According to a report this year from the esteemed Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA), fatal overdoses caused by prescription painkillers dropped dramatically in states where cannabis is legal for medical and recreational use.

Access to medical cannabis, according to the study, is responsible for an overall 25% drop in fatalities associated with prescription drugs taken for chronic pain.  The study also expects such fatalities to continue to drop as cannabis reform across the country allows more people to legally access the drug for medical purposes.

Study authors in fact believe that people who have chronic pain tend to rely on medical cannabis when they have this option, which also dramatically reduces the risk of addiction and overdose of other used medications.

“We think that people with chronic pain may be choosing to treat their pain with cannabis rather than with prescription painkillers, in states where this is legal,” said lead author Dr. Marcus Bachhuber, a researcher with the Center for Health Equity Research and Promotion at the Philadelphia Veterans Affairs Medical Center.

By Paul Lenda
Guest Writer for Wake Up World

The past is but a fluttering memory, the future is still a magical mystery, and the present is the true moment of direct experience of this thing we call Life. If we position our awareness towards something with attention, and intention, we can greatly expand our understanding of it. By having our attention in focus, we are attending to reality with our awareness. We selectively narrow and focus our consciousness and receptivity deeply within the present moment to expand our understanding.

A Zen Understanding

To help illustrate attention, here is a fantastic zen understanding of it...

Ben Rich is a UCLA engineering alumnus who was also the director of Lockheed Martin’s super high tech aircraft division called Skunk Works from 1975 to 1991. Rich admits that the key to space travel among the stars is not necessarily advanced mechanics, or the ultimate rocket fuel, but something more esoteric – ESP.

One of the main hurdles to mankind in reaching other worlds off-planet has been the sheer distance and time it would take to get there. Our current space shuttles (at least with the horse-and-buggie-like technology that has been released to the public) only travel 17,500 miles per hour. This means that visiting the second nearest star to our planet, Proxima Centauri, a meager 4.22 light years away, would take several life times. Of course, then there are fuel costs, which would be more than prohibitive using conventionally imagined space travel.

Worm holes could be used like short cuts through Sunday traffic, and ‘warp drive’ or anti-gravity, which Boeing has admitted to working on could also shorten the ride, but we’d still be looking at more rocket fuel than Exxon, Saudi Aramco, Royal Dutch Shell, Chevron, and BP combined have ever even sneezed at.

Pompeii was still recovering from widespread destruction from a previous earthquake back in 62 AD when on the 20th of August of 79 AD a series of earthquakes started to become more regular. Over the next four days the region was shaken by rumblings beneath the earth. The quakes became ever more frequent and intense; on the 24th of August 79AD, Mount Vesuvius erupted spewing out a deadly cloud of stones, ash and fumes to a height of twenty miles. The eruption of Mount Vesuvius destroyed the city of Pompeii which was buried beneath metres of volcanic ash. An estimated 16,000 people died from the eruption. The people of Pompeii were unprepared and did not take the warning signs seriously. There were no attempts to evacuate Pompeii or the surrounding areas prior to the eruption.

The story of Mt Vesuvius and Pompeii helps explain creeping normalcy. Creeping normalcy is a term used to describe how gradual changes can be accepted as the normal situation if these changes happen slowly, or incrementally...