According to a recent report from the U.S. Department of Veterans’ Affairs, former military service members are more than twice as likely to die by suicide than civilians. After returning to life at home, veterans are often beset by psychiatric conditions such as post-traumatic stress disorder and depression, as well as painful physical injuries — and they’re frequently prescribed large quantities of pharmaceuticals to cope with such ailments. These cocktails of drugs are increasingly leading to overmedication and severe side effects, including even further deterioration of mental and physical health.But this group of veterans isn’t giving up the fight! Join Healing Powers host Mareesa Stertz as she meets members of the Weed for Warriors Project in Los Angeles, who are leading the charge to expand legal cannabis access to former soldiers as a healthier alternative to relying on prescription pills. These courageous individuals are attaining more functional and fulfilling lives for themselves and their families through the help of medical marijuana, and they’re not settling for what the government is willing to offer. Through activism and solidarity, these warriors are changing the conversation around the lives of veterans, while illustrating how cannabis could help end a cycle of avoidable pain and death.
While you may have heard of ayahuasca or other psychedelic practices originating from south of the border, there’s one such medicine growing in popularity that yields no hallucinogenic effects at all — but will make you vomit repeatedly. The skin secretion of the phyllomedusa bicolor tree frog, more widely renown as kambo, has been reportedly used by residents of the Amazon rainforest to purge their bodies of toxins and disease.Today in the U.S., people are using kambo to treat physical ailments such as autoimmune and inflammatory disorders, as well as emotional challenges like anxiety and depression. But this isn’t just a substance you consume and forget — feeling the healing benefits of kambo takes work! Join Healing Powers host Mareesa Stertz as she meets certified kambo practitioner Caitlin Thompson for a medicinal ceremony in San Diego to experience the sensations of tree frog secretion for herself.
While many psychedelic adventurers have had both good and bad trips on “magic mushrooms,” a.k.a. psilocybe cubensis, new research is demonstrating that these powerful fungi could be key to treating mental health conditions such as depression, anxiety, and substance abuse disorders. However these little ‘shrooms are still illegal as a Schedule I substance in the U.S. despite growing evidence of their medicinal benefits, but not so in the Netherlands.Join Healing Powers host Mareesa Stertz in Holland as she meets with psychedelic practitioner Oliver Martin, who combines psilocybin mushrooms with herbs like Syrian Rue containing MAO inhibitors — some of nature’s most powerful antidepressants. Consumed together, these ingredients form a strongly hallucinatory medicine popularly known as “psilohuasca,” with effects purported to go far beyond those of magic mushrooms alone.
In Oakland, California, a group of 420-friendly seniors have established a monthly social club, where they gather to socialize, share tips and experiences with new cannabis products, and smoke some weed, of course!Join Healing Powers host Mareesa Stertz as she visits the East Bay Senior Cannabis Social Club to talk with group members, patient advocates, medical practitioners, and educators who are helping to spread the positive word about senior citizens and cannabis. After all, you’re never too old to try something new!
Our intrepid host Mareesa Stertz takes a trip across the Atlantic to visit Sanson, a British expat in Spain, who credits echinopsis peruviana, a variety of the San Pedro cactus, with helping him beat his alcoholism and depression. He now introduces others to the practice, but don’t call him a shaman — he says it’s the plant and the person taking it who do all the work (“You’re your best therapist; taking the plant is like opening the box to yourself”).
The Parliament of the World’s Religions, a conference gathering people from more than 200 faiths, is one of the most unlikely places one would imagine encountering the psychedelic brew ayahuasca. It is here however, that indigenous people from the Amazon joined forces with leaders in the plant medicine community to take powerful steps towards world wide acceptance by being recognized as a legitimate spiritual practice.Join host Mareesa Stertz as she takes us on a journey through what makes this event such a momentous occasion.