Taking a Break From Comedy

2/12/2013

Looks like my little reign of terror has literally come to a screeching halt. After three years of refining the voice of Cannabis Commerce, I’d settled into a pretty good writing groove, having issued in relatively swift succession:

• Too High to Fail Review
• The Joy of Pot
• Is the Grass Really Greener in The Netherlands?
• What is Herbal Rights?
• No Red Card No Cry
• Lincoln Review
• What is a Poteconomist and Why are the World’s Esteemed Economists Mum on Pot?
• Cannajobs 2013 Preview
• O.Pen Review

That’s gonna have to be enough original thought, yuks and cannanalysis to last you a little while as I embrace nothingness for at least a month. Doctor’s orders. Not sure I can achieve complete nothingness. Might have to settle for between being and nothingness.

Any communiqués I issue may come minus the yuks; I’m not as sharp lying down with a laptop on my chest as I am commanding a desktop.

I’m trying to say that I broke my leg and separated my shoulder when I got hit by a car as a pedestrian last week. That’s going to be inconvenient for a while — it’s also beyond miraculous that things aren’t a zillion times worse.

This may be nature’s way of persuading me to write shorter posts — at least temporarily.

So I’m gonna keep things short, sweet, and serious until further notice.

Here are my first post-accident insights for your consideration:

• I wasn’t sure of it previously but now it can be said: self-preservation is driving big so-called activist groups like NORML, ASA, and MPP to promote acrimonious state-by-state quasi-legalization instead of urging everyone to band together to repeal prohibition because if that happened it would work — meaning they would no longer have jobs.
• Tough break for all of you in Michigan. All I can do is urge you to read Ten Reasons Why MMJ is Cannabis Commerce’s Ball and Chain. When you give abusive entities your permission to eff with you endlessly, they tend to take you up on the proposition. Closing down every dispensary in Michigan isn’t all that funny. That’s exactly what I’ve been howling in the wilderness about for the past two years.
• Hello, we’re actually allowed to work together to repeal prohibition nationally instead of working independently in separate states — as if there were a Berlin Wall around every state. Or is that too “radical” a thought? If it is, keep signing those virtual petitions instead of getting out there and really letting your feelings be known. Keep wearing the kick-me signs and lugging around the balls and chains and blaming the government instead of your own laziness as an activist.
• I’m tired of being right. Thinking about, say, seniors up north who were just discovering what the magical herb can do for their aches and pains being expelled from their newly-discovered salvation brings no joy to this kid.

A friend told me about an organization called Legalize One State At a Time because she knew the news was guaranteed to rile me up. My reaction? Well, I’ve got an idea for another organization that’s a variation on the same theme. I’m gonna call it Blow Me One State At a Time.

Whoops, that somehow made it past my freshly-installed anti-yuk filter. Oh, dear me.

Sayonara for now from Swedish Medical Center in Denver, CO as my separated shoulder and tibula/fibula knit back together. Looks like release day is tomorrow; we’ll see what happens once Vitamin THC meets my biomass.

2/17/2013

Broken but unbowed: Poteconomist Lory Kohn in a still life with cast, wheelchair, and orchids. Photo by Nancy Sloan.

Now I’m recuperating in Boulder. I live up 45 steps in not-so-beautiful Littleton and that wasn’t happening without levitation or a stretcher. The separated shoulder keeps me from using crutches or a walker for more than a few steps.

I had the bright idea this would be a great time to test THC as a healer and pain reliever, reporting my findings diary-style.

THC therapy got off to a rocky start. These days when you’re in the hospital they make you toke on a plastic thingy called a Spigmometer; it gets your lungs going and is said to ward off pneumonia. You’re supposed to draw on it ten times an hour. It was good for impressing the nurses; the goal is raising a float device to the top line of a tube with the power of your inhale.

I kinda forgot my recent Spigmometer progress and prowess when the care package arrived from Organa Labs … a shiny new O.Pen with, get this, a vape cartridge containing — ironically enough — Wheelchair Kush. So the hit I took after being completely THC-free for two weeks and intensive Spigmometer training was basically five times bigger than any hit I ever took in my life. Moments later I was acutely aware that I was constricted in a cast-like leg wrap and that I had been hit by a car — the same event and limitation I’d been doing a passable job of spacing out. Circumnavigating the tight turns of the condo using the wheelchair and walker combo I’m getting around with took on an added degree of difficulty.

Too much too soon.

I realized I had to go real easy … maybe just taking small hits, after I was racked out for the night, for sleep purposes.

So I’m still feeling THC therapy out.

More THC therapy theory: was the THC making me more aware of the leg wrap because it sent a reconnaissance party of healer molecules to check out and began stitching together my injured limb? Not sure yet but I’ll see how true that seems over the following days.

2/19/2013

Tried another strain, Blue God, in the O.Pen but, alas, it too made me feel mummified by the leg wrap which is bearable when I’m not stoned. Looks like I may have to be Buddhist and accept things as they are on a natural high. Maybe after I see the doctor next week there’ll be some changes to the wrap and I won’t be so conscious of it when I “medicate.”

2/22/2013

Lory’s repaired tib fib compound fracture.

Miracle! Out of splint/wrap thing and into walking boot in just 17 days. Can’t attribute it to THC therapy; however, now that I can sleep without feeling mummified, let the THC therapy begin! All hail Dr. Craig Davis, osteo god of the titanium rod.

2/23/2013

Ahhhhhhhh — much better! Ten hours of sleep later, THC therapy is underway. I’m not sure vaporizing will be as effective as eating Honey Oil, will have to check that out. But I can’t complain about the vaporizer’s effectiveness last night. Looking forward to more of the same. Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.

3/3/2013

There was something else in my Organa Labs care package I forgot to mention — pure CO2 extracted tincture. I hadn’t previously fallen for tinctures, probably cause the ones I’ve tried were extracted with butane. Four days in a row of ten hour plus sleeps later — along with the feeling of healing molecules pulsing through my bloodstream — and I’m wondering what took me so long to effect tincturization. Definitely making some hay in the reconstruction department. And the month of enforced nothingness is drawing to a close.

3/6/2013

Absolutely adoring Organa Labs tincture; you squeeze a couple of eyedroppers full into a glass of water and wake up ten hours later without feeling groggy at all. Theoretically the THC molecules are establishing a beachhead wherever they’re needed while you’re zonked out. That works for me … combined with a couple of O.Pen hits.

Strange that I’ve been to Organa Labs so many times times without ever noticing the tincture!

Now I’m beginning to feel THC therapy, though that is admittedly a feeling not a scientific fact. It think in research circles they call that an empirical observation. Another empirical observation is I can’t believe I haven’t been icing my ankle which was quite swollen but went unnoticed because generally it’s been concealed by a sock. So now it’s ice city all day every day.

BTW I’ve been cleared to start putting weight on the leg, so I may be mere weeks away from staggering around some. And I’ve lined up some physical therapy for the shoulder.

Thanks for all the support; there’s been an unexpectedly beautiful upside to being hit by a car I could not have anticipated.

3/11/2013

The end of Daylight Savings Time is always uplifting. The tincture’s still putting me into deep healing sleep. Walking can’t be too far off. Some strengthening in shoulder observed. Thumb still tender but I can play guitar. I’m seeing Dr. Davis in two days.

I am now ready to resume my long-running role as poteconomics guru for Ganja Nation. Thanks for the opportunity to serve.

Poteconomist Lory Kohn expecting to fly. Photo by Nancy Sloan.

3/17/2013

Ran out of tincture the day I rejoined the world. That was five days ago. I was traveling from Boulder to Englewood to see my hero, Dr. Davis. I wondered if a trip to Organa Labs was in the cards. Prayer answered. Well, both prayers answered — Dr. Davis gave me full clearance to put full weight on my right leg and a set of crutches which my shoulder had apparently healed sufficiently to wield. And “Dr.” Morgan from Organa Labs had prepared three new tinctures to try.

That was a whirlwind tour of Englewood’s medical facilities, extraction facilities, and calzone smothering facilities. There was even coffee at Ozo back in Boulder to put the cherry on the cake.

However, different formulas call for different “titration” [doses]. And it developed that the run-out tincture had been made with glycerin while the new eyedropper bottles contained an alcohol base. You need just a few drops of alcohol based solutions. Well, that first night, I was a little too conservative, plus I tried out a new style of vape cartridge that was a sativa. Net result: the first bad sleep in weeks.

The next night I reinserted the indica Wheelchair Kush cartridge into the O.Pen and upped the tincture dose to ten drops from five and proceeded to enter the 11-hour healing zone.

Now I can’t say with scientific certainty that entering the 9–11 hour healing zone on a nightly basis with THC molecules coursing through my veins had anything to do with the ligaments in my shoulder regenerating and getting green-lighted to walk after barely five weeks, but let’s just say those conditions didn’t exactly hurt my chances.

5/18/2013

Out of the walking boot since the beginning of the month and getting around with a cane.

Walking at CU graduation; kissing a graduate. Photo by Nancy Sloan.

6/21/2013

First day of summer found me in my new hang, the therapy pool at the Ridge Recreation Center in Littleton. I’ve just about got rid of my limp after lots of physical therapy with Rhonda from Boulder Sports Medicine. I found I can swim and I can take aqua therapy classes with the little old ladies which I discovered by accident. I was wondering what they were all doing in my normally empty pool when the instructor challenged me to join and see how I like it. I didn’t think there’d be much chance of that. But I found that when I actually made a major effort to do all the exercises, it was both a great workout and perfect for gaining flexibility in my lower leg and strength in my shoulder.

Dr. Davis says I’m doing great. I still can’t feel the titanium rod. It feels like I have a badly twisted ankle. I’ve had to relearn how to go down stairs. I’m not there yet but it’s coming. Both injuries are supposed to take a year to fully heal. I’m building up the muscle tone in my leg. It’s coming slowly but surely. I just about have all my energy back. Haven’t reached for the cane in a few weeks, so I must be out of that phase.

I can drive but I’m inordinately unthrilled about it. I was already completely down on the petrochemical dominance on our society on just about every level. I wish I never had to participate in it again. It’ll be a happy day when I can move somewhere that I don’t need to own a car.