January 2013
: 2013
Resolved!
New Year’s Resolutions Made With the Best of Intentions...
Also in this issue: Marijuana Legalization; Now What?, Growers Tips, Bud-o-Scopes, Elsewhere on Marijuana, Huh, That’s Weird, Edible Review, Recipe and More!
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New Year’s Resolutions By: Lacewing
It has become an American tradition for folks to make New Year’s Resolutions with all of the best intentions. It has also become a tradition for those resolutions to break and fall by the wayside. Full Story on Page 6
IN This Issue
Cooking With Cannabis Page 4
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2013: Resolved
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2013: Resolved Page 6 MMJ vs. The Big “C”
Edibles in Review
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Bud-O-Scopes Page 11 WonderWord Page 11 Grow Tips - Getting Comfy Page 12 News of The Weird
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Foreign Correspondent Page 15 The Ganja Gazette is a monthly publication. The first copy of each Ganja Gazette is free. Each additional copy is $4.20. For more information call 970-353-1170. ©2013 Natures Gazette, LLC
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1/2013
How to make:
Green Dragon Drink Recipe
Provided by: weedsmokersguide.com
Green Dragon is a drink that is made from marijuana and alcohol. It is very tasty and an effective, cheap way to enjoy your weed. The alcohol will extract the THC, and then you can add the resulting mixture to food or drinks. The mixture can be consumed by itself, but we will be using the highest proof alcohol available so it isn’t recommended to drink straight.
Ingredients Needed: Alcohol
(190 Proof is recommended)
Marijuana
(Crushed - With Seeds Removed)
Directions:
Safely heat up the alcohol by putting it in a pan and placing that pan into a pot of boiling water. Once the alcohol is heated, stir in your crushed marijuana when the alcohol is at sub-boiling temperatures and let it sit. Stir every couple of minutes, for about 25 minutes. Turn off the stove and let your mixture cool. Strain the resulting product and use rubber gloves to squeeze extra liquid out of the marijuana mush; lots of liquid THC can come out of this leafy matter. Then enjoy. A good way to drink this drink is to mix three parts 7-up with one part Green Dragon and some honey stirred in, served over ice. You can also add it to just about anything you like. If you want an energized high, add it to some coffee or tea. Any other kind of alcohol mixers or juice would work just as well. Another way to enjoy your Green Dragon is to pour it in a bowl of cherries, grapes, strawberries or any other kind of fruit and let them soak in it over-night in the fridge. Strain the liquid and keep the fruit. You can still use the other liquid to make mixed drinks or whatever you want to do with it.
Natures Herbs and Altitude Wellness CARES & SHARES With your Help, Altitude Wellness Center supported various local homeless shelters
Natures Herbs provided fourteen families with food for Thanksgiving Dinners.
Natures Herbs helped the local food bank support more families with their generous donation
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2013: Resolved New Year’s Resolutions
By: Lacewing Continued from page 2 New Year’s Resolutions were borrowed from many different cultures. Babylonians, Romans, Medieval knights… all made various promises at the beginning of the year. Older cultures made these promises to their gods in the hopes of paying off divine debts or gaining favors. The knights of the dark ages made vows to renew their devotion to whatever causes they fought for. Modern resolutions are rarely so lofty. According to USA. g o v , t h e most popular New Year’s R e s o lutions include drinking less, eating healthier, losing weight, getting a better ed-
ucation, and reducing financial debt. Some generous few resolve to help the needy or get more serious about helping the environment. A study conducted by the University of Scranton’s Journal of Clinical Psychology indicates that while roughly 45% of Americans regularly make resolutions at the start of a year, only 8% actually report having accomplished their goals. 75% of these people only maintained their resolutions through the first week. Ultimately, what people want to do is break bad habits and start practicing good ones. Charles Duhigg writes for NPR, “Neuroscientists have traced our habit-making behaviors to a part of the brain called the basal ganglia, which also plays a key role in the development of emotions, memories and pattern recognition. Decisions, meanwhile, a r e made in a differ-
ent part of the brain called the prefrontal cortex. But as soon as a behavior becomes automatic, the decision-making part of your brain goes into a sleep mode of sorts.” While this is good news for many complicated tasks that we take on each day—like driving—the brain’s make-up can be very difficult to change. Duhigg recommends initiating the change by taking a vacation.
Step out of your daily life, where your brain has memorized your routine and adopted every good and bad habit as the norm, and your brain will be forced to reanalyze. Start building up a different routine that will be easier to maintain once you come back to your regular way of life. Another reason that so many resolutions
are broken is that once a person fails, he or she may give up immediately. Allow yourself second chances—even hardcore dieticians recommend taking a break every once in a while. So you ate that slice of cheesecake. It is neither the end of the world (as the Mayans taught us so well) nor should it be the end of your attempt to lose weight. This does, of course, apply to anything else, like exercising more or getting control of your finances. Most sources agree that the best way to achieve your resolutions is to gather ‘round a support group. Tell a few reliable people about your plans and recruit them in helping you to stay true to those goals. If you want to quit smoking, choose not to be
around people that smoke often. If your goal is weight loss, clean out the fridge and start fresh. There are a million and one ways to volunteer your time if your resolution is to contribute to the world in that way—just pick one and dive in. Whatever your resolutions are, there is an entire world of support out there with advice and tips on how to make your resolutions a reality. Be true to who you are and may 2013 treat you better than any year before!
MMJ — What’s It Good For? MMJ vs. The Big C by: Alvin Dy
There are currently three different treatment plans for cancer. The first is surgery, wherein you get the diseased tissues removed. Then there is chemotherapy, where you get a lot of drugs pumped into your system to fight the cancer. Lastly, you have radiation that uses x-rays and other high energy waves to destroy the cancer cells. Cancer is very scary and a lot of people are struggling to fight it. In 2008 and in the United States alone, there were more than 12.5 million people who struggled with cancer. Going by today’s rates, more than 41% of all those born today will get cancer at some point in their lives. That is how prevalent cancer is and how it could affect anyone, including you and your loved ones. However, those who are currently struggling with cancer have an unlikely ally in medical marijuana. Marijuana has been found to help patients manage or treat symptoms and conditions that arise because of their cancers. Marijuana has been proven effective in treating vomiting and nausea, pain, appetite loss, depression and insomnia. Vomiting and Nausea One of the side effects of standard cancer treatments, particularly chemotherapy, is vomiting and nausea. The tetrahydrocannabinol or THC in marijuana helps in
alleviating these side effects. THC is the main psychoactive component found in marijuana. In fact, even the Food and Drugs Administration gave its approval for the use of THC to treat the same. THC is found to reduce nausea and inhibit vomiting. We say “inhibit” because it can only lessen the vomiting, but could not really stop it as effectively as an anti-emetic such as metoclopramide can. But for those who are vomiting excessively, they might have problems keeping an orally induced anti-emetic. This is where inhaling marijuana smoke might help. Pain Cancer can damage your nerves. Or it can cause inflammation. Or a growing tumor could invade sensitive tissue and bone. All of these cause chronic pain. Chronic pain can bring down a cancer patients’ quality of life. Because it lasts for days, weeks, months or years, opiates and other pain relievers are just not an option. Opiates can be addictive and are less effective when it comes to chronic pain. What’s more, cancer patients often develop tolerance for these opiates. THC and other cannabinoids present in marijuana have long been known to be a good pain reliever. Pain happens at nerve endings, and as it turns out, these nerve endings have a lot of cannabinoid receptors. In a study published in
the journal of Clinical Pharmacology, researchers found that THC did in fact lessen the pain experienced by cancer patients. The patients were given four different doses of THC and a placebo. The researchers found that when the patients got 15 and 20 mg of THC, which are the highest doses in the study, they reported less pain. The same researchers also found later on that 20 mg of THC gave as much pain relief as a moderately strong dose of codeine. Appetite Loss Most cancer patients lose their appetite and start to waste away. It can be very debilitating and for some, it can hasten their deaths. As any recreational user would know, marijuana can give you the munchies. The THC in marijuana, and again this has been proven in several scientific studies, simulates the appetite and slows down weight loss. Other Benefits of Marijuana in Cancer Patients Marijuana has also been proven effective in treating insomnia and depression in cancer patients. Up to 40% of patients will undergo severe anxiety after first finding that they have cancer. Around 16% of them will go into depression. Depression can be very detrimental to treatment because the patient often just gives up on the treatments, thinking that there is no point to it anyway.
The good news is that low doses of marijuana have been observed to alleviate depression. This is because THC can increase serotonin in the brain, an action similar to what Prozac and other similar antidepressants do. Take note that high doses of THC can actually worsen depression. Chemotherapy has also been known to cause insomnia among cancer patients, with around three in every four patients suffering from it. However, it has been observed that THC is effective with insomnia as well. In 2011, researchers at the University of Alberta found that not only did marijuana help improve appetite in patients suffering from advanced cancer, but it also helped them sleep. The team headed by Wendy Wisner was studying the effects of marijuana on appetite loss, but made a bonus discovery when the patients who participated in the study also reported that they had slept better and felt more relaxed after their sleep while getting the THC treatments. In addition, there is mounting evidence that THC may kill cancer cells, too. Three separate published studies point to this fact. The first study by Cristina Sanchez and her fellow researchers reported that THC caused cell death in C6 glioma cells. Glioma is an aggressive form of brain cancer. Sanchez had first stumbled upon
the idea when she noticed that brain cancer cells died when exposed to THC when she was first looking into cell metabolism. A team of scientists from Harvard University also found that marijuana’s THC was responsible for slowing down the spread of lung cancer in their subjects. Another research team, this time headed by Manuel Guzman, has also found that THC can work against tumors. Guzman and his team administered THC on nine patients with glioblastoma and found that cell proliferation in these patients had been greatly reduced. It helps to note that these patients had already undergone standard cancer treatments but were not cured by these. But perhaps the other significant finding is that unlike chemotherapy and radiation, THC only destroyed the sick cells and left the healthy ones alone. This finding came from the team at Harvard. It is the hope that research on the benefits of THC can be continued, as it may provide more aid in the long term than many currently conventional treatments.
Thanks To Everyone Who Participated in The 2012 Budz Bowl Pick The Winner Contest!
The Multiple Winner Will be An Super Bowl Sunday Natures Herbs & Wellness Center 522 27th St., Garden City, CO 970.353.1170 naturesherbsandwellness.com
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Budz Bowl is a weekly contest in which registered Colorado Medical Marijuana Patients try to pick the correct winners of each week’s football games for chances at cool prizes!
rs of The Budz Bowl nnounced y - February 3, 2013
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Edibles in Review:
Hot Chocolate and Tea for two Fu-Qua Johnson Ganja Gazette
Hi friends and a Happy New Year to all of you. I hope everyone got to spend time with loved ones during the holidays, I know I did. I got to see two of my favorite people on this planet, and their combined age is 3. My beautiful niece is 2 and my nephew just turned 1. I like to spoil them because I don’t get to see them that often. I think it’s important to spend a little time with family. That’s my expert advice on the holidays. Now let’s get on with this month’s
review! During these cold months, I really like to enjoy a warm cup of something soothing. Usually, it might be some tea, or maybe hot chocolate. I’m a big fan of peppermint during this time of year, so it will usually be peppermint tea or I will crush up a candy cane and add it to my hot chocolate. On a recent trip back to Nature’s Herbs, I was introduced to medicated hot chocolate and hot teas. The teas really taste great. There is one tea bag in each package, but I have
been told you can reuse the bag at least twice. The hot cocoa is something new to me. I, of course, instantly gravitated towards the peppermint hot cocoa, but there was also a cinnamon flavor. The word around the campfire is that some patients like to add a spoonful of this medicated hot cocoa to their morning coffee. If I had this addition to my morning coffee, Mondays wouldn’t seem so bad. One tea bag or one package of hot cocoa is nicely medicated with 100mgs of active THC. I enjoyed the hot cocoa
while watching one of my favorite holiday movies of all time, “National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation.” I watch this movie every year, and it still makes me laugh. My girlfriend doesn’t quite understand the full scope of this movie, but I hope she will someday. She really enjoyed the chocolate
chai tea. She, being a good Englishwomen, adds milk and honey to hers. As you might be able to tell at this point, there is an extraordinarily wide variety of beverage possibilities. Try one of these on a cold winter night, and I promise you will not be disappointed.
We have added a new delight for you to savor...
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Bud-o-Scopes Aries
Mar. 21 - Apr. 19
You know that phobia you’ve been dealing with all of your life? It is time to tackle it head-on. Did you know that on average, people fear spiders more than they do death?
Taurus
Libra
Sep. 23 - Oct. 22
You need to relax, take a vacation to someplace that will give you every excuse to sleep in, like the Arctic. Did you know that polar bears are left-handed?
Horoscopes at a higher level
Scorpio
Oct. 23 - Nov. 21
You’ve been talking about finishing Florida is calling your name! Quietly. Get down that novel of yours for eons. Take a week off to those sandy beaches and work and dive in! Did you avoid the marshes. Did you know that the pound key or know that crocodiles can’t number symbol is technically stick out their tongues? called an octothorpe?
Apr. 20-May 20
Gemini
May 21- June 20
Expand your menu with some fun new recipes! Become the snooty foodie the universe loves so much. Did you know that Americans consume an average of 18 acres of pizza every day?
Cancer
June 21-July 22
Though the weather outside is frightful, that is no excuse for sitting around on your bum. Get up and get active! Did you know that the average lifespan of major league baseball is 7 pitches?
Leo
July 23 - Aug. 22
Seize the day, my friend. Get out there and do everything you have been procrastinating. Did you know that only one person out of two billion will live to be 116 years or older?
Sagittarius Nov.22 -Dec.21
Love is in the air. This is the year for romantic walks in the park and bouquets of friendly daisies. Did you know that 80% of American men said they would marry the same woman if they had to do their lives all over again?
Capricorn
Dec. 22 -Jan. 19
You have an explosive personality; let it shine by joining a new club or sharing your hobbies by starting a club of your own. Did you know that peanuts are an ingredient in dynamite?
Aquarius
Jan. 20 - Feb. 18
You can be a rebel of the highest caliber. Stand up for what you think is right, and never let those naysayers get you down. Did you know that Al Capone’s business cards said he was a used furniture dealer?
Virgo
Pisces
Do something silly and fun, access your inner child. Did you know that in Alabama it is illegal to wear a false moustache in church if it causes any laughter?
It is time to adopt a kitten! Or at least take a moment to play with one—they need companionship, too. Did you know that some scientists believe that a cat’s purr may have healing abilities?
Aug. 23 - Sep. 22
Feb.19 - Mar. 20
1/2013
GROW TIPS
Getting Comfy
The Ideal Cannabis Environment By: Tucker Eldridge When growing in an indoor environment, you must account for every factor associated with growth. You are Mother Nature, and every factor that contributes to your plants well-being must be accounted for. What this means to you, the grower, is that you have supreme control over how your plants grow and thrive. The simplest way to account for all of these factors is to divide them into three base categories: Light Quality, Air Quality, and Water Quality. When growing indoors under artificial light, the quality of your light can be measured in intensity and spectrum. Indicas can be flowered successfully under no less than 50 watts per square foot, while most Sativa dominant strains will not flower well under less than 80 watts per square foot. This is due to the consistency in light intensity these plants evolved under for thousands of years in their native homes. You also must factor in that
light intensity degrades by an inverse square ratio over distances. This means that as light travels, it loses intensity extremely quickly, with two feet of distance providing 1/4th the intensity, three feet of distance providing 1/9th the intensity, and light degrading at that rate consistently. One must also consider that plants absorb certain colors of light better than others, and that this can contribute to how effectively a plant uses the light source available to it. Plants tend to absorb light in the red and blue sections of the color spectrum more effectively than other colors available in the spectrum. What this means to the grower is that a bulb containing extra blue or red light will grow plants more effectively than a bulb of comparable intensity with a less favorable spectrum. Air quality can be defined by your temperature, the relative humidity, and the levels of CO2 available in your air. When measuring tempera-
ture in a grow room, we are not looking to maintain an exact and consistent temperature, but rather, we are looking to fall into an acceptable range. During the lights-on period, with CO2 at normal levels, our ideal grow room temperature falls within the range of 72° to 75°F. When lights are off, Cannabis responds best to temperatures ranging from 65° to 68⁰F. Relative humidity on the other hand, we are looking to maintain at a constant, unwavering 50%. CO2 sits in the atmosphere within the average range of three hundred to four hundred parts per million, and this is the minimum amount of CO2 we want to be available to our plants at any given time. Water quality cannot only impact the availability and quality of our final nutrient recipes, it can also have large impacts on everything below the soil line, including the health of beneficial bacteria, the amount of dissolved oxygen available to
plant roots, and the overall temperature of your root zone. Your best bet for meeting and maintaining consistently high water quality standards is to purchase a reverse osmosis machine. These machines will remove any existing contaminants in your water, including chlorine and chloramine, fluoride, calcium carbonate and magnesium molecules too large to be usable by the plant, and most other potential adulterants that can affect the final quality of the product. It is also beneficial to keep any water added to plants at a consistent temperature of 68⁰. This is warm enough to keep roots from being shocked, while still being cold enough to absorb an ideal amount of oxygen. To introduce that oxygen, a grower can either add an air stone or diffusor (preferable), or in the absence of beneficial bacteria, add H2O2 to create a 1% solution. It is possible to account for and maintain all of these factors in an infinite
number of ways. There is no one special ideal method for maintaining these factors that works better than everything else, so find a system that works for your level of experience as well as the time you have available to commit to your garden. If you can keep these factors relatively consistent, as well as provide well balanced nutrition to your plants, then you can sit back and watch your babies grow themselves! If you have any questions that you would like for me to address in this column, email me at Naturesherbsgrower@gmail. com. I would love to hear from you!
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Chuck Shepard’s News
of Weird
Huh, that’s weird...
Government In Action Laziness Made Us Fat, late Pennsylvania Congressman John Murtha Laziness Will Make Us Slim was(1)a The Capitol Hill powerhouse, and among his legacies
Dr. Oliver Di Pietro of Bay Harbor Islands, Fla., is a leading prescriber of the “K-E diet” that offers desperate people drastic short-term weight loss by threading a feeding tube through the nose to the stomach and dripping in a protein-fat solution, as
Jesus Java
Britain’s ITV1 television network announced plans in April to accept “prop placements” to blend into production of its new reality talent show in which actors compete for the lead role in the musical “Jesus Christ Superstar.” The network said, for example, that it was seeking
clients’ only “meals,” for 10 straight days. “Within a few hours,” Dr. Di Pietro told ABC’s “Good Morning America” in April, “your hunger and appetite go away completely.” Fat is burned through “ketosis,” he said, and a loss of 10 to 20 pounds in coffee machines, which piqued the interest of the De’Longhi brand manager, who offered its top-of-theline Magnifica ESAM4200 and, according to its public relations firm, suggested perhaps interrupting the play’s climactic song “The Crucifixion” while Jesus savors a cup brewed
10 days is possible. Such short-term loss might be important, for example, for a woman prepping for her wedding day. One client said she doesn’t have “all of the time on the planet” just to exercise, “so I came to the doctor.”
from the Magnifica. An April report in London’s The Independent noted that the opera’s composer, Lord Andrew Lloyd Webber, was on board with the idea, but that the original lyricist, Sir Tim Rice, called it “tasteless” and “tacky.”
is the federally funded airport in his district that largely served him and the local companies heading to Washington, D.C., to lobby for government contracts. (By contrast, the Pittsburgh airport is nearly 60 miles away.) Murtha died in 2010, but the airport (which cost $150 million in earmarked funds to build, upgrade and maintain) still, according to an April Yahoo News dispatch, handles only three flights a day, all from Washington, D.C., and about $100 of every passenger’s ticket is subsidized by the federal government. (2) Officials in Burnsville, Minn., have brought the full force of the law to bear upon Mitch Faber (who was arrested, forced to pay a high bail, and released under electronic monitoring and only on condition of drug testing), whom they have charged with the crime of not putting proper siding on his house. According to a March report on KSTP-TV, Faber said he started re-siding, but when the economy turned bad in 2008, he stopped, assuming that the worst he could eventually suffer would be a fine.
Pee Boiled Eggs?
Each spring in Dongyang, China, the aroma of urine is in the air -- specifically, the town’s specialty of eggs boiled in the discharge of young boys (under age 10, typically gathered “fresh” from toilets at local schools). Townspeople have believed for centuries that the eggs, properly cooked, bring health and prosperity. “By eating these eggs,” one shopper told a Reuters reporter in March, “we will not have any pain in our waists, legs and joints. Also, you will have more energy when you work.” In fact, Dongyang officials have proudly proclaimed “virgin boy eggs” as an “intangible cultural heritage.”
Foreign Correspondent
Alvin Dy
Elsewhere on Marijuana
Marijuana Legalization: What Now? slim margin of defeat, will fare better in future with another ballot initiative. Chris Kell, a campaign strategist from Arkansas for Compassionate Care, has said that they had not expected that high a number of people to support Issue 5. Needless to say, the group is planning to lobby for medical marijuana again, and is currently looking into having it approved without the provision that sought to allow patients to grow marijuana on their own if they live five miles or more from a dispensary. In Oregon, 54% of voters vetoed the move to legalize the personal use and sale of cannabis for adults, even if that meant more taxes for the state’s fund and drug treatment coffers. In Montana, 57% of voters wanted to curtail the medical marijuana industry. It is still legal to buy and use medical marijuana in the state, but there are more stringent rules now. It is just sad that there are still some states that deny a sick person’s access to medicine. In fact, for some patients, medical marijuana might be the only course of action that is most viable for them to treat or manage their dis-
eases. We also hope that Colorado’s initiative to legalize marijuana in order to lower drug-related crime on the streets would prove to be successful and apparent enough that other states would have some sort of model to emulate. Now there are 18 states, plus Washington DC, that allow the use of medical marijuana in some form. It is safe to say that people are changing their perception about marijuana and its benefits to people with certain medical conditions. This is especially apparent in Washington and Colorado where marijuana is now legal for recreational use. There are currently four states seeking to legalize medical marijuana: • • • •
Illinois New York Ohio Pennsylvania
Will the 19th medical marijuana state be one of these four? The tides of public opinion are changing. In May 2012, a Rasmussen poll found that 56% of Americans are now supporting legalizing marijuana, or at least treating it on the same level as tobacco and alcohol. So it is just ironic that or-
dinary citizens are finally accepting marijuana and its benefits, but the government is still desperately trying to hold on to the old school thought that marijuana is more dangerous than cocaine and meth. We may have 18 states that approve of the use of medical marijuana, but even within these states, the Feds are conducting raids and arresting marijuana growers and users. It does not matter if these people have followed state law to the letter, they are still being arrested, jailed and sentenced with ridiculous amounts of jail time. This is contrary to an
overwhelming majority of Americans who said that the Feds should learn to respect state law when it comes to medical marijuana, as found by Mason-Dixon. It is not exactly high school kids getting high or drug addicts wanting to make their lives easier who are at the middle of this debate. The Feds can continue to take their hard-headed stance and continue with the raids. What they are hurting are those people who have to deal with pain and suffering every moment of their lives and cannot get medical marijuana to alleviate it.
1/2013
Six states put marijuana on the ballot last November, with three seeking to legalize the use of marijuana for medical purposes and the other three proposing an even bolder purpose: marijuana just for fun. In Colorado, close to 1.3 million voters said YES to allow the use and sale of marijuana for recreational purposes so that people could buy and use it as they would alcohol products. Because of this, marijuana revenues could help build schools around the state as well as contribute to the state’s fund. 1.9 million voters in Massachusetts approved medical marijuana. Close to 1.6 million voters in Washington voted YES to Initiative 502, legalizing marijuana for people 21 years old and older. Personally growing marijuana without a license, however, remains illegal. Meanwhile, Arkansas failed to become the first southern state to approve medical marijuana. It was a close fight, however, with only 51% going against Issue 5, which sought to approve cannabis for people with certain medical conditions. We are very hopeful that Arkansas, with the very
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