Judith Stamps We must not foster the belief that there is a radical dichotomy between Health Canada Licensed Producers (LPs) and medical cannabis dispensaries. And if we are hanging on to an attitude that says: it’s-us-versus-them, we should dump it. So say representatives of the Canadian Association of Medical Cannabis Dispensaries (CAMCD), spokespersons for LPs, […]
Author: Judith Stamps
Perceptual Framing, the Cannabis Activist, and the New Cannabis Industry
Judith Stamps Licensed producers that play well with others; licensed producers that don’t; MMAR producers; non-licensed producers; personal growers; soon to be licensed dispensaries (for profit and non;) publicly traded companies; for profit medical script writers; vape lounges; private sellers; brokers; bakers; insurers; bong shops; legal service providers; networking event producers; and tech support companies. […]
A Word to the Cannabis Medicine Makers
A Word to the Cannabis Medicine Makers: My Talk to the Vancouver Island Chapter of Women Grow Judith Stamps Much is heard today about the practice of networking. Business and tech magazines encourage us to network. Networking helps us to find useful associates and ways to boost our products in the marketplace. If we wish […]
What the Judge Said on Patients’ Rights, and What Health Canada Can Do Next
What the Judge Said on Patients’ Rights, and What Health Canada Can Do Next Judith Stamps Canadians who are ill, and who believe they are obtaining relief from cannabis, have a constitutionally protected right to grow their own medicine. So said Justice Michael Phelan of the BC Federal Court on February 24 2016. At least […]
Editors Note on Our Political Condition
Judith Stamp These days, Canadian cannabis activists, patients, and supporters alike, live uneasily. The new majority federal government has stated its intention to legalize cannabis, but it will take some time before this plan is finalized. This time gap leaves us in an in-between space. Of course, we recognize many kinds of in-between spaces. An […]
Thoughts on the Distinction Between Medical and Recreational Cannabis Use
Judith Stamps Last month in her article for Canlio, The Trouble With Defining Cannabis Use, Jamie Shaw walked us through some of the difficulties in deciding how to divide the medical uses of cannabis from the recreational. As we approach legalization, this distinction takes on new and urgent meanings. In the upcoming system, there should […]
Notes on the 2016 Annual General Meeting of the Victoria Cannabis Buyers’ Club
Judith Stamps On January 31st about 60 of us filled a room at the Fernwood Community Centre in Victoria BC to attend the Victoria Cannabis Buyers’ Club’s 20th anniversary AGM. I will say without equivocation that the meeting sparkled. Here are some highlights, and issues to ponder. 1. Renowned activist Ted Smith, who has […]
Small is Beautiful: Spiritual Opportunities for a New Cannabis Industry
Judith Stamps If you’re into alternative economics, you may have come across E.F. Schumacher’s text: Small is Beautiful: Economics as if People Mattered, first published in 1973 as an accessible paperback for a liberal era. It was republished in 1989 in the rocky years that saw the nuclear explosion at Chernobyl; glasnost and perestroika; the […]
A Review of Dana Larsen’s Cannabis in Canada: The Illustrated History
Judith Stamps Some authors weave their chronicles into geometric shapes, presenting history as a long, upward trudge toward progress, usually via reason, and science; or portraying it as the steady, moral and physical decline of humanity from a nobler past; or showing a never ending round, as Mark Twain liked to say, of ‘one damned […]
Cannabis and Humour: Some Thoughts on What’s Funny
Judith Stamps For the cannabis/psychedelics culture of the 1960s and 70s, underground comics emerged as a new fusion of humour, social and political commentary, and comic art. Two of the best known examples are The Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers, drawn by Gilbert Shelton, and Harold Hedd, a creation of Vancouver BC based artist, Rand Holmes. […]