The UFCW’s CannUnion Kickback party in West Berlin in South Jersey drew cannabis consumers, entrepreneurs, and activists for panels on psychedelics in mental health and homegrow legalization.
It showcased the state’s rapidly changing cannabis and wellness environment.
NJ Homegrow and Patient’s Rights
The first panel, moderated by Andrea Raible, a medical marijuana patient, was on the benefits of legalizing homegrow for medical patients in New Jersey. Panelists included advocate Chris Goldstein of NORML and a Heady NJ guest author, Lefty Grimes of Sativa Cross, and Big Dave Valese of HoneyGrove Dispensary in Gloucester Township in South Jersey.
(Heady NJ is advertising HoneyGrove full disclosure.)
Homegrow has been a topic of discussion in New Jersey for fourteen years. Medical patients have long awaited its legalization. Many of these patients cannot afford dispensary prices, or dispensaries do not consistently carry the strain they need.
“Why is the Garden State the no Garden State?” Goldstein asked rhetorically. “New York you can grow weed, Maryland you can grow weed.”
“I don’t have an easy answer. We’ve got bipartisan cosponsors. We’ve got legislation,” he added. “We got one guy, the Senate President, Nicholas Scutari (D-Union). He is a big hang-up.”
Goldstein said a public awareness campaign might help.
(What’s really needed is people close to Scutari to advocate for it.)
He explained that Scutari came to a Marijuana party NORML threw at the 2016 Philadelphia Democratic National Convention.
“He hung out! That was the relationship we used to have. There were other Members of Congress that showed up!” Goldstein said. “We can’t even get him on the phone.”
He criticized the medical psilocybin or magic mushrooms bill.
Tracy Anderson, from Elucidation Strategies and ButACake, and Paco, a patient advocate, represented the medical patient side of the panel. They discussed the fact that homegrow has been legalized or available for patients in New Jersey. Paco explained that it would cost him nearly twelve hundred dollars a week to care for his condition if buying from a New Jersey cannabis dispensary.
Unionizing Psychedelics for Workers, Wellness, and the Future
Gaetano Lardieri of Future Entheogenic Medicines moderated the second panel on psychedelics. It featured panelists Hugh Giordano of UFCW Local 360, Jeff Booker of CannaCoverage, psychedelics specialist Dr. Maurice Hinson, and Molly Stanton, a provider of Ketamine Assistance Therapy and Subject Matter Expert with Enthea.
During the panel, Dr. Maurice Hinston spoke about why psychedelics make such powerful therapeutics to treat mental health issues. Psychedelics do not carry a black box warning of increased suicidality as SSRIs (Selective Serotonin Reuptake Inhibitors) or SNRIs (Serotonin and Norepinephrine Reuptake Inhibitors) do.Â
“The reason why they [psychedelics] were to accomplish this is because it actually gets to the root of the resources and helps to rewire some of the pathologic neurocircuits attributed to things of depression and anxiety. I mean, down to a biochemical mechanism. They discovered that they actually help to produce new neurons and new synapses. Which are the ways that the brain communicates with itself. The current medications that we have in the market don’t tap into that at all.” he explained.
The panel also discussed that Enthea was the first company to make psychedelic-assisted therapy available as an employee mental health benefit. Ketamine is known in the underground as Special K. It has been approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) as a Schedule III narcotic. So, while it’s highly regulated, it is legal to access in all fifty states.
Overall, the UFCW threw a fun party. The large cannabis corporation Multi-State Operator (MSO) MPX sponsored the dab bar, which Dirty Dank Jersey and Higher Function tended.
Also, attorney Chirali Patel of Blaze Responsibly spearheaded an expungement clinic. They helped those trying to get marijuana offenses off their record.
