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| Dr. Lester Grinspoon |
Sometimes a single meeting can change your life. Such was the case for me when, in the early summer
of 2005, I met with Dr. Lester Grinspoon.
For readers who may not be familiar with the work of this cannabis movement icon,
Dr. Grinspoon is the famed Harvard psychologist who wrote Marijuana Reconsidered, the very first prohibition-era text on the true medicinal
nature of cannabis.
His book was published at the height of Nixon’s escalation
of two major US wars; Vietnam and the war on drugs. Originally intended to be a warning to stoners
he saw protesting around Harvard Square, Dr. Grinspoon instead learned and
reported the truth about this ancient herb—an act that cost him professionally
as colleagues quickly distanced themselves from his ‘pro-pot’ findings.
In one sense cannabis is truly addictive because people who
learn the ancient medicinal truth about it can’t shut up. Lester Grinspoon has spent his life in the
field; and his appreciation and awe of the plant has only deepened over
time. In 2007 he wrote:
It is a sad commentary on the state of modern medicine -- and
US drug policy -- that we still need "proof" of something that
medicine has known for 5,000 years…If marijuana were a new discovery rather
than a well-known substance carrying cultural and political baggage, it would
be hailed as a wonder drug.
Lester didn’t know my father personally, but they had been
classmates at Harvard Medical School.
When I called for an interview, he asked if I was Stephen’s son.
Stephen E. Hedberg, MD.
Brilliant surgeon at Mass General Hospital in Boston. Heir apparent to his mentor Dr. Claude Welch,
Chief of Surgery. Endoscopy pioneer. A Buckley conservative opposed to
the war on drugs. Skeet shooter at The
Country Club in Brookline, sporting the vest pin; If they take away our guns, how can we shoot liberals?
Dead at 54 from hepatitis contracted after cutting himself
on a patient’s shattered bone. At the
time of his death, he was fighting a lonely battle against insurance giant Blue
Cross Blue Shield and the Dukakis Administration
in an effort to prove that the healthcare system was being manipulated for
profits and threatening to wreck the doctor/patient relationship he cherished.
Being around the age my father was when he died, and looking
just like him (minus six inches and 50+ pounds), I wasn’t surprised Lester
remarked on the resemblance as he invited me into his home office in Wellesley. We had a good chat about the advocacy possibilities
for his popular website,
and as I was heading out, I confided that I was a lifelong headache sufferer.
“My doctor tells me I’m killing myself with too many pain meds…I’ve
started taking a hit of weed along with Aleve or Excedrin. It seems to help…”
Lester chuckled, “Throw away the pain pills and learn how to
make cannabis tincture!”
He had a call coming in so I thanked him and left; excited
because I already knew how to make tincture! I had been a tiny-plot outdoor grower for
years but never a heavy consumer, so after a few seasons I had a bunch of
dried old buds from previous grows. I
decided to try a simple extraction; bake the green material at about 280
degrees for a few minutes. Place in
canning jar and fill with grain alcohol to cover plus 10 percent more. Agitate daily for ten days. Strain.
Cannabis tincture.
To be sure, I didn’t know I was making medicine, much less a
remedy for migraines. I used it for
feature film outings. I was married with
children, and even though my wife didn’t completely object to marijuana, she
was not about to let me blaze away in the parking lot of local theaters. A 40-drop dose before we left the house
would kick in just as the movie got underway, and the effect would last through
the credits and well beyond. She never
knew, and probably attributed my euphoric responses to my love of big screen movies,
and to the fact that as new parents we didn’t get out much.
The first time I tried my concoction for a migraine,
however, I wretched violently. I
couldn’t handle the alcohol content.
With a gentle boil I reduced the ‘menstrum’ by more than half, and swapped
the jar for a tinted dropper vial. The
result was a stealthy, sexy, deep emerald green extract that was kick-ass at 15
drops. Green dragon tincture; ancient
medicine.
I was hooked. I got
online and it didn’t take me long to discover that In 1839, Dr. William B.
O'Shaughnessy, a British physician at the Medical College of Calcutta,
published On the preparations of the Indian Hemp or Gunjah. Suddenly cannabis tincture was all the
rage. Queen Victoria used it for relief
of PMS. Her personal physician, J. R. Reynolds, studied cannabis himself and
declared it "by far the most useful of drugs" in treating
"painful maladies."
Dr. William Osler, founder of John Hopkins University and
author of Principles and Practices of Medicine, noted that cannabis tincture is
“the most satisfactory” treatment for migraines. That discovery pissed me off,
and in 2009 I called a local paper to have them write a story about my offer to
teach patients how to make their own tincture in the privacy of their own lives.
Instead of opening doors, they all slammed shut. Stoner neighbors fretted about having a noisy
loose cannon in their midst, and Yankee friends and family, some closet tokers among
them, were quick and brutal;
Sit down. Shut up.
Laws are made to be followed, not broken… If you don’t like the law, work
within the system to change it…
At Babson College, where I was working at the time writing teaching cases about bright ideas and inventive entrepreneurs, professors would squirm and smirk like red-faced schoolgirls at the very mention of the emerging enterprise frontier that must not be named.
Until just recently, parental commitments moored me in the
Great Prohibition state of New Hampshire, so I have dealt with this aggressive
social shunning for years. Possibly the
most telling example of the deeply entrenched insanity is that Yankee pot-parents,
former progressives who still enjoy weed in the shadows, keep silent on the
issue as uniformed DARE officers visit the schools and lie to their children
about the dangers of cannabis. Some of those
parents buy into the social contract so completely that when their children ask about their experience with marijuana, they dutifully lie, duck and dodge.
Since everyone including local lawmen now knew what I was
all about, I couldn’t risk even a small grow.
What little tincture I managed to acquire came from showing legal
patients how to make their own (mostly down in Rhode Island, currently New
England’s freest state). While
vaporizing also helps lighten up my headache days, I have recently developed
tinnitus so I can’t blaze at all. Needless
to say, with my daughters now grown up and getting out, I’m heading for a free
state where I can begin to more fully explore extracts and edibles.
Dr. Grinspoon has been a legend for decades. He’s also a really nice and genuine guy with
a deep passion for telling the world the medicinal truth about cannabis. I look forward to seeing him every year at
Freedom Fest on the Boston Common. He
always smiles and greets me warmly with the same words; My gosh, for a moment there I thought Dr.
Hedberg had returned…
