Thank you one and all for your GoFundMe donations and encouragement, we arrived at screening day. We hosted a private showing for donors at the Alcazar Theater in Carpinteria followed by a panel discussion with Dr. David Bearman and Ruth Fisher, Ph.D. We received a rousing round of applause and numerous helpful comments, suggestions and feedback which will use to make the film even better. Schedule 1 was accepted to the Los Angeles Shorts Film Festival where it will have its "world premiere" in late March. Info here.....LASFF And this is just the beginning, big plans are in the works, stay tuned.
I am also thrilled to announce today's blood work was even better than expected. My tumor marker, CA125, was 2.9, the lowest it has ever been. Next test, March 17th.
As we move forward I feel like I am jumping off a cliff and desperately clinging to enigmatic pieces of this puzzle. My life is clinging to the very edge of human knowledge. Despite the dosing experiments I did during my last remissions I feel like I know nothing. Untangles the biochemical effect Cannabis is having on my tumor with only a blood test every 6 weeks is basically impossible. I need to figure out how much of which cannabinoids will keep me in remission. This is knowable, this is not magic. Yes, its complicated, but this is absolutely knowable. And to have barriers up that keeps society from answering those questions feels like such an inhumane injustice.
From the preclinical data, we know THC is critical, but different driving mutation seems to need a different "helper molecule." I wish the science was easier to untangle. I wish I had a cancer lab and could grow the cells and do the experiments myself. I wish the first paper that elucidated the antineoplastic effects of Cannabis way back in 1975 had been celebrated. Think of what we would know if this line of investigation had been an active area of research for the past 40 years.
We need science! And the DEA be dammed, I am going to figure out how to do it. Nobody can tell me I can't investigate, learn and figure out how to save my life. So spoiler alert, actually the DEA can tell me I can't do this: growing and making medicine from Cannabis is a FELONY. I'm not actually not too worried about getting arrested because of 1. I am white. 2. I am well off enough to navigate the legal system. 3.attitudes are changing and thankfully I live in California where stigma is fading fast. 4. given the alternative, 18 months to live, I will take the chance. 5 If I got arrested at least I could use this inhumanity to generate some press. But my bold and open tact may be a mistake, over 600,000 people WERE arrested for simply Cannabis possession last year. This is madness! What kind of society bans science? What kind of society criminalizes hopeful medicine! What kind of medical system ignores plants because they can't be patented, monetized and turned into investments? What kind of society is this?
For everyone who donated, I am posting the link to Schedule 1 movie Please email me for the password.
hugs to all,
Michelle and Bruce