Americans for Safe Access

SF Chapter
Meeting Minutes for 2/7/17

Call to Order at 7:35 by Chair Alec Fernandes

11 members and 1 guest present. Introductions were made around the table.

Minutes from the 1/3/17 meeting read and approved

The mission statement for ASA was read and discussed. Copies to be handed out
when canvasing the city to educate the public and bring in potential new
members. Alec has set up an IndieGoGo page for fundraising for our local chapter.

Guest Dr. Laurie Vollen shared some of her personal story. She came from a
conventional background and was not involved in alternate medicine originally.
She did her residency in California. Then did some international work before
coming back in 2000, initially working with pharmaceuticals which provide
standard dosing with predictable side effects. Then she discovered the benefits of
cannabis as a medicine, noting that there are very few side effects. Its a superior
drug for 1st time treatment of many conditions. She has seen over 10,000 patients
in the past 16 years. Her opinion is that cannabis should be a first line drug for
conditions such as pain, anxiety, insomnia and depression. Many of her patients
are cannabis nave. So she covers modalities of treatment with her patients. She
takes them through dose-specific ingestion so that they know how much they are
taking and can find relief of symptoms without adverse effects. She demonstrated
the process she uses with her patients:

o Grind cannabis into a measureable consistency very fine by using a

teaball to grind it into a powder. (No special grinder needed.)
o Take a spoon that holds 10mg by volume of very finely ground cannabis. If
using herb with 18%THC then that 10mg spoon will contain 1.8mg of THC.
o THC is not a drug that the more you take the better the effect. It has a
sweet spot determined by receptors in the brain (CB1 receptors.) Go up on
dose slowly. The majority of her patients only need 1 spoon if they are
looking to treat a symptom successfully. Some are 2 spooners, and just a
few are 3 spooners. Finding the sweet spot she called the Goldilocks
effect. Take this dose 3-4 times per day.
o This kind of dosing is effective in treating the 4 main symptoms people
come to her for relief: pain, anxiety, insomnia, depression.
o Routes: sublingual route is the most effective.; oral dosing she is not as
keen on because of the metabolism of Delta9THC to 11HydroxyTHC,
which is much more psychoactive.
 o She only treats depression with microdosing through inhalation.
Functionality is maintained. Terpenes are very important as well. She
recommends using convection-style vaporizers because using conduction-
style vaporizers, and especially smoking cannabis, destroys the terpenes.
She brought along a device she recommends to her patients the
Grasshopper, a small pen-like device because one ten-second draw
extracts all the cannabinoids and terpenes. Strains like Jack Herer typically
are high in the terpene terpinolene, which relieves depression and
anxiety. She also recommends high CBD strains such as ACDC because it
erases the short-term memory deficit caused by THC. She recommends the
Grasshopper to be used with microdosing of the 10mg spoon of cannabis
that contains 1.8 mg THC with terpenes intact. She treats anxiety first with
sublingual tinctures and then depression symptoms with the vaporized
cannabis.

Local Updates:
o The Prop 64 excise tax of 15% will be levied on dispensaries and facored
into their pricing, and it cant be waived, but the sales tax is what will be
waived after Jan. 1, 2017, for those with state cards..

National Updates:
o Arizonas medical cannabis market is exploding, second only to California
in the number of patients: up to 115,000
o New Mexico has a bill in House Committee that would legalize the social
use of cannabis for adults age 21+ (but the governor could veto it.)

ASA Letter-writing campaigns

o Rohrbacher-Farr Amendment to continue preventing the DOJ from
using funds to disrupt state-legal medical cannabis programs
o CAREERS ACT this would reschedule cannabis to schedule II. ASA
recommends putting pressure on AG Jeff Sessions to verbalize the DOJ
policy towards cannabis.

General Announcements:
o Brownie Mary Democratic Club meets Feb. 8th at 6:30pm, 847 Howard St.
SF, *upstairs*
o SF Cannabis Task Force (SFCTF)meeting Feb. 8th at 25 Van Ness Ave., Rm.
610, from 1-4pm
o Seminar Its All About Terpenes on Feb 15th, 2700 International Blvd.,
Suite 3, Oakland from 7-8:30pm
o Next meeting March 7th at 7:30pm at 847 Howard St., SF *upstairs*

The meeting was adjourned at 8:50pm

Submitted by secretary Mike McCarty