Fortitude: Turning Tragedy into Action
A podcast by the Parent Action Network (PAN), a division of Smart Approaches to Marijuana (SAM), dedicated to amplifying the voices of parents whose lives have been devastated by the harmful effects of marijuana. Each episode features personal interviews with parents sharing their heart-wrenching stories of loss, addiction, and the impact on their families. Through these powerful narratives, PAN aims to educate, inspire, and mobilize listeners to take action against the widespread dangers of marijuana use.
Fortitude: Turning Tragedy into Action
Weed Isn't What You Remember: A Mom's Battle With Big Marijuana
What happens when the "harmless" marijuana of the past transforms into today's high-potency nightmare? Amy, a Connecticut mother, never imagined her son's college experience would spiral into cannabis-induced psychosis and a 13-month battle with reality itself.
Amy's story shatters common misconceptions about marijuana. Her academically successful, athletic son Ethan once promoted drug abstinence to "preserve his developing brain." Yet at college, where cannabis was legal and normalized, everything changed. After his first "green out" psychotic episode, Ethan called home terrified, convinced he was "stuck in the fourth dimension" with body parts "twitching and moving." Despite attempts to stop, addiction had already taken hold.
The family's desperate search for help reveals a troubling gap in our healthcare system. Doctors dismissed cannabis as the cause of Ethan's psychosis. Police responding to wellness checks couldn't recognize the severity of his condition. Amy found herself frantically researching, connecting with support groups, and essentially "becoming an addiction counselor and psychiatrist" while fighting to keep her son alive.
Only when Ethan was hospitalized at Yale, which researches cannabis-induced psychosis, did they find knowledgeable care. Amy's journey transformed her into a powerful advocate challenging the narrative that marijuana is harmless. Through her work with Parent Action Network, she's now educating legislators about the devastating reality of today's cannabis products.
Ready to make a difference? Join our advocacy efforts by signing the letter supporting Representative Mary Miller's amendment to close dangerous Delta-8 THC loopholes. Your voice matters in protecting families from the heartbreak Amy continues to navigate each day.
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Good evening everyone. This is Chrissy Groenwegen, director of the Parent Action Network. We are the grassroots division of Smart Approaches to Marijuana and we're dedicated to amplifying the voices of families whose lives have been devastated by the harmful effects of marijuana. Thank you for joining me for another episode of Fortitude. It's been a little while, but we're back, and I always like to remind our listeners that I gave this podcast that title because fortitude means showing courage in the face of grief and adversity, and I really couldn't think of a better word to exemplify the brave parents and families that stand up despite their pain to fight big marijuana and the false narrative that marijuana is a safe and harmless product.
Speaker 2:I hope that each episode leaves you with a profound understanding of the urgent need for awareness, better regulations and the power of community support in addressing the challenges posed by today's marijuana products. Today, we have with us Amy from Connecticut, and Amy also has a home in Florida. So, like myself, she advocates for both Connecticut and Florida. So, like myself, she advocates for both Connecticut and Florida. And Amy comes to us with a story involving her son and I'm going to let her tell you about that and we're going to open it up to Amy, thank you first of all for being with us, of course, thank you.
Speaker 2:I'm really glad to have you here and it's, you know, Amy's actually been a part of parent action network for quite some time, even though she almost didn't realize it, which is very funny. With all these other organizations, we we sometimes get mixed up like who's doing what and who am I talking to, you know. So it's. We've always had fun conversations and I'm so thankful to have Amy on board now. She recently came to advocate with us on Capitol Hill, telling her story and meeting with other parents and, of course, legislators. And, as we always like to start out, we'd like to hear from you, Amy, what your life was like before marijuana became a factor in your life.
Speaker 1:So I have two sons. My son that struggles with cannabis use disorder and cannabis-induced psychosis is my older son and I would say we were a pretty typical family. We were very close. Ethan was very close with his brother. They were both very active in sports. Ethan was really just a great role model for his younger brother and kind of showed him the way of soccer and whatever hobbies Ethan was into. Luke followed suit and Ethan was just this doting, encouraging older brother. He just they were so close.
Speaker 1:Um, it's not to say that it wasn't chaotic at times having two boys. Um, ethan is, and has always been, a little bit more introverted and so he was not really a troublemaker at all ever. Um, he was athletic very. Um, he's very intelligent. He's always done well in school with pretty minimal effort. Um, in high school he was not a partier. He had a nice close group of friends that we were all very close with as well, and that was really what I excelled in is is is the volunteering, and we were the Kool-Aid house. We were always the house where Ethan's friends would come over. We were always the house that had the adults over. Um, it was always just fun. We just had a really nice set of friends, and most of them, as us, who have kids that are the oldest one is how you make usually a lot of your friends. So it was just a nice close knit group, um, not a partying group at all. They were just very into sports, it was just. It was fun and easy.
Speaker 1:And we did see a change, I would say, junior year, in Ethan, and he was not using marijuana at that time. However, I recently found out that his girlfriend at the time was, and she was actually known as a stoner, and I had no idea. Um Ethan used it a few times. She later told me that he had a reaction to the marijuana in a way that she had never seen happen in anybody else and I'm guessing it scared him. We had no idea that he even tried it, um, and he really promoted abstinence. He would tell us that he didn't want to drink, he didn't want to smoke, he wanted to preserve his brain because it's still developing. Those were actually his words, and so we didn't really think there was a lot to worry about Um. We took him to college in DC. He was, uh, admitted to the university of Delaware, but in a program through Delaware that took place at American university. So that was his first semester and we drove down Um and I had never thought about marijuana.
Speaker 1:I remember some discussion about the legalizing of marijuana happening throughout the country when Ethan was high school and Luke was in middle school and Bill and I my husband we talked about is it a gateway drug or is it not. And I just didn't have an opinion because I myself I smoked one time in college. It was my senior year and it was a joint, a low potency joint rolled up. We all shared it in a circle. Nobody sat in a corner and smoked it for five hours while gaming, and I had a very severe reaction where it lasted for six months. So I became depersonalized and it was the most terrifying six months of my life.
Speaker 1:And, uh, I knew that weed was not for me, so really it was not on my radar until we dropped our son off at American and the first thing I saw coming out of the hotel was a guy smoking weed. And I said my husband, huh, is it legal here? And he said, oh yeah, it's legal, it's fine, it's, it's legal, it's everywhere. And so we dropped our son off and, uh, we were in the car driving back from dropping him off at the university, dropping him off at the university, and we were talking about ha ha, you know, ethan's not a partier, but at least he won't be ruining his liver.
Speaker 1:Um, you know, I think I equated my experience with marijuana as it was laced, you know, it was laced with something which maybe it was I don't think so I was the only one that reacted that way, but maybe, um, and so we were like at least he'll save his liver. You know, marijuana is, it's so natural. We only knew it as a joint and, um, I never knew anything about the other forms of marijuana, and so I didn't think about it. And I didn't think about it until I had thought about it. And that was when my son called us in February of the second semester, in a brief, psychotic episode, and he even in the midst of being completely out of touch with reality, he said it's a green out. It's, it's when you smoke too much weed. And that was the first time we realized that he was smoking weed at college.
Speaker 2:Wow, and you know what. You said a couple of things, so I just want to go back a little bit as far as, like when we as adults smoke, and you know, or smoked in the past or you know, even you know regular pot. You know a joint. The way you described it was exactly like my same experience. I was not a drug user either, but on the rare occasion that I partook in a joint it was usually with a group of people at a wedding or like at an outing, where you're passing around this one skinny little joint and then it's gone and then you're good for hours, you know, and that's not what this stuff is.
Speaker 2:So that brings me to a couple of different questions and and actually just one comment that of course, as parents, we all basically give our kids that no drugs message, right, and when we talk about that, a lot of parents that I talked to on the podcast and just in general just knowing, even talking with your friends, we never thought of marijuana as a hard drug. Like, obviously, kids experiment. Probably almost every kid in the country has probably gone to a party and got drunk at least once, maybe stoned. We deal with that as a parent. They have ramifications, have ramifications, but we don't expect them to become addicted or go psychotic or any of the effects of marijuana that happened today. We never would have expected that to happen and in fact, a lot of us and a lot of parents come from you know.
Speaker 2:There's some parents that are like, well, I've always been against it. But there's those of us that are also like, well, you know, I really wasn't worried about marijuana, it's legal, like we as parents and even adults, also buy into that narrative that's pushed all over the place, the perception that this is not harmful. So I just want to confirm, like with our audience, that did your stance on marijuana prior to legalization like were you, did you have, did you have an issue with legal? Did you carry the way if it was legalized, or you just didn't really think about it?
Speaker 1:I didn't think about it. Did I question whether it was a gateway drug? That that was the really the narrative. That was the question as far as legalization wasn't does it cause psychosis? Does it cause addiction? It was like, is it a gateway drug? I mean, it's just marijuana, but are you going to end up being an addict to cocaine or heroin? And I wasn't sure about it. I thought maybe it would be because it would lower your inhibition. I just thought about marijuana as being like kind of spacey. You know, your inhibitions are lower, you get the munchies.
Speaker 1:You know that was really the image Not smoker, it wasn't somebody addicted, hold up in their room for days, um weeks, becoming more and more addicted using various forms of THC that I could have never even pictured in my mind. Right, and then psychotic, um, you know, I think the gateway. Uh, I think the gateway, I think it's possible that it could be a gateway, but I think that the marijuana today, I would say I used to think it was a gateway drug by lowering your inhibition, but now I'm not certain that it's so much of a gateway drug because in my own family's experience it was such an encompassing addiction on its own. It's like it didn't need a next level because it was so potent and it's so addictive. It's so potent and it's so addictive and so it's like you've reached the top. You know, in terms of these guys and girls that become so addicted and in some cases psychotic, you know that is the drug that gives them everything they want.
Speaker 2:You're so right. That's a really great point that you're making that a lot of people haven't really, we haven't really thought about it that way, because I agree with you. You know well, we know there's a huge argument Is it a gateway or not? And like we do know statistically that most people that advanced to other drugs started with marijuana. Now, is that, does that make it a gateway or just a normal progression? But you are right that today's marijuana gives them everything they want and then, even when they've had enough, they can't get off it, right, you know?
Speaker 1:Right, yeah, right. I mean there was no way, in the height of my son's addiction, that he was going to be reaching for another substance. I mean, he it was. His brain was so locked in. I mean, the science is the, the receptors in the brain and body, um, that cannabis attaches to, is so far exceeding the receptors in the body for opioids, um, and for other types of drugs. So, if you think about it, it's like marijuana seems to be at the top of the list because if you go in terms of you know that false narrative of it not being physically addictive, well, there's more cannabinoid receptors in the brain and body than any other drug that would attack.
Speaker 2:So and so, yeah, right, like I never heard prior to this field, even in the beginnings in prevention, I never heard about the endocannabinoid system. Yeah, I never heard about that until, actually, my own personal experience with a family member with CHS and that was, believe it or not, 10 years ago, like when I first heard that term, but other than that, I would have never known it, you know, and also, being in prevention made me more aware of the harms that could come from legalization, which weren't really, again, about psychosis. They were more about all those things that Dr Kevin Sabet talks about, like the criminal part of it, the taxation, all those other things that affect society. We weren't even talking yet about the psychosis, right, because it wasn't that prominent yet in the early like, like in 2014 to 2018, when legalization exploded and we started seeing all these mental health and severe physical effects. But prior to that, we were more focused on the fact that we're just legalizing, legalizing another drug in an addiction for profit industry, you know. So it's crazy.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you know. So it's crazy. Yeah, the the I. I feel like I had a little bit of a tip off in. I think it was around 2010,.
Speaker 1:Uh, ethan and my younger son's long time babysitter, uh, became very ill and she was diagnosed with cyclical vomiting and I remember she would put the boys to bed and we would come home and we would see our back window open and she would be sitting in the bathroom smoking, weed out out of the window with the window open, different part of the house. We actually didn't. We didn't really think anything of it. You know, again, we had listen, all these things. We were not informed. I mean, we weren't informed as parents. We weren't informed as as consumers. She was obviously uninformed. She developed cyclical vomiting. Nobody could figure out what was wrong with her. She was finally diagnosed with that after being hospitalized so many times. I never, until last year, put it together and I actually mess her because I wanted her to know she is married with children now and I wanted her to know that. That is why she had that health issue. It was because she was smoking marijuana pretty much every day and I never pointed that out. Um, how did she read that? I don't know. She was put on medic. She wasn't hospitalized. She was put on medication. She was hospitalized on more than one occasion, like overnight for days. This wasn't just an ER, I mean, it was a very severe health issue. She lost a ton of weight. Um, she had to quit her job at the time, which was full-time babysitting. She wasn't babysitting for us anymore, or other families. She wasn't babysitting for us anymore, or other families. It severely impacted her life and she had no idea.
Speaker 1:Nobody drew that connection between the weed and the health effects, just like us. I mean we. These were what all these kids and young adults have gone through. These are yes, did they make a choice to smoke marijuana in the first place? Yes, was it an informed choice? No, and it was definitely. Um, you know a path of unintended consequences. Nobody would ever have take a drug in any form, knowing that you will become psychotic. Yes, when you drink alcohol, you think in the back of your head. I know some people have addiction issues, but that's not me. You don't sit and look at weed as an 18 year old, you know, five years ago, three years ago, two years ago, and think, huh, maybe you think, maybe this is addictive, maybe it's not, but you would never think, huh, this may or may not make me psychotic, so it's just the choice you know to use was there, but it's just such severe unintended consequences that that make this, um, you know, just so, so difficult as, as family members of these addicted, unwell young adults you know that are probably affected, um, by this.
Speaker 1:So, and and I joined, so, and and I joined my son had two too many, I would say, psychotic breaks in 2019. And those were the warning signs. I think that something was not settling well with him smoking weed and we actually thought that it scared him, so we assumed he wasn't smoking anymore. And we found out at the end of the school year that he hadn't attended one single class for the entire semester and he had out completely and was now kicked out of school. So he admitted that it was because he became addicted to weed. He was aware of it. He said I didn't know, I thought it was not physically addicted, I thought it was just psychologically addictive and that I was just dependent. And he really equated the fact that he didn't go to school once the entire semester to one class was because he was sitting in his room smoking weed all day long and gaming just by himself. And you know, that was really when we knew we had a big problem.
Speaker 1:When we knew we had a big problem and he saw a therapist in town who understood that we may not be helpful, but he thought it was more of of, you know, a depression, you know, and and the the weed was secondary. Where really the weed was fueling everything, it was not like, in this case, the chicken or the egg, it was the marijuana that fueled everything that ended up unraveling in the next year and uh, which was eventually a psychotic break, a more permanent one, the two that he had had prior one in February and one in April of 2019, they were temporary, they were acute, they went away after three hours, brief psychotic episodes, and he contacted you during those yes, he did. He called me on his cell phone in a panic, both times saying he was stuck in the fourth dimension, his body parts were twitching and moving around and that he was going to die. And so we had a wellness check done on him twice, check done on him twice and the last time it happened, which was the second time, he was like we said Ethan, this is just not for you. You can't. I know, we know people smoke it. You can't be doing this. It's probably laced. This is not normal. Um, and he agreed. He was like, yeah, you're right, but you know what you can want to stop something. But he was addicted. He was already dead. He did everything he could to continue it. We had no idea.
Speaker 1:I called the police that summer thinking that our neighbor who I know smokes weed he was an older guy, he was smoking weed and I smelled it. I started smelling it every single day in our house when I woke up in the morning and I was convinced that it was coming through like the windows, like the wind was blowing it, and I called the police and I said I think he has like a pot thing going on in his, his garage because our house smells like weed every day, every morning. And one day I'll never forget, I looked up in our dining room and I smelled like the AC vent, I it was like coming through, it was in our house and he was obviously staying up all night smoking weed. So he was not able to quit, obviously, and it just spiraled from there. Um, you know, we attempted to get him into therapy and, uh, he refused and we really didn't know what to do. Um, there was no roadmap then of what you do with a weed addict, because most people didn't even recognize that as a thing. And so we went back to college in the fall, thinking that maybe he'll get his stuff together, and within two months I just had this horrible feeling that things were not going well. So we brought him home and then, and then COVID hit, and I would say he was probably fairly sober during that because we were all locked at home and, uh, dispensaries were closed.
Speaker 1:He wasn't 21, but he had a friend whose brother was a pharmacist over 21. And he would drive up to Massachusetts and buy a ton of weed, probably over the legal limit, and then he'd sell it to Ethan. So when people say, people, kids under 18 can't get weed, or under 21, such a joke, I mean it's so accessible, you can get it anywhere in any form. So so I would say, during COVID and then, once COVID ended, um, I think just the stress of what do I do with my life now drew him back to to weed and I think, um, you know he was now 21, so he, he was able to go up to the dispensaries. It was not legal in Connecticut at the time, but it was in Massachusetts, so he was crossing the state borders buying weed with whatever money he had from work Right.
Speaker 2:And if you're from the other side of the country, just know that Connecticut and Massachusetts not a long ride. We have the same issue with New York.
Speaker 1:Before legalization, everybody went to Massachusetts. Well, what was interesting is when, when the legalization came to Connecticut, all the talk was oh, connecticut's doing it right. We're going to have a potency cap of 60%, and if you really understand what that means, first of all, 60% is off the rails and second of all, it doesn't apply to concentrates. So in Connecticut you can buy concentrates that are up to, you know, 94%. So the app in Vermont and Connecticut is somewhat of a joke.
Speaker 1:My son did not do. He did not, he was a flower guy. He maintained that he was going to do it the right way, the natural way. So he did not buy wax, uh, shatter. Um, however, um, we did find dab pens later on. Um, we did not find them until he was hospitalized and we raided his room and we found dab pens.
Speaker 1:We found a Delta eight, which I had no idea what Delta eight even was. All I know is I saw signs for it everywhere, everywhere. I was like what's Delta? It had like the same marijuana flower and I remember Googling it and thinking oh my God, is this like K2 and spice, like a synthetic THC? And that's what I thought, actually, until I found smart approaches to marijuana. I really didn't know what it was. I didn't know that it was part of a hemp product, that it was, that it was. You know the the work around. You know hemp was able to be used um to create Delta eight. I thought it was uh like a form of K2 and spice, which I know is is actually banned, the way Delta eight should be. Um.
Speaker 1:So we found, uh, some edibles. We found um some other he had he had. We found some other. He had included those products in his repertoire of THC use. And it was more and more as time went on, you know, just raising the bar, becoming more and more addicted, needing a higher high because you build up the tolerance, it's so addictive. Because you build up the tolerance, it's so addictive, so you build up, I mean, like the other hard drugs, quote um, you build up that tolerance and you just need more and more.
Speaker 2:So so who? Who helped you the most? For for your son, like once you were aware of the problem, you're on top of it Now. You tried to get counseling. He didn't want to really go for counseling. What worked to get you to this point where he is now?
Speaker 1:So I would say that I, the therapist that I tried to get my son to see, I ended up seeing myself myself. Um, and he actually his son had cannabis induced psychosis and he told me that early on and he knew exactly what we were going through and he I talked to him twice a week at least. I mean, we were in crisis. He, my son, had a psychotic break like the full psychotic break in um late October of 2021. Um, and I can see it on in his composition books. He was at a local college at that time doing fairly well, I mean he, he was hanging in um and the last entries in each of his college comp books were class notes. And then he had this massive break from reality and two days after that, all the notes in his comp books were conspiracy, were um, illuminati, just things that were completely not understandable at all. I mean, it was like the difference was, it was just, it was horrifying. It was night and day. He was in a persistent psychotic state for 13 months. So I, you know, we, we would call 911. We would call 211. That did not help and I just worked with this therapist and I Googled and Googled and Googled. I came across Johnny's Ambassadors and I joined their group and a mom from there reached out to me and she became my lifeline. She and I talked almost every single day. She guided me through what her son did, his treatment. She was just my support system.
Speaker 1:Things were only getting worse for my son Again. He was completely untreated and I and I I remember listening to I don't know what it was. Would it have been in 2022? Uh, like a Dr Phil and Kat. I remember finding Sabbath's name right on mine and I was like who is this guy? And I remember Googling and at first I was like, huh, smart approaches to marijuana. It's yes, yes, is this a group that's saying you can use weed but do it in a smart way? And then, once I learned more about it, I was like, wow, this was so. It's kind of a different angle than the Johnny's ambassadors that that I was so involved with, just just for emotional support and resources, and I feel like I was like the earlier OGs of of Johnny's ambassadors.
Speaker 1:It's grown a lot since then I remember continuing to read more about him, about Kevin and the smart approaches to marijuana and what it was actually about, and I just found several. I found that I would just read online. I would read and I felt like I had to become an addiction counselor and a psychiatrist at the same time and we just that kept my head above water. I mean, our goal was to keep him alive until we could get him help, because there was no, no roadmap, there was nothing.
Speaker 1:Um, doctors at that time didn't believe that this was weed induced. Police would show up this is weed induced. Um, he's fine, he would pull himself together, um, and eventually he was hospitalized at Yale. And thank God, because Yale, uh, really was at the forefront of research into cannabis use disorder and cannabis induced psychosis and I'd already been talking to their early psychosis clinic for months. Just, I would call them up and talk to them, just to to have advice and to hear, to have somebody hear me, because they understood that and was suffering from cannabis induced psychosis. And even though he wasn't a client there, this guy Phil, he was the intake guy. I was like my personal counselor. He probably spent 30 days on the phone with me and so he was hospitalized, and I would say that's when the treatment process started, which has not been linear.
Speaker 1:So at the time, I would say I was really focused on the treatment end and the educational end and I was wanting to educate everybody around me my friends, my friends, kids, I, I had to maintain my son's privacy, but but there was a point where I realized this is not just his story, this has impacted our entire family severely. Um, that, you know, I was a little less closed about what I shared because I thought it was so important for people to know that this actually is happening, and I was writing letters to our local legislators, you know, with the story of my son and, of course, nobody answered at all. Um, but I was really focused on the educational and and um, the, you know, like, the more more on, like learning about treatment and treatment options. Yes, so that's where I dedicated so much of my time and it did pay off because I knew exactly where to send my son when he got so ill that he was at a point of desperation where he there was no other option, and we ended up getting a court order taking him to Florida under an act called the Marchman Act, which is a court order, and so once he was in a treatment center, I realized that there was another approach to this nightmare marijuana mess. And it was on the legislative side.
Speaker 1:And I remember asking a few of the groups that I was a part of at that time, aside from Smart Approaches to Marijuana, about how we can do legislation, how we can get in front of people who can actually make a difference with, with the laws, because the dispensaries, the, the, the advertising is so misleading, the narrative in public opinion is so incorrect, um, and you know, the social equity part of the, the defense of dispensaries, I I just really struggled with. You know I was seeing dispensaries open up in our hometown, um, and it was being championed Like it was, you know, the best thing that's ever come to West Hartford and this was a family town that that now has four dispensaries. And you know, knowing that, um, you can educate, but actually getting some control over the marijuana industry and how out of hand it is to come from the top. And that's when I started, you know, looking more at, I remember the Dr Phil episode with a bunch, you know, the Smart Approaches to Marijuana crew.
Speaker 2:And Laura was on that episode as well. That was a crazy episode, but a really really good one.
Speaker 1:It was a really good one and I shared it with everybody I knew and you know, I realized how important like the legislative side was, and so once my son was a little bit more like along in in his recovery which I use that word very, uh carefully because it's it's definitely here Um, I, I, I I reconnected with with pan, which I had been a member of. I remember reaching out several times about this cannabis curriculum, how universities were promoting you a major in cannabis science and university of Connecticut is that like the forefront of that, and I'm so horrified by it. And so that is what led me, I think, to to reconnect um with parent action network and uh, we were just obviously in DC and um, we were just obviously in DC and um, I would say that the silver lining out of all of this is that I have found um advocacy to be so important and it doesn't take away the, the pain and the fear of the future, the pain of the past and the fear of the future. Um, you know this is a very difficult environment to stay sober in for for young adults, um, and I don't see that changing, you know, in the next year. But I know that every one of us can make some sort of a difference. And when I went to DC as part of the uh hemp bill push you know to, to change that. Um, I realized that we actually do have a voice and we just need to keep talking more and more and more and more. Parents need to share more stories and I think most of the people that have used THC have used it in pretty much every form at some point.
Speaker 1:So it's not a matter of if it's Delta 8 or if it's dispensary weed or weed from the street. If it's Delta eight or if it's dispensary weed or weed from the street, it's, it's. All it's still to me is unregulated. Even even weed from dispensary it's not, it's not regulated. It's tested for fungus and bacteria, but beyond that, there's really no regulation and it's just destroying families. And I think that advocacy is how I have found I can manage just the rabbit hole that we all fell into and are climbing out of, and that's what's are climbing out of it and that's what's keeping me out of it. My son has relapsed after being in treatment for two years, consistently for two years. Um, and you know, it's keeping my head above water just knowing if, if it changes one person, one legislator's mind, then it's worth using your story to get it out there, and recovery is definitely not a linear path at all. So we're, we're not, we're not uh, you know, necessarily in that phase where um weed is not a part of of my son's life.
Speaker 2:So and and you know again, um, for our listeners. As Amy mentioned, she participated in our in PAN's Capitol Hill day. We do one a year right now and we are looking to advance that. But this particular year and it's actually very funny how amy came to join us at the 11th hour and we were so thankful to have her because she's fantastic at advocacy, as many of you probably can hear. But we we are limited. We do have a limited amount of people invited to the Hill Day because we want it to be impactful. We have pre-planned meetings.
Speaker 2:This year we took 27 parents from 16're from. You can guarantee that you'll see at least one member from your own state, along with other states, because you are broken up into groups and so it's a real bonding situation as well because you get to meet all these other parents. But, most importantly, you have the power to speak to legislators and make a difference through your stories. You're not expected to be the scientist. We provide that science and the data. It's about your stories and it really puts a face to these legislators and it does make a difference and we are starting to see that.
Speaker 2:And you know one example we had and I actually think it was with Amy's group, one of the legislators, after hearing their stories, about an hour later, had a lobbyist pot. Lobbyists come in, you know, touting the industry and how fantastic pot was. And now he had all these stories and, besides having the facts and the science and having just really learned about it and absorbed it, he had these stories and he was like, yeah, no, you know, so it really does. And that's one of the positive impacts and it really does make a difference.
Speaker 1:And it was. I mean, it was such an organized, amazing day, um, um, where I just we opened so many eyes. I mean it was the, the uh, legislative coordinators, assistants that we met with um were just so open to hearing our stories. Yes, um, they are so used to having people promoting the marijuana industry and they don't hear the other side, and I mean they were asking questions. It's so clear that this needs to, this has, this has to continue even past the you know the hemp, the farm bill loophole, those that you know the hemp, the farm bill loophole, those that you know to be. To have us parents in front of policymakers. That's what makes a difference.
Speaker 1:Face to face letters can work in an organized effort, like the rescheduling, I think smart approaches, they do a really good job with that. Like the rescheduling, I think smart approaches, they do a really good job with that. Um, but getting people face to face in such an organized manner, it was so empowering. I mean I, for the first time, I felt like I had a voice and somebody heard our story. And our story doesn't have an half, does not have a happy ending, because the ending isn't there yet, but it's up in the air. You know we don't, we don't have a story of recovery yet because it's like I just said, it's it's just such a hard environment to stay sober and, um, weed is is on every street corner. So, um, you know, I think I think what smart approaches to marijuana and and pan is doing is is just it's unbelievable.
Speaker 1:Like I said, I was so focused on the treatment and and the resources and education and education end in terms of, like, educating teenagers, right, but you guys do the education plus the legislation, which really, in the end, is what's going to make. You know all the difference and I don't expect the difference to be next year, but you know we're chipping away I see it that way is shipping away at the marijuana industry and and, incidentally, I met a friend in DC who I hesitated to contact because last time I spoke to him he was a lawyer for the, he was a lobbyist for the cannabis industry and I ended up reaching out to him and he has completely changed his narrative. I mean he is so anti-cannabis right now. I mean it was unbelievable, he understands and he understands the inside of the cannabis industry and he said they know, they know, they know what's happening.
Speaker 1:Oh, rating mass addiction, psychosis, long-term psychotic disorders, not just short-term psychotic episodes, but long-term psychotic disorder. And they know, they know he, he, he was on that side for so many, for four or five years he was a lobbyist for the industry and he said I wish you had contacted me, I could have set you up, you know, with people in the cashier.
Speaker 1:Maybe absolutely you come to the other side. I mean, you know you can have somebody that is a lobbyist for the cannabis industry and now he's completely opposed to the. You know cannabis in every way. So miracles can happen with a lot of work. It's not even miracles, it's the science catching up, the opinion catching up and just the narrative catching up to modern day, not 20 years ago, yeah, and to the truth really no-transcript.
Speaker 2:I'm so glad you were able to join us, and you're definitely a champion for pan, so we look forward to having you do so many more things, advocacy wise, with us.
Speaker 1:Thank you. I would just say um to to not give up hope. Um, there's always a path to recovery. Um, and I just think that, as parents, at the end of the day, we're always the bottom line, always the bottom line, and when we we have been in the deepest moments. I mean it was as if I was watching the slow death of my firstborn child for over a year and a half, you know, as he was defining, in psychosis, totally addicted to marijuana. Um, but you just can't give up. Like it's never, ever too late. I would say that it's never too late to get your loved one help. It's never too late to educate, it's never too late to advocate. So, um, I guess that's what I would leave it at.
Speaker 2:Thank you. So again, I know you have to move on, so I want to wrap up for you, but Amy had mentioned the Mary Miller Amendment, which is Representative. Mary Miller, from Illinois, is the first representative to literally champion this mission to close the loophole on Delta 8. And so she has made an amendment to the Farm Bill and that is what we were advocating on, asking for support for that bill. So this is a perfect opportunity for me to mention to our audience that we wrote a letter. As Amy had said, letters matter right, and because Mary Miller is championing this, we have created a letter that you can see on our website and in our newsletter and you can sign on. It's basically just thanking her for being the champion of this cause, letting her know that she has an army of parents and families behind her, and you can read the letter that's already been written and you can sign on the Google form to add your name to the letter and this will be hand delivered to her by our government affairs manager. So she will receive this letter.
Speaker 2:It is still open to participate in and we will be releasing our March newsletter in another week or so. I'm pretty sure it'll be out by Monday and it's in there so you can participate in that. So please make sure you are getting our newsletter and opening that. And then, for anyone who would like to be a guest on the Fortitude podcast, please just reach out to me at Chrissy. At learnaboutsamorg, and that's C-R-I-S-S-Y at learnaboutsamorg. All of our emails here end in learnaboutsamorg, so you know that's a relevant email if it's coming from us. Most of them are our first name. And then there's also pan at learnaboutsamorg. In case you want to join if you haven't already, you're welcome to email and we'll get you signed up. And so again, there's the Mary Miller Amendment you can participate in. We don't have any current legislative actions open, but they're always forthcoming.
Speaker 2:Our newsletter is jam-packed with state updates, national updates, always a featured story. This month we're focusing on the cannabis poisonings, because next week is National Poison Control Week. So we figured we would focus on cannabis poisonings, ingestions and accidental exposures. So don't miss that. And again, amy, thank you so much for your bravery and your openness in telling your story and thank you for all you do for all the other parents out there. I know you're heavily involved as an ambassador for Johnny's Ambassadors and those are just really important ways in which we can keep spreading the word and doing this work and supporting each other. So thank you so much for being here, amy.
Speaker 1:So much. It was an honor and the work that you guys are doing is amazing. I mean, to be a part of it and see it in action was just amazing. I went back and I told everybody I've met through this journey to join Parent Action Network and I think most of them have. Well, we really appreciate that. Yeah, yeah have.
Speaker 1:They, they were, yeah. Yeah. You know a lot of people aren't aren't thinking in crisis moments about legislation and and making you know policymakers aware of of what happened to our families and and it was. It was just really. It was such an amazing experience and I plan to continue to be very involved and we're so happy to have you and you know.
Speaker 2:Just another note on joining you know, like Amy said, she's asked everyone and told everyone and anyone about this, which is fantastic, and we appreciate that. But we also want you to understand that we really and I know Amy will attest to this we put pressure on you.
Speaker 1:Yeah, In our cannabis circle I'll say not right.
Speaker 2:But even in that circle, if you're not ready for advocacy, but you want to learn about how to do it and and become more comfortable in it, um, you're welcome to be part of this network, because that's what we do. We train you and teach you to be effective, but we also offer that support by learning from others and learning from our professionals and our family members. So, again, please just reach out to us at Chrissy at LearnAboutSamorg or Pan at LearnAboutSamorg. And again, amy, thank you so much for being here and we look forward to more work together.
Speaker 1:I do too, thank you, Good night, good night.