Becoming 'Granny Storm Crow'

Scientific studies report facts. Forget the all the urban myths and rumors, and make up your own mind using facts. Cannabis is medicine! Educate yourself!

(NORTHERN CALIFORNIA) - I am a well-respected teacher's aide in my 60s. I start my day with 8th grade math. I quilt, paint, sculpt and am an avid genealogist. I enjoy posting on several websites. My husband is disabled and on SSI. We live in a tiny rural town in California with our two adult sons. Our lives are filled with computers and books. We are all compulsive educators- a family of quiet, intellectual geeks.

I am a secret, international, medical cannabis activist.

Even though I am "California legal", I hide in the shadowy world of the internet. As the mysterious "Granny Storm Crow", I influence cannabis-using people worldwide. Mostly what I do is I tell people about medical studies, but even so, I must hide my "secret identity".

Find Granny Storm Crows list on Facebook

Why all the smoke and mirrors? Simple- It would cost me my job if it were known that "Ms. Crow" even uses cannabis. As "Granny", I'd be lucky to just get ridden out of town on a rail! The educational field has little tolerance for "illegal" drug use, even when it's "legal". So why am I risking my job to use cannabis? And not only use it, but become an advocate for its medical use?

When I was three years old, I suffered a major head injury. Another child, perhaps five years old, tried to kill me with a hammer. I was left with dents in my skull and frequent migraines. By the time I was five, my bedroom had black curtains to block the light.

At 19, like many young adults, I tried cannabis. I liked it. It took me about a year to make the connection that, when I had cannabis, I didn't have migraines. The real proof came when my husband and I had been out of cannabis for a few weeks. I had what promised to be a very bad migraine coming on (auras and nausea), when a friend showed up unexpectedly with an over-priced baggie of cannabis. We bought it, of course.

To my amazement, the nausea faded along with the auras, as I puffed. The migraine melted away. I have used cannabis medically for over 40 years. It is still effective.

Some of you will say that the migraines may have just disappeared as I grew older. Sadly, that is not the case. I quit using cannabis for about three years when I started working for the local schools. The migraines came back with a vengeance. I used cannabis a few times a year, "bumming a joint" from a good friend when the pain was too bad.

Every time I used, I spent the next month in fear of a random urine test. It takes a month, or more, for leftover metabolites of THC to get out of your system. The THC metabolites don't make you high; they just show up on drug tests.

The migraines began to affect my work, so I saw a doctor. I got scanned and tested. I "just" had migraines. I read up on the side effects of the Imitrex that my doctor highly recommended (was pushing). No, thank you! Cannabis was faster, far safer and I knew it worked. I was no longer a "new" employee and the threat of being tested grew less each day. I made the appointment with the "cannabis specialist".

I could have stayed a hidden "closet user" very easily, except for one thing- I kept finding references to serious medical uses for cannabis. These were real medical studies, not some "stupid hippie" or reporter blathering. Soon, there were too many to remember. I grabbed a notebook and started printing.

The remarkably wide range of conditions that cannabis was used for sparked my curiosity- what else was it good for? I enjoy researching on line, but even I, as a medical user, wasn't prepared for what I found! Arthritis, Alzheimer's, diabetes, MS, Mad Cow, stroke, and so much more! There were hundreds of studies about cannabis helping so many things. My notebook filled rapidly as I actively searched for medical uses. Why wasn't this common knowledge?

I had the studies that answered questions posted about medical cannabis use, so I'd reply, typing in the URL to help them. Typing the URLs got old pretty fast. I put the list on my computer, so I could just copy and paste the URLs. I needed them quite often to answer the ever-growing number of questions.

I'm not the kind of person to "walk away" when I can easily help, but there comes a point when it gets to be a bit of a chore. So I set my list free on the web, inviting others to use it to educate those around them. The response was astounding. My list filled a need and people loved it.

I'm not a doctor, I don't have a PhD and you don't know me, so why should you listen to me? In fact, I don't want you to pay any attention to anything I've said about cannabis! It's just my opinion. And my list is just "copy and paste" and a bit of organizing. Pretty simple stuff, really. It's the information contained in the list that is important.

I am, above all, an educator and feel knowledge must be shared. I am inviting you to read "Granny Storm Crow's list" - use any search engine, it's there. I didn't create any of the studies or articles- I just gathered them together from PubMed and other sources for you to use.

Scientific studies report facts. Forget the all the urban myths and rumors, and make up your own mind using facts. Cannabis is medicine! Educate yourself!

'Granny' Storm Crow Special to Salem-News.com

Source: http://www.salem-news.com/articles/june202009/granny_crow_list_6-20-09.php