10/01/2008: "For people who are sick and can't get "pot" there's still a hell of a lot of other things they need to do to take care of themselves. For people who are really trying to heal, medmj is a crucial component of their recovery plan but it's never the make or break factor. Pot can't save lives, people need to take care of themselves and to be honest: medmj is usually one of the things that keeps them from doing it."
UPDATE 09/09/2006
Demonstrations in Sacramento in between festivals!
Americans for Safe Access Sacramento respondes to raids in Modesto and Granada Hills with signs and Spirit
This week, patients have suffered a significant loss in safe access, as three medical cannabis dispensing collectives were raided, showing a disturbing trend in cooperation between local law enforcement and the DEA. The first raid set off the Emergency Response Project, as patients and advocates protested today at noon at DEA and police headquarters in Los Angeles, Modesto, Oakland, Sacramento, San Diego, San Francisco and Santa Ana. Hundreds of patients and advocates rallied statewide and garnered media attention at several of the actions. Thanks to all who participated on such short notice!
On Wednesday, California Healthcare Collective, a non-profit dispensary in Modesto was raided by the DEA with the cooperation of Modesto police. As a result of the raid, four people were arrested and charged federally. Several pounds of medical marijuana and cash were also seized. The raid came a day after the City voted to repeal a provision exempting non-profits from its ordinance banning dispensaries.
On Thursday, four people were taken into custody after local and federal law enforcement agents raided North Valley Discount Caregivers dispensary in Granada Hills, seizing all of its medicine on-site. Two employees were released later that day from federal custody. The other two are still in state custody with a combined $1,000,000 bail.
Also, Thursday night, the Stanislaus Sheriff (possibly in collaboration with a task force that included federal or deputized agents) raided the 2816 Collective, a medical marijuana dispensary near Modesto in the unincorporated area of Stanislaus County. A state search warrant was used to raid the dispensary and at least two homes. Police seized approximately 2 pounds of dried marijuana and hundreds of patient files. The 2816 Collective had closed its doors Wednesday and Thursday (the day of the raid) because of the Wednesday DEA raid on the California Healthcare Collective in Modesto. It is believed that the 2816 Collective was the last dispensary in that entire region, and its closure represents a complete lack of access for hundreds if not thousands of patients in the area. No charges have been filed yet in this latest raid.
(text from Rebecca Saltzman's ASA CA Weekly Alert, photos are by "Texas Andrew" of Sacramento ASA; Sept. 29, Federal Court at 5th&Ist in Sacramento.)
UPDATE 08/23/2006
I am picture number 6 on the Seattle PI's Hempfest Story. The message that the photographer jotted down about me was perect, it's almost everything I would want the public to know about what they are seeing here.
Thanks, Seattle!
Seth Matrisziano uses a magnifying glass to light the pot in his bong Sunday at Hempfest. He says he uses the cold water extraction system to get the benefits from the marijuana to treat Crohn's disease. He says fumes from a lighter affect the illness.
(August 20, 2006)
Grant M. Haller/Seattle Post-Intelligencer
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One by one: we've got to be the kind of people who take our responsibilites more seriously than we are ever going to present ourselves. This cooperative has not the capacity for those that seek to pass the buck on individuality, there is no room for the kind of person that is going to look at another's achievements as any justification for their not accomplishing everything within their range of possibilities.
Making it as a people means that we've all got to pull our own weight. The time has come to pick up that cosmic slack.
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Last March I moved from juggling my character between a dozen seperate social camps throughout the Sacramento MMJ Dispensary scene and began living in Upper Lake for the first time since x-mas 2004.
Craig (an old friend and one of the primary visionaries of Eddy's Medicinal Gardens) had been calling me for over two months with warnings about Linda (the visionary of this Ministry) not having much time left.
Linda was dying of stage IV lung cancer. Nowadays she's living with it. The first time I visited, either January or February, can't remember if grandpa was buried yet or not, she was delerious sucking on a "vaporizer" explaining to everyone she could that the giant joints that her husband rolls are what her doctor said were the worst thing for cancer... Every time I came back she was smoking more and more and today she puts as many cigarettes a day through herself as anyone else who consumes the things.
My own health was worsening at the time. I had been constantly stressed and working through every waking moment of my day, working in my sleep too the way I'd rise from rest with clear intentions on what I would be out to accomplish. The little video clip under "heroes" was shot at the peak of having burdened myself.
When Grandpa died on February 13th (happy anniversary) my reasons for living in Sacramento full time could no longer match what I felt it was doing to my health.
My family in Upper Lake did everything that they could to keep me here, and by the first week of March I was explaining my absence to my friends at the dispensaries. I told myself that if I was going to be able to find "shake" (raw marijuana leaves and trimmings) for "the cooperative" to process into coldwater hash capsules (standardized 50mg hash capsules capable of directly competing with pharmaceutical equivalents, providing four to six hours of relief per dose) that I would have to stay at EMG in order to hit the events where I would make the connections that would provide the shake.
The John Trudell show at Area 101 the first week of March was the first of these events. This was somewhere that the elders were going to trip, where they would be making decisions about how best to arrange the resources in our worlds. It was the kind of time where whenever I couldn't avoid seeing an elder's face new concepts and high goals would flood through consciousness uninvited. (that's what I get for wearing white.)
It's been five months now.
"The Cooperative" didn't end up finding any consistent source for bulk amounts of shake this season. The Cannapsules haven't been made availible to patients beyond the two storefronts that have always had them in inventory, orders for the product from owners and managers of dispensaries throughout this tour I have never had the capacity to fill.
Linda has been doing well. She's been off chemo for almost two months and regaining more of her spirit with each passing day, it's been weeks since I can remember being woken to the muted wail of her sobbing through the giant unsealed windows of this giant haunted house.
And I'm also doing well.
I was having trouble reading since nearly starving to death in 2004, about two weeks ago I picked up Tuesdays with Morrie a friend had been wanting to share with me, and to my surprize I finished the book within a week. The next time I was at the Sac Natural Food CoOp I picked up a hardcover copy of "Eat Right for your Blood Type" and I'm happy to say that I'm more than 75% of the way through it. There is nothing so empowering as being able to educate myself with facts that constantly effect the world I live in, at the same time: there was nothing as discouraging as being so far gone that so much as reading a cheap little book was too much to take on.
I can't wait to get Be Here Now by Ram Dass to discover why it was reccomended to me.
I can't say that I'm in the best of health, but I can honestly proclaim that I have never felt as full of life as I do today and that there is no doubt in my mind that tomorrow and everyday afterward will be nothing more than a consistent ascension towards reaching the capacity to share the relief I've managed to unlock for myself from cannabis through manufacturing these capsules past the point of surplus.
this is seth
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This story began in late two-thousand-two; the year I got my "crohn's disease" diagnosis, was dropped from two high schools for truancy, and began harvesting medical herbs.
What seemed at first to be a simple alternative to finding a traditional career quickly became a lifestyle, and for two years medical marijuana has given me the privilege of working alongside a better assortment of highly specialized misfits than one could ever pray for. The family I've found throughout the world's Medical Marijuana Community has led me along what I see as an honorable path and trusted me with great resposibilities.
....
One of the most lasting impressions i've gained through trodding this path was found in Upper Lake, California, at Eddy's Medicinal Gardens and Multi-Denominal Chapel of Rastafar I: I got to see Eddy gather a small fortune through providing rooted marijuana cuttings to patients, and through him i was able to begin picking the brains of truly experienced ganja women and men.
eventually the picture became clear: i began to understand that what we witness passing through the "Dispensaries" as Medical Marijuana doesn't have enough to do with who the needs of patients as it ought to. the money here is from sick people, one by one we've got to give and do more for them in order to make this right.
Now I'm doing a lot more than picking brains and making opinions.
The Gardens in Upper Lake are long gone, raided twice in six months by the military and taking Eddy hostage for over three months of 2005..
But Upper Lake wasn't even my home town. That city is Sacramento, the Capitol of California where a progressive yet conservative community of Ganjakind have been dispensing marijuana at fair value to people who provide proof of doctor's reccomendation for Cannabis Therapy.
It's through these stores that I've become a regular provider of this strange medicine to local patients, finding satisfaction in their relief.
all that being said:
I don't feel like I'm fulfilling my purpose in life without personally providing medicine directly to terminally ill patients at least several times a week.
Getting clones to growers and having 50mg hash capsules on the shelves is a mere vehicle for what I consider to be the real work I've become obligated to.
Patients First
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