The Cannabis Chronicles; Sleep Apnea

Tonight’s topic is something many people deal with…

But don’t always fully understand:

Sleep Apnea.

And this one is personal for me…

I have sleep apnea.

So, this isn’t just research…

This is something I live with.

And if you’re dealing with it too…

You already know…

This isn’t just about sleep.

It’s about:

• energy
 • focus
 • recovery
 • and how you feel when you wake up.

This is about breathing… while you sleep.

And for many people, treatment looks like:

CPAP machines
 lifestyle changes
 medical intervention

So, the question becomes:

Where does cannabis fit into this?

 The Cannabis Chronicles | Starr Enterprises | Dr. Bong | Stay informed. Stay intentional. Stay lifted — responsibly 

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:02

All right, all right, all right. What's going on, friends? Stoners and Canada fam. It's your boy uh Dr. Bong, the one and only. We are the cannabis chronicles, a weekly candid cannabis community conversation where we discuss, obviously, cannabis from a medical perspective, you know, not so much. We talk about adult use product, we talk about adult use subject, but um keep the lane, keep the lane in uh the medical space because that's you know that's where I cut my teeth, and um that's where I choose to continue my understanding and my and and uh where I want to learn. So, as I said, we are the cannabis chronicles, a weekly candid cannabis community conversation where we discuss cannabis from many different perspectives. Our perspective mostly, as I said before, we talk about it from a medical space. I'm your boy, Dr. Bong, and today's subject is something that a lot of folks don't talk about. Um, a little personal this week. It has to do with um something I deal with on a on a personal level. Um, shout out to our friends of the show and shout you out. If you want to come through and have a conversation, please feel free to do so. You could check us out um here on stereo. And later on, you can check us out on the platform um Spotify and Apple Radio. The Cannabis Chronicles, cannabis and sleep apnea, sleeping and breathing and quality of rest. Presented by Star Enterprises, and I'm your host, Dr. Bong. So, welcome, friends, stoners, and candid fans. And this is the Cannabis Chronicles, presented by Star Enterprises. I'm Dr. Bong. And here we educate, elevate, and advocate because cannabis is medicine. So tonight's topic is something many people deal with, but don't always fully understand sleep apnea. Now, see, this one this one's personal for me. I have sleep apnea. Now, a lot of times folks don't talk about things that they uh are suffering or they're going through, but I'm going, I I suffer and I deal with this on a regular basis. So this isn't just research. This is something that I live with each and every day. And if you're dealing with sleep apnea too, then you already know this isn't about sleep. It's about energy, it's about focus, it's about recovery, it's about how you feel when you wake up. This is about this is about breathing, fam. I mean, while you're sleeping. I didn't realize the severity of my condition because I was a s I was a bachelor, so I slept alone. Um so what I thought was just uncomfortable sleeping was my body waking me up because I couldn't breathe. I couldn't, I couldn't, uh once the uh the airway was blocked, then I couldn't breathe, and I had to um obviously my body fought to to resuscitate me. And trust me, it's how you feel when you wake up. And uh and and and and how you sleep. So, and for many people, treatments look like CPAP machines, lifestyle changes, and medical intervention. So the question becomes where does cannabis fit into all this? So, I'm your boy Dr. Bong, and uh we're talking about sleep apnea today. Shout out to all of our friends at the show. Shout out to uh Best Buds Magazine, Sage Genetics, shout out to um Chill Pipes and Canada Society. So we're gonna go through those, but the question becomes where does cannabis fit into this? So now we're gonna explore this lens through the business, culture, health, and pulpo resegments and perspective. So let's begin. The cannabis industry, let's face it, is beginning to increasingly intersect with sleep. Sleep is the one sleep is one of the most common reasons that people turn to cannabis in the first place. I didn't know this until working in the in the dispensary when I got people, you know, who really like had um real sleep issues. And I had to start breaking it down and asking folks, like, okay, so like there's two type for me at that point there was like two or three types of people who, you know, with uh insomnia. Just fake just give it a blanket uh name. Um and there was those who couldn't fall asleep, but once they did, they stayed asleep. There were people who could fall asleep but couldn't stay asleep. And then the other classification was people who couldn't, no matter what, they couldn't sleep, no matter what, they couldn't fall asleep, they couldn't stay asleep. And I it was it it boggled my mind how many people, you know, came into the medical cannabis space looking for help from their sleep apnea. So I I had a slight indication. Obviously, I haven't, you know, obviously haven't obviously dealt with every patient on the block or every patient in the universe who are dealing or have dealt or will deal with sleep apnea. But um did deal with a few people who, and I I guess at that point I didn't really have the the capacity or really the knowledge to ask them if they slept, if they had sleep apnea. I guess that was a kind of an evasive uh question because really, really, really crazy part is that so I guess that was about 10 years ago, because for me, I've you know, obviously I remember things in obviously year and linear, but also what I was doing, where I was working, where I was traveling to, so on and so forth, relationships I was in, whatever. So the friends who were then, the friends who you know no longer friends anymore, or no longer here anymore. But I remember because I had just started working in the Bronx, but I was still living in uh Middletown, Orange County in Middletown. And I obviously had to commute, and I commute and I drove every day. So I drove down, I drove back up, drove down, drove back up, Tuesday through Saturday. Uh uh nine until four, five, and then we were out. And uh no, ten to six, ten to six, and then Saturdays we worked nine to four, and then everybody had the same schedule Tuesday through Saturday. So anyway, I have had um at that time I had a couple different cars. First car, uh, I wrecked it, and it was because, and now that I look back on it, it was sleep apnea. I was traveling, and it was like November, like around the holidays and uh Thanksgiving around that time, and I was traveling between uh, like I said, the Bronx and Upstate, and had an accident, totaled that car. So sleep is so, so, so, so, so, so, so important. So, but and and trust me, I I understand it personally, folks. You know, I look back now, hindsight is 2020, and I totally understand, totally understand personally. But here's here's the difference. It's a difference between relaxing before bed and managing a medical sleep disorder. Now, this is where cannabis moves from convenience to careful consideration. Sleep apnea, I may say that, I say that, let me just say this. I say slapping you, slap sleep apnea, and when you slur it together, it sounds like slapping you. And it was stopping me in the head. I mean, like literally, I can, and it was a couple times, like I didn't, every every incident didn't lead to an accident. But I don't even rem I don't even remember the road that I was on. But we were in moderate traffic, but we were moving. And I dozed off. And I literally said to myself, your my brain said, We're driving. Wake up. I woke up. I was so close to clipping the back trailer of an 18-wheeler that would have just been totaled everything for me. It would have just been over. Um, I remember, like I said, the accident. I woke up at the last minute, and I was on the um the goat path. And I woke up at the last second, and it was like, oh my God. I slammed on my brakes, veered to the right, skidded my car all against the guardrail. Car finally, like I said, slammed into the guardrail, uh, the front tire came off, was sliding underneath the car. Uh we when that car finally slowed down, finally stopped, I got out of the car, and it was so terrible, it was so disgusting, it was so long. And I was shaking like a leaf. And I was like, oh my god, I was asleep, and I could have crashed in the back of these people's car. I didn't. The clash crashed into their car, they kept going. I looked over the guardrail where my car had the guardrail that saved my car from going over the embankment, and it was a long drop. So had the guardrail not caught me. I'm not sure if we'd be having this conversation here today. We are the cannabis chronicles. I am your boy, Dr. Bong. We are weekly Candid Cannabis Community Conversation where we discuss medical cannabis. Discuss cannabis in a in a medical perspective. I am not a doctor, although a play I got labeled Dr. Bong a long time ago from a co-host. Uh, shout out to Ty, shout out to Arika and all of my friends who have been former uh co-host, part of the show for as long as we've been doing the show. Um and we're building our fan base here again. We are back on stereo. We were on Instagram live for a little bit, but uh it was um it was it was spotty to say the least. Uh now we have uh updated the platform so we can go to um uh we take this recording and we go to our platforms and then we share to Spotify and uh actually it's Buzz Sprout, and then Buzz Sprout is like the uh the mothership, and then it distributes the show to the other platforms that we are belong to, like Apple, Spotify, Amazon Music, iHeart Podcast, Podcast Index, and uh YouTube. And you can check those out. I uh create this weekly content, so look forward to your feedback. And actually on the bus sprout, you can actually leave fan mail. As I said, we are at the Cannabis Chronicles, a weekly candid cannabis community conversation. Sleep apnea requires diagnosis, every try, it requires treatment, and it definitely requires consistency. I didn't, like I said, fam, like this is personal, this is per personal. This is personal to me because I can, you know, vividly recollect that I could articulate to you, you know, how it feels to deal with a condition. Yes, I have a heart, had a heart, have a heart condition, but I can't express to you how I feel because Miss A will tell you, while Bill will tell you, I was saying I felt fine. And that's I feel fine, but it wasn't fine. So you have to maintain, and I definitely monitor my heart, and I'm good on that point. But I can articulate how I felt with um with my sleep apnea, and even like when I was researching it and they were talking about um uh uh medication intervention. Now, I am, as I said many times, I'm very sensitive to certain medications. And um uh for me, the particular medication they gave me were like an Adderall kind of thing. And I mean, before I got diet, before I knew what was wrong with me, they gave me something to keep me up. But oh man, I did not like that feeling whatsoever. So um, as I said, cannabis should never be used to replace treatments like CP, like CPAP or anything else like that. So definitely um reach out to your primary care physician, reach out to your doctor, and um and seek their advice. Somebody asked me the other day, somebody asked me the other day. Um I was at uh shout out to um uh the the participants. I'm not sure if I'm allowed to talk about the participants in the in the seminar that I did, but I did a seminar this past Thursday, and they asked one of the questions was asked about um how a person could talk to their primary care physician. Well, I said, we're in New York, so your PCP is probably used to folks asking about medical cannabis, and if they're not, be the first one. Be the first one to do that for your fellow patients and and and and broach that question and ask that question. So um, but definitely before you do anything, seek medical guidance. As I said, friends of the show, Best Buds Magazine. Uh, you can check them out at uh bestbudsmagazine.com. At Best Buds Magazine, uh you can also at the website, you can also um check out some really cool sections lifestyle, fashion, culture, all of those uh topics are definitely well covered at the Best Buds magazine. And you can actually also see uh the video of as I was talking about before when we were in we were on Instagram live. Uh I we uploaded the uh videos, the vlogs to the magazine. So you can check that out at the bestbudsmagazine.com. And you can check out news. So shout out to DC James, Emma, and everyone at Best Buds Magazine. All right, and also our friends at uh Sage Genetics. Thank you so much, JT, and the team at Sage Genetics for the offerings that we are enjoying today. Uh prior to the show, I was on the uh smoking terrace and uh I was enjoying some of the uh offerings of this week. I believe that is Gorilla Glue Cake, if I'm not mistaken. That's right, Gorilla Glue Cake. Love the taste, very smooth. So it's uh a cross between Gorilla Glue and ice cream cake. Gonna get uh we're gonna get the guru on the show coming up. He's he did it one time. Uh and you can check the archives. As a matter of fact, it was on stereo could check it out, and it was a really cool interview. But um shout out to JT and his team at Sage Genetics. And um, if you want to take a class, he has some online classes you could take. We could read his book and just learn and actually see some really cool uh of his cultivars that he is offerings that he is growing. So shout out to uh uh Sage Genetics, JT and his team out there. Okay, we are the Cannabis Chronicles. I'm your boy, Dr. Bong. Don't forget you can check us out on our platforms. Uh, you can check us on Apple, Spotify, and Amazon music. All right, so sleep is culture. Sleep culture is changing, and people are paying more attention to rest, recovery, and mental health because they all kind of and they all intertwine. I say to patients all many times, uh, like a chronic pain patient or like I said, a person, a patient who can't sleep. What happens is this you you have your situation, you have your condition associated with your sleep condition. So you can't sleep, so you're cranky. So then that exacerbates whatever may be going on. So maybe you is if you have pain, so now you're in pain, but you can't sleep because you can't sleep, because you're in pain, but you're in pain because you can't sleep, because you're gonna sleep because you're in pain. So it's like a layered cake. It's like one on top of the other, one top of the other. And then now you have a person who, after maybe two or three days of not being able to sleep, now you have fatigue setting in, then you have crankiness, then you have uh all kinds of uh unknown, you know, how that could work for because again, it's all subjective. Uh for me, like I said, I was falling asleep everywhere. Like I couldn't, I couldn't um sit anywhere for any length of time without literally going to sleep. And I mean, like going into like my head would um, as a matter of fact, my first my first dispensary at Hunts Point, we had when it first opened when it was farm mechanics, we had these really cool avant-garde kind of uh throwback chairs from like the 60s, 70s. And they had a deep uh back. So you could when you sat back, you leaned back. So because I because it was the chairs we sat in, I sat in the chairs and I would always fall asleep, and then my head, I would fall asleep, and then my head would boom, it would literally hit the back of the wall. I mean, I if it happened once, it happened a dozen times. I could I could call uh my pharmacist right now, uh, the pharmacist who was my my supervisor at the time, and he would verify that I would fall asleep everywhere, anywhere. And anywhere met my car. So if I'm driving in the car and I'm at a stoplight, for instance, and it's a long stoplight, it's very well, I very well could have fallen asleep. So you gotta pay attention to that because all of those things are intertwined. Your rest involves recovery, your rest and recovery involve your mental health. And cannabis is increasingly being part of that conversation. Let's keep it a buck. So I saw an article this week in uh marijuana biz that highlights uh something that uh we celebrate, and I'm gonna have a little conversation about that. We uh it's uh 429, so uh 420 was uh a week ago, week ago, a little over a week ago. And cannabis sales enjoyed a huge spike on 420. And I want to know if that's due, like, because in the article, one of the one of the um let's see if I got that right here. Where is that? Marijuana Biz. Is that it right here? Yeah, the line was no, that's not what I was looking at. Um, but basically it was saying the article said that um that cannabis had become mainstream, and that kind of, you know, uh obviously I read the rest of the article, but throughout the rest of the read, I was like, when did it become mainstream? And and before my eyes, in that 10-year in that 10-year span that we talk about the career of Dr. Bond, that's right, we're coming up on a 10-year um anniversary of my introduction to medical cannabis, where I stepped out and said, I'm gonna try this, give it a shot, have a picture that I'm gonna put on the book from when I crossed this bridge and uh when I crossed the um the Bear Mountain Bridge to go to work in the Bronx from Orange County, and I have a picture of that, and I'm gonna have that in the archive. So um, but what it tells us, what it tells us is that cannabis is no longer just cultural. Here's that line, it's mainstream. Now, fam, I remember when 420 was our, and some some stoners are gonna remember this, when it was our signal, it was like our bat signal, it was like our little hours, our our speakeasy speak. And and I kind of feel some kind of way about it, but I don't know how to say it, I don't know how to deal with it. But at the same time, High Times was talking about an article where it breaks down the is breaking down the push towards federal cannabis rescheduling. Uh, what do you call that? Full transparency. Dr. Bong, I am 100% for all cannabis reform. Um, I believe this rescheduling is a step in the right direction. And but my heart and my passion lies with full legalization. I don't feel as though something you can grow in the plant with just water, attention, and your dirt, and because you could do the same thing with roses or tomatoes. Or when I was a little kid, I grew uh carrots. Yep, I grew carrots, and they they were I think I thought. It's the thought that counts. I wonder if my mom remembers. My aunt remembers when I did that back in the day. But um, yeah, so I don't think we should legalize I mean, excuse me, I don't think you should make something illegal that you can use your effort to grow. Um, and you know, let's face it, uh, cannabis' sister plant, hemp, can change so, so much on this whole planet. I mean, we talk about uh let's just talk about Earth Day. It was this week. It always falls on around the same week as 420. Um and five ways cannabis can save the earth, the planet, this earth day, number one. Um, we're gonna talk about that article a little later on. Uh, five ways cannabis can save the planet, this earth day. Um, we're gonna jump into Chinese researchers reveal ancient use of cannabis as an indispensable crop. So that was deeply integrated into daily life. So China's agricultural history with cannabis is deeper than previously believed, with a new study placing the staple crop among the five grains, alongside rice and barley. They were foundational to the ancient Eurasian economy and deeply integrated into daily lives of the inhabitants. For the study published in the Journal of Archaeology and Science, researchers at Shandong University conducted a uh, let's see, pytholith extraction and analysis of 132 samples found in Bisang and Kwajiang settlements dating back to the late Neolithic era. The results showed that at by that point cannabis had become a core crop in northern China, primarily used for food or fiber. All right. So again, with with these ways, uh we're going to talk about again, these, these uh, these ways, uh, these these these subjects, these, these things that uh hemp and cannabis can do and to help the world, uh, whether it be your personal life, improving the quality of your life, or if it's just um, you know, if it's just a subject that you're interested in, because at the same time, you know, um the rescheduling, it does a lot of things. If cannabis is since it's been reclassified, research can expand. So we talk about the um the medical research, we talk about the medical aspects of it. And I just want to say holistic medical, because then we don't, I don't feel, and this is part of the reason why I feel that um full legalization should be uh implemented because once it gets laboratized or laboratory or it goes into a laboratory, then it becomes synthesized. And I'm not sure how I feel about again, those products. I'm not sure uh we try to shop with um, and it's really hard to find you know things that aren't genetically modified nowadays. It's just just look on the back of your products, look on the back of the packages, the boxes of the products that you purchase, and you may find that you are eating GMO products. So uh again, what what research, what what reclassification does is it expands research. It definitely destigmatizes, it decreases the distinct, it decreases the stigma of cannabis, and the medical conversations like ours can grow. But it's holistic medicine, not medicine from a pharmacy. So what policy shapes perception, let's face that, policy shapes perception, and perception shapes behavior. And and so we want to understand what that means. What that means is it goes back to what we say before, we always say you should be involved politically. You should be involved with and not just get involved in the national politics, but get involved in local politics. And you know, um become a become a monitor at your at your polling station. Learn about the local who are who are your city council, who are your school superintendents. I'm working on a project right now for that exact thing. I want to know, uh, working on a project for Legacy. Matter of fact, shout out to Legacy United Community, uh, Legacy United Community, uh, working on a project for them. And one of the things that uh uh shout out to um shout out to them, shout out to O, shout out to K Vaughn. Uh one of the things that they uh the task us tasked us to do is to find out like who and where and how your local representatives are and how they um can be um can be reached so you know who to talk to about those things because those are the people who do the policy changes to directly change your life and not just um because we look at it, we look at it from the top down, but it actually works from the bottom up. And we have to remember that because it was a grassroots policy that got cannabis legalized, actually got grassroots policy that made it medical. Excuse me. And I think the medical community, excuse me, uh does a lot of changes. We talked about HIV and AIDS a couple of weeks ago and how uh, you know, in the beginning, in in the beginning of that epidemic, in that pandemic uh age, how there was no formal medicinal or medical treatments, and how now uh things have changed significantly. But how cannabis was one of the first medicines, if not the first medicine, that folks who were dealing with the symptoms associated with HIV and AIDS and improving the quality of their life, because again, no medicine, none of the medicines back then, uh, no medicine today, and I'm gonna predict that no medicine coming up in the future is going to cure anything. Yes, it may improve the quality of life, but it's not gonna cure anything. Don't let anybody tell you that, and especially cannabis. If somebody tells you that cannabis is or does one of those things or is a uh is a cure, then uh give them my email address and tell them to come check out the show and we could debate it right here on the Cannabis Chronicles. Because as I've been saying for many, not many years, but I've been saying it long enough, that cannabis is not a cure, but it's a supplement. You can have that medicine, you can have that supplement with your medication. And in the simplest terms, uh many folks uh show an improvement in the effect efficacy of their medication, uh, how that medication uh stimulates or excuse me is distributed through their body. Uh, how the medication may not be needed in the amounts that individuals uh have been prescribed. So um that basically an individual may be able to enjoy and excuse me, enjoy the relief and enjoy the uh improvement of the quality of life from less of the pharmaceutical medications when they introduce cannabis into the um their pharmacology. I have said this many times, and as a young pharma as a young uh medical individual uh medical professional, I, you know, worked in a nursing home and came across an individual who was uh in what they call uh uh hospice care and how they introduced uh comfort measures and later on down in life, and later on down with this, I discovered what they act, I discovered actually then what they were and what that did, and how how that made me feel some kind of way, and how I wanted to articulate that and those feelings, and how those feelings affected me. So later on down the line, um I understood what opioids were, I understood, you know, and then that's when the opioid epidemic hit. So we saw so many people becoming addicted to opioids, addicted to opioids, and how it was a very um and not such a long time ago, you know what I'm saying? Because a lot of people have, you know, mommy had their little back in the 70s, in the six in the you know, late 70s and late 60s, early 70s, mommy had a little blue pill, the volume, you know, and that was that was addiction, you know, even though it wasn't because it didn't have a label then. And as long as mommy had a little blue pill or daddy had a little blue pill, it was okay. Or even, you know, with uh alcohol, you know. Um, and I was reading an article earlier today, was it here? Where did I see that article? Um, and it was saying how individuals can so basically it was saying once uh once medical uh excuse me, once cannabis uh became legal in certain spaces and certain places, then uh alcohol uh uh deaths, alcohol arrests, that kind of stuff declined. So um and and smoking cigarettes. So we want to know um how you feel about that. We want to know if cannabis helped you, and like I said, it helps me with sleep apnea, but it also helped me with something else. And I just talked about I thought about this, and we're going to come back to it on the other side of the shout-outs. All right, shout-out to the friends of the show, Canadaware Society. Uh great uh individuals. Listen, Canada United Network is something that you can do. You can join the platoon. And you can go to Canadaware Org, Canadaware.org, excuse me, C-A-N-N-A-W-A-R-E.org, and you can become part of the Canada United Network and become the boot on the ground. Join the platoon. Shout out to Grizz, Abe, Sam, Star, and Nori. Everybody there. We had uh uh we had our monthly meeting yesterday. I had to jump off quickly, but you know, we're shooting for our October event. As I said, fam, we have uh the 10th anniversary of Dr. Bond doing this thing called medical cannabis in New York State. And so it's gonna be fun. A lot of fun. Uh, like I said, we're building up to it. We had an event yesterday, uh learning how to do this outside of the studio and talking to people. And like I said, it felt yesterday, it felt like a it felt like I was in a seminar and obviously I was the facilitator, but it was like being at the dispensary again, but again, just talking to more people. So shout out to the events coming up, and um, we will be at a couple of new spots. Uh, and the cool part is that uh, you know, you can do the same thing. So check out my email. You can leave me an email, you can check me out on brotherbong.com, excuse me, uh, excuse me. Uh let's see, slow down. Okay. Um, you can reach me at cannabischronicles.com. Canabaschronicles at gmail.com. Um, and as I said, on Buzz Sprout, you can also leave us fan mail and find out how to reach us there, and we will hit you back. As a matter of fact, we had a question from JQ out of the Bronx, and JQ asked, if you switch, see what it says, if your card is going uh to expire this year, should you go with the same physician? So basically it's asking, should you go with the same physician? Well, good good big uh bottom line, bro, I wouldn't, I mean, just shop around because now uh there's so many changes. I would go, first of all, first thing I would say is start at the Office of Cannabis Management website. And you can check that out, ocm.ny.gov. That is the Office of Cannabis Management. And then you could find out because there's been changes. Like now I believe the certifications are now not only one year, but they're two years. Um, I believe your uh your caregivers cannot, they don't have to be 21 anymore, they could be 18. Um, so there's so many changes in the medical space, so many positive changes since and again, the 10-year anniversary. It seems like yesterday. It seems like yesterday that I crossed the Bear Mountain Bridge to come down here to the Bronx to work. And now I live here. So uh shout out to also our friends of the show, this uh Chill Pipes and Justin and his team. Um, and check out the Chill Pipes store. It's chill chillstore.com. You can check out some really cool uh I don't want to call it paraphernalia, uh, but you can check out some really cool cannabis uh adjacent. I like that cannabis adjacent things that you could check out and you can purchase. And um, you know, like I said, a wide variety of things. We have a bong. Uh, Dr. Bong, we have a collection of bongs, and I had a pretty extensive collection that had everything from glass to bamboo, uh, to obviously the plastic ones. I didn't want to do uh and after I learned about plastic leaching, I didn't have, I didn't, you know, wasn't a fan of them, so I don't have any one anymore. But I do have a couple glass ones, nice cool glass colored ones. I broke my I broke my yellow one, man. The water was too hot, and I tried to you know clean the bong. And I seem sad just like that. So um check them out, man, because you can check out some chill pipes there. All right, Canada Fam, let's take another puff of perspective. Now, as I said, sleep apnea breathing during sleep. Now, from my own experience, like I said, the hardest part isn't falling asleep, it's staying asleep. And I'm gonna tell you, like, for me, one of the things was, like I said, I had three near disasters while driving. Talked about um when I was on the goat path uh coming up on uh Bear Mountain. Uh I was driving, I don't know what words, it was one of the one of the, I was coming out of the brawl. I know I was heading upstate. And like I said, it was the traffic was slow, but I mean traffic was steady, but I fell asleep at the wheel and I woke up at the last minute and swerved away from hitting the truck and the truck going underneath me. And then I had, I used to uh work, I used to deliver, and this is actually, this is actually before. Wow, this is actually before I worked in in the Bronx. Um, but I was about to start working in the Bronx, and it's crazy because I worked for Rite Aid as a wellness ambassador, and I did nine to five, eight to four, whatever it was, and then I did four or five until I got done and I delivered uh medication. I delivered pharmacy uh uh bulk medication. So um in my travels, I was on my way back down 17 from Solomon County and I fell asleep. And I didn't wake up until I felt and it was too late. I was crossing the medium, I was heading towards the other traffic. Thank God I woke up when I did, because if I would have kept going, I was going really fast. Because of 17, it's like what it was like 70, 65 then, so I was probably going 70, 75, and I would have just I woke up and um pulled myself, pulled my car up off the off the uh out of the medium. Um, like I said, it was a grass part, came up over, back up onto the road, and just drove back to uh what was it, 120? I said 120, I think it was, or 17 to get to Middletown. And when I got there, and God rest her soul, my boss, my uh I guess another supervisor at the time, uh, God rest her soul, Amy Red, when she saw me, I was probably why did she sheet of paper? She said, What happened? I said, You don't want to know because I just almost had an accident. So, and I fell asleep at the well. So that was one of the things that for me, that was the hardest part. So when your breathing is disruptive, when it's disrupted, fam, I'm telling you. And because you have to work, because life, you know, life ain't free, so I would have to get up every morning, go to work, and then continue doing what I had to do. But when your breathing is disrupted, your recovery is also disruptive. So there are there are types of um there are types of different types of uh sleep apnea, including obstructive sleep apnea, central sleep apnea, and mixed forms. I have a mixed form, um, but I gotta tell you, I, you know, some things for me that now that I have the machine, like literally, and uh this is no joke, I think about the machine putting it on, and I yarn, I don't know what it is, excuse me, but I think about the machine and it immediately makes me get sleepy. I put my machine on, I sleep so much better, I sleep so much deeper. I for me, I'm gonna say one of the things that when I didn't sleep deeply, when I don't sleep deeply, when you don't sleep deeply, you feel everything. And for me, I felt my bladder, and I felt like I always had to get up and I was going to the restroom, I was urinating two or three times a day, and I mean two or three times a night, sometimes four times a night, and expelling an excessive amount of urine. I'm like, where is this urine coming from? Where is this excessive liquid coming from? And then I would go to sleep for a couple hours, wake up, same thing. Wake up from the sleep apnea, but then having to go, couldn't go back to sleep because my bladder was, and I don't know how many times, uh, the apartment I was living in was a shared bathroom, and somebody was in the bathroom taking a shower, so I couldn't even use the bathroom there, so I had to, you know, find the facilities and figure it out. But that was a rough, rough, rough, rough, rough space for me. And I didn't even realize that it was affecting so many things. So I didn't come to find out what was also affecting the sleep apnea, was also affecting for me, was it was affecting my heart. All right, so the sleep was affecting my heart, which is affecting my day, which is affecting, so so many things was all like a what we call a um uh call it a domino effect. So some early research has explored cannabinoids in relation to sleep cycles, relaxation, and nervous system balance. And I want to be perfectly, perfectly, perfectly clear. Again, cannabis is not a treatment for sleep apnea. For me and for many others, it's about how it fits into the bigger picture. Because real treatments like CPAP, medical evaluation, and consistent care can benefit you, can benefit your loved one, and improve the quality of your life because I don't fall asleep at the will anymore. I didn't do that once I got the machine. I felt, I even can remember my first night. Like I remember the night that I took the test. And at first, they told me to go to sleep. I said, I'm not gonna be able to go to sleep, and sure enough, I tossed and turned, tossed and turned. Then they adjusted the machine and they gave me the machine and they put me on the machine. Now, when they woke, when I went to bed, which was not a normal time I went to bed back then, but I was in, I said I was in the place by 9 30, 10 o'clock. I was in bed by 10.30. So by two o'clock I was waking up and they put me up, woke me up. And they gave me this machine. Y'all, fam, can of fam, friends, and stoners. I'm losing my voice. First first time he woke up me up, he said, You have severe, extreme. That's why I know about it being a mixed kind of thing. When he put the machine on, I put the machine on and went to sleep, I fell so deep asleep that it felt to me like it was five minutes. But it was actually many hours. He actually said he let me sleep an extra hour while everybody else was getting done, and he just let me sleep because I slept so the comparison that he said was night and day. Without the machine, it was terrible. With the machine, I was asleep and they let me sleep. So I remember that, and I appreciate that to this day, appreciate that to this night. Um, and my family, my loved ones, we they all appreciate it too, because like I said, I could have gone over a cliff. I could have been underneath the 18 wheeler. I could have gone over that line and crossed into oncoming traffic and not been here for the cannabis chronicles today. And I say by the grace of the higher power, by the grace of God, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you. We are the cannabis chronicles and uh because of real treatment, because of real the sleep hap sleep sleep hap. The CPAP machine that works for me. Friends of the show, Living Soil DMV. Shout out to Gaetano and his team. Um, you can shout, you can check them out at living soil dmv.com. Now, not the motor, the not motor vehicles, but DMV as soil. I say, friends, we are part of I came up with the phrase, we we deal with cannabis from the root to the fruit. So, and from from uh living soil all the way to the dispensaries that we have relationships with all the way to the patients who we influence to choose to use cannabis as an option, that's our process. Um, all right, Canada fam, let's take another puff of perspective. Cannabis is more than a product, it's a part of how a little bit about it's a part of how people wind down. And I understand that personally, I'm telling you. So uh let's talk about those five different ways that we, the cannabis, can save the planet of air, the planet Earth. Earth is a great time to check in with yourself and think about what you can do to better support this heavily body that we all occupy. That can mean actually taking time to recycle correctly or choosing public transportation over an Uber. But, and honestly, most of most fun. A way to celebrate our planet is to consciously support the cannabis brands that prioritize environmental stewardship. There's also a bigger picture to consider. And look at the long-term eventual impact of the cannabis cultivation determined. This demonstrates how vital it is to everyone, especially those in the industry. It does its part to prioritize or prioritize Earth's health. And there's a lot of different ways to get from big companies to practice sustainability, to use it as a consumer, and you can get into the action by ditching disposable vapes or buying bud from your local source. Some critics think family farming could herald a greener future for cannabis, while others hope are responsible hopes for responsibly growing cannabis on a larger scale. But no matter how the outcome comes, cannabis and the cannabis industry can still be a part of a plan to keep Earth happy and healthy. Curious about how cannabis itself can uplift our planet's health. Here's some of the things you could do. Help provide sustainability, alternative goods. Outdoor cannabis cultivation can help preserve clay can help preserve climate change. Legal growth help save energy and water, and hemp can revive damaged soil. Hemp can also stop untimely deforestation. So let's go back over these, okay? All right, so hemp provides sustainability and alternative goods. We talk about the sister plant hemp and cannabis, from textiles to paper to housing, food, and fuel. There are so many uses for hemp that could be completely changed how everyday items are produced and consumed, not just today, not just tomorrow, but forever. Hemp is legally grown and it's legal. And best of all, it has a zero-waste plant. So, what that means is everything from the seeds that can be eaten or used as a wellness products to stalks can be converted into hemp creep and building material, which can be used to construct ecologically friendly houses. And um I have some research. Uh email me, hit me up, and I will give you some companies and some information also companies that actually do that. Outdoor cannabis cultivation can help reverse climate change. There are ways to mindfully grow cannabis that can actually help the environment. Okay, so uh uh let's see, farms like Beija Flor in southern Mendel Sizino County utilize a carbon sequon sequestron model. Um legal growth help save energy and water. In states where cultivators can't grow cannabis legally, they are forced to use clandestine methods that use a majority that can cause major environmental damage. So it's maybe water depletion, massive carbon emissions, and overall energy waste. Legalization, obviously, would have a significant impact on reducing the number of illegal growths that hurt and drain the planet's resources. Uh hemp can also revive damaged soil. Now, I don't know if you knew this, but hemp is a biomediation. Uh so uh, excuse me, hemp can replenish the nutrients in soil through a process called bioremediation, which cleans the environment for pollutants and toxins. That means the plant can be used to help reverse previous damage. A properly, a property that can majorly impact the future of farming and cultivation. It's even referred to as a miracle crop due to its clear contaminants due to its clear contaminated soils of things like metal, I think it was written wrong. Um it clears contaminated soils of things like metals, pesticides, and solvents, crude oil, and other hazardous materials. Also, hemp can help stop untimely deforestation. The permanent destruction of forests in order to make paper products or building materials has caused irreparable harm to the trees on the planet. So hemp doesn't not only grass grows faster than trees, it also takes much less hemp to produce the same amount of goods. But makes it an excellent exhaust which makes it an excellent raw alternative for both wood and paper. So I am pro-cannabis all the way around. I mean, this is so many ways that you can do so many things that you can help the planet with those those five things right there. If everyone did one of those things, or everyone did two or three of those different things, we might be, we will look at a different planet. We might not be. We will, we will, we will. All right, it comes from everything and it comes from everybody and everything working together. It comes from habits, routines, treatments, and awareness. So with sleep apnea, people are trying to fix sleep with shortcuts, but real improvement comes with and comes from consistency. So we want to shout out our good friends, uh Big Gas Dispensary and uh Big Gas Worldwide and Pen Game Publishing. So shout out to Big Gas Worldwide, the team uh Ream and his team. You can check them out at BigGasDispensary.com. If you're a new Paul, check out Ream and his team there at Big Gas Dispensary. Also, Pen Game Publishing, Nyla and the Number Garden. Uh I think I tell you, DC is doing some amazing work. Looked at some uh some stuff they're doing now. Uh the expanding the Nyla Library. So check them out, and you can check them out on Amazon, Nyla and the Number Garden, and the rest of the educational and technological library. This is something that if you want to introduce your young people in your life to reading and a lifelong love of reading, and then introduce them also to the thing that they're gonna, they all love the interaction and the technology. And those books from Pen Game Publishing do both. Check them out. All right, people are trying to fix sleep with the shortcuts, but the real improvement comes from consistency. So be consistent. All right, Canada Fam, let's take this another, uh let's take another paraphrase, let's take another puff of perspective. The cultivator, the cultivar part, the cultivar spotlight this week is granddaddy perp. Now, this is one of those strains that I was enamored with for a long, long time. I love purple as my favorite color, one of my favorite colors. So anything that had the purple name on it, I tried it. And this is something I, this is one of the cultivars that I would get when I uh one of the cultivars that I got from Sage Genetics. So I had it in readily available, and I was just smacked. Love it, love it, loved it, loved it, loved it, loved it. Love me an indigo because it's relaxing. Granddaddy Perp is uh body heavy and it's definitely good for nighttime use. You know, so rest when the body needed. I'm telling you, I didn't realize, like Miss A can tell you, um, I didn't have my machine because I wasn't um the again, I didn't have the machine, uh, and I was in denial. I was thinking I didn't need to use the machine. And I was in for a rude awakening because that's what caused my heart situation. It was I was wearing my uh Fitbit, and my Fitbit was telling me at night when I was asleep that I was going through these episodes and I was having these really, really serious episodes. I didn't pay any attention to it. I didn't, you know, it wasn't, it wasn't while I was awake, it was while I was sleeping. But what it was, my heart was in the rhythm of it. So those times when I was doing the sleep, when the sleep apnea was, you know, when I was suffering, it was basically slowly but surely killing me. And had I not gone to the doctors that day, and it was a routine, it was a routine, uh, it wasn't like I felt like, oh my God, I feel like I need to go to the hospital. It was a routine appointment. I went to the appointment and my doctor, my the PA, the physician's assistant, pulled my doctor and told her he can't go anywhere. And so I have been so blessed in my life and I'm so thankful, you know. But I had to get a new machine. I had to get a upgrade the machine because I hadn't used it in a while and I didn't have it. I don't even remember where I left it or put it. And so I was living my life on the edge again. But I didn't drive, so I didn't worry about it because I wasn't driving. I was taking public transportation here. It was a different thing. It was killing me on the inside. I needed to rest when my body needed it most. And I wasn't doing it because I'm not, I wasn't resting. Because I'm waking up every however many minutes, how many, however many uh what they call them, episodes you have a night. So episodes for every episode is you're waking up. So even if you mic, uh what do you call that, have a micro wake up where you just kind of wake up a little bit, or you have a full-blown, and I've because I was gasping for breath, gasping for breath to save my life. Because your body isn't gonna let you die. Excuse me, your body is not gonna let you die. Not like that. You get shot in the heart, you get shot in the head, you get shot in the vital organ, you know, that's just how it is. People fight against uh uh strangulation, you know, people fight against drowning. They drown, but they're fighting for their life. People with sleep apnea who cannot breathe are fighting for our lives. We just cannot catch our breath, and it affects our lives, it affects our daily lives, it affects everything that we do, everything that we say, everything that we touch. We fall asleep at the will. I'm just one guy. I saw a statistic that said that uh driving sleepy is even worse than driving drunk. So a person who would look at oh, I would never drive drunk, I would never drive drunk might not think twice. Might not blink twice. I think it's okay to sleep because they're tired. Or sleep, excuse me, sleep because they're tired. Drive while they're tired. Drive while they're tired. Talk about uh truck drivers going through that driving too much, being on the road too long, not getting any rest. White line fever when the lines become the the white line becomes one long line. That's what people who have sleep apnea have to deal with on a regular basis. So yeah, granddaddy perp might work, it may relax your body, it be good for nighttime use, it may give you the rest that you need when you need it most. But go see your doctor. I had this conversation with my pop, you know, my dad. I said, listen, you know, he has sleep apnea, but he doesn't want to do anything about it. I tell him, bro, I said, listen, it could have killed me. It could have taken your son out there, it could have taken your firstborn out of here. Because I didn't pay attention to it because I was sleeping. Even though sleep is important, you gotta pay attention to why you're sleeping. Sleep apnea taught me something so important. Rest isn't optional. Recovery is not optional. And how we take care of each other how we take care of ourselves matters. It's no joke. You don't want to fall asleep at the wheel. I fell asleep at the wheel three times, and I'm here to live to talk to you about it. Because of sleep apnea, because I wasn't sleeping when I was supposed to sleep. I have to take care of myself. You have to take care of yourself. Not just sleep apnea, all of the topics, all of the subjects, Huntingston's disease, HIV and AIDS, chronic pain. All of these things have one common denominator. And that's people. That's why I do this. I don't do this for the I don't do this for the gram. I don't do this for likes, I don't do this for the clicks. I do this because there was a time when we couldn't do this, I couldn't talk to you. Uh we were in lockdown. So it started there, and I never gave up. And I'm never gonna give up. Because I want to help you take care of yourself. I want to continue to take care of myself. Because rest isn't optional, recovery is not optional, and how we take care of ourselves matters. This is the cannabis chronicles from Dr. Bong. Stay informed, stay intentional, stay lifted, responsibly. Always remember, always always remember. Always remember cannabis medicine.