Weekend News

War in Israel and Drugs in Thailand

"Medical" marijuana

I'm in Bangkok right now. On every corner there's a shop selling marijuana — because it's legal here.

Incredible. People used to go to prison for using marijuana, and today it's sold at the front desk of the hotel I'm in.

That means some people did time for nothing. Laws are an invention unrelated to anything but control.

Still, there are two reasons I don't touch marijuana even when it's legal.

Reason one

In the past, marijuana was a plant with healing properties — but there's no connection between today's marijuana and the original version of the plant.

Once, when marijuana grew outdoors, it was a real medicinal plant with a delicate balance of hundreds of cannabinoids and terpenes.

To understand how original marijuana functioned as medicine, you have to understand the dynamic between its active components and an internal control system in the body called the endocannabinoid system (ECS).

Unlike today's engineered marijuana that focuses on the "high," the original plant worked through a mechanism of organic wholeness.

The endocannabinoid system: We have a network of receptors whose job is to maintain biological balance (homeostasis). When the body experiences inflammation, pain, or stress, this system is supposed to activate and bring the body back into balance.

Plant cannabinoids attach to these receptors and act as external "keys" that activate the body's healing systems.

In the original plant, the mix of cannabinoids created a broad healing effect:

• CBD: anti-inflammatory and calming. Doesn't get you high — it acts as a "brake" on the nervous system, reduces anxiety, protects brain cells (neuroprotective), and modulates pain. In the original plant, CBD was present in meaningful amounts that balanced out the THC.
• THC: in its natural, moderate form, helped with deep pain relief, appetite, and sleep. The problem today isn't the substance itself, but the unnaturally high dose that burns out dopamine receptors.
• Secondary cannabinoids (CBG, CBN): helped with bone building, reducing intraocular pressure, fighting infections.

Modern genetic engineering wiped out the calming, balancing CBD and shot up the psychoactive THC to unnatural numbers.

Why is the healing gone?

Today, when the plant is grown in warehouses under artificial light and engineered for THC only, we lose much of the components needed to get its healing properties.

• Artificial growing and fast drying destroy delicate terpenes
• Modern strains contain almost no CBD, leaving THC naked and aggressive on the nervous system
• The sun's spectrum produces rare cannabinoids that don't exist in indoor growth — making the modern plant flat and one-dimensional, causing dopamine flooding instead of deep healing

Modern marijuana is no longer a medicinal plant — it's a dopamine bomb that creates anxiety, disconnection from the body, and hormonal disruption.

Reason two — legalization

In other words, the system's involvement.

Look at who's leading the legalization wave — the same pharma corporations and governments that once fought the plant.

A Guardian article covered the massive entry of tobacco and pharma companies into the cannabis market as a strategic business move. They describe the shift from medicinal plant to corporate shelf product.

It's no longer marijuana with healing properties — it's "medical" marijuana. And like any drug, it has side effects, is addictive, and does more harm than good.

This isn't a gospel of freedom — it's a tool for control.

A public that consumes cheap dopamine on a regular basis is an apathetic, passive, easy-to-manage public.

The system doesn't want you awake, vital, and sovereign. It wants you in mental fog, dependent on a substance that keeps you on the couch while the world around you is being shaped according to its interests.

I prefer a direct connection to reality — pleasant and unpleasant — with no corporate filters, and no drugs designed to numb the soul.

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A war of consciousness, first

It hasn't sunk in that we've been at war continuously for years now.

What do we have to do with wars?

Everyone reading this isn't interested in war — and I'm telling you with certainty, no matter what you're seeing on the news or social media.

No sane person rushes to war. And if someone thinks it's justified, it's because they've been told too many stories far from reality.

Wars are byproducts of vested interests. Their interests don't match ours.

So our world lost it.

It's pretty clear when you realize they started a war to distract us from discovering that most of the world's leaders are involved in trafficking minors, ped0philia, and planning pandemics.

And every time, we get sucked into the events of the hour.

It's hard not to let it affect us emotionally, in terms of safety, economically, or at the most basic level — the need to be present in your own life.

To be invested in your family, your friends, your immediate surroundings. That's the real price you pay.

Every moment you invest energy in war, or in the world's injustices, is a moment you're not investing in your life.

You must not invest energy in the bad things happening.

Each of us has to make an effort not to allow irrelevant distractions space in our immediate lives.

As long as nothing has happened to you or your family — ignore the news. Examine only what's happening inside you and in your life.

We have no control over what happens outside us. But we have control over what happens inside us and how we respond to life.

This week I heard a wise man say:

The more secular humans became — meaning the more distant from belief in higher powers — the more they found logic in handing their power and their faith over to the government, "science," the army, the city, "leadership," the courts, and so on.

We've been steered, for years, away from a meaningful life and a life of faith. Wars are the result.

What can you do?

Eat nourishing food. It's more important now than ever — because if you add bad habits and nutritional toxins on top of stress, the body will be hurt even more.

And more than anything? Meditation.

What does it do?

Shrinks the amygdala (the stress center). Meditation reduces the density of gray matter in the brain responsible for the fight-or-flight response. The result: you're less activated by stressful triggers, and your emotional responses become more moderate.

Thickens the prefrontal cortex. This is the area responsible for decision-making, focus, and impulse control. You become better at pausing and breathing before reacting impulsively.

Quiets the Default Mode Network (DMN). Calms the brain network responsible for "mind wandering" (monkey mind). Reduces intrusive thoughts about the past or worries about the future and increases presence.

Grows the hippocampus. More gray matter in the area critical for memory, learning, and emotional stability.

Strengthens the insula (body awareness). Improves the ability to identify physical sensations and emotions before they take you over completely.

It means your brain rewires itself from survival and reactivity to stability and awareness.

Want to learn to practice? Tools for Change course.

Or want to understand how to heal yourself with food? Gut Rules course.

So we can all get through this period well — I'm offering 25% off all courses and bundles.

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Shabbat shalom.

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