In Canada, especially in Vancouver, British Columbia, it’s a battle between Chinese heroin (fentanyl) and Canadian cannabis. Outside the allowable parameters of the debate is the solution: how cannabis is used for rehabilitation and how to safely self-rehab with cannabis usage.

You can quit meth with cannabis rehab. Rehab for alcohol should include cannabis-based medicines. Or forget the rehab centre altogether.

Safely self-rehab with cannabis usage from the comfort of your home.

People are struggling with substance use. It’s not just people living on the street overdosing on Chinese heroin.

Many overdoses have been in homes where the victim is a regular working Joe or Jane enjoying their drug of choice after work. A tainted supply is poisoning them.

The obvious solution is to legalize all drugs and deal with the consequences as they arise. 

The only other alternative is the status quo: A tainted street drug supply killing people. And big pharma profiting from a “safe supply” funded by taxpayers and immune to criticism because of “Science” and “Public Health.”

Of course, there is another alternative. A made-in-Canada solution that:

1. Empowers individuals to overcome their substance use problems
2. Benefits Canadians economically and has little impact on the taxpayer
3. Is a safer alternative to handing out free hydromorphone pills

Just as we look at specific parts of history and think, “How could they be so dumb?” Future historians will say the same about this period.

We have records amount of people overdosing on Chinese heroin. The obvious solution is to legalize all drugs so there’s a regulated supply. As well as looking into how cannabis is used for rehabilitation.

But these aren’t conversations “public health” wants to have.

How Cannabis is Used for Rehabilitation

“Aren’t you just replacing one addiction with another?” is the common complaint about cannabis rehabilitation, especially self-rehab cannabis use.

But the very idea is patently absurd.

Human beings are creatures of habit. If you give up one habit, you’ll fill in the gaps with another. It’s impossible to be human without having habits. The key is to form habits that are healthy and make life worthwhile.

And suppose “public health” is right about cannabis and other drugs. Let’s give them the benefit of the doubt.

Isn’t withdrawing from opioids far worse than doing the same with cannabis? Would you rather see people living on the street overdosing from Chinese heroin or blazed out of their minds on potent cannabis?

Does it not make sense to use cannabis as an “addiction medicine” until the person is free of harder drugs? Then, they can focus on eliminating their cannabis habit. (If they so choose).

That’s the essence of how cannabis is used in rehabilitation. It is part of the “harm reduction” paradigm doctors and researchers take seriously.

Withdrawing from opioids, meth, cocaine, etc., is painful. Cannabis alleviates pain and has no lethal overdose. Why is this even a debate?

The fact that “public health” still casts shadows over medical cannabis (and smoking cannabis) is criminal in the face of the opioid crisis.

Regarding Chinese heroin vs. Canadian cannabis, many in public health are doing more harm than good with their ideological anti-cannabinoid stance.

Public health will claim there needs to be more research. But as we’ll see, they’re just not looking hard enough. Or perhaps they don’t want to see the evidence even when presented right to them.

Safely Self-Rehab with Cannabis Usage?

It’s not just Chinese heroin (fentanyl) vs. Canadian cannabis. You can quit meth with cannabis rehab and overcome problematic alcohol drinking with cannabis. 

You can even overcome “behavioural addictions” like sex, porn, gambling, video games, or excessive phone usage with cannabis.

And you can safely self-rehab with cannabis usage.

Many believe rehabilitation (or rehab) is a structured and therapeutic process involving the latest medical, psychological, and social interventions to help individuals stop using drugs.

But not all rehabs are created equal. Some look for underlying causes and have the patient develop skills and support systems to maintain a drug-free lifestyle.

Others focus on preference changes. Some focus on behavioural therapy, while others provide a cocktail of pharmaceuticals as the solution.

The idea of “self-rehab” is not recognized among the “addiction experts.” There is room for “self-recovery” and “self-treatment,” but the experts insist on their professional help.

To be fair, some drugs require a physical detox. That isn’t something you want to self-administer.

But beyond physical detoxification, what good are the “addiction experts” populating various rehab centres?

Without their help (so goes the argument), an individual is prone to “relapse” since they don’t have the “tools” to manage “cravings” and “triggers.”

But this is all made-up language to describe habits.

“Addiction experts” have built up the allure of drugs so that, when they tell a patient they must never touch it again, they’re basically saying: “You’re going to have a supermodel in your bed every night for the rest of your life. But you can’t touch her.“

A better approach would dispel the magic of Chinese heroin (or meth or alcohol). Ideally, the patient goes to bed feeling like not having the drug in their system is like sleeping with a supermodel.

Safely Self-Rehab with Cannabis Usage

No matter the drug or activity, forgoing something you’ve made a habit out of is hard, especially at night when you’re trying to sleep.

That’s why many former “hard” drug users find relief with cannabis. It takes the edge off the opioid (or meth, alcohol, etc.) withdrawals and helps them sleep.

And once they’re free of the Chinese heroin, if they so choose, they can stop cannabis use as well. Aside from insomnia or boredom, there aren’t many cannabis withdrawal symptoms to watch out for.

Suppose you view your cannabis usage as an addiction medicine you will eventually wean off from. In that case, you probably won’t feel any withdrawal from cannabis at all.

Our culture tends to conflate what drugs do to the brain and body with what they do to the mind. And so far, research suggests drugs do not affect the mind.

Drugs change our physiological state. No one denies that. Cannabinoid or opioid receptors get activated; ethanol crosses the blood-brain barrier.

But the mind is entirely metaphysical. Often, we interpret the feeling in our brain and body as somehow changing the content of our thoughts. But that’s cultural conditioning reinforced by “public health” and “addiction experts.”

Once you separate your mind from your body, framing drug habits as choices becomes easier to manage. To the point that, if you so choose, you can moderate your use of Chinese heroin.

Chinese Heroin vs. Canadian Cannabis

This is what “public health” fails to understand.

Someone living on the street doing Chinese heroin isn’t doing it just for the physical effects. They likely have some underlying condition that they believe fentanyl is helping with.

And “addiction experts” are right there to cheer them on. Believing that fentanyl is helping, just not in the proper way.

If you want to safely self-rehab with cannabis usage, it’s best to throw away this paradigm completely. 

Drugs can’t relieve you from your thoughts. All they can do is affect your brain and body, which your autonomous mind interprets as relief.

So, if you’re physically withdrawing from Chinese heroin, then the physical effects of cannabis are a relief. But if you’re tempted to gamble, for example, and you use cannabis to “open up the third eye” and think of the situation objectively – that’s technically magic.

You’ve just interpreted the effects of cannabis to help you think through a problem. And there’s a good reason for it. 

THC is like the runner’s high. It’s relaxing, and when you’re physically relaxed, your mind becomes tranquil. New ideas sprout up, and you make connections you previously never noticed.  

You can achieve this effect from meditation or an intense workout. But cannabis is like an on-demand runner’s high without exerting yourself. No wonder it’s popular, especially among people trying to get off harder drugs.

Chinese Heroin vs Canadian Cannabis: A Made in Canada Solution

As mentioned, there is a Made-in-Canada solution to the opioid crisis. And it doesn’t involve handing out more opioids.

In a double-blind, randomized, placebo-controlled trial, researchers found CBD cannabis helped alleviate the withdrawal symptoms of heroin users.

Unlike observational studies correlating two or more variables, an RCT demonstrates cause and effect.

Other (not as rigorous) studies have found similar conclusions in cocaine, meth, and tobacco users. CBD helps reduce cravings and withdrawal symptoms.

Fortunately, Canada has a cannabis and hemp industry. We can mass produce CBD flower to the point that it’s less than a dollar per gram.

As one study put it,

Cannabinoid therapeutics offer further benefits of being available in multiple formulations, are low in adverse risk potential, and may easily be offered in community-based settings, which may add to their feasibility as interventions for – predominantly marginalized – crack-cocaine user populations.

But in Vancouver and other ravished areas of B.C., community-based cannabis clubs (like the Victoria Cannabis Buyers’ Club) are targeted by health authorities as criminal.

Canada can reverse course on the opioid crisis. We can tap into a – literal – homegrown solution and set an example for the world.

Instead, “public health” targets the community-based cannabis activists who are actually helping. Meanwhile, they defend Big Pharma’s profiteering under the guise of “safer supply.”

Any criticism of their ideology is considered “hate” and “misinformation.” But how could something be evidence-based if the program is immune to criticism?

How Cannabis is Used for Rehabilitation

We’ve outlined how cannabis is used for rehabilitation and the science behind it.

Every overdose death is blood on the hands of public health bureaucrats. We have the solution at our fingertips. In some places, we even have the political willpower.

The problem is these unelected, anti-Enlightenment, philosophically-inept “public health” bureaucrats who, since 2020, have become drunk on their own power.

The only way to solve the opioid crisis in the long term is to strip these people of their power and prestige. They are the priests and nuns of a civic religion called Science™. 

Don’t let the name confuse you with the scientific method. The two couldn’t be further apart.