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
A Florida Mom's Fight Through Her Daughter's Medical Marijuana-Induced Crisis
A mother's devastating account of how medical marijuana derailed her daughter's promising future unfolds in this gripping episode of the Fortitude Podcast. Jen from Florida shares the heartbreaking transformation of her academically successful daughter who, after receiving a medical marijuana card -at the recommendation of her neurologist- to treat for normal college anxiety, spiraled into severe psychosis believing she could read minds and teleport.
What makes this story particularly alarming is how systematically the medical and regulatory systems failed this family. A neurologist suggessted it and a therapist encouraged the 18-year-old to exercise her "adult independence" by obtaining medical marijuana against her parents' wishes. The neurologist who issued the card provided zero guidelines, no dosage limits, and refused to communicate with concerned parents until threatened with legal action. Even when her card was revoked, their daughter easily ordered cannabis products online by simply clicking a button claiming to be 21.
Within less than a year of cannabis use, Jen watched her high-achieving daughter become paranoid, isolated, and eventually develop full-blown delusions. Despite multiple treatment programs and periods of recovery, even a single use of cannabis after a year of sobriety triggered renewed psychosis - revealing the permanent vulnerability that many families don't understand until it's too late.
Jen's testimony serves as a critical warning about the dangers of viewing marijuana as medicine without acknowledging its serious risks for developing brains. She emphasizes the lifeline she found through support organizations like Johnny's Ambassadors, Every Brain Matters, and Parent Action Network, which connect affected families and provide evidence-based information about cannabis harms. For parents navigating similar struggles, these connections prove essential in an environment where many friends, family members, and even medical professionals dismiss or downplay marijuana-related mental health emergencies.
Join the fight to protect young people from cannabis harms by connecting with Parent Action Network and learning how your story can help drive meaningful policy change at local, state, and federal levels. Visit learnaboutsam.org to learn more about advocacy opportunities and support resources.
Follow PAN and SAM:
PAN:
https://parentaction.network/
https://x.com/parentactionSAM
https://www.facebook.com/parentactionnetworkSAM
SAM:
https://learnaboutsam.org/
https://x.com/learnaboutsam
https://www.facebook.com/learnaboutsam
Greetings listeners. It's Chrissy Groenwegen, director of the Parent Action Network, back for another episode of the Fortitude Podcast, and I always like to start by saying that I gave this podcast the name Fortitude because to me, fortitude means showing courage in the face of grief and adversity, and I couldn't think of a better word to exemplify the brave parents and families that stand up, despite their pain, to fight big marijuana every day and the false narrative that marijuana is a safe and harmless product. Today, we bring to you Jen from Florida, and Jen is yet another parent whose child's journey begins with medical marijuana. So, jen, thank you so much for being here with us.
Speaker 2:Thank you for having me.
Speaker 1:And we're going to get right into it, and I'd like to start by hearing a little bit about what your life was like before marijuana became a factor in it.
Speaker 2:Sure, well, our lives were just fairly normal. We have three kids. They were all pretty close in age. We were involved in dance, sports, art classes, we had the normal ups and downs, we were pretty close-knit for each other and quality time as a family together and we just were the average family with kids and busy and all of the things. And then our oldest daughter began struggling with anorexia in middle school and that was pretty shocking because, like I said, we had a fairly normal existence.
Speaker 2:You know, we were just a regular family, never really saw the eating disorder coming, continued, you know, having struggles with the eating disorder from, I'd say, about eighth grade until she was a senior in high school and we supported her in every way that we could Got her to a point of recovery. Actually by the time she was a senior in high school and she was fully invested in her recovery and really was doing well, I would say January 22,. From that point until even now, we've not seen any evidence of anorexia or binge purge behaviors, so that sort of was resolved by that point. I think we became even closer through that and her siblings were very supportive of her recovery and she was going to be starting college in 2022 in the fall and we just were ready to move ahead with our lives and put the past behind us and keep on forging ahead. So, yeah, we were just kind of doing pretty well.
Speaker 1:And you're in Florida, where recreational marijuana is still not legal, thank the Lord, and medical is, though, yeah, and of course we know that getting a medical marijuana card, while there might be an age restriction regardless, is pretty easy, especially if you quote-unquote have an approved medical condition. So can you tell us a little bit about well, first of all, how your daughter, despite having this eating disorder? How was she functioning at school? Because she was in high school, middle school and high school at that point.
Speaker 2:Right. Yeah, she maintained a really good GPA Early on. She needed to be completely online so she could go to treatment when she was in high school, and then she was able to complete all of her graduates for graduation and managed to graduate on time in June of 2022 with, I want to say, like a high B low A average. There was a lot of challenges, but we were just thrilled that she was still performing just like she always had, even though there were some starts and stops and, like I said, challenges along the way. But she was actually taking an AP course at one point and right before she needed to go into residential treatment in 2020. And her AP scores, or her grades in the AP course, were so good that they were really hounding her to take her AP test because they needed her high test scores to keep their funding for their program or whatever you know. So she maintained her, her academic performance really well you know, um and uh.
Speaker 2:We were just really super proud of her. Yeah, she was, she was doing great, she some close friendships and by 2022, june, when she graduated, she was really getting her momentum back and ready to start college and pursue her degree in psychology.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 2:Yeah, she was on track.
Speaker 1:And so you know another thing obviously, as parents, most of us give our kids the same talks about drug use and alcohol use in our high school years and everything. And so to your knowledge I know we've talked in the past that, like you gave those regular talks, they weren't using drugs to your knowledge and you're pretty clear on that. And then I'm just curious, you know, because a lot of parents, while legalization is happening in their states, they might not even be focused on it. You know, some of us have no feeling one way or another if it's not impacting our lives, you know. So I'm very curious with hearing that medical marijuana was going to become legal and whatnot. What were your husband and your feelings about legalization in your state?
Speaker 2:We were pretty against it. To be honest, my husband is a physician assistant and we both felt pretty strongly that there was already prescriptions available to people would have benefited in some way from marijuana as a medicine. You know, cancer patients are the only medical condition that I knew of that merited a prescription of marijuana as a medicine was cancer and the aftermath of chemo. I didn't know of any other condition that was really indicated. You know that it was indicated for. We just we believe that the guidelines were already in place and people could already access a prescription for I think the only medicine I knew of was Marinol and that was like 25, 30 years ago. So we just thought it was ridiculous.
Speaker 2:There were children, kids in the high school that we knew and that my children were exposed to, particularly my daughter that were getting their medical cards at this time and then sharing their quote-unquote medical marijuana with their peers, their friends. I think the first time that we knew Molly had used it recreationally it was with a kid that had a medical card. Thank you, I think the first time that we realized our daughter had used marijuana it was because a child a child, you know, 15, 16 years old, a fellow student had a medical marijuana card and had been sharing it with friends in their friend group and we acted accordingly. We grounded her, we did the whole takeaway privileges, I mean. I think we did it for like a month.
Speaker 2:We were pretty, you know, we were pretty militant about it. We wanted to drive home the idea that this is not something to mess with, it's a gateway drug is what our strong belief was. We knew that it just wasn't going to be good. We knew that kids were going to be exposed to it and it started to concern us that these kids with medical cards were handing it out. Did we think our daughter was going to, you know, try it? Yeah, I think we figured maybe she would try, but we just thought she was way too smart for that nonsense, you know, and we had educated them, you know, or so we thought.
Speaker 1:And you know what's interesting is that, with opioids and any prescription medicine, what do we educate our kids about in schools, right? What does drug education say? You don't share your schools, right? What does drug education say? You don't share your medications, right? So isn't it interesting that they're touting this at medicine?
Speaker 1:But and, as we know, everyone is sharing it, right? How are young kids in high school or middle school getting it? They're getting it because their parents are signing off on it and approving it and getting it from some quote unquote approved doctor to give their kid medical marijuana for whatever condition they deem acceptable, whether it be anxiety or sleep issues or whatever. Again, nothing medically proven or approved of by any medical association. And then you have the problem of kids sharing what is technically in their minds a prescription, which of course, that is a fallacy. It's not a prescription, but, regardless, that's how kids are thinking about it. So they're going against everything that we've taught them as as parents and educators, quite honestly, in the in the school systems, right, and health classes and whatnot, don't share your prescriptioncriptions, but now that's exactly what's happening.
Speaker 2:It was what was happening in our case and you know we took the necessary measures. You know grounding, restriction and again, to my knowledge, I don't think it was never a problem again, recreationally Right, if she did, and she got away with it and it completely slipped under our radar, but it was not obvious to us. There was no obvious signs of her using it.
Speaker 1:Which, again, is also not any kind of testament against parenting right, because most of us as parents expect that we're going to catch our kids drinking or smoking or doing something. It's technically a rite of passage and normal adolescent behavior and you discipline and you move on. But what we're blind to this seems to be a really great segue into what happened in the future when your daughter was number one past 18, number two in college and prescribed medical marijuana. So let's talk about that.
Speaker 2:Yes, Well as I said she was doing well, recovered from the eating disorder and enjoying life, and we were super proud of her. And she started college in August of 2022 and was nervous about it, and rightfully so. Even though it was locally here in our town, she started getting, you know, normal, you know, understandable nervousness or anxiety. That is completely normal, understandable nervousness or anxiety that is completely normal, and she was seeing. Here's another interesting part of the story is she was seeing a therapist on a regular basis to keep her kind of on the recovery track, just checking in with her every two weeks or so, and she was reporting that she was nervous and feeling nervous about college. And we would have once a month family sessions, kind of just check in and share things, as therapists often do. And this therapist was very much, very much supporting our daughter being an independent thinker and now that she's 18, almost 19, she needed to be making her own decisions and it was really the more we met with her, the more she kept pushing this narrative of, well, you know, she's 18, she's an adult, she should be, you know, independent and if she wanted to at the time she was talking about traveling abroad, studying abroad, and we wanted to put that on the back burner because we wanted her to be in stronger recovery. And at one point in one of our family sessions it came up that my daughter wanted to seek out a medical card for marijuana and I said absolutely not, this is not, we don't consider this a medicine and in our household we don't accept, you know, drug use as a solution to well, I'm feeling a little nervous about starting college, so let me get my hands on a medical card or whatever. And the therapist was like, well, this is her decision and you need to give her the freedom to make this choice. And we were just flabbergasted. You know, here's a child that was still living under our roof and completely dependent upon us. You know she was working part-time but we were paying for her college, her car insurance, her phone, and we were glad to do that. But in my husband and my mind, you're not really a full adult, whether you're 18 or not, until you're completely independent and able to support yourself and you know basically paying your own way in life. You know, here she is living under our roof and this therapist is encouraging her to go out and get this medical card and kind of scolding us for not supporting that and I think that's a really important thing to bring up that parents need to be super careful as to who is speaking into your child's life, even though she was 18, almost 19, I really think that this therapist was very detrimental and instrumental in my daughter's pursuing this wellness clinic that was run by a neurologist actually, you know, high giggly, and I said to my husband I think she's smoking weed and he was like, well, I don't know where she's getting it from because she hasn't been around any of her friends.
Speaker 2:You know she just she wasn't going out, she wasn't spending time with groups of friends or anything. She was really working, going to school and coming home. And in one of our family sessions that came up with this therapist, the therapist you know said well, you know, your daughter has something to tell you. And that's how our daughter informed us that she went ahead against our wishes and obtained the medical card and had started using medical marijuana. And you know, I can't, I just, to this day, I just I really am so angry at the therapist for encouraging her to go against our wishes and we're paying her therapy bill, we're paying this woman and anyway, I digress she got the card and she was using it and we wanted to put our foot down.
Speaker 2:You know medical, you know research said. You know, marijuana makes anxiety and depression and mental health issues worse, you know. And we pleaded with her and begged you know, begged her, you know, listen to what we're saying to you. And she said I'm an adult and I want to move out soon. And I and I want to do this and I want to do that. And Dr Annette, the therapist, was helping her formulate a plan as to how she was going to move out and be on her own.
Speaker 2:And at the time I felt like, well, our hands are tied because if we continue to hammer our daughter, we're not going to stand for this, and we felt like our relationship with her would fall apart and deteriorate. And my husband and I had a conversation and we just thought, well, this isn't going to be good for her and maybe she just needs to experience the consequences for herself. You know, at least she's not getting it off the street from some unknown person, at least she's going about it in a responsible manner, which it's just laughable now to think. You know that we were giving her credit, you know, for doing it in the quote unquote responsible way. But we wanted our relationship with our daughter to be intact. So we laid down some guidelines, said you won't smoke it driving around because that's driving under the influence. You can smoke it here outside. And we were trying to figure out, because she was smoking the plant, you know how much she was, you know. We came up with sort of like a reasonable, what we thought was a reasonable, amount.
Speaker 1:How did you come up with that guideline from your research? I'm just curious.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it was just kind of like I didn't even know, because I had so little experience with amounts of weed, like how much is in a joint, you know what like. Was she getting them pre-ruled? Was she getting them, you know? I think we just kind of said like once a day before you go to bed, to supposedly help you sleep, and if it gets to be too much we're going to take it away because we're not supporting this, but we wanted to give her that whatever.
Speaker 1:Right, right, but getting it from a medical dispensary. Now you made those guidelines on your own. Now medical dispensaries claim to be regulated, so they provide any guidelines, absolutely not Any documentation, anything at all aside from come in and get what you want.
Speaker 2:She was able to get so much of it and she could go from dispensary to dispensary as her use increased. She was able to go. There was two dispensaries side by side, within five miles of our house, right next door to one another, and she could go from one, walk out and get more product from the other. And, you know, it just became increasingly like we were. This was, we found out, she had her medical card in October of 2022.
Speaker 2:She, by January, was really using a lot of it Like any chance she got. She was going outside in the backyard and smoking and she was going to school, going to work, but then it was like smoke, smoke, smoke, smoke, smoke all evening and we were like hey, time out, like where's the prescription, if you will, and she was like I didn't really get a prescription. So we went online and we looked at what the legal guidelines were at some point and initially there was a certain amount. My husband knows all the measurements of what was supposedly allowed but she was far exceeding that. She was just getting however much she wanted and I tried to reach out to the clinic that prescribed her the card and of course, they wouldn't talk to me because she was 19 at this point and, you know, my husband said you're, you're barking up a dead tree, they're not going to talk to you. And so we, you know, had several conversations with her therapist who was like, well, you know, she's an adult, and it was just, we just were running in circles chasing our tails, trying to talk to anybody that would listen.
Speaker 2:She had a psychiatrist on board that had been treating her while she had the eating disorder, so she had a standing relationship with him and she hadn't seen him in several months. But we contacted him to say hey, she's gotten her medical card and he was like that's probably not a great idea for her. But he never said this can cause psychosis. He never, ever, ever raised a red flag and said this could be really bad. It wasn't, you know. Our question was is this addictive? And he said I believe it is, but you're not going to find too many people that agree with me. And he said the problem you know. He laid out all the problems. You know the roadblocks we're going to come to as far as like legal is. You know the all the legalities of you know she was, and exactly what would come.
Speaker 2:Yeah, just the, just the, just the roadblocks, you know, and and um. So we just kind of threw up our hands and we just tried to keep like that's too much, give me your step. That's like taking it from her and saying we kind of looked at it as if she were drinking alcohol which is legal over the age of 20. So let's say she was a 21 to 25 year old whatever she was a loved one that was legal to drink alcohol. We weren't just going to sit by and watch her down a, you know, a straight bottle of vodka or a bottle of wine every night. A straight bottle of vodka or a bottle of wine every night.
Speaker 1:I said it doesn't matter whether it's legal or not Too much is too much, such a great point.
Speaker 2:Yeah, this is such a great point that you're bringing up, because a lot of people like to compare the marijuana to alcohol the marijuana and I think it's absurd because he would never say I'm feeling anxious and go to a doctor and he would say have about five shots of whiskey a night. Maybe in the 1700s or the 1800s they were prescribing it, but today's modern society they're like. We know that alcohol has some nasty side effects and very, very dangerous outcomes of overuse. And yet we were just like I don't know, we weren't getting anywhere and her therapist continued to support it and support her independence. And it's. It's maddening now, but I know the reason that we just wanted to keep the peace, we wanted to support her. We didn't have any problems with her, she was making good grades, she was working, she was doing all the things. So we just, we just really wanted to keep our relationship with her intact.
Speaker 1:But my younger yeah which is so difficult.
Speaker 2:Well and I have two younger kids. So at the time my son, who was 17, was like Mom, she is smoking her face off. Like here I have a 17-year-old who's potentially right in that culture with other teenagers and he's like you got to get her to stop. I mean, if you're not home, she, three months in, she was isolating. She was unable to participate in family dinners.
Speaker 2:At one point we went to go see a Cirque du Soleil production for my younger daughter's birthday and my older daughter couldn't get out of the car. She had to sit in the car the entire time because she was so paranoid and freaked out by the crowds and she was overwhelmed and her anxiety was through the roof and I and I wish I hadn't reacted the way that I did. But I said to her well, I see, your medical marijuana is really helping you. She was like how dare you? That's so unfair. And I said you're sitting in a locked car in a parking lot instead of enjoying something that we've been looking forward to as a family to celebrate your sister's birthday, and you can't get out of the car. What has changed here?
Speaker 2:Oh you got this prescription, this medical card, and now look at what it's doing. And I was not nice and I regret that, but I was angry and you know that was sort of the beginning of the downward spiral. She's still working, still going to school, started dating somebody who also had his medical card in about end of January, beginning of February, and so I've only found this out recently. They were smoking a lot together and their relationship lasted about six to eight weeks and by the time that relationship ended she was having thoughts that people were spying on her at work she worked in a retail store. She was having thoughts that somebody that she dated in high school was stalking her on social media. She thought that when we would go to church that the pastor was singling her out and talking specifically to her. And you know, it just was. It was weird and it was different, but it wasn't like super bizarre. So it was, it was subtle, but the changes were there and it wasn't her normal way of thinking and behaving and I brought it up to her doctor Again.
Speaker 2:I tried to reach out to the neurologist that prescribed this stuff and they still wouldn't talk to me and I said, listen, I'm seeing some behavioral changes and they still wouldn't talk to me. And I said listen, I'm seeing some behavioral changes, you might want to listen to me. And they said until she signs a release of an ROI form, releasing for HIPAA whatever HIPAA regulation, we're not going to talk to you. And so I was trying to get my daughter to do that. She agreed to do that, but it never came to fruition. I forget why, but there was just so many moving parts at this time and I was trying to reach out to her old therapist Fired the therapist that supported the marijuana use, right. And because we were paying for her, my daughter couldn't just continue to see her. So that was easy, right. Her psychiatrist wanted to see her and he was not at this point she was able to kind of play it off. So in a 45-minute time frame.
Speaker 1:Well, we hear that a lot, a lot of these users can be pretty deceptive. Even Kobe Wilt will tell you that. Right, they can come across like they're okay, you know, and even the brightest mother.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean she said I don't really see anything. He said I tried to tell her, you know, using weed is not medicine. It's not going to be good for you. I'm highly suggesting that you don't do it. But he said she seems like she's doing really well. The eating disorder is essentially a non-issue, she's in recovery. And he said I'm really proud of that and the focus was the eating disorder. Well, I'm like she's been eating fine, but her thought patterns are becoming very strange.
Speaker 2:Again the isolation, you know. Just strange things would come up, like this person came into the store and they accused me of I don't know. It was a customer that came into the retail store she was working at that, said something jokingly and she took it as he was reading her mind and I called her doctor and I said you got to help me. And he said she's recovering from an eating disorder and her brain is trying to catch up. So you got to give her a little bit of, you know, leeway. And I was like this is not recovering from an eating disorder. This is like bizarre.
Speaker 1:Fast forward. I just want to stop and mention a couple of things that you've brought up that I think are very important for our listeners to understand, and I appreciate these parts of your story so much. So, first of all, I want to reiterate that again, this is medical marijuana, right, because this is Johnny Stack's story. This is, if our listeners remember, I believe it was maybe my third podcast with Maria from Pennsylvania, and the difference with hers being that hers was a medical marijuana story, but she was dealing with an adult, nonverbal, severely autistic son who could not communicate but clearly had a complete personality change and physical changes due to medical marijuana prescribed to her. And something that I always remember she said that you seem to have experienced, also in trying to make your rules for your daughter are that you now become a chemist because the medical facility and the doctors prescribing it have no advice or guidelines for you, right? So that's one thing.
Speaker 1:So, again, medical marijuana and again, many of these stories and a lot of what we're dealing with currently have to do with the legal marijuana quote, unquote, legal that has fallen through the loophole and all the deltas you know and the derivatives of. So a lot of these stories of psychosis are about having happened from the deltas. So I want to make very clear that here we are again with another incredibly impactful and viable story of the harms from medical, supposedly regulated, dispensary-issued marijuana. Right, you know. So I just wanted to add that in.
Speaker 2:Well, it gave my daughter a false sense of safety Like this couldn't. And I would say to her what you're feeling. You know, you're trying to trying to show her that the way she was feeling and the way she was reacting to things was not her normal self. And she said well, I don't know what it is, but the marijuana makes me feel better.
Speaker 2:We went on vacation to the Keys and we were in Key West and there's a lot of people around and she became just agitated and like overwhelmed and panic stricken. And she hadn't smoked any of her weed because we wouldn't let her bring it with us on the trip, and so she was probably having some sort of withdrawal. We didn't even really know because, again, this stuff is so potent and we were just like you're not bringing it on the trip, and she really wanted to go on the trip. So of course she was like, okay, I'll leave it at home, I'm not going to bring any. Well, she was so out of sorts when we were in Key West that we were like we got to get her something, and so we allowed her to get a vape while we were down there.
Speaker 2:My husband actually went in and bought it because she didn't have her card on her and I could kick myself. But we were desperate for her to get some relief because she was like Ma, I need to get out of here right now. I can't handle the crowds People are looking at me. We were dumbfounded because none of the medical professionals that we had consulted, or the therapist, said that this is a direct result of the medical marijuana. This is what you're going to see.
Speaker 1:They just said and we do know, and we do know that marijuana, I mean marijuana withdrawal is very, is a little bit different than regular drug withdrawal and it's, it's very bad. We did a webinar on that with Dr Letitia Bader. There are, you know, we have Dr Fred Munch who has an app on how to take a 30 day break, because we know that coming off marijuana is not fun. And, if you recall, we did have a Michigan mom, cindy, tell us the story of her daughter Haley and how she wished she had understood that her daughter was in withdrawal from that one.
Speaker 2:You know before she, you know what they're going through. No idea, we're just, and we were just in emergency mode here on this vacation. No, we thought okay, well, and I'm glad we did. I'm angry, but I'm glad that we at least were like, okay, this could be some sort of withdrawal reaction. And the only reason I had that insight is because my husband is a physician assistant that worked in the emergency room for years. As an elementary school teacher, I would have never known. I probably would have told my daughter suck it up, this is your own fault. You chose to use this drug against our wishes. But my husband was like we probably should get her something just to take the edge off. And my heart just breaks because what could she have been going through? Now I know it was the beginnings of psychosis, you know, on some level.
Speaker 2:Fast forward to June, and that's when she took me aside after my son's graduation party and she was, you know, just very talkative and chatty and she wanted to tell me all about this new insight. And I was like, well, let me clean up after the party a little bit and then we'll go for a walk on the beach. And we did. And she was talking and talking and talking and talking, and I had my phone and she was divulging all of these new skills and power she had she could read minds and she could teleport and she could communicate with people telepathically. So I was just, oh wow, tell me more. You know, I was just being me right now and you know when I get home we need to have a very long talk and we need to get her in to see the doctor, like yesterday I mean it was. She was just she was communicating with people, that and people were coming into her room at night. So she was having visual hallucinations, that people were coming and visiting her. Friends of hers from middle school that she hadn't been in touch with in a while were now able to also teleport or astral project or something into her room.
Speaker 2:And she believed that she just had all these kind of special powers and this spiritual understanding. And I mean it was just very, very detailed. I don't remember. I don't know if I've blocked them out, but suffice it to say it was very, very disturbing. Nothing violent, nothing ugly, all very happy, all very like. I just have these gifts and I'm very insightful and I have all of this special power and she'd always been interested in spiritual things.
Speaker 2:We're a family that goes to church and we're a family that believes in the power of prayer, but it's like she took it to a new level. She was taking her faith to a whole new level, her communication with God and her ability to communicate with other people and just see into a different realm and see into the spirit realm. And it was just I just wanted to keep her talking. So we walked and talked for a good two or three hours and by the time it was just I just wanted to keep her talking. So we we walked and talked for a good two or three hours and by the time we got home, I just told her I loved her and I said anytime you want to talk, I'm here. And, um, I tucked her in bed Like I always do.
Speaker 2:I said I love you and then I collapsed in a hysterical heat, crying outside on my husband's shoulder, just like I don't know what has happened to our daughter. I'm like this is nothing I've ever seen. The eating disorder was a whole different. Like you could still converse with her. She's still herself. This was just a new version of her. That was disturbing. You know, like I said, not scary, not violent, not, she's very happy, very like content with her new enlightened brain. But I was just sobbed hysterically, my husband and I, just we were just devastated.
Speaker 1:And that was June of 2023.
Speaker 2:So it was about not even a year that she'd been using the weed, the medical marijuana, and we did get in touch with her doctor and her old therapist that she trusted and wanted. I said you know, there's something different going on. This isn't anxiety, this is something completely different. And I started that night doing research and I stumbled across the John Deese Ambassadors website at like three o'clock in the morning and, through my tears and my anguish, and I read Rustak's son's story, ordered the book and I just I mean, I honestly just got on my knees and prayed to God to keep her safe, because I knew then that it was such strong parallels.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Such strong power. I just, I just prayed that God would keep her safe until we could get her off this stuff. And and it was a delicate it was a fine line. It was like walking on a tightrope, because now you have somebody who is using a drug that they believe is helping them and she was unable to see that this was not good and I didn't want to scare her and get combative with her.
Speaker 2:So I had to walk this very delicate line of keeping things normal and status quo, telling my other two kids, who were, you know, 17 and 16 or 15 at the time listen, this is what's happening with your sister now, when our family had already been through, you know, the eating disorder and the treatment and the emotional upheaval of that. You know we'd been through a lot as a family. We had a house fire in the middle of all this in 2020. And we'd experienced a lot and I just thought how much more can my other two kids take? But they were absolutely just resilient, bright, insightful, supportive, and I said if your sister says anything that doesn't make sense, don't question it, just go along with it. You know she's under the influence of this drug and it's doing terrible things and kind of in a nutshell, and we just kind of tried to keep things status quo and went about our lives.
Speaker 2:But she started seeing her doctor on a regular basis and we were advised to get her off the marijuana because she was in psychosis. And I was like, well, it really would have been helpful if you what he told us, like I didn't even think this was a possibility for her. She had no history of anything like this, any belief systems or any right psychotic behavior or psychosis or whatever there was. You know, she was just, she had some anxiety, she had an eating disorder, but she was fully functioning, you know, rational thinking, doing well in school, you, you know. So he had no. And then I sent him to Johnny's ambassador's website and all of my research that I then had to make myself an expert in the field of psychosis and drug induced psychosis.
Speaker 1:What did he say to that? When you sent him, when you sent him the information, what did he say to that?
Speaker 2:He said this doesn't surprise me. He said I think this is going to get worse and worse and worse. And he said and it-.
Speaker 1:Because this was the neurologist who you trusted and actually knew this would be a problem.
Speaker 2:Well, this was the psychiatrist, yeah, right, okay, the neurologist that prescribed her the medication was the practicing neurologist, who also ran a quote wellness clinic on the side and was signing off on these medical cards.
Speaker 1:Of course he was, yeah.
Speaker 2:So we think there's obviously some financial connection that he has, because over the years you know the last couple of years, in my advocacy and my research I've found other parents that have used him for children that have had like autism or epilepsy, and he's prescribed medical marijuana for all various types of neurological things, even Alzheimer's patients. In Alzheimer's patients, he's one of the neurologists the only one in town that I know of that prescribes it for elderly people with dementia and early onset Alzheimer's. Yeah, so he's, and it's. My husband does Alzheimer's research. He says it's not indicated anywhere for Alzheimer's. So he's just, of course not. He's just, for whatever reason, prescribing it to everybody. I don't know what his connection is or whatever, and it's got to be some sort of financial something.
Speaker 2:Well, I did end up reaching out to him his clinic, his office manager and I said I reached out to you two times with concerns regarding my daughter's changing behavior after using medical marijuana prescribed by you, by your office. You won't speak to me because she didn't sign an ROI, but you need to know that we're experiencing this, this, this and this. We're experiencing this, this, this and this, and unless you want to hear from my lawyer, you need to contact me ASAP. And that was on a Friday afternoon and my husband's like honey, he's not going to contact you.
Speaker 2:It's Friday, it's 4 o'clock in the afternoon and I said, well, I just have to do it, I just have to do it, just let me do what I think I need to do. And sure enough, monday morning at 7.30, they started blowing up my phone and my email. First it was his office manager Please contact us as soon as you're able. We want to speak with you right away. Then the doctor himself. When I wasn't responding to the office manager, immediately the doctor himself reached out to me and gave me like three different numbers to reach him at and discuss this with him.
Speaker 2:He was very concerned and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And finally, when I got to tell my husband, I told you. So look, they're blowing up my phone. It was a moment of like aha, I got somebody's attention. The neurologist claimed to never have ever heard of such a thing as cannabinoid-induced psychosis and I said, well, I'll be happy to send you Johnny's ambassador's information. I will lend you my book. In fact, I'll order you a book. Oh, please do, please do. I'd really like to learn more about this. And I thought, right, you don't know, give me a break, You're a neurologist dude, give me a break. But I sent him the book anyway. I sent him all the information that I had gathered, which was quite a bit, and he was like, oh, thank you so much for sharing this with me. I've done some research. It looks like your daughter has been exceeding her limit, so I'm going to revoke her card. I said, okay, well, thank you.
Speaker 1:Great Wow.
Speaker 2:Yeah, but I had to really like wow.
Speaker 1:Yeah, oh, I'm sure, I'm sure so.
Speaker 2:I was grateful for that. Anyway, for what it was worth. She had her card revoked and I did tell her. I said you no longer have a medical marijuana card because you know your doctor, you didn't use it the way, responsibly, right, and so which she was? Like I didn't know, like I don't have any. I said give me all the paperwork that this clinic gave you. And they gave her nothing. I said give me all the paperwork that this clinic gave you.
Speaker 2:They gave her nothing, they gave her zero guidelines. And this is a smart girl. She was trying to go through the proper channels and use this substance as a medicine because she believed that it was a helpful medicine. You know, these kids have been programmed, and I say kids because I'm a mom and it was my child.
Speaker 2:But there's adults out there that are 100% duped into thinking that this is a helpful therapeutic medicinal substance. And my daughter was further duped because she was like but mom, I'm not using the dab pen, I'm not using the synthetic, I'm smoking it.
Speaker 2:I'm smoking the natural plant, I said, well, sweetie, it's all THC and it's very, very potent and it's it's very different than the stuff that people had 30 years ago, that they could just get from the local pot dealer. That was a teenager on the street. I don't know, but I don't know because I'd never bought it. I didn't, you know, my experience was so limited. But I do know that she only acquired it through kids who had their medical card. So why would she not think that it was a safe?
Speaker 1:And in the beginning, a few years back in Florida, it was the only way to get. It was from a medical dispensary because they didn't have all those shops yet. They began to emerge as the pro pot industry found out about the loophole and started to take advantage of that.
Speaker 2:And honestly, I was just going to say that, right about the same time that she was experiencing this is when it started to become problematic. All of a sudden, my doctor, my husband's colleagues, doctors that still worked in the ER, nurse practitioners, physician assistants that were in the emergency medical field, they said the emergency rooms were becoming inundated with first episode psychosis of kids between the ages of 15 and 25 that had never had mental health problems of any sort and they were being admitted in like record numbers to the psychiatric hospitals and they were just being diagnosed with schizophrenia and schizoaffective and manic, bipolar and all these incredibly serious mental health issues. All of a sudden, out of nowhere, and it just coincided with the medical marijuana and the few dispensaries that were putting out the Delta-8 and the gummies and the edibles and the seemingly harmless drops, and all the edibles and the seemingly harmless drops and all the. I mean I hate to say it, but I used CBD drops for sleeping. You know, like four or five years prior Now I never told my kids that I was using them, but you know, her doctor then said she absolutely can't touch any hemp product whatsoever no CBD, no hemp anything, that was.
Speaker 2:Her next question was well, can I take CBD? And I was like I don't think so, babe. None of this stuff is. It's all related and we, they don't know what it's doing to people. It's just the tip of the iceberg and it just coincided with her episode was when it started, you know, the dominoes started to fall. It was that 2023 summer.
Speaker 1:Right. So when you revoked that medical marijuana card, did she so? While she asked about CBD and stuff like that and the hemp products? To your knowledge, did she then because now that's fallen through the loophole, so it's all over Florida did she start to use those products?
Speaker 2:Well, she didn't initially, but what ended up happening is, within two weeks the psychosis got so bad because then we discovered, you know, now we know it's cannabinoid-induced psychosis. We were very careful about how we communicated to her, but we just said these symptoms that you're experiencing are directly related to weed. You're not using it anymore and because of the withdrawal, it started getting really, really intense and she came to me one day and said I can't take this anymore, I need to go, I need help. So by the grace of God, she asked for help and we were able to have to put her in a psychiatric hospital, which would have been extremely scary. We were able to put her in a dual diagnosis treatment center very close to our home for 30 days, so July to August, she was in, you know, in a dual diagnosis, you know where. They still, you know, diagnosed her with schizophrenia and we were like, okay, but she just smoked a ton of weed for six to eight months, like there's a direct correlation. They said, well, we don't have that as a diagnosis, that's not a diagnostic rule, or I don't know. They didn't have the designation yet, I'm not really sure why, but that was the only diagnosis that they could treat her with. So anyway, they basically sedated her. They put her on antipsychotics and helped her go through the withdrawal of the weed and helped her go through the withdrawal of the weed.
Speaker 2:And when she got out 30 days later and we were helping her build her life back and she was gonna need to go to IOP intensive outpatient, she was really resistant to that and she was really bucking us on that. And she proceeded to order weed online and got a vape online, which I, gratefully, by the grace of God, intercepted. She was hanging around the mailbox a lot and I was like what are you waiting for? She's like I ordered some makeup from Ulta and I was like it's five minutes from our house, you could just go to Ulta. I just it was like a God thing. So I started hanging out by the mailbox with her. I'm like I'll just wait for your package. And I intercepted the package and it was. I forget the name of the company, but all you had to do was go on there and click a button on this website that says yes, I'm 21.
Speaker 2:And you get the weed delivered to you or the THC product delivered to you. So I called them and I said hi, I'm just wondering what your guidelines are for. What precautions do you have in place for for people under 21 obtaining products through your website? Oh, we have blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. We check every single one of our patrons to make sure that they're under. I'm like, really, because my daughter's 19 and she just got on your website and had something delivered right to our house and I'm holding it right now. I said so, you know, and I said and they said click. I just was like, yeah, they hung up on me, but you know, there's no gatekeeping. There's no. It's just are you 21? There's none. How could that be possible? I mean, it's just, it's absurd to me that you know, if my 19-year-old daughter can do it, who had her medical card taken away. A 13-year-old could get on there and say, yeah, I'm 21. Send me some THC so I can destroy my brain. I mean, it's just Yep.
Speaker 1:And there's been documentaries where they've showed a nine-year-old getting online and ordering it. No problem. Because, again, like I said, how we possibly regulate this or keep tabs on such a thing Right.
Speaker 2:And so I mean, you know, when she was still ordering, you know, even though she'd been in a treatment center for 30 days, that addiction was so strong. She tried again and I was like, well, we'd already taken away her debit card and her car keys and put lots of restrictions in place. And it was about another month and she was turning 20 and she had tickets to go to a concert and she really wanted to go and I said the only way you can go with your friend, this old friend of hers that we've known since they were in second grade, knew the parents first, that we've known since they were in second grade, knew the parents. You know, we've watched these two girls grow up together, had a long talk with the mother and the child and I said Molly absolutely cannot smoke any weed, she has to be sober, and if the girls are going to go to the concert, I'm going to.
Speaker 2:Well, it didn't even matter, because the friend had a vape that was odorless you know the whole nine yards. She said it was a nicotine vape and they're passing it back and forth in the back of my car and she relapsed. Fantastic. I didn't realize it was we or THC until she came home from the concert. We were at the hotel room and she was crying and out of her mind, paranoid, and her friend was just sitting there, stoned, and I was just furious and I called my husband. I said she's got to go somewhere long-term because she cannot stop using and so, anyway, she ended up going to a treatment center for about seven months and that was October of 2023. And she came home in May of 2024.
Speaker 2:And we've just been kind of plugging along at home ever since. Recently we've employed a recovery coach because as she started feeling better, I think she started getting a false sense of security like I'm not going to smoke it so and we had a false sense of security. She had so many negative tests, she had no problem doing random drug testing at home, she was keeping a job, she was going to college and then, when she was right about at a year, completely sober of THC no, she was about a year and a half completely absent of THC and she was home for about 11 months from the second treatment program. She met a new friend and he said do you want to smoke some weed? And she said, sure, why not? And so we are now in the throes of another episode, although it's not as serious, it's another. We're navigating another like sort of milder psychosis, and toyed with the idea of putting her back in treatment.
Speaker 2:But her therapist and her doctor the same psychiatrist that she'd been seeing, you know, for a while believed that she was pretty well supported and we, of course, you know, kept our restrictions in place. No, no, no access to money. You know, just, you know, we just had to go back to boot camp living and it's difficult doing that at home when you're a mom. So we've recently employed a recovery coach and he's met with her. I guess we've been meeting with him for about a month. He recently came into town and spent the day with her and he's very positive about her prognosis. But he's really really talking to her on a daily basis about staying sober from weed. Like you can't ever touch this stuff again, not even like a hit, not a whiff, not a you know. So I don't think she was quite convinced at the time when the opportunity was presented to her back in April that even if you smoke just one hit, it's going to be detrimental.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 2:She just, I think she just thought, well, what's? And she was, you know. She had to hit rock bottom because you know she was in psychosis again, milder and not as frightening, but psychosis nevertheless. So she had to go back on medication which we were trying to taper off of and she doesn't like it, she doesn't want to be on meds. But I said, well, stay sober, don't ever touch that crap. She does meet with a Johnny's Ambassadors young person's support group on Wednesdays.
Speaker 1:Yes, which is wonderful.
Speaker 2:Grace Davis, I think is the young lady.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and, like I said, we have the recovery coach, we have her therapist, we have her doctor. We're just trying to. We're having to start back at square one, essentially because of the relapse. I mean, it's a relapse is a relapse. And she's like, well, it wasn't really a relapse because I didn't buy it myself, I just smoked something. That relapse. And she's like, well, it wasn't really a relapse because I didn't buy it myself, I just smoked something that somebody had. And I was like, yay, yay, no, kiddo, that's a relapse, yeah yeah, so you know.
Speaker 1:Thank you so much for sharing all of this and being so open about this journey. Again, I think it's so important because I think the medical use stories are very important. I mean, all stories are important, of course, but I think these are important because a lot of people want to say that the regulated products are safe, and that is a misconception. Also, you know, in these podcasts, while we talk about your journey and the resources, what's helped you and how you found help. So many have found help through the various crossover agencies, like Johnny's Ambassadors. Every Brain Matters and, of course, parent Action Network, and part of what we want to do here is promote what Parent Action Network can do, network can do, and so I always do ask how you came upon Parent Action Network. But in your case, jen and you might not remember this I want to read something because you found us through I kind of found you through Johnny's Ambassadors because you had posted your story, a lot of what you've told us here today on Johnny's Ambassadors and I remember I'm very good about this, right, I keep records, like you can't believe, and so I remember when I read your story.
Speaker 1:So, first of all, what really caught my attention was that you were from Ponce Inlet, florida, which is a place where my very best friend lives and I have been there. So I was like wow, that's crazy, because I know how very small Ponce Inlet is. But I thought, while it was a harrowing story, of course I thought the way you wrote it was very funny and I want to quote she obtained her medical card in quotes from a local neurologist. Seriously, and then I love where you go on to tell a little more and you say who blew me off completely and I suggested I not panic.
Speaker 1:She was, after all, in recovery from an eating disorder and you write payroll. I just found it very engaging and thorough and I just could not help but reach out to you. And then you go on to, you know, tell more of the story and then say that you would really like to raise your voice because you, you just were blown away by how long it took you to find out about Johnny's Ambassadors, what you went through and and you know, um, a little background on your husband, just everything. So thank you so much for that and again for coming to PAN, and so we're just really happy to have you and your perspective and even your husband's input at some point, like that's something we'll probably have to have a conversation with him, or maybe he'll even come to Hill Day with you if possible.
Speaker 2:I plan to come to Hill Day because I think that it's time for us to start showing our daughter too. We're serious about this. This is no good for anybody.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and there is so much information you have given here and so much good insight, and I appreciate that so much. But I do want to ask you is there something in particular that has helped you personally get through this, besides just finding help for your daughter? What has helped you the most and your family the most to get through this? Something that you think might be good advice for other parents and you know some words you'd like to leave our parents with.
Speaker 2:Well, I would. I would highly recommend Every Brain Matters. Aubrey Adams is fantastic. I would highly recommend. You know Johnny's Ambassadors, you know as far as and Pan obviously Just stay connected to other parents and other people who have gone through this themselves. It's a lonely, lonely journey and it's heart-wrenching I don't even have words to describe it, because you're really not supported by the greater society.
Speaker 2:you know that we had to say and if you stay connected to other parents, I would do the Saturday morning. Every brain matters, I think. Or Maranon Maranon, I think, or Maranon Maranon. I was on there every chance I could get and for the first three months I would just get on there and cry. I had to turn my camera off because I would just be crying. I had no idea how widespread the problem was and my heart just broke. I would just stay connected to these organizations. There's a Facebook group through Johnny's ambassadors. It's the parent P O C C I P Facebook group. And um, I try to stay off Facebook but I have to get on there at least once a week and just read stories of hope, stories of other parents struggling, stories of hope. Stories of other parents struggling.
Speaker 1:So I just don't feel so alone.
Speaker 2:You know that's what I would recommend. And it's hard because you know I have my friends and my family and they support me but they don't really get it. You know a lot of their kids are using weed. I have friends, very, very dear friends, that I love, that smoke weed on a daily basis, and they're professional people, successful people, and it's hard, it's everywhere, it's everywhere and you can't divorce yourself from your family. You can't. I mean you can, but it's. If I got rid of every friend and every family member that really doesn't see weed as a problem, I would be kind of just sitting here by myself, me and my husband and my kids, like nobody else, and I don't recommend that, I don't know, it's just very, very lonely. So you've got to stay connected to people who know what you're going through, because it's harrowing, it's terrible, it's I can't even it's, it's, it's worse than a nightmare. I would just.
Speaker 2:It's never in a million years that the parents that I have met on the support groups and Aubrey and Lorstack and the people involved in this cause 99% of them are, you know, educated families. You know, or you know, functional divorced excuse me, divorced families that you know the kids had both parents present. I mean, you know the stereotype of these at-risk children. You know from when I was a teacher. This is there's no respecter of persons. This isn't like the kids that fall through the cracks. My daughter was like the least likely to fall through any crack. I mean, one of her teachers I'm good friends with is like I cannot believe that your child is struggling like this. She was the favorite of all of the teachers in elementary and middle school, like any teacher that had her as a student, just adored her. I don't know it's, just it's. I don't know it's. And a lot of people want to blame the parents and I blamed myself for years but I don't know any parent that's that's going through this, that isn't 100% dedicated to their family and their child.
Speaker 1:Right and again, most of these teens and young adults experiencing this did come from your regular functioning nuclear family, with all the regular problems that all families have, but basically normal life. And again and again, that is a resounding theme in these podcast sessions and episodes. So, thank you. And for our listeners who don't know what POCCIP is, it's the Parents of Children with Cannabis-Induced Psychosis. It's a closed group that you can join by going to laura's site, johnny's ambassadorsorg, and then every brain matters. You know aubrey offers numerous, as jen mentioned, marijuana anonymous groups and also her climbers meetings and important webinars. She also has other important resources, like some legal resources involving class action suits. She's really a good person to go to to discuss those things as well, and many of you might have just heard her episode with us where she talks about all those resources. And again, we all work together in our niche to provide all the support, information, resources and opportunities for advocacy that we possibly can.
Speaker 2:Absolutely. I've just been supported like I couldn't even imagine. I just wish we all lived close together so we could get together and see each other in person.
Speaker 1:wish we all lived close together so we could get together and see each other in person. Yeah, you know, it's funny. Pans project coordinator Bronwyn has been saying that for two and a half years For as long as I've been here she has said we should have yearly get togethers among the three relevant organizations to bring these parents together, not even so much the information, but just to meet each other and support each other. You know, and again, of course we all do different things Laura has her conference, aubrey has her goals and her victims of marijuana harms memorials. Pan does our advocacy day.
Speaker 1:So we do all work together, share information, share parents, forward parents on to each other so that we're all connected and every parent has the opportunity to do and find the resources that work best for them. Our main goal is to train you to feel ready to tell these stories effectively and to be able to bring those stories and have an impact to Capitol Hill at the federal level and then to use also all the tools and strategies you learn to take that to your own states and your own communities to do whatever advocacy you want to do in your own states. And we're always here to support, provide talking points, sometimes even up here in testimony or at an event that you find important, that you've shared with us and would like some support with. So please always keep that in mind.
Speaker 2:Absolutely, Absolutely. Yeah, I, I, I, I need to, I it's, I guess I just in this fight you just get this relapse that Molly had. It's kind of exhausting. I do get a little tired and I think that the Hill Day, like you're talking about for next year, next February, I think that's something that is far enough in advance I can plan for it and, you know, maybe by then she'll want to come and be heard also.
Speaker 1:Yep, we're hoping that Kobe Wolf will be joining us in February. That's something he really wants to do and we're hoping to have a lot more of the children of our parents join us and be involved in advocacy as they heal. Yeah, yeah, and I actually think that's a really good way for us to finish, jen, thank you again so much for sharing your journey, such an important story with so many important points. We really hope that your daughter, despite a relapse, continues to do well and heal. And, again, I hope that each of these episodes leaves our listeners 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. Yes, absolutely, support in addressing the challenges posed by today's marijuana products.
Speaker 1:So please continue to tune into the Fortitude podcast. If you are interested in being a guest on the Fortitude podcast, please reach out to me at Chrissy at learnaboutsamorg or pan at learnaboutsamorg, and Chrissy is C-R-I-S-S-Y. Again, all our emails are at learnaboutsamorg. This month, interestingly, we've talked a lot about medical marijuana here. So for June, we had uploaded the medical marijuana webinar that we showed in the past, featuring Dr Aaron Weiner and Maria from Pennsylvania. You can still continuously view that it is available on our website as well. Again, thank you, listeners, for continuing to listen. Jen, thank you so much for taking so much time to speak with me today. Thank you for having me and we look forward to hearing from parents and continuing to advocate with you. Absolutely.