palmspringsbum
Bashing Patients for the good of The Movement
A few days ago I ran across the following video where Gwen Olsen speaks at some length. I found it well worth the time. One thing I’ve never heard before is that the rapid cycling caused by SSRIs is much faster, identifiably faster, than that experienced by a “normal” (non-drug induced) bi-polar. She makes these comments about 16 minutes into the video.
I found her closing comments particularly poignant. Alex Jones asks, “In closing, where do you both see this going?”
Gwen responds: “I hope we see these drugs removed from the marketplace. That’s my desire and I will work to see that happen until the day that I die. … I’m not trying to get rich, but I am trying to get even.”
If you do a Google Search on “medical marijuana”, the first site that will come up is www.GrassCity.com. According to their stats they have 47,000 members. I made a brief foray into “the best counter-culture community” and was astonished at the prejudice and ignorance about medical marijuana. And the patient bashing.
I’ve seen this before, most recently at Weedtracker. As I recall, on Weedtracker there was a thread by a patient complaining about how he was treated at a dispensary. I noticed a number of the people bashing the patient with such comments as “It’s all in how you walk in the door..”. In other words, the patient wasn’t “cool” enough to be treated with respect and dignity.
My take was the person was intimidated, patronized, mocked, and pressured into buying something that cost probably 10 times what it was worth.
These people bullying the patient had selected “patient” as their user category for the forum so that the word “patient” appeared under their screen name, while stating in comments to other topics in a different section of the forum that they worked for or owned a dispensary.
Evidently this was against the Weedtracker terms of service. You are required to identify yourself as a patient, co-op, caregiver, etc. And it was also evident that employees and/or owners of some co-ops and dispensaries were not only misrepresenting themselves as ‘patients’ but ganging up on patients to stifle their legitimate complaints and concerns. And that very few, if any, of the participants on WeedTracker were actually patients, and that the ones that displayed “patient” as their designation were actually owners of or workers at dispensaries. When I pointed this out it evidently lead to a housecleaning at WeedTracker, and a lot of grudges against me.
In short, any patient that raised a legitimate concern about prices, quality, treatment, etc., was ridiculed and bullied off the forum.
My response to the comment about “how you walk in the door” was, “What if they’re in a wheelchair?” And I pointed out that most patients are weak, sick, tired, probably in pain, and a lot of them are mobility challenged and have had to spend considerable time on public transportation to get to the dispensary. That they mostly live on social security – the hospitals and doctors have taken anything they had – and that they aren’t all that happy about paying over $400/ounce, and most of them need more than that a month.
Surprisingly, or not, that did not make me a lot of friends on Weedtracker. They banned me when someone suggested tipping the ‘bud-tenders’ and I pointed out that was the worst possible thing they could do to the movement – to equate marijuana use with alcohol. And I asked if they tip the pharmacist at Longs. And they responded that yes they did and that it didn’t always have to be money. Among the things they suggested would be appropriate tips for bud-tenders were condoms and bleach!!!
Well, I would consider that an insult myself. Not just to the bud-tender but to the movement. So when I sarcastically asked if they gave out bleach and condoms for tips at the Coconut Grove, they banned me from Weedtracker.
I did note my ‘reputation’ went through the roof after I was banned.
Previously, I’ve been banned from marijuana.com because I criticized Marc Emery and pointed out he hasn’t done a thing for the movement in Canada or anywhere else and that things have actually gotten worse in Canada since he and his gang of thugs took center stage.
The ring-leader of the vigilante committee on GrassCity stated they used to work for WeedTracker, and hinted rather strongly that their vendetta against me was in payback for something on WeedTracker. And they and a group of their friends began a very aggressive campaign of character assassination, completely off-topic.
One of them stated that if I had to smoke every day my medicine wasn’t working and I should try pharmaceuticals. Now, this is patient bashing. For instance, I take metformin every day, several times a day, to control diabetes. No one would suggest my metformin wasn’t working because I must take it every day, several times a day. But on “the best counter-culture community” if you say that telling patients cannabis doesn’t work if they have to use it every day is patient bashing they will gang up on you and hurl personal attacks and libel (flaming, against the Terms Of Service) until you respond in kind or leave. And if you respond in kind, they will ban you.
I’ve spent days very sad over this. Scott Imler’s statement in the L.A. Times that organized crime is now firmly entrenched in the movement came to mind. This treatment – this drug dealer paradigm where the customers are bullied and abused and ridiculed – is what fueled the first buyers club and the movement; the movement is all about patients not being treated like that to get their medicine.
Well, they deleted my account at my request, and since then WildWill, the ringleader of the jihad against me, has been brandishing the fact that they got rid of me as a point of pride.
It makes me very sad that these sites that are nothing more than a hustle, and that sell fake bud, saliva divinorum, and everything else they can get by with – it makes me very sad that these are going to be used to represent the movement because of the volume of their traffic.
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6 Responses to “Bashing Patients for the good of The Movement”
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July 15th, 2009 at 4:17 am
This is WildWill
What happened to you on GrassCity was YOUR OWN doing, and had nothing to do with WeedTRACKER. You are blatantly lying saying that. I have no authority at GC, I'm simply a user, I don't work for them and am not a moderator. YOU got yourself banned by violating THEIR TOS, just as you've done on HOW many boards now Craig?
IN fact, your experiences with WeedTRACKER appear to have happened LONG AFTER I ceased working there (Mid 2007). In fact, here's a link to the thread itself:
http://www.weedtracker.com/forums/showthread.php?s=0bfc235ce096c28dbb9077e3cd58b806&t=91817
Why don't you let whomever is reading your blog know the truth? Or would that expose you as a hypocrite?
You don't get along well with others Craig. You are an angry, bitter individual in my experiences with you on line, and that is truly sad. Were you able to deal with your social ineptness, you might earn some kudos for the work that you've done, but unfortunately all you're doing is earning enemies in a VERY tight knit community.
If you're so freaking great for the MMJ community, tell me why you've been banned from MULTIPLE MMJ websites that have NOTHING to do with each other?
But I'll bet you won't even allow this to be posted…
July 21st, 2009 at 5:11 am
Justin Hartfield, a 25-year-old Web designer and business student, founded WeedMaps.com, where pot clubs and doctors who write medi-pot recommendations list their services and users post reviews. Hartfield says the site has brought in nearly $250,000 in its first year.
Hartfield exhibited at THC Expo, a two-day trade show at the Los Angeles Convention Center that attracted an estimated 35,000 attendees in June. There was hydroponic gardening equipment and bong vendors and bikini-clad models wearing leis made of fake marijuana leaves.
Like just about everyone else connected to the cannabis trade, Hartfield has a letter from a doctor that entitles him to buy medical marijuana from a dispensary. But he sees no point in pretending he is treating anything more than his taste for smoking weed.
"It is a joke. It's a legal way for me to get what I used to get on the street," he said.
http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5i9mvOh0YI12grcTJ_FzIuo6yEc_QD99H9KJG2
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Seems to me that pretty much confirms everything I said.
September 8th, 2009 at 2:42 pm
What really scares the crap out of these dispensaries is the possibility that we might all get to "grow our own" for free or for about $20 an ounce under LED lamps or HID lamps.
Then you will see these dispensaries dry up like wet pavement on a hot sunny day. And that is exactly what needs to happen. It will provide cheap medicine, destroy the drug cartels and stop the pigs from kicking in our doors in the middle of the night.
The MERP Model is the answer most of us — who are not making money off Marijuana — would like to see.
Goto NewAgeCitizen dot com to learn MUCH more about the MERP Model.
Yours in Peace and Freedom,
Bruce W. Cain
April 20th, 2010 at 3:50 am
Excellent job.
July 6th, 2010 at 12:07 am
Why do ppl call it mary jane or ganja?
August 13th, 2010 at 7:35 pm
I like what you all have to say. Very straight to the point. All in all great blog