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
The Soul Killer: How Marijuana Led to a Veteran's Tragic End
Sally Schindel's world shattered when her son Andy died by suicide in 2014, leaving behind a note with haunting words: "Marijuana killed my soul plus ruined my brain." This episode reveals the devastating journey of a mother who transformed unbearable grief into powerful advocacy.
Andy was no ordinary young man – a motivated veteran of the 82nd Airborne Division who saved diligently from his first paycheck at sixteen, started an IRA, and had clear goals for his future. But as Sally painfully recounts, something changed drastically over time. Through multiple hospitalizations, psychotic episodes, and desperate attempts to quit using marijuana, Andy battled severe cannabis use disorder that wasn't widely recognized as dangerous at the time.
The healthcare system failed Andy repeatedly. Despite psychiatrists documenting his condition and recommending inpatient treatment, insurance companies denied coverage. Police refused intervention on the night of his death, and even afterward, coroners didn't test for THC, claiming it was "too expensive" despite his known marijuana use.
What makes this conversation uniquely powerful is Sally's willingness to share previously undisclosed details – the violent destruction throughout their home, the rain-soaked efforts of Andy's father to revive him, and the depth of a family's anguish. These revelations serve not to sensationalize but to illuminate the true nature of cannabis-induced psychosis and the devastating toll it takes.
Through her work with organizations like Smart Approaches to Marijuana and Every Brain Matters, Sally has faced vicious backlash from cannabis proponents, including death threats. Yet she persists in sharing Andy's story, knowing that each warning might save another family from similar heartbreak.
Perhaps most inspiring is Sally's message about healing: grief and joy can coexist. Through annual scholarships in Andy's name, family traditions that keep his memory alive, and continued advocacy, she demonstrates how to move forward without moving on. For anyone struggling with loss or fighting to save a loved one from substance abuse, Sally's journey offers both validation, hope and the knowledge that we are more powerful together!.
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Greetings listeners. We're back for another episode of the Fortitude Podcast. This is Christy Groenwegen, director of the Parent Action Network. The Fortitude Podcast is dedicated to amplifying the voices of families whose lives have been devastated by the harmful effects of marijuana. Today, we have a very special guest. I'm welcoming Sally Schindel from Arizona. Sally has a very powerful story and is probably one of the first to hit the waves as marijuana became legalized across the country, starting in California, colorado, washington State. It's a tragic story of the loss of her son, andy, who died by suicide while in a state of cannabis-induced psychosis from using these products after serving our country and trying to find help for himself in what he thought was medically helpful. Sally, thank you so much for being here. I really appreciate your time.
Speaker 2:Thank you for having me, chrissy. I've been looking forward to doing this because I haven't been very active in my advocacy recently and it feels good to be kind of picking up on it again. I'd like to say something to start and that's like there kind of picking up on it again. I'd like to say something to start and that's like there's a trigger warning on this. Sometimes things that people say about suicide can trigger adverse reactions. So I just want to mention that because I would like to say some things today and read some things today that I have not shared previously because they were pretty tough and pretty ugly. But in reviewing everything I have done in my life and my advocacy, I thought you know, why weren't you talking about those things? And I think what I was doing was being protective of not so much myself, because I'm pretty darn tough, but protective of my daughter, andy's sister, and protective of his father, who was the person to find him hanging in a tree, having to take him down and try to save his life. I have not publicly spoken about those things before, but now I'm questioning myself. I should have, and I'll tell you why I'm totally unscripted today.
Speaker 2:But in thinking about this I ran across some things I thought I'd like to read, and then I'll go back to doing something in kind of a chronological order. But the first thing I'd like to read is Andy's full suicide note. I have for years publicly shared the end of his suicide note, but not the beginning. So I'd like to read the full suicide note, and it is. I barely ever do what I want. I want to die. I am quitting while I am ahead. I don't want anyone to worry about me. I am setting my parents free, otherwise I will only get worse. My soul is already dead. Marijuana killed my soul plus ruined my brain. I'm doing everyone a favor. I thought I should share that whole entire thing because there's some important messages in there from him. I think that suicide often is not a selfish thing at all. It's a gift to the family and I just thought you know why don't I share that with other people?
Speaker 2:I also want to read just a paragraph from the eulogy that I gave at the service when we had Andy interred. He was a veteran and so he's in the National Memorial Cemetery, great Big Cemetery. We had a beautiful service there and I read just a page long eulogy, but a paragraph in there is what's making me say the things I'm saying today that I've not said in the past. This paragraph is let's not be silent about Andy's suicide and his mental illness. Let's feel free to talk about him and not try to stuff or hide anything. Let's help the world to remove the stigmas surrounding suicide and mental illness.
Speaker 2:I think that is what Andy was here on this earth to teach us to help us help others who may have the same or similar illnesses to Andy's. In that paragraph I just read, I said to help us help others. Andy's helping us help others and that kind of became my tagline in things that I talked and things that I wrote is I am helping Andy help others, and that's why I'm telling you what Andy said. Andy said marijuana killed his soul plus ruined his brain, and when I first saw that, my first thought was what Marijuana doesn't do, that this was 2014. Marijuana was not extremely high potency yet in 2014. I was convinced marijuana doesn't do that.
Speaker 2:Let me read you another thing from Andy. He left a list of things, kind of his reasons for taking his life. I'm a disappointment to my parents and myself and my friends. I've caused them a lot of pain. I'm mean to them. I have been given so much and I wasted it all. I don't treat my dog good. I'm a bad family member. I was bad at grandpa's funeral and I went home and got high when my stepmom was dying At age 31,.
Speaker 2:I've had one girlfriend and I was mean to her for no good reason. I've wasted $80,000 on drugs and alcohol minimum $80,000. I am so lonely and I spend all my time alone. I can't keep a job. I quit jobs. I'm a quitter. People don't like me. I don't like people. I ruined my brain with drugs. I have bad teeth and I hate myself. I'm embarrassed. That was a kid in a lot of pain, but I didn't know how bad that pain was at the time. So with that as a beginning, that was the middle of my story that I want to talk about today. That's what happened in the middle is I came upon those documents and I learned those things.
Speaker 2:But let me kind of go back to the beginning, the very beginning, andy had a very, very normal life. Our family was having a normal life. He had an older sister about four years older. We had fun. We camped, we hiked, we went swimming, we went in the ocean. We lived in California for a little while and had time in the ocean. He told me later in his life, after he'd been in many behavioral health hospitals and seen many psychiatrists. He said what was your childhood like? And I always tell them my childhood was great. It was great. I had an ideal childhood. So it wasn't. Andy wasn't destined for these things. But I've got a timeline written down here.
Speaker 1:I want to grab While you're grabbing that timeline, you know, first of all, I just want to say thank you so much for using the Fortitude podcast to bring out some extra points your points about suicide, for sure and also just sharing the details of that letter.
Speaker 1:I really appreciate that and, as we talked about before we started recording, it is so my hope that this podcast becomes big enough and reaches not just other folks but our leaders, and that they realize the magnitude of this problem.
Speaker 1:So, again, I appreciate you so much for you know taking that step to share some things that you haven't shared otherwise, given you've been around for quite some time in doing your advocacy. I also just want to mention as well to our listeners, I want to reiterate, that you're in Arizona, and I do want to reiterate that Andy was a veteran of our country, which I am, you know, so in awe of and thankful for his service. And again, I want to reiterate, as you just said, that so many of these families came from normal backgrounds, and I want everyone to remember that we're talking about 2014 here and before right, because Andy took his own life in 2014. And that was 11 years ago, before cannabis-induced psychosis, cannabis use disorder, was recognized to the extent that it is today, and it's still not recognized the way that it should be. So, with that being said, I'll turn it back over to you, sally.
Speaker 2:Thank you, chrissy. I like all those points that you just made. I'll take you back to a little bit of the beginning of Andy, or kind of the middle of Andy. I remember he was about 10 years old and his sister was about 14. And his sister was in that phase of around age 14, where it's like who is this girl? What is the matter with her? And Andy said to me one day what is wrong with her. And Andy said to me one day what is wrong with her. And I said, andy, she's 14 and you'll be like that at that age too. And he said I will not. That's a point in my life that I remember is like I will not. But boy did he. And he surpassed her.
Speaker 2:She found him, uh, drunk and passed out in the front yard one day at age 13., 13, and she stuck him into the house. So I wouldn't know. But somehow I learned about it later and took Andy to kind of a child psychologist, I think, to talk about it and it didn't seem like there was really any particular problem other than he was 13 and he was stupid and he and two friends were given a bottle of vodka and the three little boys drank the whole thing. But I determined at the time nothing else stood out that it was going to be a problem, that he would have substance use disorder. But at about age 14, behavior changes started. That made me worry. So I went into a locked desk in his bedroom and in there, of course, was a bag of pot. So I flushed it. And when he came home I told him I had flushed it and I had told his father.
Speaker 2:I was in a second marriage at the time. We lived with Andy's stepdad, but his father lived in the same neighborhood nearby and I had told his father what I'd done. And I said when he comes home I'm going to tell him, and I don't think he's going to react. Well, he's been very angry and mean to me lately and would you be prepared to come get him if you need to, or whatever? And his dad said sure.
Speaker 2:So Andy came in, I told him what I'd done and he went totally berserk, yelling, screaming In his bedroom. He picked up everything he could. He closed his bedroom door. I could hear it going on. I couldn't see it, but I could hear it going on in his bedroom Destruction. And he had at the time a rented guitar and amp. He was taking guitar lessons. He smashed that. I could hear all the smashing going on and then I see or smell smoke coming out from under the door, so had to get into the room and I think his stepdad and I, um, were pounding on the door. He he unlocked it and came out himself, or otherwise he was going to have to go out through the window and we would have caught him going out through the window anyway we go in there and he had lit on fire a big box of kleenex and put it in an upholstered chair and the chair was burning.
Speaker 2:So this was a kid that you know. Months before that he was kind of a normal kid and it was like what? Something cracked. Anyway, that was very scary and I called his dad. His dad did come, his dad did take him to his house and he lived with his dad for oh, maybe a year after that and he didn't want to talk to me. He didn't want to talk it out, he didn't want to do anything about it, but he did agree to go out hiking with me every Sunday. So every Sunday we'd go climb a little mountain in Phoenix or do something together.
Speaker 2:One day we went to downtown Phoenix and went to a travel and recreation show at a big civic center. And down there downtown he saw a lady on the street who was in a bathrobe and she's shuffling along and he said, mom, what is the matter with her? And I said, andy, that's probably drugs and that's why I'm so worried about you and I will do whatever it takes to help you not go down that road. He was 14 years old, so as far as I knew, he stayed away from drugs. After that he scared his own self with the way he behaved when I flushed his pot and the way he behaved when I flushed his pot. But I think back now were those signs of kind of a psychotic reaction to marijuana. I don't know, I don't know proof of that at all. Anyway, other than that, those were two little incidences when he was an early teenager, and I know those happen in a lot of families. After that we had some very, very nice, peaceful, calm years.
Speaker 2:He was very motivated. He wasn't a great student but he always went to class and he always had good grades. He had goals and dreams and when he turned 16, he wanted a good job and he wanted to make money and he wanted to save money. I was a financial advisor so he asked me how much should I save, mom? And I showed him and calculated At your age, if you start with your very first paycheck and you save 5% of your paycheck your whole life, you'll be a millionaire and by the time you're like early 40, it's important to do that. So he did that right from the start. Only he didn't like that 5% number so he saved 10%. He started retirement savings.
Speaker 2:He started an IRA when he was 16 years old with those first paychecks. He was so money motivated and a careful spender. He also had a goal to join the army. That was important to him. He trained while he was in high school so that he could go straight into the army right out of high school. He did that. He actually never lived with me again after that. He was very motivated to be self-sufficient in the army. He saved his paychecks in the army. He earned college scholarship money and used that. When he got out and went to community college earned an associate's degree. He had saved money.
Speaker 2:He left the Army and he was 82nd Airborne in North Carolina. He bought a used truck for cash. He drove that home to Arizona, went right to work. He was living with friends. There were so many years in there where everything looked so fine and so functional. But then things started to change. He had deployed to Iraq with the army just a short deployment, like five months. When he came home he said no, it wasn't pleasant at all. He saw things he didn't like at all. But he said they think we should all have counseling. I don't think I need counseling. He didn't think he needed counseling.
Speaker 2:Now in subsequent years, every psychiatrist he saw is tempted to say post-traumatic stress disorder. I can read in Andy's medical records now that he denied that every single time he said I don't have PTSD, I don't have any PTSD symptoms, that's not what's wrong. And he knew he was seriously mentally ill eventually. But he didn't know what it was and the diagnoses eventually were mainly around severe depression and I think we saw that in his list of things how he hated himself. He just wasn't who he wanted to be. But the one thing that's consistent through all the medical records I've been able to read is every single one of them mentioned cannabis use disorder, comma, severe, severe cannabis use disorder. And I can read in their notes that Andy told them he'd been a daily marijuana user for many, many, many, many years and he lived with me at times in high school throughout most of high school.
Speaker 2:After that spell of living with his father he moved back in with me and I do remember him telling me that the guy that lived in an apartment upstairs from us for a little while was selling marijuana because he had medical marijuana from California. And I said to Andy, he's selling it to you, andy goes. No, he said I wouldn't do that. And we had discussions in high school about we lived in a drug-free, alcohol-free home, by the way, because Andy's stepdad my husband at the time was a recovering alcoholic. So in his recovery program I myself have had the medical need to not drink alcohol, but I was alcohol-free for six years just because he was. So there was no alcohol in our house, no drugs in our house. So Andy, I thought, was dead set to be drug-free.
Speaker 2:Many years later, and even years after Andy's death, his best friend told me oh, he said we were smoking pot every day in high school, every day. It's so easy for them to do to get, and this was back in 2001. In those years they could get it, it was easy to get and they were using it, and daily. Oh my God, I've been shocked at some of the things I've learned over the years. But anyway, and he was doing okay for quite a while as he became an adult and he was going to school, but he started telling me something's wrong. Something's wrong, he said I try to study and my brain just goes somewhere else. I don't know what that is, and I had noticed when I was with him that sometimes his eyes almost went unfocused and that he'd fall asleep inappropriately. Something to me looked a little bit wrong and to him felt wrong, and he was beginning to worry about himself. He told me a little bit, but he didn't live with me. Actually, I lived 100 miles away, so we didn't see each other real frequently.
Speaker 2:But in 2009, it was the 60th birthday of my high school girlfriends and we were in Colorado celebrating our 60th birthdays and I got a phone message in the middle of the night. So I got up in the middle of the night and I listened to the message and it's Andy saying Mom, I'm locked in a mental hospital and they won't let me out. You've got to help me. And it's just a message. And I tried calling back and I get the hospital and they say no, patients can't use a phone here, they can't make phone calls like that. And I said, no, patients can't use a phone here, they can't make phone calls like that. And I said well, I have this message. I think my son is there. I don't know what's going on, no-transcript.
Speaker 2:But I finally asked her are you a mom? And there's magic in that question. She said yeah, I'm a mom. I said can you imagine what I'm feeling right now? I'm in Colorado, you're in Arizona. I said can't you tell me anything? She said well, I guess I could confirm if he's here or not. So she did confirm that he was there. I said can I talk to him? She said no, you can't talk to them.
Speaker 2:So in the middle of the night this is all I knew. But I was with my girlfriends, I was in a separate bedroom, I was by myself. When that happened, middle of the night, I go in and I sit on their bed and I say I got to share something with you guys and I'm crying and telling them what's going on. And just that's the kind of moment that I know our listeners some of my listeners right now, our families that go through these things and those moments that you, just you never lose that moment of what it was like. And I remember crying and I'm not a crier, I almost never cry, I don't have tears. I wish I had tears more of the time but that time I cried and I started shivering and shaking. My whole body was shaking. It just upset me so much, it scared me so much. The next day I'm getting an airplane flight to go home to Arizona to try to find him. All I knew is he told me he was in a mental hospital.
Speaker 2:And I can't remember all the details after that, but my daughter helped me and we somehow tracked him down to a mental hospital and saw him and he told us what had happened. He had called a suicide helpline and they had asked him if he was a danger to himself and he said well, yes, I'm going to take my life. So they said, well, we're going to send help. Well, the help that they send are the police. So the police come and it's a police situation and apparently Andy freaked out and they straightjacketed him and just scared him and took him and put him in an intake center where he's in there with lots of people who are a whole lot worse than him. So he just really scared himself with that and scared us, and that was 2009. When he came out from that, he made a great effort to like whoa, I'm in worse shape than I thought I was and I better get myself better. So things did look better for another couple of years.
Speaker 2:In 2011, I was out of town again. My husband and I used to travel in a motorhome a lot. We were in Texas, andy was in Arizona, my older sister was in New Mexico and the priest from her Episcopal church called me and told me she was dying. She had made a decision to not accept any medical care to save her life. So I contacted both of my kids saying this is what's happening and I would like you to accompany me when I go to New Mexico, to my sister. And Andy answered me with some kind of real strange thing about leave me alone, don't ever talk to me again. What do you think? You're Something? That was like oh, what is wrong with Andy? And then I heard from my daughter who said mom, andy just called me and he's talking crazy. It doesn't even sound like him. I think he's at home, but he's just talking crazy. So I told my daughter go over there, but don't go in, it could be dangerous. Something just told me it could be dangerous. Go with somebody.
Speaker 2:So she took her boyfriend with her and their dad was out of town at the time so she couldn't reach him. So I asked them please don't even go to the house. Go like a block away and contact Andy and tell him you're out there and you want him to come out. Just don't go in the house. Something told me something's wrong when he's talking as crazy as he is. So they did that and they were out there for hours and Andy was saying you don't even know where I live, you're not out there, nobody ever talks to me Crazy stuff. So her dad did come home and she asked him to come over. And her dad came and he said well, this is stupid, I'm going to the door. What are you afraid of, boy? Thank God they left my daughter behind, the boyfriend and Andy and Sarah's dad went to the door.
Speaker 2:Andy came to the door attacking and he physically, brutally attacked both of them, both men. Andy's a small guy and they're both big guys. But Andy was attacking them with fists. Thank God not with guns, because he had weapons. He was a military veteran and he kind of liked weapons and he had a collection of weapons. He attacked them and their dad yelled out to my daughter call the police. Because he knew they needed help, because he could see they couldn't even contain him. He was in this rage. So my daughter called 911. So my daughter and the stepmom were in the yard watching this happen.
Speaker 2:The police came straight jacket right away. The police took Andy down. Andy was taunting the police, saying I've been here before and I know where I'm going, I know where you're taking me and when I get out I'm going to come out and I'm going to kill you guys. Andy's dad said that Andy's eyes looked like something out of a horror movie, that they weren't a normal person's eyes at all, that they weren't focused. He said it was very, very, very scary. So Andy's hospitalized again. I flew home from where I was to get there as fast as I could and we saw Andy in the hospital, and in the hospital they get him calmed down pretty quickly and bring them to a more normal state. You know another thing I was reading all his medical records and I ran across the letter that he got from his insurance company. The insurance company refused further service for him. The doctors in these behavioral health hospitals were recommending he needs an inpatient program because he's not compliant.
Speaker 2:No, it's not that he's not compliant. He doesn't understand what's wrong with his brain, and Andy had told me that too. He said I don't know what that is that happens to my brain Now. Today, I would identify it as psychosis, but this was 2011 when this was happening. Well, the third time that something happened. Finally, two doctors recommended to the insurance company this man needs inpatient treatment. You can't let him out because he doesn't understand what's happening. But the insurance company determined that when he's a patient, he's so compliant, he takes his drugs and he doesn't resist and he wants to get better. So we're not going to cover inpatient, he's only only outpatient. And and they said he's not suicidal oh my God, every doctor record that I read says he's suicidal. That's why he.
Speaker 1:That's what he was asking for help for A couple of things that you talked about is you talked about the, the different look in his eyes that you talked about. As you talked about the different look in his eyes, you know we hear that through today about this blankness, almost blackness in the eyes, that it's almost like they're not there. So many of the parents tell the same thing with their children, who are here with us and recovering or in full psychosis and, you know, working on getting better. Some parents have said it's a very profound statement to say that they're right here, but I still miss them with every fiber of my being because it's not the same person and I'm sure that's what you were saying. And again, we're talking about 2011 and you have people telling you that he doesn't need help and that he's compliant and that's with taking meds and, you know, seems to want help. It's another thing we hear often is that a lot of these kids being treated and young adults are very good at being deceptive and appearing to be okay to be okay.
Speaker 2:Oh yes, oh yes. Well, that 2011 was so frightening for all of us, and his father and his sister and I all agreed it will be way too dangerous to let him come back to this house. The house that he lived in is a house that he and I owned together. He and I bought it together I was the investor and he rented out rooms to friends and I was so afraid of him coming back there. You know this has happened twice. This is going to happen again, and so we decided while he was locked down in the behavioral health hospital for approximately two weeks, we packed up all of his belongings and put it into storage, changed the locks on the door and did not allow him to go back in there. When he came out of the hospital and was told that that was the situation, he stopped speaking to me. I did that to him and he went about two years without wanting to speak to me at all.
Speaker 2:I'm sure, very difficult time to go through for a parent. I saw him occasionally at family gatherings and stuff and he was cordial to me, but he tried living with friends and did not go well, so he moved in with his dad and stepmom for a short period of time and I can't remember what he had for a job at the time. But he got a job to be able to move back to the town he wanted to be in. He wanted to be near Arizona State University, got an apartment all by himself. He was going to be good. He did. Let me see him after he was in the apartment. He let me come over one day. Oh, I think I know what it was. His sister had a cat that needed to be rehomed and he was a big, huge animal lover and he agreed to take the cat. So I delivered the cat over there and got to see him. I saw in his apartment that he had a new bicycle and he said that his bicycle had been stolen. He had to buy a new one. He was spending all his money He'd saved as a teenager and in the army and he'd spent down through all of it. While he was in the apartment he was smoking pot and a neighbor complained and the apartment manager sent the police to his door and then they evicted him because he'd had the police at the door for marijuana. So it didn't last long that he was in the apartment and he was running out of money anyway. So he moved back in with his dad and lived with his dad and his stepmom the rest of his life. Actually that was about late 2011.
Speaker 2:He was supposed to go to court for that police visit about marijuana but he moved so the mail got mixed up and he never got any mail about it and he never followed up on it up for that court date back in 2011. And they arrested him in the middle of the night and without even any shoes, took him downtown Phoenix to jail, put him in jail overnight and let him go the next day with a big fine. He went to court for that and, with the court mandated, it was wonderful. It was drug rehab. You have to go and pee in a cup and show that you're drug free for a period of time and you can get this thing off your record. So he did that and not long after.
Speaker 2:That is when he started talking to me again and he said it was way more difficult than he thought it was going to be to quit smoking marijuana. And at the time I still thought, well, marijuana, that's no big deal, and we'd never known him to be a big drinker. You know, we saw this. It was evident there was this serious mental illness, but nobody knew where it was coming from and of course we didn't suspect marijuana. I just it was unheard of in those days. But he became so much better during that court ordered Court ordered not being able to use drugs, he went out.
Speaker 2:He got a good job, a well-paying job, a job he liked. He was an electrician assistant. Basically what he was doing was working outdoors, digging the trenches where the wires go in or something like that. They had different jobs at different times. Well, the job Andy had been working on ended and they were going to do a new job which was at a new prison, and the new prison job required that all of the workers have no legal records whatsoever. And Andy thought his had been totally expunged from that possession but apparently it wasn't, so they couldn't put him on that job.
Speaker 2:So here he is. He'd had a good year. It looked like he was getting back on his feet but he had that disappointment. And then he got a girlfriend and he'd never had a girlfriend before. He'd always wanted one. But he always told me he says I just open my mouth and I say such weird things that they never last. But he had somebody he really liked and things were going sour with that relationship and the job wasn't coming through and he told me he started using marijuana again and this was January of 2014. He voluntarily called a suicide helpline again and they did the same thing. They sent the cops out after him and he knew they were sending the cops out after him because this was the third time he was doing this and he tried taunting them into taking his life and I read that in his medical records. Now that he tells the psychiatrist this too.
Speaker 2:He says I wanted the cops to kill me and they don't want to do that, of course. So they straightjacketed him and they took him back into the behavioral health system again and that was the time that he was only in there for a little while in the behavioral health program and they wouldn't let him do the additional two weeks in the hospital. They said you're too highly functional. And he wasn't at that time. But I've read the police reports since then and they say too he was combative and dangerous. That was January, february of 2014. January, february of 2014. And toward the end of February he was so dejected and he was talking to me. I went to his house one day because he just seemed so, so bad. And he told me and his dad oh, I know, I went down there to go to a meeting with his social worker because he did have outpatient care and he had required meetings with outpatient counselors. And I went with him social worker and he told both of us flat out that day he said I am not going to live if I keep using marijuana. I'm not going to live. I keep using marijuana, I'm not going to live. I have to quit, but I can't. And he said I think maybe what I need is an inpatient program. And the social worker told him well, whatever you do, don't go into those programs. That are the halfway houses. He said. Those are the places that target drug users. You'll never get out of there alive. Don't go, don't go. So he has no suggestions where to go. You know, no wonder Andy felt so helpless. I did too. We were all just helpless. What do you do? And that led to Andy's decision. The only thing to do is take his life.
Speaker 2:It was March 1st 2014, and a friend of Andy's alerted me to I think he's really going to do something bad tonight and if you can get there, you should. So, again, I lived 100 miles away, but my husband and I got in the car and started driving down there. On the way down, I called Andy's sister and asked her to meet us there, but I said don't go in the house, just like the way down. I called Andy's sister and asked her to meet us there, but I said don't go in the house, just like the last time. And I talked to his dad on the phone. He was in the house. They were on separate sides of the house in separate bedrooms, so they weren't seeing each other and his dad told me I think he's fine, he's just in his bedroom, and so it took me a couple hours to drive down there.
Speaker 2:I did call the police on the way down and I told them the situation. I said I would like you to come, but don't go to the door until you talk to me. I'm going to stop a block away. And so we met the police there, a block away from their house. I couldn't see the house and the police said we are not going to go in. And I said I think you have to, I think somebody has to get him. And they said no, we are not going to go in, we're advising you to let him alone. Just let him be, and in the morning he'll feel better. Absolutely, they would not go in.
Speaker 2:His dad was in the house. The police talked to his dad and asked him to please come out and talk with us, and his dad was in the house. The police talked to his dad and asked him to please come out and talk with us, and his dad really didn't want to do it. But he eventually came out and then the police convinced him you better not go back in there. And we're saying to the police, what are we to do? And the police said well, we have people who are specially trained to talk to him. We're trying to get them to come here. So eventually two people did show up in a car that were trained to talk to him. We're trying to get them to come here. So eventually two people did show up in a car that were trained to talk to him, but they wouldn't go in either. They would talk to him on the phone. So we're all texting Andy and trying to get him to communicate with us. And eventually he wasn't answering anything. So the police said well, we can't just hang out here because we're not going to do anything. And I'm saying to them what in the world do you expect me to do? And it wasn't the police, it was the people who were trained social worker kind of people. They said go to his doctor and get his doctor to petition the doctor to require the police to go get him because he's a danger to himself. So the whole family left to go do that.
Speaker 2:While we were gone, it started to rain. I'll never forget the rain that night, because it doesn't rain frequently in Arizona, but it was pouring, pouring, pouring rain. That night, while we were at the doctor doing this petition to get Andy help, we all drove back to the house and I got in my car with my husband. We started driving home again 100 miles north. My daughter and her husband and his daughter went out to dinner and the dad tried to get in the house and the garage door was locked the automatic garage door but he knew where he had a key. So he'd been locked out for some reason. He didn't know why, but he had a key. He did get in. He walked into the house and saw in his kitchen this is the house where he, andy's dad and Andy lived Saw in the kitchen total destruction, devastation in the kitchen and the family room outside of Andy's bedroom.
Speaker 2:Door Windows were broken, mirrors were broken, tvs were broken, computers were smashed. The refrigerator had been opened and every glass jar and all of its food contents had been smashed on the floor. Total devastation and his dad's going. What is this? He goes to Andy's room and Andy's not in his room. But he could see through the window in Andy's bedroom outside in the yard that the lights were on and he said I thought Andy was standing on a chair out there and I thought what is he doing out there standing on a chair? And he went out the back door and found him hanging in a tree and he called 911 immediately and 911 helped him through what he needed to do. While they sent help, they asked him to cut him down and to try mouth-to-mouth resuscitation, which he did.
Speaker 2:And remember I told you it was raining that night. It was raining, raining, raining, so he was in the mud doing that. I wasn't there, of course. I was on my way home, driving north, and I got the phone call from my daughter. My phone had died in the process of all of this and I got the phone call from my daughter who had heard from her dad that he found him hanging from a tree and that he was dead. So I turned right around and started driving back there and when we arrived there, the police had been there and there was a yellow crime scene tape up around the whole yard and the family standing out in the yard and telling me we're not allowed to go in, they're waiting for the coroner to come. Some other police department people came and told us that they had found us a place where we could go and sit and be indoors. It was like a community social center. So my husband and my ex-husband, andy's dad and I, my daughter, went home at that point. The three of us parents sat together until we weren't called and told that we could come back to the house. After they removed Andy's body and I saw all the mud on Andy's dad's pants and I said what's that mud from? And he said well, that was me down in the mud trying to save his life. Oh my God, chrissy and my audience here.
Speaker 2:These are the details I've not spoken about to people before, I guess, because it would be way too difficult to do that in person or to write it. It's a long story, but I thought I just should tell these things today. The reason I haven't been sharing this with people is kind of to protect his dad from the horror of that night and my daughter because she really would rather not be involved. She doesn't want to remember her brother with these things. She's not like me. All my healing from my son's suicide has been through my advocacy and my work of helping Andy, help others, and my daughter feels differently. She's not a participant with me. She doesn't mind me doing this, but those are the reasons I haven't shared all these kind of ugly details before but I thought, the more I know now about marijuana and psychosis, I should be sharing this to let other people know how dangerous marijuana can be, that it drove my son to that the total destruction in the house of a man that was his dad who was taking care of him. I'm convinced that was psychosis.
Speaker 2:A little ways down the road I got the report from the coroner and they did a drug toxicology, of course, and they didn't mention THC or marijuana. So I called them and I said what Andy told me maybe two days before he died. Andy told me he was using and they didn't mention THC or marijuana. So I called them and I said what I can't Andy told me. Maybe two days before he died Andy told me he was using and he had to quit and he had me witness him flushing his down the toilet. I knew he was using, absolutely knew he was using. So the coroner told me oh, we don't test for that, it's too expensive, you don't test for that. I just couldn't believe it. They didn't find other drugs in his toxicology report. There was alcohol. There was an empty pint bottle of rum in his room and that was probably what gave him the courage to finally follow through on what he did. He'd been telling us I've tried taking my life so many times and I'm such a wuss, I'm such a chicken, he said I'll never be able to do it. Stop worrying about me. So you know, maybe it took the rum to get him the courage to do that, but the destruction he left behind was just. I still don't quite understand what that was about and that's why I keep thinking is that psychosis to make him so destructive?
Speaker 2:I had had a discussion with Andy at one point during that year when he was doing so well, when he was drug-free in the program assigned by the court where he had to be marijuana-free. We had a discussion one day about could he ever be a danger to others? And I told him you know, we talked about people we'd read about that you know do psychotic things and they murder people or whatever. And Andy's answer to me was he said I don't feel that way. But he said I don't know what that is that happens to my brain. And I told Andy you know, a psychologist told me one time that I should be cautious with you, even though you're my son. You love me, I love you. You're a good kid, even though you are trained to use weapons and his weapons had been taken away from him. He was reluctant, but he let his father take his weapons away.
Speaker 2:As far as we knew, he didn't have them then, but this psychiatrist had told me if he's ever saying anything strange, do not approach him, do not go to him, get help, get the police. I told Andy that I've been told don't go to him and he said Mom, do what they say. He said I don't know what that happens to me and I don't think I'd do that, but I don't know if I could. I don't want to know if I could, I don't want to, and that's why we did not go in the house that night. That's why I told my daughter that in 2011, don't go to them. It could be dangerous and, god, that's hard to do for a family member.
Speaker 2:But I was at one time married to a recovering alcoholic and I'm very schooled in Alcoholics, anonymous, 12, 12 Steps and LNN. It was good. Actually, that's LNN tools that I used all through his years of mental illness to you know, know where the boundaries are and what I can do and what I can't do. I didn't cause it and I can't cure it. I had all those tools and knew those things. I should talk about my advocacy work and my healing After this.
Speaker 2:And I saw that suicide note and got the glimmer of an idea marijuana can do that. I don't think so, but if it can, I should let other people know. So I started reaching out to people and I found one of the first people I found was Kevin Sabet, with Smart Approaches to Marijuana, and I contacted him and shared Andy's suicide note with him. I was very surprised to receive a personal phone call from him not long after that and he told me to look for opportunities to testify in front of congressional committees and things like that. It was totally foreign to me to testify at or to present at conferences, but he said I'll never forget this because I have done what Kevin said. He said the most important thing is have your one-minute spiel, that whenever you have an opportunity you use your one minute. You have to get it down to one minute because people don't listen longer than that. So that's when I kind of came on this idea of helping Andy, help others and just share the end of the suicide note. Marijuana killed my soul plus ruined my brain, and I thank Kevin for that. He's always been a great supporter for me.
Speaker 2:Another very, very important contact I made was to our local drug prevention and substance use reduction nonprofit here where I live in northern Arizona. The name of the organization is MAPFORCE, and I contacted them with Andy's suicide note and I said is this useful to you in anything? And she told me she said I was in the car driving that day when I got your phone call and I will never forget that phone call and what you said and what you read to me. And I said to you that is so important, will you come in my office and talk to me? So I went right in there and she said I need you to meet. I can't remember if I just told you her name. Her name is Marilee Fowler. She's very important to me. She said I need you to meet Sheila Polk. Sheila was at the time the county attorney and the board of directors for MedForce.
Speaker 2:So the two of them talked to me about Arizona is going to have a ballot initiative to legalize recreational marijuana. We need to fight it and will you help us with it and tell Andy's story? And I said of course I will, they said, and tell Andy's story. And I said, of course I will. They said, well, we'll have you speak at a state conference and I'm going, oh no, no, I can't do something like that. And they said, yes, you can, we'll help you. So they did. They helped me.
Speaker 2:Nervous and scared. I was a terrible speaker, just a terrible speaker. The very first thing that I did I forgot to say Andy's suicide note said marijuana killed my soul plus ruined my brain. I forgot to say it the very first opportunity I had, and that's one reason I use it a lot now. It's so important I'm helping Andy, help others when I do that. But everything mushroomed from there. Through the campaign work I did on two state initiatives, I met people that I mean. I know. A lot of my listeners know all these people that I've met and they're the best people I've ever known in my life. And all of this was healing for me.
Speaker 2:After Andy's suicide, I just was compelled to jump in and share that message and find the people that needed to hear it and to help people understand and to stop legalization. And while I was working on these initiatives and things, the potency kept growing and growing and the damage kept growing and growing and I kept meeting more and more people. I spoke at the middle school where I live. I spoke about suicide and marijuana and all the parents were invited and I invited some of my friends. My friends came and the parents didn't come.
Speaker 2:But a newspaper reporter came. A local newspaper reporter came. A local news newspaper reporter, um, and she wrote about andy and our little local paper. And um, a woman named dr christine miller, who's a, an advisor with smart approaches to marijuana, saw that. I think she looks for news about marijuana, saw that and saw my name and she. She told her friend, lori Robinson in California whose son, shane, was a suicide and was marijuana related. So Lori found me and contacted me and told me about Ann Clark, who is another mother in Colorado whose son, brent, was also a suicide and was marijuana related. So the three of us formed the idea of MomsStrong and MomsStrongorg. Lori took it and ran with that and she did a beautiful job of creating a website. It still exists today. So they were very important to me in just finding someone else who's in my shoes and understands and agrees with me. They introduced me to Julie Schauer, with Parents that Post a Pot and Julie and I worked closely together. I did a lot of writing for her website.
Speaker 2:Along the way I met very important people like Sue Rushi with the Marijuana Report and she had me write some for Mar marijuana report. So I was meeting the people that were doing the work and I began going to the national conferences. I was introduced to David Evans, the lawyer, by Marilyn. She had me talk with him about potentially suing the marijuana industry the dispensary. He was suing somebody over Andy's death. Well, I spoke with Dave on the phone and we determined that Arizona medical marijuana program at the time was just airtight and there was absolutely no way I was going to get anywhere with that. So I didn't pursue anything but Dave and I became friends over the year. Dave does wonderful work today with Civil the cannabis industry victims, educating litigators, and I have helped him meeting other parents. That's one of the ways we families can help bring attention to the damage and the harms that are being caused by the marijuana industry is through the courts and sue them. I stay in touch with all these people.
Speaker 2:I introduced myself to Laura Stack. When I first read about Johnny Stack I called her and talked with her and told her about me. I told her about the work that I was doing. I stayed involved with her in various ways, stayed involved with her in various ways. I was so impressed when I told her one of the social media comments that are so horrible and so awful and be aware of that, laura, that's going to happen to you and Laura said oh, don't worry about me, we've got Tuscan. She said, nobody's going to get to me. I've never had the pleasure of meeting Laura in person. I will one day. I want to so badly, but I'm very impressed with what she was able to do.
Speaker 2:I haven't mentioned yet my favorite, most important friend, aubrey Adams, and Every Brain Matters. I met Aubrey pretty early in my journey here and she was so helpful to me. I'm so inspired by the things she does and the fact that she can tolerate those horrible comments that I was having trouble tolerating. I listened to her podcast on here and everyone should hear that too. She does a marvelous job of telling her story and what she's doing now and the work that she's doing with Everett Brown Matters is so important. I was reaching a point. Aubrey's work was becoming so, so good and so important, and Kevin Sabet's work has always been growing more important and better and better and bigger and bigger.
Speaker 2:And Laura's was taking off and I was feeling burnt out and it was COVID and I got a diagnosis of lung disease that made me aware that I could not get on airplanes any longer for long flights aware that I could not get on airplanes any longer for long flights and I thought I'm just at a point I need to pull back and not do as much work as I've been doing and not go out and do those things in person, even though there's some of the most favorite things I have ever done when I went with a group of wonderful people and testified in front of the FDA. We testified at the DEA. I went to New Hampshire and presented at a conference and I got to sit with Dr Bertha Madras and speak with her and get to know her some, and those were such important things to me and any parent who's listening and thinking gosh, do I want to be an advocate? Do I want to go out and do that? It looks like hard work. It's the most rewarding work I've ever done. So the last, actually several years I haven't been doing much, but I stay in touch and I stay aware and I watch the things that all the advocates do and I still share when I can. When you ask me to do a podcast like this, it's like, oh sure I can do that. I can do it right here from my office. I'll be happy to, and I want to stay in touch with people and continue to let all the other advocates know how much I admire you for still being in this fight, because it's not over yet. It's sure getting better.
Speaker 2:Back in the beginning it's like, oh God, nobody's hearing what we're saying, nobody's believing what we're saying, nobody's believing what we're saying. It so badly needs to get out there. And the media being the biggest problem, that the media was not doing the job I've always thought they should be doing. I had a little bit of media coverage, but not a whole lot. But just last week I heard from a journalist in New York City and she talked to me on the phone. Generally I direct them to other people who are more in the fight than I am.
Speaker 2:Andy died 11 years ago. Andy was not officially diagnosed with psychosis, though I believe that he had that. It was not an official diagnosis, so I feel like I'm just I'm not the best person to be the witness to this any longer. There are so many others who have stories to tell. I mean more effective, more current, but I want to let listeners know how much I my heart just hurts for you if you're in the middle of this. I had the years of the fear and scary behavioral health hospitals and the awful experiences with health insurance and the legal system and going to court, and I know when you're in it it's just awful, but it's survivable.
Speaker 2:The keys that I have that I'd like to share with people are grief and sadness and joy all coexist. It's okay to laugh. It's okay to have fun. It's okay to go out and do your bucket list. It's okay to go out with your loved ones. It's okay to do all that while you grieve. Grieving becomes a smaller piece of the pie as you go on and the joy becomes bigger again At some point. Some time you just feel like you're drowning, but, um, things do get better. Are you ever cured of grief? No, um. Do you ever forget your child? No, not ever. Um.
Speaker 2:I remember a low point one day, shortly after andy stuff, when I when I thought I saw a picture of him naked after a bath, when he was maybe one year old, we'd take him out of the bathtub and he loved that time to get out of the bathtub, get a little bit dry and then go running and he'd run, run, run, run all over the house and we'd all be yelling naked baby run. I saw that picture and I just started crying and you know I told you before I'm not a crier, but that made me cry and I thought I lost my baby. I lost my baby and it didn't take me very long to go. Whoa, wait a minute, I didn't lose that baby. I still have that. I still have that memory. I still have that. That's still mine. Nobody's taking that from me.
Speaker 2:So I started focusing on you know what do I do to keep Andy in my life now? And I do a number of things. I had some money that I had hoped I would use to help him get mental health care treatment and I donated that to the college where he got a degree and created a scholarship fund called Helping Andy Help Others. So I can give Andy a birthday present every year by putting money in there. I can give him a Christmas present every year by putting money in there. My second Christmas without him.
Speaker 2:I had his Christmas stocking with his name on it, breaking my heart, and my daughter said I have an idea. Why don't we send that around to the family every year? And somebody else in the family will have it every year and everybody will remember Andy and they'll hang his stocking with their family. So we do that every year and we call that little initiative Guess when Andy's Going for Christmas and we keep it a surprise for me and the kids, the cousins and all. Every year they ship it on to somebody else and then they surprise me with pictures of where he is. So his stocking continues to celebrate Christmas with this family. Funny, silly little things like that we've come up with. I have Andy's pictures all around me Right now while I'm speaking and every time I speak about him or for him, I wear a necklace that's heart-shaped and it has his thumbprint on it and I wear his dog tags from when he served with 82nd Airborne. He was so proud of that. So there are lots of healing things that I do.
Speaker 1:As you were telling your story, sally, you mentioned that he was experiencing behaviors that no one would have attributed to just marijuana at that point.
Speaker 1:Again, this was through the earlier part of the 2000s, so while some states were toying with legalization and beginning to legalize by 2012, this was not as known as today in regards to the problems we're seeing with cannabis use disorder, cannabis induced psychosis and all the other mental health effects that we are learning more stuff.
Speaker 1:And you made a comment that really hit home with me. You said something cracked and that when you think back now you think that this was probably psychosis, but it wasn't really how you were reading it at that point and you certainly didn't attribute it to marijuana use. And what was interesting to me about that was that we also had talked a little bit about how high school students and young people in college experiment with various substances marijuana, alcohol, in the 80s, cocaine. We attribute this to experimentation, you know, just trying things and not expecting or understanding what could be the consequences. And even back then, while as parents we preach to our children the harms of substances, we didn't think that marijuana could be as lethal as we know it's become today, and so you also let us know that Andy had been diagnosed with cannabis use disorder severe.
Speaker 2:That must have been 2011, the first time that there was a diagnosis. I did not know that for quite some time. Andy did those forms where he would not allow his parents to have any information from his doctors. He had that for years and actually it was only after he died that I saw in records that he had retracted that, but he never told us that. So before his death and during his mental illnesses we were never able to speak to doctors and know any of that. Everything you're talking about right now, christy, just reminds me of the day I read that suicide note and I was thinking marijuana absolutely cannot do that, it's not even addictive, even though the week before Andy's death he told me he was addicted to it and I just plain, flat out didn't believe him then because I used it myself when I was in college and his dad used it. We always called it well, it's a little, makes you a little emotional dependent, is all Personality dependent?
Speaker 2:is all, it's not an addiction, not a physical addiction, not connecting that the brain is physical.
Speaker 1:Right, and of course, we also know that what most of us thought about marijuana was like okay, it makes you a little lazy and gives you the munchies. That's, basically, was the only thing we knew. It was a fairly light high. In many ways people preferred it to alcohol because you didn't deal with intense hangover. Yet you still got a feeling of impairment and, let's face it, that's why people use substances the attraction for me was it gave me the giggles I love the giggles.
Speaker 2:You know she's in giggles, yeah yeah, and, and it makes it.
Speaker 1:It gets some people's creative juices flowing.
Speaker 1:Certainly, we see that in musicians and artists, but again, that product was so very different.
Speaker 1:You're talking about one to 3% potency and regardless of that ever so low potency, what we also know about marijuana is that since the 1930s, there are recorded cases of cannabis induced psychosis, cannabis use disorder and negative mental health impacts from marijuana.
Speaker 1:They were not prevalent, but they did exist, and so when people say marijuana causes no harm or this is just a bunch of fodder from crazy people and these moms are making things up, that's not true, because there is scientific evidence that this has been going on since the 1930s, even in the rarest of cases, and a lot of what you talked about with Andy over, you know, over the course of time, that he was experiencing behavioral changes. Over the course of time, that he was experiencing behavioral changes, drops in school performance and everything like that. So you know that speaks to us. As we all know now, that's a motivational syndrome, a lack of being wanting to follow through on anything or accomplish anything, and so, yeah, again, you had no idea that this was marijuana related and you perhaps didn't believe it, but you saw all the signs we now know are symptoms of cannabis use disorder and cannabis induced psychosis. So I really just wanted to point that out.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I'd like to say another word about when I first started researching marijuana, saying how could that be? How could that possibly be One of the things I started doing in Arizona and then, on vacation in Colorado, I continued it in Colorado. I went into many, many marijuana stores and asked them and I showed them anti-suicide notes some of them not all of them, because I didn't want to start out with that I went in as a curious potential customer and they told me how wonderful marijuana is now that it's so much higher potency and if I used it in the past, I need to try it again because it's so much better now. And I remember one gentleman saying to me look at this little tiny thing in this little tiny vial. This little tiny thing is like the same thing as 100 hits or something like that.
Speaker 2:I'm going who buys that? And he says, oh, some of our patients are so sick they need that. I learned a lot from the shops about what it's really like and that it's not the marijuana that I had been accustomed to. One of the shops in Colorado told me I wish I could get the old stuff, I wish I could get the natural stuff. That was good stuff that people enjoyed and it wasn't as potent. She said I can't get it anymore, it doesn't exist anymore.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and you didn't fear for your life either. You didn't fear some outrageous negative symptom.
Speaker 2:Mm-hmm.
Speaker 1:Yeah, just negative symptoms. You also mentioned that when you were getting help that they weren't testing for marijuana either, so tell me a little bit.
Speaker 2:Yeah, after Andy's death, the coroner's report reported that there was alcohol and no other drugs and I contacted them and said I don't understand, how did you miss the THC, how did you miss the cannabis, the marijuana? And they said we don't test for that, it's way too expensive to test for that. Now I know that is not true and I do know I pressed the issue and I can't remember what steps I took. But now in Arizona they do test for it, thank God, because that was just so wrong to not know that. I think every suicide they need to know was their THC. I knew there was because it was just two days before Andy's death when I was with him and he asked me to witness him flushing the marijuana he'd just bought that day because he was telling me I have to quit, I have to quit and I can't. And I flushed it yesterday and today I went and bought some more. I said do you want me to witness you doing that? And I did so.
Speaker 1:I know he was using the thing Right and it's almost sad because you don't actually have documentation. But a lot of parents absolutely do have documentation now and also, from my understanding, most emergency rooms or medical facilities that are testing for multiple drugs. There is a five-factor test that does test for marijuana, so at least we know that that is available and, like I said, so many parents do have medical records showing that the only substance in their system is THC.
Speaker 1:So it's really it's really just amazing that this was happening and that it's turned into what it's turned into today. That covers the questions I wanted to ask you regarding your journey and your story, and we did talk about what led you to advocacy, but I know that you took a little bit of a break for a while and you'd like to get more involved again, which is why we're so happy to have you on this podcast and and to have a relationship with you to do some advocacy to the best of your ability. You mentioned that you had reached out to politicians and whatnot, so I'd really love to hear a little bit more about that. I think you have a letter you'd like to share with us.
Speaker 2:Well, the letter I'd like to share with you comes from a cannabis user. I wanted to make a point about the awful things that are sometimes said to the parents who dare speak out, but you mentioned we're politicians.
Speaker 2:There's a story I'd like to tell. In Arizona, when we were working on a campaign to resist the legalization of recreational marijuana, my own hometown, prescott, arizona state representative came up to and he mispronounced my name. You know you should stop talking about your son like that. He said everybody wants legal marijuana. And besides, your son's story just doesn't make any difference. And that's what he tells a mother whose son took his life. His life doesn't make any difference. That's just how heartless it can be those heartbreaking things. And I want to say to advocates and want-to-be advocates it is kind of rough at times and you have to develop a little bit of tough skin bit. And my two wonderful mentors here in Prescott told me don't read those comments, don't look, don't read them. And I just couldn't resist looking. And then I found didn't take very long, I found no, I can make them work for me, I can understand where they're coming from and every time I can say you know what? That's a user who has lost their soul. Because I pondered over that. Andy's suicide note said when it killed my soul and I wondered what does that mean? What did he see as his soul? And I want to read this. I'd like to read this.
Speaker 2:It takes about a minute for me to read an email that I received. Your policy on cannabis should be criminal. I am writing this letter to you to let you know, as a fellow Arizona citizen, I am disgusted by your group's war on cannabis should be criminal. I am writing this letter to you to let you know, as a fellow Arizona citizen, I am disgusted by your group's war on cannabis. My mom raised me not to say anything if you have nothing nice to say, but your lies have caused me to not be able to hold back. I hope that you and everyone who works with you either gets cancer or a terminal illness and dies and gets into an accident. I hope your family suffers from nothing but traumatic experiences for the rest of their lives and that they die a slow and agonizing death. I will pray every day that this happens to your family. I will pray every day for that. We have jails for a reason. People like you I know you must get tons of hate mail every day. I hope it ends up weighing on you and your family. Knowing that so many people out there would be happy if you died must be a terrible feeling Knowing that so many people in your own community would rather you were never born. I hope that people like you will never make it to heaven and end up burning in hell, where you belong Yours truly, one of the millions of people who hate you.
Speaker 2:Oh my gosh, that was very early on in my advocacy and it made me go holy cow. Is this dangerous work that I'm doing? This guy sounds crazy, but the more I've learned about marijuana, that's the killing of the soul. And then I learned more about marijuana from a very good book I like a lot, dr Ed Gogex. He's a psychiatrist. His book, marijuana Debunked. He talks about how marijuana users it's like a religion for them and he said I don't see that with any other drugs at all. There isn't another drug that does that, but they defend that drug. But they defend that drug and with a lost soul and a religious feeling about having to defend that drug. That's why that have been said to us and I do that just to bring that to people's attention that this is one reason we advocate against marijuana use and the normalization and the promotion of this is it kills souls to where people will do that.
Speaker 2:And I think for myself. What if my son had written something like that? Oh my gosh, and I wonder sometime if Andy didn't take his own life because he couldn't stand what he was becoming. Thank you for the opportunity to read that. I hope that's okay in this podcast. Yeah, I don't want to scare an advocate away. I want to say let those fuel your desire to do more educating. We need to let people know this. I want to say it to the politicians that are voting for this stuff. It's like look what this stuff is doing to people.
Speaker 2:And it clearly is because you can tell that you would hope that there's no human that is that cruel, naturally, you know, oh yeah, yeah, that's the guy referred to, his mother, who taught him not to say anything if he doesn't have something nice to say. And then he goes off and spews that whole thing, whole thing, because I hope and pray he was a kid and that he found recovery and that he's ashamed of things he did like that in the past. So I won't use his name.
Speaker 1:Wow, that is really unbelievable, and yet you carry on and you make such an important point for our parents. I think another point you make is that in doing the work that we do and knowing this and hearing such things and knowing about the backlash that people face, we do try to provide resources and support for that, and certainly Bronwyn and I do everything possible to protect our parents. We feel very protective of your loved one's privacy, of your own privacy, of your stance, of your willingness to advocate, your limitations with advocating and anything you might go through. So thank you so much for your endurance and for continuing to do this for almost 15 years now a long time You've shared so many important points with parents and offered so much relevant advice.
Speaker 1:But you said something earlier. You said that parents should understand that when things happen in the moment, it's the worst thing you could ever go through and it's very difficult and you don't know where that's going to take you. But over time, as we always say, you don't move on, but you move forward. And you said something beautiful. You said that it's okay to have joy and it's okay to laugh, and I think that's really the perfect message to end with here and if you'd like to add a little more to that, you know, please feel free.
Speaker 2:Yeah, thank you, that's, that's what I live by. I learned it very, very early on. Shortly after Andy's death, my two best friends, who we all grew up in Illinois but we all live in Arizona now, said we're coming to your house and I said no, no, no, I'm okay, I'm fine. They said, yeah, we are coming to your house and they did. And they did little stuff for me, like they did a little housework for me and stuff, but we did a lot of laughing and that was real early on. My heart was still broken, but we did a lot of laughing. Well, we're longtime friends, so we know how to do that real well. And maybe it was one of them that said to me that day you know, it's okay to laugh Even though your heart is breaking. It's okay to laugh, it's necessary.
Speaker 2:And just think of it as it coexists the laughter, the joy and the grief. The grief isn't gone, but it just becomes more manageable when we allow ourselves to be the real human beings that we are, that love and laugh and enjoy life and look forward to more of that. So I think of it like a piece of pie that that grief slice in there is becoming a little smaller. It's never going to go away and actually I don't want it to go away. Doing this podcast with you kind of brought all the feelings up again and the sad feelings. But it's okay, it's not a bad thing, it's not going to go away and I don't want it to go away. I will love my son until the day I die. It never goes away.
Speaker 1:Right, and I think also we have to imagine that our loved ones would never want us to be unhappy for the rest of our lives. So we want to have joy and laugh again and, like you said, not let go of the grief, but not let it continue.
Speaker 2:And.
Speaker 1:I think we also need to keep the good memories of our loved ones alive, and you talked about that a little. I love that you shared a Christmas tradition, and I think these are things that help us heal as well and are important to do. I think we're ending at a beautiful point here with a wonderful message, but, chrissy, I so appreciate the opportunity to do this with you.
Speaker 2:I've enjoyed talking with you and my heart goes out to listeners, particularly those who are still just in the thick of it and hopefully their children make it through to blue sky and everything will be fine. But I know, I know it's a terribly, terribly hard journey.
Speaker 1:I am just so pleased to have had this time with you and get to know you better, and I couldn't thank you enough for sharing your story and sharing it with our listeners, and the messages you brought forward here are so important for us. So thank you so much for all you've done and everything you're doing. You're doing, and I hope that each of these episodes leads you with a profound understanding of the urgent need for awareness, for better regulations and for the power of community support in addressing the challenges posed by today's marijuana products. So thank you all for all you do. Sally, I hope you have a wonderful week and I look forward to talking with you some more.
Speaker 2:I look forward to meeting in person one day, Chrissy.
Speaker 1:Absolutely. Thank you again, and I you know God bless you and we'll always keep you in our prayers here.
Speaker 2:Thank you.