. In addition to the requisite grow-scene surveys, pot-price appraisals and joint-rolling tips, High Times has published writers like Hunter Thompson, William Burroughs, Charles Bukowski, Allen Ginsberg and Truman Capote. It also advocated an end to pot prohibiton at a time when marijuana users were being sentenced to years, even decades, in jail.Forty years later, the magazine has much to celebrate. It has survived the untimely death of its founder, the graying of the counterculture and the dawn of the Internet age, and even some of the laws that created the need for a pro-pot magazine in the first place. It has weathered various government investigations and attacks; founded its annual Cannabis Cup competition in Amsterdam and, more recently, additional Cups in a number of US states, which rank among the biggest marijuana festivals in the world; and published a series of books on everything from cooking with weed to cannabis spirituality. Most importantly, its vision of a day when pot is accepted, even legal, is now proving to be much more than a pipe dream.

We caught up with some of the current and former editors of the self-styled “most dangerous magazine in America” to talk about their role in the long, hard fight for legalization—and their hopes for a cannabis-infused future.

Rick Cusick (associate publisher): High Times was founded by Thomas King Forçade, the number-one East Coast marijuana smuggler in the late ’60s–early ’70s. He was a true revolutionary. He came up with the idea of High Times in 1974.

Michael Kennedy (general counsel): At the time, I was practicing at an office in a town house that a lawyer and I owned together on East 78th Street. Tom would come in virtually daily and talk about one adventure or another. Tom’s primary activity was flying pot from Jamaica into South Florida, sometimes into Georgia or Alabama. And he was successful at it. It’s why one of the original High Times logos is an airplane—it’s a mock-up of a DC-3, because that’s what he would fly, loaded to the gills with marijuana. When he founded High Times, he founded it with that cash—because at the time, you could take cash to the bank and open up a bank account. So Tom started this magazine with dope money.

Rick Cusick: Tom died in 1978. He killed himself, and the memorial was attended by lawyers, pot dealers, rock stars and more lawyers. They wanted to have a special memorial, so they rented the top floor of the World Trade Center so they could be as high as they possibly could. They went to the top of the World Trade Center, and the editors of High Times and Keith Stroup from NORML approached the family and got a small amount of Tom’s ashes. And they took the ashes from the founder of High Times and mixed it in with an ounce of marijuana, and they smoked it on the roof of the World Trade Center. And they took a little bit and tossed it off. So I work for a company that smoked its founder. That’s culture.

Michael Kennedy: We were trying to decide how best to subvert the anti-marijuana laws. And one of the ways Tom came up with—and it’s really the seed of genius of High Times—is teaching people how to grow marijuana. Because if, in fact, you can teach people how to grow, and there’s a First Amendment right to teach, they can start growing under any imaginable circumstances—from your aunt’s sewing basket to a drawer in your college dorm. All you need is a paper towel and a little bit of water, and nature will take care of the rest. If everybody who wants to grow can learn how to grow, then there’s no way the government can possibly withstand that subversion.

Steve Hager (former editor in chief): After Tom died, Michael Kennedy stepped in and saved the company. I came in several years later.… You can imagine that the magazine, for years, had just been people doing drugs all day long. People would come in for photographs, and the art director would do lines of coke in the art room, and people would be smoking in every corner. It was nitrous balloons; it was… talk about fog. It just couldn’t run like that. I wanted it to be a magazine that changed the perspective people had on pot, because at that time, people thought it was the same as cocaine. And I wanted to draw a line and say, “No, no, no—coke is on this line.” It immediately took off and went from teetering on the verge of collapse to selling the best it ever sold.

Michael Kennedy: We started the Cannabis Cup in 1987. Steve Hager went to a half-dozen growers in the Netherlands—we called them “the Dutch Masters”—and said, “We’ll sponsor a Cup here in Amsterdam. Why don’t you bring your very best seeds, your very best buds?” We weren’t too interested in hash or oils back then. Certainly, there were no real edibles or lotions at the time.

Steve Hager: At first, we were just sending little skeleton crews of three people, and the company didn’t want to invest money in it, so I didn’t turn it into a public event until the fifth year. And I had this concept that we were going to base all of our ceremonies around 420, which is something nobody had ever heard of. What had happened was, I’d been sitting outside the office in the stairwell—the only place we could smoke a joint at that time; now we probably can’t smoke at all—and my news editor, Steve Bloom, was carrying a flier he’d picked up at a Grateful Dead show in Oakland. It said, “Come to Mount Tamalpais on April 20th at 4:20.” So I’m looking at this paper, and it says that people are going to meet at 4:20 on April 20 at the top of Mount Tamalpais to smoke pot together. And I think this was anemanation, a manifestation of the spiritual powers of cannabis. Calling its tribe to its Passover, to its Sermon on the Mount—it’s our baby infant religion, and it’s forming before our eyes.

Michael Kennedy: Today the Cannabis Cup is good branding, quite simply. It allows us to meet the new generation, the young growers. They’re really young and vibrant, God bless ’em. And there’s an entirely new breed of growers who studied agronomy, and studied botany and chemistry, and they are true, scientific twenty-first-century farmers. And they’re developing some of the finest weed imaginable.

Steve Hager: It’s a different event now. It’s a corporate event, and it’s not like what I was trying to do. I was trying to do a real spiritual thing, and when you bought your ticket, you were buying into something that charged your spiritual battery, if you were into that. Most people didn’t ever connect to it on that level—but the ones that did, we connected. We had a fun time, and we manifested a lot of incredible magic through that.

Michael Kennedy: In the 1990s, we also developed, for a time, a [quarterly] magazine calledHemp Times. We were quite successful with that in terms of selling the magazine, and we even opened a store called Planet Hemp near the East Village. Our problem was that we were too early, because it was almost impossible to get hemp products then.

Dan Skye (executive editor): We were there trying to push this hemp thing along. We did Hemp Times for four years; we did eighteen issues total. All of us back then thought hemp was really going to open the door and make weed legal, and everything would fall like dominoes. Unfortunately, it didn’t—and what really has done it is medical marijuana.

Michael Kennedy: Tom and I talked a lot before he died about what we imagined the future of marijuana would be, but neither one of us caught on early to the real inroad—that would be the medical properties of marijuana. The research had not been done. So what we knew was that it had a high recreational value, and that we loved it and that many people loved it—but we never imagined anything beyond that. So if today, Tom came back from a desert island and saw the Sanjay Gupta show, he’d say, “Wow… that’s my dream.”

David Bienenstock (feature writer): For about three years, starting in 2010, we had a stand-alone publication about medical marijuana. Legalization is a huge story, but what we’re finding out about the true medical potential of cannabis is a huge, huge story.

Dan Skye: We used to be the bible of marijuana news. You came to High Times to find out about drug war news. And now we have a very successful website. We’ve got a new website director; we got 1 million unique web clicks last month alone. And people want to come to a marijuana festival. The fact that it’s legal for medical use in California, that it’s legal for recreational use in Colorado and Washington—we’ve had these tremendously successful events, the Cannabis Cups. There are Medical Cannabis Cups in places like California and Michigan, and US Cannabis Cups in Colorado and Washington. And I don’t think there’s a trade-off at all. Our magazine’s getting stronger—we’re adding pages. That’s unheard of in this time.

Mary McEvoy (publisher): I was just talking to our printer about the next issue. We got an additional sixteen pages. And after that one, we have our bong special, and we’re thinking about going up in pages for that. So I talked to him, and he said, “You’re the only publisher that I’ve talked to in years that is looking for additional paper to put in the magazine.” We’re not hurting advertisement-wise at this point. The whole media world out there is crying in their booze right now, but we’ve been very lucky. Our readers are very loyal, and our advertisers sure get a response from them.

Danny Danko (senior cultivation editor): Tons of companies are coming in to advertise. A lot of the vapor-pen companies, a lot of the hydroponics companies that sort of shied away from us years ago because they didn’t want that connection to marijuana, have come around because they’re just not afraid of the stigma anymore. That’s one of the things I think High Times has done a good job of—just removing the stigma of the “lazy stoner.” Instead, we try to show that whether it’s in the entertainment business or sports or wherever, we are everywhere. We are doctors and lawyers; we are throughout society and in every part of it. And I think High Times is one of the things that have reinforced the truth rather than the cliché.

Michael Kennedy: The key to High Times’s survival is that I’ve never let High Times break the law. Our clients have broken the law, and our business partners have broken the law, I suppose, and even our advertising people. High Times has survived a lot of grand juries and a lot of inquiries and a lot of attacks from the IRS and what-have-you, but the thing that almost brought us to our knees was in 1989, when the DEA advanced Operation Green Merchant to go after the hydroponics people. All of those advertisers, they were our advertising base. [Federal law enforcement agencies] also kept subpoenaing our subscriber list, and we refused to give it to them. We were threatened with contempt several times. But when they attacked our advertisers and took them out of business—that was the nadir of our existence. And it was really hard to come back.

Around that time, the joke around here was that law enforcement was keeping us in business. Every sheriff in the South had a subscription to High Times. The DEA had I don’t know how many hundreds, the FBI… so there were all these subscriptions.

Chris Simunek (editor in chief): Are they still spying on us? Well, if you’ve read the headlines recently, they are probably spying on all of us. I tell you, when those headlines broke recently and everyone was so shocked that the government was reading our e-mails, I looked at the whole thing and was like, “I always believed that they were doing this.” So I have always gone forward as if the government is reading everything.

Jen Bernstein (managing editor): Are we scared? I think there is always a fear. We went to Detroit and followed every rule in the book. We were at Bert’s Warehouse, which is in downtown Detroit. We were holding a Medical Cannabis Cup, in which we have vendors, and an expo, and seminars, and we provide an open-air smoking area for medical patients in the state of Michigan to come and medicate. The cops came and essentially shut down the smoking area outside. Allowed the expo to continue—they just didn’t want people openly smoking marijuana. And these are legit patients. So, yes, there is a fear, and it’s a fear of us not being able to protect the patients of Michigan. Michigan is not a legal state, so until we have complete legalization, there’s always a risk—because, federally, we are not protected.

Chris Simunek: At the beginning, I was working basically with criminals, trying to get them to do pieces for us. Now that’s gotten easier as the laws have changed. But we’re still dependent on a criminal element to get the job done. We don’t consider them criminals—the laws of America make them criminals. So we work hand in hand. And I would say that’s a pretty big difference between us and Forbes, although I guess Forbes probably works with a lot of criminals, too.

Dan Skye: You’ll see a lot of hypocrisy in the media world. We don’t get access, even though we’re members of the press like anyone else…. Publicists like to get their clients into High Times, but they don’t want their clients to be seen with marijuana, or don’t want them to talk about marijuana. Especially celebrities—we have to deal with that all the time. I’ve interviewed countless celebrities: Bryan Cranston, Alanis Morissette… I did Oliver Stone a few years back. And very seldom will you get somebody to pose with pot. Woody Harrelson wouldn’t even pose with pot! Alanis Morissette was the first really mainstream person who posed in a pot garden. So that’s a real problem—getting people into our ballpark. We like celebrities, but unless they’re on the cover with pot, like Oliver Stone was, we don’t do it.

Chris Simunek: There are some great stars out there that are very pro-pot who have yet to be on the cover. I mean, Rihanna is always Instagramming herself smoking a joint. Zach Galifianakis is pretty cool and forward about it. Those are two I would be interested in…. And I guess you know that Snoop Dogg is still pretty much on top as far as pot-smoking celebrities are concerned. He has managed to maintain his profile for so long and diversify everything he does—products, reality show, pornography, everything from movies to music. His business model, whatever it is, is pretty astounding. He’s a guy that even my dad has heard of, and my dad also knows that he smokes pot.

Bobby Black (senior editor): It used to be, back in the day, it was always rock—psychedelic rock in the ’60s and ’70s—that was the music associated with pot. Then hip-hop came out—well, and reggae, of course, because of the Rasta culture—and they embraced pot in a big way. The thing that’s changed now is that I’m noticing pop stars like Miley Cyrus and Justin Bieber really embracing pot. And it’s not that pop stars never smoked weed before; it’s just that now they’re out about it and don’t really care. It’s become so accepted that the new generation is just like, “So what?”

Dan Skye: Jennifer Aniston! I think she would sell, because we know that she smokes pot—we’ve heard about it for years. We tried; we got no response. And Miley Cyrus is great. We did a poll a few months back: “What celebrity would you most like to smoke with?” And she scored higher than Bill Maher, which we thought was really kind of funny.

Bobby Black: When the magazine started, all throughout the ’70s, sex was an integral part of it. We had beautiful women on the cover. We walk a fine line with it, because we don’t want to be exploiting women. On the other hand, those covers were sexy—and there is nothing wrong with sex. I’ve always stressed this: High Times is about hedonism. But it isn’t about irresponsible, over-the-top hedonism—it’s about enjoying everything life has to offer, and sex is part of that. But the reason we don’t put [former porn star] Jenna Jameson in her bathing suit on the cover anymore is because the sales just weren’t there. Our readers would rather stare at centerfolds of plants—and that’s just the facts we have learned over the years.

David Bienenstock: We’ve never promised a cover to anyone, but if a currently pot-smoking prominent politician is interested in the cover, they should definitely get in touch and talk to us about an exclusive.

Chris Simunek: What I’ve really wanted for High Times is to have more journalism in general. It could be hard-hitting journalism; it could be gonzo journalism. I just want the magazine to have a good read in every single issue—because, if left unchecked, it will by nature fill up with pot pictures and grow stories and stuff like that. It’s almost like I’m the mom at the head of the table saying, “Everybody’s got to eat their vegetables!” I want to maintain the tradition that we’ve always had of having quality journalism in the magazine.

Steve Hager: Have you looked at any of the issues I put out? Because they’re filled with conspiracy stories of deep political events, and incredible forays in counterculture history… and now the magazine just promotes marijuana: “Grow it and smoke it and, now, dab it! And wake up at 7:10 and do some bong hits.” It’s a balls-to-the-wall, marijuana-everythingmagazine. And that’s just making money off marijuana—I don’t think anybody would argue with that statement…. But make money—go, go, go. I’m not anti-capitalist and I’m not anti–big business. That’s not where I’m going to go, but I’m not going to try and stop you. I’m happy with my little magic show here.

Chris Simunek: We do have the High Times haters up there. We just did a cover on dabs. “Dabs” is concentrated hash oil, which is created by a volatile chemical process, similar to the way you would create perfume or rosemary oil. It’s controversial because a lot of kids—I don’t know if they are kids—a lot of idiots who don’t know what they’re doing are renting hotel rooms and cooking this stuff up and blowing themselves up the way meth labs used to blow up. It’s a highly controversial new element to the marijuana world. We are covering it, and we’ve told people how to make dabs safely, but there’s an element that thinks we should be the morality police of the marijuana world. And there’s also this whole crunchy-granola aspect of the marijuana subculture which doesn’t want anything to do with that, and so they’re like: “How dare you? Dabs is like hard drugs! Dabs is this, dabs is that.” Then there’s another element that says we should not tell anybody what to do. So we’re never gonna please everybody at the same time, and I think that’s fine.

Steve Hager: My generation just smoked joints. The next generation went to bong hits. If you grow up smoking bong hits, you can’t smoke joints, because you need that power. And now it’s dabs. Dabbing’s perfectly cool—dab away. But when the sirens are calling, are you going to be able to pull back, or are you going to crash on the rocks? Because if you crash on the rocks… just be advised.

Do I wish my cannabis rituals and other things were still going on? Yeah, but you know what? They are going on. I passed these things down, and people picked up on them, and you see little elements of my rituals all over the cannabis movement. At 4/20, people will be lighting the seven candles of peace. All magic is the same. It doesn’t matter—you can call it religion or whatever you want, but it’s all based on bell, book and candle. These are the elements that are used to manifest prayer and meditation.

David Bienenstock: The biggest change in the ten years I’ve been with High Times—not that long ago in political years—is that, back then, people would say, “Why are you working on pot legalization? That’s never going to happen.” And now people say, “Oh, you’re working on pot legalization? That’s inevitable.” So that’s been the huge change. And I think what’s exciting is that the world is coming around to where High Times was at its founding—long before I was involved, or even alive.

Chris Simunek: We used to change people’s identities a lot. Back then, when you’re talking to a guy breaking a federal law which is going to land him in jail for quite a few years, I didn’t have any journalistic qualms about saying he came from Alabama when he came from Ohio, you know? I remember being blindfolded in the back of a car and being brought to some growroom in the basement of a guy’s house… that’s how paranoid he was. Now I get people e-mailing me with their full name and address saying, “I want you to come to my 5,000-square-foot house in Colorado—and bring your photographers.” I just think the access has changed, and people aren’t afraid anymore.

Jen Bernstein: When I took my job at High Times, I spoke with my parents and explained to them what I was joining. My dad knew what it was and my mom didn’t. But they feel like if it’s meant to be, it will be. And now my dad came with me to the Cannabis Cup and was a worker and got a High Times hoodie. My dad is in Charlotte, North Carolina, and he wears this hoodie that says “Cannabis Cup,” and people stop him and are like, “Oh, did you go to the Cup?” And he’s like, “Yeah, I did. I worked there.” So I think they’re proud of me now, and all their friends know what it is even though they may not smoke pot themselves…. How would your parents take it?

Danny Danko: When I started off in the cultivation department, I had to ride in the trunk of a car to go and see some of these growrooms. People were so scared to show me regular-size—well, what I would consider fairly average-size—grows. Now you go and see thesemassive operations in California, Colorado—all over, really—and I never thought I would see the day that people would be walking me on tours of huge, indoor pot-growing facilities that are perfectly legal under state law. It is kind of mind-blowing… but once the dominoes start to fall, they fall so fast it’s hard to keep up.

Elise McDonough (West Coast design and production director): After the medical marijuana laws started to pass, especially on the West Coast, more and more people got into making edibles and distributing them through collectives and dispensaries. We’re in an era where people go way beyond the pot brownie. Now you see cannabis in savory sauces, drink mixes, candy bars. You’re just getting better and better edibles, and the thing that’s advancing the industry is lab testing. Before, you couldn’t tell how much THC you’d get in a dose—but now you can test and know exactly how much you’re going to ingest. It’s especially helpful for people who are insomniacs or chronic-pain patients. The difference between smoking and eating pot is that you have a body effect that lasts longer, so if you have back pain, you can get relief for six to eight hours.

The first story in High Times about edibles was called “Eat It,” in 1978. That was a story written by a guy who worked as a sailor and traveled around the world and tried edible marijuana in Turkey and Greece. He had a hash candy called majoun, which is hash sautéed in butter with mixed dates and nuts and spices rolled into a ball. It’s like a baklava without filo dough.

We also had Chef Ra’s “Psychedelic Kitchen” column, which started in the ’80s. Chef Ra, sadly, passed away several years ago, but we’ve continued the recipe column with different contributing chefs along the way. We do recipes online, and there’s also a recipe in the magazine every month.

Bobby Black: I wouldn’t say I consider us “the most dangerous magazine in America.” The most notorious, maybe, but not dangerous. We’ve represented an outlaw and counterculture ethos for so long that, like you say, it’s becoming mainstream now. But what I would also like to say is that we haven’t come to the mainstream; the mainstream has come to us. The same thing is true with civil rights, the revolution in the ’60s, the sexual revolution.

Danny Danko: I think that with the Internet, the distinction between mainstream culture and the counterculture is fading. I don’t think there is any one counterculture. That’s always sort of been associated with the hippie movement, which is a part of our culture—but it’s not all of our culture. We reach out to all. Marijuana users are everybody, and we try to reach out to all of them.

Rick Cusick: Every year, I go to the Boston Freedom Rally and give a speech. We’re sponsors of the rally. It’s been going on for twenty-four years, and there were over 30,000 people there last year. I was there in 2007 with Keith Stroup from NORML. It was kind of rainy, and Keith said, “You want to smoke a joint?” And I said sure. Then this kid came up to us. We thought he wanted a hit, but he was an undercover cop. He had no idea who we were. So he took us to a tent where they arraigned people. They said, “Step up—what’s your name?” I said, “Rick Cusick.” They said, “Where do you live?” Told ’em. “What’s your Social Security number?” Told ’em. “What do you do?” I said—this was at the time—“I’m the co-editor ofHigh Times magazine.” And the cop looked up and said, “You’re kidding.” I said, “Wait, it gets better!” I slapped Keith on the back and said, “This is Keith Stroup, the founder of NORML and my attorney. And everything we say is on the record.” And they said, “You’re going to write about this?” And I said, “Oh, yeah!”

So we got arrested for a joint, and they arrested sixty people that day. Every year, they arrested a quota of about sixty kids under 25—except this year they got a couple of old guys, and it was early in the game. So we went in there, and of the sixty they arrested, fifty-eight settled and paid their fine. We said no. And so what happened was, we got a NORML lawyer, and Dr. Lester Grinspoon of Harvard University—Keith’s friend; I didn’t known him at that point—got involved in what we were doing and started a defense fund that contributed a very good amount of money for us to travel back and forth. And then he got Dr. Charles Nesson of the Harvard Law School, who worked on the Pentagon Papers case, to be our defense counsel.

After that happened, we had the dream team of American jurisprudence going after a third of a joint. And it took two and a half years. First, the jury found us guilty, because we were. Then we appealed it. The appeal went all the way to the Appeals Court, which was an incredible experience—very high-flown legal stuff. Everybody came in; it was covered in the papers a bit. Then the Appeals Court upheld the lower court, so we went to the Supreme Court of Massachusetts, and they refused to hear the case and sent it back down for sentencing. But in the meantime, Massachusetts had decriminalized marijuana—so Keith and I were the last two people sentenced under the old law. And they tried to throw the book at us. The prosecutor said, “I want a six-month suspended sentence, two years’ probation, a $500 fine and fifty hours of community service cleaning up the Boston Common.” And I swear to God, he also asked the judge to prohibit us from entering the Boston Common for two years—“which should keep them from making speeches.” That’s an exact quote. And we looked at each other and said, “Did this guy go to law school?” That’s the First Amendment; it’s the Boston Common! They bled there for the First Amendment, and you’re asking that we be excluded from the fucking Boston Common? And the judge said, “Normally, this is where I go back to my chamber and think about this, but I don’t have to think about this. Everybody stand up. You’re sentenced to jail for one day—equal to the amount of time you were in the custody of the Boston police.” And then it was all over.

Michael Kennedy: Things have changed dramatically since we started the magazine. But I, personally, can never feel a sense of vindication, primarily because I am so steeped in the laws inflicted on people. I know that Tom would be buoyant and feel vindicated immediately. But then he would say, “Our job isn’t finished until we get every person who’s in prison under any form of marijuana conviction out.” It’s one of the reasons that High Times hired me. I’m their lawyer, and now I ended up being one of the principals. I’m still basically their lawyer. I’ve done marijuana cases for as long as I can remember, and there are still people who have done twenty years in prison or have life sentences for no violence—just pot. They got life in prison with no possibility of parole. Now that’s very hard to believe.

David Bienenstock: I feel great about the changes in the pot world, provided we learn the right lessons. You look at the mainstream and the corporate press, there’s this idea and this rash of stories that now that Wall Street is getting involved, marijuana is legitimate. The idea that the marijuana industry needs to take its ethics lessons from Wall Street is ridiculous. And second of all, it’s really offensive to people who have not just spent their time and energy making this happen, but in many, many cases risked their freedom quite literally. So to see the issue hitting the mainstream is fantastic, but I think we need to learn the right lesson—which is that the counterculture was right about this. Not that Wall Street and big business are going to legitimize it. I think that’s exactly the wrong lesson.

Chart and Techniques for Hand Reflexology and Massage of Meridian points

Posted on November 1, 2013November 1, 2013 by Ganja Vibes™

This Chart and Techniques for Hand Reflexology and Massage of Meridian points shows us where and how to use our own personal power and take charge of our health.

Meridians are a set of pathways in the body along which vital energy is said to flow.. and massage and pressure to these points can open the flow of energy throughout our bodies.. and allow for healing and maintaining a healthy physical.. mental and energetic body.

You may use all these techniques in one session, or just one technique, e.g. Pressing, or two techniques, e.g. Rubbing and Pressing.

1. Rubbing: Begin by briskly rubbing your hands (palms) together to warm them up and generate energy (qi) in them. Also rub the back of each hand (including fingers) with the palm of the other hand.

2. Squeezing: Use your thumbpad and outside edge of your index finger to squeeze each finger and thumb on the other hand, one by one, from base to tip. Use firm but not painful pressure. Do this 2-3 times per finger/thumb.

3. Pulling: Use your thumbpad and the outside edge of your index finger to grasp the base of each finger and thumb on the other hand, one by one, then quickly pull down towards the tip while maintaining firm but not painful pressure. Do this 2-3 times per finger/thumb.

4. Pressing: Use the tip of your thumbnail to press and stimulate points on the opposite hand. Use this printable hand reflexology chart to locate common hand pressure points. Apply vertical pressure to each point with your thumbnail (or sometimes your fingernail). Press until you feel no more than a comfortable pain. Hold the pressure and knead the point with very small circular movements. Do this for 1-2 minutes per point. Repeat 1-2 times a day.

Choosing Points for Pressing

All hand pressure points are bilateral, i.e. they’re located on both hands. Generally, you would massage 3 or 4 points (on both hands), 1-2 times a day. Hand pressure points do adapt to stimulation though, so after 7 days stop for 3 or 4 days. If your condition and symptoms persist, continue for another week (or more), OR choose new points to press and rub.

We haven’t personally tested the theory… but if it’s something we can do for ourselves… even during our lunch hour… We say why not give it a try?

Source: Chinese Holistic Health Exercises

Originally posted on: www.nurseland.net

Mind Openerz

Posted on May 17, 2013 by Ganja Vibes™

Mind Openerz.

Marijuana: REM Sleep Cycles And PSTD

Posted on May 9, 2013May 9, 2013 by Ganja Vibes™

How is it that marijuana affects dreams – and can this somehow benefit post-traumatic stress disorder patients? Chances are if you to ask the nearest Stoner… if they are aware of dreaming, the answer will come back a resounding no. Yet if that same marijuana smoker were asked to stop smoking pot for 7 to 14 days, they would again find their slumber state rich with vivid dreams… sometimes for better, sometimes for worse. Its one thing for the average pot head to make that observation after years of smoking, it’s another to try and find any psychological research based on scientific studies.

As sure as there is day and night… the human condition has grown dependent on a good restful night’s sleep. Unfortunatelywhen that sleep, and its four stages are interrupted for any reason, the outcomes can be less than desirable. The normal daily ebb and flow of sleep and slumber is called a circadian sleep rhythm. Many species aside from humans bow before the circadian sleep rhythm master: dogs, cats, rats and bats all must succumb to the powers of a restful night’s sleep, should they hope for a productive tomorrow.

While sleep appears to be a rather reflexive activity, at least to us, the mind utilizes this time to processes the day’s activities. In studies, sleep volunteers have been shown through the use of an electroencephalogram [EEG] — the different cycles of sleep which occurs on a nightly basis and how the depth of your sleep affects your next day’s productivity. As scientists have noted, each stage of sleep becomes increasingly deeper and sounder, and is repeated several times within an evening’s rest. When the sleeping volunteers were awoken during the REM section of their sleep cycle, all test subjects reported having vivid dreams.

So the obvious question becomes… If dreams only occur during REM sleep — and REM sleep is adversely affected by marijuana smoke, can smoking marijuana cure post-traumatic stress disorder?

There are many scientific research papers which point to use of marijuana’s cannabinoids as a potential memory suppressant in the treatment of PTSD, specifically with the THC cannabinoid. As scientist gaze into the future of PTSD and the THC compound found in cannabis. It is believed that THC may have the curing properties so desperately sought by those that suffer with post-traumatic stress disorder.

This is the report of an open label clinical trial to evaluate the effects of Nabilone (a synthetic cannabinoid) , used on treatment-resistant nightmares in patients diagnosed with posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Methods: Charts of 47 patients diagnosed with PTSD and having continuing nightmares in spite of conventional antidepressants and hypnotics were reviewed after adjunctive treatment with nabilone was initiated. These patients had been referred to a psychiatric specialist outpatient clinic between 2004 and 2006. The majority of patients (72%) receiving nabilone experienced either cessation of nightmares or a significant reduction in nightmare intensity. Subjective improvement in sleep time, the quality of sleep, and the reduction of daytime flashbacks and nightsweats were also noted by some patients. The results of this study indicate the potential benefits of nabilone, a synthetic cannabinoid, in patients with PTSD experiencing poor control of nightmares with standard pharmacotherapy.

With the mounting proof showing support for medical marijuana as a treatment for PTSD continues to grow, the Department of Veterans Affairs finally decided that the scientific evidence was too strong to ignore. And back in July, 2010, finally gave in to common sense and scientific evidence. The United States Department of Veterans Affairs then made clear that it would permit certain war veterans the use of medicinal pot so long as they lived in a medical marijuana state, had received a doctors recommendation to smoke medical marijuana and were currently enrolled in a state approved program.

While marijuana continues to be classified as a schedule 1 narcotic under federal law, the newly adopted guidelines will potentially allow for doctors at hospitals and clinics to utilize medicinal cannabis; bringing marijuana back into the pharmacopeia of – ‘pain treatment plans’ offered to the vets which suffer from PTSD and the nightmarish dreams which accompany them.

Source: Marijuana.com

Marijuana: REM Sleep Cycles And PSTD | Marijuana.com.

Two Good Reasons To Practice Tantra | OMTimes Magazine

Posted on May 7, 2013 by Ganja Vibes™

By Chandi Devi

Tantra brings you playfulness and pleasure

Spirituality is taken very seriously and often seekers become rigid and serious instead of flexible and light-hearted. To embrace life, we need to, as Jesus said, become like children again. This is the virgin spirit of the goddess Kumari– the sweet innocence, the pure joy, expressing through the exuberance of life. We often suppress our childlike qualities of wonder and enthusiasm, and replace those feelings with complacency, boredom, suspicion, seriousness, skepticism and other emotions that stop the flow of joy.

Evoking feelings of happiness is something that we all have to work at. It’s not always automatic. We have to make a conscious effort to create, develop and maintain emotions that sustain our feelings of wellbeing at all times. And we must learn how to live in a perpetual state of loving awareness. This is a huge challenge at times, but no one else can do this for us. Since we create our own reality every moment of every day, we really have no choice.

Part of tantric work requires playfulness as we explore our sensuality through music, dance, movement, singing, art and sexuality. In fact, play and pleasure, as well as every other aspect of life, such as work, eating, lovemaking are regarded as opportunities for spiritual development.

The mind is a world of complex images and concepts, but the body’s world is one of sensation. So we can only experience pleasure through the senses. Our bodies want to feel pleasurable sensations constantly — touching, breathing deeply, dancing, looking with curiosity, walking rhythmically, and making love.

Tantra increases intuition and psychic abilities

Intuition has also been called insight, revelation, inspiration, direct apprehension, gut instinct, a flash, a hunch, a premonition, “Eureka” or “Aha,” a sixth sense, an inner voice, “vibes,” a feeling, “reading between the lines,” “red flags,” a “nagging” feeling, sensitivity, “ringing true,” “an educated guess,” “reading him (or her) like a book,” “inner radar,” “a light coming on,” preconscious concept formation, and ESP (or “being psychic,” although intuition is not truly a psychic phenomenon).

Intuition is a natural function which we all possess. It cannot be developed; it is already fully functioning and accurate, such that this part of us always knows everything which is affecting our lives or will affect our lives.

But a reliable sense of “knowing” is developed only when our minds are free from thought, for only through this inner silence can messages from our higher self-reach us.

Tantra work helps us maintain a type of inner silence and stillness even when we are busy. I call it “active body, still mind”.

Clairvoyance… clairaudience…clairsentience…the abilities to see, hear and feel through paranormal senses could become prominent, as well as the ability to heal, see, feel and manipulate energy.

Manifestation of thoughts may occur and with that comes the realization that one has to be very cognizant of his or her thoughts, feelings and actions. With power comes grave responsibility.

I might add that this phenomenon is not sought, it is earned. It is a gift.

Two Good Reasons To Practice Tantra | OMTimes Magazine.

Sexcereal may be the right choice for munchies’ satisfaction

Posted on April 17, 2013 by Ganja Vibes™

Between a bowl of green, Sexcereal to satisfy your morning munchies and Ganja Vibes toys..you’re about to be worn out!

Cunnilingus is great for your health!

Posted on April 4, 2013April 4, 2013 by Ganja Vibes™

As we’ve all heard, even in latest news, oral sex for your male partner is good for your health. Fantastic! We agree.

We women believe the same to be true when it comes to our lady parts.

Happy wife = Happy life! Isn’t that the age-old adage? Why yes it is.

Several studies have hypothesized that hormones released during arousal and orgasm, specifically oxytocin and DHEA, may also have protective effects against cancer and heart disease.

Research has also pointed to the sedative and relaxing effect of oxytocin and other endorphins released during orgasm, which may explain why people use masturbation as a way to get to sleep, and why sex is a great way to deal with stress.

Study has also found that orgasms can relieve migraine headaches.

It’s also worth pointing out that orgasm and sex play in general can be a wonderful form of exercise. Frequent sex and orgasms can bring with it the benefit of other good cardio workouts.

Hard evidence:

It has been determined that prostate massage in men actually reduces the risk of prostate cancer. Could it not be just as important for women to know if draining the gspot could also provide health benefits? When the female prostate (gspot) has become enlarged or caused discomfort it is called female urethral diverticulum or female prostatitis. Many urinary tract infections (UTIs) have been incorrectly diagnosed and treated due to this disregard for the female prostate.

Even beyond the health aspects of female sexuality, women’s sexual pleasure is important solely for the sake of itself.

It is actually good for you much like the benefits of prostate massage for men. Because it cleanses the urethra it can also PREVENT UTI’s (Urinary Tract Infections).

A beautiful man once wrote:

“Once you’re properly positioned, there are a number of things you can do in order to rock her world.”

How often do you go down on your partner before intercourse?
And intercourse aside, how often do you engage in oral sex just for the sake of… oral sex?

If the numbers are low, I have to say: You and are your partner are missing out. I mean, I know. It can be near-impossible to resist diving in to sexy time penis first. But an intense session of cunnilingus can definitely add something to your intimate life that neither of you are getting from the same old in-and-out.

So what’s the big deal?

For one thing, giving her oral sex can be a great form of foreplay. Your partner may not have mentioned this to you, but women typically are not ready for intercourse after just one arm caress and a boob grope. They often prefer a warming-up period in order to become physically and psychologically aroused, which, in turn, makes it easier for them to experience pain-free sex and, perhaps, even reach orgasm(s).

But oral sex doesn’t even have to be used as foreplay. For a really intense sexual experience, try making cunnilingus the main event. In many cases, women orgasm more reliably from cunnilingus than they do from intercourse.

But you have do it right. Giving her oral sex is not as simple as merely thrusting your tongue into her vagina and making it do the wiggle. Nay. Mind-blowing oral sex requires some actual technique.

Mark Coriddi, author of The Mount Method: a Guide to Pleasuring Women, suggests first establishing a “mount.” Nope. Not a “dismount” (though cunnilingus does require a bit of oral gymnastics). Achieving a mount means that your mouth and her pubic area come together in such a way as to maximize the pleasure she experiences during your mouthy ministrations.
Both men and women have a mount. According to Coriddi, a man’s mount is the area of his upper lip just above his teeth. A woman’s mount, meanwhile, is the center of the pubic bone, where there is a slight cradle into which your mount naturally fits. “Connecting your respective mounts and maintaining that persistent connection throughout the process of arousal is essential to mind-blowing oral sex,” says Coriddi. “Specifically, it allows you to firmly place your mouth just where it needs to be for maximum stimulation of your partner’s clitoris.”

To make all of this easier, consider placing a pillow or two beneath her pelvis. It will make her hot spots easier to access. Once you’re properly positioned, there are a number of things you can do in order to rock her world.

First, warm her up by caressing her inner thighs, breathing naturally so she can feel your breath on her clitoris and on the other areas of her vulva. This will help build up anticipation, making her squirm for more as you prepare to really impress her. Then, once you’re ready, begin licking her like an ice cream cone, in long, thick strokes that cover the entire area down there.
Let your licks gradually build up in intensity before plunging in fully. Once you’ve reached a certain rhythm, try mixing things up (though you should remain mindful of how she’s responding to your touch; if she’s finding a specific rhythm or touch particularly pleasurable, she may never forgive you if you suddenly change course)

“Lick her senseless with a short burst of energy and then return to the flat, still tongue, waiting for yet another opportune moment to spring to life again.”

What else can you do down there? Use your lips to kiss her most intimate parts, alternating those particular kisses with smooches on her thighs. Lightly nibble and then suck on entire bits of her skin. The gentle suction will feel incredible, especially if you can still manage to continue using your tongue. Blow softly across her skin, teasing her with the new sensation. Don’t be nervous about experimenting with different approaches when giving her oral sex.

Once found, a skilled cunnilinguist rarely goes unappreciated. But if you’re not sure exactly how, just press a flat, still tongue against her vulva and let her do the work. It’s the cunnilingus equivalent of letting her get on top.

One of my favorite tongue techniques that I talk about in my book She Comes First is the “Rope-a-dope”– the strategy Muhammad Ali used to take down George Foreman during the edge-of your-seat Rumble in the Jungle. Let her push and grind against your flat, still tongue — take it all in — and then spring back with a series of fast vertical and diagonal tongue strokes. Lick her senseless with a short burst of energy and then return to the flat, still tongue, waiting for yet another opportune moment to spring to life again.

What’s most important while giving her oral sex is that you remain mindful of how she’s responding to you. As I write in The Cliterate Male, you should never assume your partner is as excited as you are. Even if she’s wet down there, her physical arousal may not be indicative of the psychological arousal she is — or isn’t — feeling. Instead, you should be focusing on these other signs of physical arousal:

-an increase in the pace of her breathing
-an increase in her body temperature and heart rate
-a high state of tension in her muscles
-a tightening of her abdominal muscles
-a throbbing of her pelvic muscles
-a general “bearing down” on the pelvic area.

As Coriddi so eloquently puts it, cunnilingus is “a delicate dance — and she’s leading you.” If she’s not exhibiting the signs above, continue to mix up your technique. If she’s showing one or multiple signs of arousal, for the love of god, don’t stop!

As you become more comfortable with the techniques above, you can even consider investing in a vibrating tongue ring, in order to pack some extra punch down below. But, honestly, you don’t need all those bells and whistles. You just need an enthusiasm for the job at hand — and a willingness to follow her lead.

Source:
Komisaruk, B.R., Beyer-Flores, C., & Whipple, B. The Science of Orgasm Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2006.

Some important tips to mind while stimulating your wild mare:

This guy cares and so should you!

Positioning can change the whole ball game, mix it up!

First Ever High Times Cannabis Cup, DENVER!!! 4/20/2013

Posted on April 4, 2013April 4, 2013 by Ganja Vibes™

If you’ve never attended a High Times Cannabis Cup before, buckle your seats and get ready for a dazzling whimsical ride through the back stage door of Canna culture! These folks sure do know how to put on a party, all while educating and spreading the good vibes of activism. Information as follows:

US CANNABIS CUP SCHEDULE

Doors open at noon both days of the expo. The seminar stage is located in the main building of EXDO. The awards show will take place in the expo hall of EXDO’s main building.

Friday, April 19
An Evening with Snoop Lion
Details to come.

Saturday, April 20
1:30 p.m. THE ART OF EDIBLES
Elise McDonough (moderator)
Jennifer Smith
Jennifer Hawkins
Scott Durah
Jessica Laroux
Tamir Wise

3 p.m. MARIJUANA WAR STORIES
Michael Kennedy (moderator)
Gerry Goldstein
Michael Stepanian
William Rittenberg
Keith Stroup

4:20 p.m. A 420 WEDDING
The nuptials of Tim Docken & Michelle Peterson

5 p.m. “FREE WEED FROM DANNY DANKO”
 A live podcast featuring cultivation experts: Adam from T.H. Seeds, Scott from Rare Dankness, Kyle Kushman and D.J. Short

Expo closes at 8 p.m.

8 p.m. THE HIGH TIMES US CANNABIS CUP CONCERT AT RED ROCKS (featuring Slightly Stoopid and Cypress Hill)
TICKET HOLDERS: Please come to the HIGH TIMES booth to pick up your concert tickets!

Sunday, April 21
1:30 p.m. NEW CANNABIS DIRECTIONS AND CONNECTIONS
Jen Bernstein (moderator)
“Radical Russ” Belville
Lenny Gaiter
Coral Reefer
Paul Tokin

3 p.m. CANNABIS CONCENTRATES 101
Bobby Black (moderator)
Derek Cummings
Daniel de Sailles
K from Trichome Technologies
Nikka T

4 p.m. ADVANCED CULTIVATION TECHNIQUES with Nico Escondido

5 p.m. COLORADO’S REVOLUTION/EVOLUTION
David Holland (moderator)
Rob Corry
Christian Sederberg
Mason Tvert
Brian Vicente

7:30 p.m. THE OFFICIAL HIGH TIMES US CANNABIS CUP AWARDS SHOW
Awards will be presented for the top sativas, indicas, hybrids, edibles, concentrates and more.

Source: http://www.cannabiscup.com/

Medical marijuana goes on sale in Czech pharmacies

Posted on April 2, 2013April 2, 2013 by Ganja Vibes™

The new law does not foresee health insurance coverage for marijuana, touted by some as a medical miracle drug. The prescription-only drug formally became legal on Monday, but was virtually unavailable as most pharmacies across the ex-communist European Union state of 10.5 million were closed over to the Easter long weekend. Prague will first import the drug for about a year, reportedly from Israel or the Netherlands, until the State Institute for Drug Control starts issuing licences to local growers for a maximum of five years. The institute will also determine the crop area and organise tenders for marijuana purchases from farmers. An EU member since in 2004, the Czech Republic provides some of the most liberal access to soft drugs in Europe. People holding up to 15 grammes (0.53 ounces) of marijuana or growing up to five plants of cannabis risk just a small fine—an approach that often attracts smokers from other countries such as neighbouring Poland, where tougher laws apply. A 2011 national report on narcotics said 16.1 percent of Czechs aged 15-34 admitted to having used marijuana in that year, down from 20.3 percent a year earlier. (c) 2013 AF
P

Medical marijuana goes on sale in Czech pharmacies.

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