Growing up with depression has always been difficult. There were times I think back and wonder how I even survived. I’ve been on meds that make my skin crawl, make me want to kill myself, cause me to look like someone I don’t even recognize when I look in the mirror, wreck my stomach and digestive system, give me acne, and the worst part is none of those 8 different prescriptions even helped my depression. In fact, they made it worse and I had more anxiety about being helpless than ever. When I went to collage I experimented with weed and I could actually turn my brain down as I call it. As a woman I think we worry about so much and it's exhausting. When I smoked weed I was able to feel like a person I thought I had forgotten. It took a while to get off the handful of pills I was taking every day but now I can breathe, work, and I’ve had a BF for over a year now. 

~ Erin. M

I never thought I would be the one to get cancer. Until it happened. Chemo was…in my opinion, the worst thing I’ve ever voluntarily done to myself. Just absolute poison! I was losing so much weight, couldn’t get out of bed to save my life, and I came to a point where I 100% believed I was going to die. I figured why the hell not try pot, I didn’t have anything to lose. My family was not ok at first, but they saw how much I was suffering all the time.  

The change and the quickness of the relief was like something out of a movie. I don’t care if people don’t believe me, because honestly I wouldn’t have believed me before either. I had a friend find me some of the RSO oil (Rick Simpson Oil) that everyone takes for cancer and within an 15-20 mins my nausea was gone, I was able to eat food not injected into my arm, and my doctor said I had the colour back in my face. We told him later what we had done and he said “do whatever is going to work”. That was 10 years ago. Cannabis gave me my life back!

~ Justin. B

If you’ve ever suffered from PTSD you know how the world can just close up and swallow you with it. You feel tight, under water and ready to explode at any moment. The guilt I felt about being completely out of control of my emotions, actions and body was unbearable. After 3 months of being a suicidal zombie on Zoloft (prescribed by the Navy doctor) my wife put her foot down, and to this day I couldn’t be more thankful she said no more living life minute to minute thinking she was going to lose me or have me be toxic in our home any longer. She did the research on how marijuana had been helping so many Vets in the States and we gave it a shot. I started taking 40mg of CBD daily, then we weaned off the Zoloft slowly ourselves (I wouldn’t recommend this as the side-effects can be extremely harmful and life threatening). At the time I was overly paranoid of my doctors and wouldn’t leave the house for anything. So after introducing CBD I was able to sleep through the night, my irritable blow-ups became less and less, I took pleasure in my retirement, and my energy was back! It was like walking out of a fog. I’ve been testing out smoking marijuana for the lingering flashbacks I still suffer from and it seems to be easing my reactivity. I highly suggest using cannabis for anyone with mental health issues coming out of the CAF.

~ anonymous

Most people think that Fibromyalgia is only a pain thing. The bigger problem most of us have is the sleeping problems. Not just due to being uncomfortable, but the lack of deep-sleep states have been proven to directly correlate with daytime pain, poor cognitive function, and fatigue of Fibromyalgia. It's like a terrible cycle you can't get out of. After being recommended some edibles (both CBD and THC) I have finally been able to get restful sleep and that is GOLD! I never liked the idea of sleeping pills, and there’s only so much meditation and hot baths you can take, so I just got used to being exhausted. I’m just so amazed at how much better I feel!

Sue. P