It was November 1989 and I was in Garmisch Paten Kirchen, Germany visiting my best friend and backpacking around Europe. The news was showing pictures of riots and a hole in The Wall which had separated East and West Germany the day before. A few weeks later I boarded a train to watch history being made at Checkpoint Charlie.
It was surreal: hundreds of military personnel guarding a border that no longer was recognized by anyone, including them! Their guns were real, and their tanks were quite intimidating. I stole a chunk of the wall right in front of a guard. It still sits on my stepfather’s desk. There was no more border or country to protect. Yet the military paraded tanks right down main-street at noon just like they always had since 1949.
There was no banking, because East Germany did not recognize the West German mark and nobody recognized East Germany at all. There was no passport control because the county no longer existed, but nobody knew what that meant. The guard just looked at me as I rented a hammer and chisel and broke off my own chunk of history in the form of asbestos-filled concrete.
We are facing the same situation with marijuana today. The government--or at least some of our governments--are just beginning to realize the benefits of legalizing medical marijuana. However, as a patient, I sure don’t want to be the one who gets shot because I walked too far behind the lines.
With Colorado and Washington passing recreational marijuana and 18 other states endorsing medical marijuana, the tax revenue and financial implications of the end of prohibition are beyond argument. But who is really willing to stand in front of the tanks when people are still going to jail?
I have always liked cannabis as a recreational drug, but I would never stare down a gun for my right to get high. However, when I faced peritonitis and incessant nausea, it was no longer about government authority keeping me from listening to Pink Floyd, it was government authority denying me relief from nausea and sickness. And no government has that right.
Once I got into the marijuana industry, I learned that millions of people have found relief from cannabis. It is especially effective for anyone suffering from Oh Fuck disease. Oh Fuck is any disease that there just is not much that can be done about it--nausea, depression, incessant pain, MS, PTSD, wasting disease, AIDS, cancer and on and on. Cannabis works as a mood stimulant, anti-inflammatory, anti-nausea, short term memory loss agent, appetite stimulant and a host of other effects that are priceless when you are suffering from Oh Fuck.
Today, cannabis is back to being a recreational drug for me. My nausea and major stresses are over. But that is not true for millions of Oh Fuck sufferers who are willing to break federal law in order to feel human.
It took tremendous courage to walk past that guard through the wall that would have had me shot a few weeks before. It takes courage for a species to evolve.
Pandora’s Puff - Blog 2
As I mentioned in my first blog, I live on the edge of prohibition. Peritonitis showed me the moral door, my computer experience showed how technology can legitimize an industry, and the governments are eating up the tax revenue like crack cocaine. Mission accomplished. Cannabis prohibition is over, Utah just does not know it yet.
But this begs me to ask the question (perhaps a bit too late), what are the consequences of this? While MJ Freeway is on the cutting edge of compliance and tracking guidelines, there is a company called TetraLabs that is on the cutting edge of cannabis development.
They manufacture a product called PureGold™ and it is the finest cannabis extract I have found on the market. It is only available in California and Washington right now, but that will change with time and it can be delivered anywhere in California if you have a recommendation. PureGold can be consumed in an ecigarette that is the ultimate evolution of cannabis consumption in a socially responsible setting.
To the outside observer, there is absolutely no difference between puffing on an ecigarette with legal nicotine, or legal cannabis. While cannabis is only recreationally legal in Washington and Colorado, it is also legal in 18 states, if you have nausea. And the war on drugs certainly makes me nauseous.
The ecigaretts don’t hurt your lungs, can be done anywhere, inside or out, without any offense being taken by anyone for the odorless vapor puff that dissipates in seconds. You don’t smell like incriminating weed, you can do it in public without attracting attention to yourself, there is nothing to light and most importantly, it gets you high. The future for people who want to use cannabis recreationally or medically without offending non-smokers is the GoldPen from TetraLabs.
Like all cutting edges, the downside of the ecigarette is the same as the upside. Its odorless, does not hurt your lungs, is much more efficient on weed because nothing is burned, and is very strong. So what’s the downside again, sorry, I was high and don’t remember?
On Friday night I joined a group of friends for a Michael Jackson tribute band at Red Rocks. The tickets were cheap and I would watch paint dry at Red Rocks on a Colorado summer night. I took my trusty GoldPen™ from Tetralabs filled with PureGold™ oil and joined my friends in the 12 row. Imagine what it would have taken to get 12th row tickets to see the real Michael Jackson?
While this performer had a very passable Michael Jackson voice, his 6 foot plus body frame simply could not do justice to the King of Pop’s moves. I found myself wanting more and more PureGold to compensate for the disappointment. Because this stuff lasts forever, I can consume as much as I want. The problem is you don’t really realize how much you have consumed, because unlike alcohol, there is no nausea when you get too high. Hence my peritonitis appifiny of cannabis as a medicine.
When the concert was over, I was stumbling. I have never been stumbling high in my life. I was unable to operate a car. I knew I would fail a roadside sobriety test, and because weed stays in your system for 21+ days, there is no doubt my blood will fail a blood test for weeks. Fortunately, I took my campervan and I made myself a bowl of mac and cheese while waiting for the traffic to clear. I wonder what everyone else too high or drunk to drive did?
When it seemed clear that I was sober enough to drive, I got behind the wheel and burned rubber at 45 miles per hour down I-70 safely home.
What is my point? With concentrates, edibles, ecigaretts and the ever increasing strength of cannabis, we have unleashed a Pandora’s Bowl that humanity is not expecting with the legalization of cannabis.
Likely, nobody will die from these super strength, longer acting, less offensive concoctions, but hundreds of people will get behind the wheel after a Red Rocks concert next summer after having legally purchased this device or infused gummy bears in a liquor type store on their way up. They will join me going 45 miles down the highway in the stoner lane, but somebody is going to fall asleep and make the front page of USA Today and it won’t be pretty.
Read my lips, the next few years in the evolution of cannabis will be chaos. Lives will be lost, families will be broken, focus will be fractured, music will be relished, nature and energy will be empowered and our world will irrevocably change.
Cannabis is guilty of all of the crimes it is accused of, and as we experiment with this magical herb to expand our consciousness and our clothing, there will be bumps on the road. I happen to have a 2x4 permanently implanted in my forehead as a consequence of weed. But that is what happens when you are on the cutting edge.
What was life like the year alcohol prohibition ended? Were there a lot of drunk drivers? Were families devastated? Or, did we as a species recognize that alcohol was a powerful medicine needing to be treated with respect and dignity? Did we regulate our use and experimentation? Did we become a nation of alcohol addicts? Have we yet evolved our relationship with alcohol? Yes cannabis is safer than alcohol. But both are very powerful medicines and should be treated with respect. Duh!
In the end, the cannabis debate is about personal liberties. If I have a right to Viagra I have a right to cannabis and ideally to both at the same time. They are both recreational drugs and my prescription plan does not cover either one. But make no mistake, the war is not over and the last casualty has not been lost.
The Tiger Woods of Vaporware - Blog 3
Since I left MJ Freeway, I find myself contemplating what I will do next in my life. With time and space now to evaluate my skills and boil them down, I have come to this conclusion:
I am the Tiger Woods of Vaporware.
And the story goes a little somethin’ like this:
When I was in the 10th grade, I wrote my first software. It was a heaven sent moment of simplicity in the high school computer lab. The guy on my right was playing with the first font simulator and the guy on my left was trying to make a big piano keyboard. I put the two of them together and solved a problem that engineers had been working months to figure out. Big tech in 1982 for a boy.
What my teacher Dr. Irwin Hoffman said after the meeting with industry executives that changed my life was that I had the “Gift of Gab.” No other teacher put it that way--they all said I was “Full of Shit.”
It was then that I realized I had a unique skill. I could describe a software’s (and later business’s) capabilities in vivid detail before it was built, so people would pay money for it. At ADP, we called that “Vaporware.”
You see, software has a basic life cycle that goes like this:
• Ideaware - An idea typically drummed up on a cocktail napkin after too many drinks.
• Brochureware - The idea looks solid enough to pitch.
• Vaporware -The concept is baked enough to collect money.
• Software - You have actually delivered something that everybody hates.
• Sunset - You are off to the newest Vaporware which fixes the bugs you created in the last Software.
… and everyone makes money, especially during the vaporware period.
This is how most software companies still operate--or at least they did until Software as a Service (SAAS). In fact, thanks to the SAAS model, we will never stop working on making our customers’ lives more complicated. But I’m talking about Vaporware.
Vaporware represents the most magnificent stage of business growth. It’s the magical time during which you can collect revenue without having to deliver. At ADP we always stretched that period out so far that everyone was ready for the next Ideaware before any code actually needed to be built.
At MJ Freeway, we had blessed customer advisory board clients. Another trick I learned from ADP: Make your most vocal clients, your biggest advocates. (Bless you people who put your faith in MJ Freeway long before we had fully valuable software.)
But the true skill that I brought to MJ Freeway was the ability to collect revenue from customers, angel bridge funders, and industry integration partners based on a view of the future. That’s selling Vaporware. Lets build a federally incriminating system so that our customers can prove state compliance. Talk about a cutting edge.
Today, MJ Freeway software is by far the most robust in the industry. It’s well beyond Vaporware. The next Vaporware for cannabis is in banking. (Yes, I am well aware that it is federally regulated, schedule 1, blah, blah, blah.) If businesses can’t put their money in a safe place, pay taxes, do payroll, and run like a business, then it is called “the mafia.” And we all know how that worked during alcohol prohibition. Or at least I have seen a lot of movies.
The distribution and taxation of marijuana is still largely being crafted by governments. MJ Freeway has played and will continue to play a major role in the evolution of cannabis (and the end of prohibition). Banking sits at the center, and MJ Freeway sits at the center of banking because it tracks all the money and product and even the patients.
Banking won't be called banking because banking is federally regulated. It will be called something else. I like the idea of financial cooperative, or kaboose, just because its a funny word. Funds invested are used to support the industry and all funds are in the industry so the threat of seizure would be less risky because 100% of the portfolio would be State legal cannabis. We would fund the fight to secure the money rather than back out at a federal letter like every bank has done since this industry looked lucrative.
It’s not worth it to a bank to risk their portfolio on a lawsuit with the federal government. But it just might be worth it to an organization that has no other funds other than state sanctioned, federally illegal funds. And this my friends is the bleeding and cutting edge of the cannabis prohibition story. This is where billions will be made and potentially lost. It all comes down to courage and timing. Someone was the first person to walk through the hole in the Berlin wall, and not get shot.
Not an easy problem to solve, but the time to solve it is now. Before Guido fills his violin case with joints and bullets.
The bottom line is that governments don’t have a right to keep a sick person from the healing properties of cannabis. The rest is semantics. And the calm at the center is one remaining privately owned inventory, point of sale, compliance and patient management system.
And we never would have gotten this far if it weren’t for Vaporware.
I used to be embarrassed about my skill. I have not coded since high school. But I have helped visualize three systems that have processed over $1b in transactions and MJ Freeway will soon be the fourth.
So while I am not skilled at much, I am a key person when you need a Tiger Woods of vaporware. Give me a call. I have some free time.
The Hairy Edge of Cannabis - Blog 4
Like many cannabis users, I considered the drug a recreational outlet--until I discovered its value as a healing medicine...as well as its power to devastate. A weed that commands tremendous respect, it provides medical benefits that no pharmaceutical can match, while also possessing the potential to destroy your equanimity, relationships and productivity.
There’s no denying, it sits on the same shelf with other additive things--from caffeine, to sex, to sugar--which when abused can produce disastrous consequences.
I am very fortunate to no longer need cannabis for nausea. But if the medical need arises again, I will not hesitate to use it as a remedy. I will also use it when I am not able to control my equanimity through the other tools I have honed for that purpose. Cannabis has helped me quit all pharmaceuticals after suffering a mental illness mis-diagnosis and prescription remedy.
...But here’s the catch: Cannabis also contributed to my having the symptoms that lead to the mis-diagnosis in the first place. I had placed unrealistic expectations on its ability to fix my life and neglected to actively seek balance and support through other means.
For me, balance includes exercise, meditation, journaling, work and contribution. These pillars strengthen my ability to maintain equanimity. When they are not consciously developed, and instead replaced with a “crutch” such as weed or alcohol or other faulty substance, they will not withstand the pressures of daily life and will eventually fail. And often when one crutch slips, they all fall like dominos.
I have spent my entire professional life on the cutting edge of technology. I have helped develop four $1B+ computer systems that have been industry game changers--incredible experiences that make the coincidences of my life hard to ignore. The most profound and timely system I helped build is MJ Freeway, the crucial piece of technology that has played a significant role in educating governments on the rampant financial and diversion control possibilities with medical cannabis.
Now that the medical cannabis door is open, governments are realizing that the war on cannabis is a farce. Cannabis does not make people violent or aggressive. In fact, it’s just the opposite--it enhances one’s awareness of energy and the interconnectedness of all things. It reveals that Karma is not merely a theory but a cosmic law. On the “down” side, it limits productivity in many people. But frankly, that may not be such a bad side effect as relentless productivity is undeniably destroying our planet.
We gotta face it--we’re the weak link. It feels good to get high, and stay high. And many people function perfectly well in their chosen high--whether it’s alcohol, Ativan, Ambien, affairs or any other addiction as we go through the alphabet. Achieving the all-elusive state of balance and inner peace presents a lifelong challenge for everyone.
In the next couple years we will witness and experience great strides in the evolution of the human race. For the first time in history, cannabis will be widely available to the general public as a recreational drug with the only limiting factor being self-control. (Yes, although it will only be recreationally available in Washington and Colorado, most state governments are preparing for the inevitable. Cannabis is on its way to full legalization--the tax implications alone are paving the way.)
And as Cannabis infiltrates our current “reality,” many will experiment and experience the effects of this potent plant. Some may feel paranoia, while others may face the stripping away of the boundary between reality and energy--an equally inspiring and terrifying glimpse too intense for many. For those who experience the opening of endless doors to the mind, they may want to return again and again. And as one loss of inhibition leads to another, some will learn the hard way that the herb does not mix well with alcohol and other drugs.
I was not around for the end of alcohol prohibition, but I imagine it was much the same scenario. The weak link has never been the substance or the government or the dollar--it’s always been us and our (lack of) self-control.
