Charmie Gholson and Tori LaChapelle Speak at Madison Hemp Fest Saturday Oct 2, 2010
Charmie Gholson and Tori LaChapelle Speak at the 40th Annual Great Midwest Marijuana Harvest Festival on Saturday Oct 2, 2010.
Charmie Gholson
Charmie Gholson is co-owner and Editor of the Midwest’s first and only medical marijuana trade journal, The Midwest Cultivator. She is a working journalist, ghostwriter, drug policy reform advocate, mother of three sons and oldest of three sisters. She lives in Ann Arbor Michigan.
Charmie works as a staff writer for LEAP, Law Enforcement Against Prohibition, an organization of law enforcers who speak out against and work to end the failed drug war. She’s honored to work for this amazing group of cops.
From 2003-2009, Charmie created, produced and hosted Renegade Solutions, a Native Rights public affairs radio show that reported on environmental and social justice issues, including drug policy reform. She has written for many national publications, including The New York Times Magazine, and was a columnist for Current Magazine for ten years.
Charmie speaks on a wide range of topics: how and why to end the failed drug war, the rise of paramilitary drug raids, asset forfeiture (policing for profit), taking the profit out of the drug war, how to move from being an activist to an ambassador, how the drug war has skewed police priorities, and minimizing potentially dangerous interactions with police. She believes marijuana is a medicine, whether it’s used recreationally or to treat illness, and legalizing marijuana is an essential step towards a return to traditional medicines and healing.
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Tori LaChapelle
My name is Tori LaChapelle. I’m 30 years old, I’m a mom, I’m a nurse and I have fibromyalgia. I’m in pain everyday of my life. 24 hours a day. Everyday. There is no escape. What I have is widespread pain, disturbed sleep, and exhaustion from head to toe. What I have is a malfunction in the way the nervous system processes pain. There is no “pain killer” in any pharmacy today that can help me. As a nurse, I’ve watched patients struggle with pain, death, and addiction. All of which can be eased with the use of medical marijuana.
Study after study, thousands of patients and hundreds of doctors have proven that medical marijuana treatment for chronic pain is effective and safe. Yet in Wisconsin it is still illegal and I, along with millions of chronic pain patients, many of them MY patients, are still suffering. If we reach for cannabis to ease our pain at this time, we are classified as criminals when in reality it is criminal to keep from us safe and effective medicine.
It’s time for Wisconsin patients, advocates and citizens to stand up, speak out and make sure medical marijuana legislation is passed to stop the unnecessary suffering.
Tori LaChapelle, originally born and raised in Dodge City, KS relocated to the Madison area in 1999. She is the proud mother of 4 beautiful boys. She has worked closely with the terminally ill and dying, chronic pain patients and dementia patients. She will discuss the benefits of delta 9 THC for chronic pain patients and the importance of patient advocacy and decriminalization.
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Video by Jessica Struzik, treasurer, Friends of Jay Selthofner (http://www.jayselthofner.com/) and Secretary, Northern Wisconsin NORML (http://www.northernwinorml.org/)
