By Jane Fix has been called the champion of Arizona’s medical cannabis industry even before the state established a medical program. This year, she was named one of her 30 most influential women in cannabis by her AZ Big Media, which oversees countless mainstream publications across the state.
It has been her mission for over 50 years to help others get educated about plants as medicine. It started when a friend’s grandmother introduced her to plants.
“We called her Grandma Peaty,” Fix said. “She was probably in her 80s and was very serious about using cannabis for arthritis pain. She lived in a small house in the canyon from the beach in Encinitas. I had a pile and sat on the kitchen and dining room tables, and she grew it herself in her backyard and told me it was the only thing that helped her with the pain. I hear it over and over again from patients with
Grandma Petey was the first to show Fix that “marijuana” was really a drug, and the first to teach her and her friends how to grow it.
“I remember her son traveling back and forth between Mexico and Grandma Petty, who was one of the first to grow sinsemilla that we knew of,” she added.
Since Sinsetilla is known to hail from southern Mexico, it makes sense that Grandma Peaty’s son was a frequent visitor. The breed is said to have been developed in his early 1950s and was first brought to the United States in the early 1960s, where folktales were told involving his David Crosby, singer-songwriter (High Times Archives, 1999). .
It’s poignant that Fix’s first weed samples were from plants grown for high tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) and may have been tested for 15% or more.
Merriam-Webster describes sinsemilla as “…very potent marijuana from female plants that are specially tended and kept seedless by preventing pollination to induce high resin content.” increase.
As a footnote, the late Southern Humboldt cannabis farmer and hybridizer Lawrence Ringo noted that in growing what we know today as high-cannabidiol (CBD) hemp, the THC in the plant was what he called “God.” It said it was meant to bring back what we call “.plants” and THC tests less than 4%. After nearly 15 years working on his pet project, as a bonus, CBD has been tested at over 14%, giving us more medicinal plants than we have today.
awe and surprise
Fix grew up in Rancho Santa Fe, Southern California. The historic Dell He Mar He Fairgrounds, which has a racetrack with the same history, is close by. She grew up in a house not far from the ocean that her father designed.
She said the cannabis caused “surprise and awe” and made her look to the natural world around her.
“I used to run 20 miles (about 20 miles) to the beach just to smoke fat and just sit and enjoy nature,” she said. “Cannabis also opened my third eye, allowing me to assert what I believed then. I was lying on the tracks that ran along it to Camp Pendleton.”
When a newspaper reporter asked her to compare alcohol and cannabis, she hesitated.
“The biggest thing I can give you is that some people treat it like a glass of wine at the end of the day,” she shared. Dennis Peron got into all sorts of trouble for saying it was always a drug, but we know it’s a drug.
That said, Fix isn’t without a good cigarette to unwind at the end of a busy day.
“My bottom line is that I love weed,” she laughed. The fact that I get a good night’s sleep as an added bonus makes it a drug.”
road to the factory
Fix also credits Grandma Peaty with influencing him to study botany at a university in California.
“I was fascinated by the billions of healing plants,” she said. rice field.”
Her education was cut short until three quarters from college when her father died and she took over the independent phone book publishing business he owned, and the company was bought by a competition. .
Having grown up riding horses, Fix went to Colorado and worked at the Sombrero stables in Estes Park in the Rocky Mountains for eight years before an injury ended his gigs.
Upon returning to Arizona, Fix returned to college and obtained a teaching position at Arizona State University. After teaching her senior year for five years, she said she doesn’t feel valued in the Arizona school system.
She considered moving to Montana, where she knew the school system was better, but fate called her 4 at Oaksterdam College, one of the nation’s first cannabis education facilities in Oakland. I decided to attend a training session for the day. , California.
defend in her hometown
When Arizona voters passed the Medical Marijuana Act, Proposition 203, in 2010, then-Governor Jan Brewer suspended pharmacy licenses by allowing patient medical cards without secure access points. . With suspension, these running collectives are under constant threat.
“I was managing a caregiver group,” she said. “It was not uncommon for the first two customers of the day to be officers from the Phoenix Police Department to ask how the operation was going. But I might add that while helping a real sick patient.
The Caregiver Collective Model began in San Francisco, California and was formally established in 1994 as the San Francisco Cannabis Buyers Club. It was founded by the aforementioned Dennis Perron (known as the father of medical marijuana) and his partner John Entwistle.
The club was founded in 1994, two years before California voters approved Proposition 215 in 1996, making California the first state to officially recognize the plant as a medicine. This, like most established medical cannabis programs, speaks to care already being taken, waiting for legislators to catch up.
During this time, Fix said she was interviewed by a local TV station at the caregiver group she worked for. When shown the interview, a reporter asked him if Fix was in danger of being arrested, to which Montgomery replied: Fix it. if she continues to operate.
“Montgomery opposed the vote to legalize cannabis and has opposed it since she was a county attorney,” she said. “When we went on air, he wanted to arrest me on set in the middle of an interview.
By December 2012, Arizona allowed the first licensed clinic to open in the city of Glendale, allowing safe access to patients and allowing Fix and others to do work. verified.
Fix eventually became director of facility operations for the collective she worked for. But after she recognized the need for a comprehensive patient services program across the cannabis industry, the position of Director of Patient Services was created for her.
no quick fix
Her botany education, combined with her degree and teaching experience, were perfect for developing an emerging cannabis industry in her hometown. served as Director of Patient Services.
Women Glow, a national organization of professional women in cannabis, voted Fix one of the top 10 most influential women in Arizona cannabis in 2015. And by 2017, she was named Director of Patient Services for Sol Flower Dispensaries owned by Copperstate Farms. In her current position, she oversees patient care for five clinics, with more clinics planned.
Fix said she has seen help with many ailments and disorders over the years, but since cannabis has become more popular and understood as a medicine, she has also found more help. I have witnessed many ailments be helped.
“Five years ago, 30% of our patients were coming to us for cancer help,” she said. “Today there are more patients with neurodegenerative diseases such as multiple sclerosis, ALS and Alzheimer’s disease. It is unfortunately used as a last resort when conventional treatments have been exhausted due to stigma.
There is no reason to lie or exaggerate the effectiveness of plants, and if patients want to wait for science, that is their prerogative.
“One tenth of people with Parkinson’s get relief after finding the dosage, which is amazing,” she added.
Medication is important, as is controlling symptoms and using cannabis for serious illness, she said.
“It all depends on the disease and what condition the patient is in,” she advised. , prefers sublingual patients to see where their sweet spot is, starting with a 5 milligram dosage and working up to a 10, 15, or 20 milligram dosage.
Education can be found on the website Sol Flower’s blog, with ongoing workshops and guest speakers invited to lecture on all aspects of plants as remedies. Its monthly calendar is packed with 101 ongoing classes on yoga, meditation, tapping, sound therapy, and adult cannabis use. Opened in 2019, the Suncity Clinic, with its café and classrooms, aims to be a kind of community center and educational venue.
As for the effectiveness of the treatment, Fix said that the plants became more acceptable as patients were helped, and that eight in 10 older people never looked back and gave up addictive and often harmful medicines. said that it is possible to
“From the time Grandma Peaty first hit, I never understood why cannabis wasn’t legal,” she concluded. “The positive effect it has had on both my own physical and mental well-being is evident and I have been using it almost daily ever since. Now that I’ve helped millions of people, I honestly still don’t understand why everyone isn’t available everywhere.”
For more information about Sol Flower, https://www.livewithsol.com/
