As a certified medical cannabis patient for over 13 years, I’ve experienced firsthand the complexities of navigating medical cannabis programs in both Utah and California. That journey, combined with my time editing High Times, Culture, Dope, and other cannabis magazines, has given me the foundation—and the passion—needed to step into my role as managing editor of Salt Baked City. Educating people about the many virtues of cannabis has always been at the heart of my work, and it’s more important now than ever.
So when did all of this begin? Nearly all of my heroes loved cannabis: Bob Marley, Bruce Lee, Stephen King, The Beatles, and so on, so I was naturally drawn to it by my teens. I started writing about cannabis in 2008 after numerous submissions. In Volume 4, Issue 2 of SKUNK Magazine, a Canadian publication, I was finally published in glossy print, and I was addicted to writing about the topics that impacted me the most. My first article was about U.S. presidents who grew, consumed, or sold pot: “Presidents on Pot.” Three out of four of the first U.S. presidents, and several other Founding Fathers, farmed hemp. These are some of the facts many Americans choose to ignore.
Initially, my interests focused on the recreational merits of pot, but that all changed in 2011 when I was diagnosed with HIV. I initially thought it would be a death sentence, but I slowly learned that modern pills allow people with HIV to live near-normal lifespans. A doctor told me that, due to the side effects of HIV pills, I could wait six months before starting a pill regimen. So for the first six months after being diagnosed, I used only medical cannabis—and my viral load (numerical expression of the amount of HIV cells in a blood sample) dropped by 60,000 cells in the first two weeks, without the help of pills. I wrote about it in 2012 in Issue #34 of Treating Yourself. At one dispensary in Long Beach, a budtender refused to touch the cash I handed him to pay for my flower due to the strong stigma associated with HIV and the lack of education about the disease.
I eventually discovered that people with AIDS were kept alive with the help of cannabis, thanks to people like “Brownie Mary” J. Rathbun, who lobbied for Prop. 215, establishing the nation’s first medical cannabis program. HIV/AIDS is undoubtedly one of the main driving factors for legalizing medical cannabis. Prop. 215 co-author Dennis Peron committed to doing it after watching the only thing that helped his dying lover, Jonathan West, have any quality of life while dealing with full-blown AIDS. People dying from AIDS often succumb to wasting syndrome—the loss of appetite—and cannabis obviously helps with that.
My first mandatory HIV pill, Atripla—a combo of efavirenz, emtricitabine, and tenofovir—caused me to have powerful hallucinations about every three or four days. In South Africa, efavirenz is crushed and smoked recreationally for its psychedelic effects, as are other HIV drugs. It was like an acid trip, but at night while I was asleep, and I could remember every detail of the dreams like a lucid dream. I took the pill for two years before pills with fewer side effects were introduced, and cannabis helped me through that period. I also had to take mandatory steroids, testosterone in gel form. Even though I was on the lowest dose of testosterone, it made me angry, especially when I was driving. Cannabis also helped me control those emotions and have a better quality of life despite the pharmaceuticals I was forced to take.
I eventually graduated college with a degree in communication and set my sights on a full-time editorial role. To me, it was proof that cannabis doesn’t cause amotivational syndrome or general laziness. I learned that people in all walks of life choose to consume the plant, and in many regions of the country, it’s not necessarily considered a negative vice.
In 2015, I started writing for Culture magazine, a medical cannabis magazine based in Corona, California, becoming full-time in 2017. We shared an office with Inland Empire City Weekly. During the Wild West era of Prop. 215, the sales team would walk through the office and toss around packages of shatter, rosin, live resin—you name it. It served as a hub for the cannabis industry in Southern California. Once, Jack Herer’s son, Dan Herer, randomly walked in and I did an impromptu interview. Sometimes rappers or reggae artists would pop in for a photo shoot. The rollout of the adult-use cannabis program that same year took away the ability of companies to give free cannabis products to cannabis journalists. Just a year later, the publisher announced that Culture was purchased by High Times. Leaders soon announced that we now worked for High Times. I also started writing for Merry Jane, a cannabis news site owned by Snoop Dogg, as well as Cannabis Now magazine and Forbes.com.
Ironically, it was a dream and lifetime bucket list goal to work for High Times. I also knew that High Times founder Tom Forçade attended the University of Utah and liked to hotrod through the Bonneville Salt Flats. The job was fun, and despite my introversion, I got to meet and talk about cannabis in person with people like Snoop Dogg, John Goodman, Kevin Smith, Tommy Chong, and endless politicians. I befriended artists like “Jerome Baker” Jason Harris and Australia-based Trog, who sent me an original canvas and invited me to write the introduction to his book.
Cannabis events were happening constantly, including the High Times Cannabis Cup, Dope Cup, The Emerald Cup (my favorite), and more. I got to judge Cannabis Cup People’s Choice Edition SoCal and write about it. It was an exciting job but rarely mentioned among my family members in Utah.
Ten years after being diagnosed with HIV, High Times assigned me to write about Brownie Mary for a cover story. I tracked down one of her friends, Thomas Coy, who told me cannabis alone kept him alive when early HIV pills like AZT were failing. I learned how Brownie Mary spent every last cent preparing brownies for those living with AIDS or undergoing chemotherapy.
In 2018, when voters in Utah approved medical cannabis, I was ecstatic—and to be honest, a bit surprised—knowing the uphill battle the grassroots effort faced. Despite setbacks like losing home grow, it was a major step forward.
Medical cannabis is real—period—and people depend on it. From child and pet epilepsy to HIV/AIDS, people need access. As managing editor of Salt Baked City, spreading this message in Utah is the main goal. Together, we can loosen laws in the state and provide better access to more forms of medical cannabis in the future.
