Chris Webber launches private equity cannabis fund

Yeah, they're not a perfect organization, but the link in that info is generally solid. Your forest for the trees point is spot on.

As far as access, the issue with differentiating cannabis use vs. "medicinal" cannabis use is only that a medicinal user has registered as such with the government. Many cannabis users are vets that have come back from wars over the years with a few seeds and were able to be self-sufficient from that, (to make strains like Tahoe OG- https://www.leafly.ca/news/politics/how-vietnam-veterans-expanded-americas-cannabis-strains) but they're not necessarily included as "medical" users because of government distrust. 

Personally, I don't find the delineation between recreational use and medicinal use necesarily helpful or effective in terms of harm reduction. I understand the idea behind it, but it all operates on the assumptions that people have doctors and reliable medical history to vouch for a medical need, which can be a barrier for impoverished people.

There are many people that have been forced to operate outside the medical system. Such as the phenomenon of people that have warrants out not going to hospitals if they get shot and being forced to turn to the black market for pain relief. 

Honestly the same goes for the use of the word drug, you know? We all go to the drugstore, it just refers to medicine. Plenty of medicine can be abused and become harmful, but it's not harmful in and of itself, or in proper doses. I don't have a solution for this or an alternate word, but it's definitely a curiosity. The war on drugs did damage to the English language, apparently.

I'll start off by saying I've never done crack, so I can't personally vouch for the effects of it or give any accurate insight into its effects. Same with coke. I don't understand the mind of the average crack user or how the addiction to it works. It's possible that there are cannabis strains that would help with withdrawals if a person were trying to quit. Maybe a super racy Malawi would mimic the effects enough?

But opoids I can talk about. People get prescribed opoids for pain, right? And it's effective in the short term and when discontinued when no longer needed. But then that's the thing- it's HARD to tell when they're no longer needed. Preventative pain management is real, but it's a VERY slippery slope towards addiction.

Opiate withdrawal is brutal. It's worse than can honestly be explained, which is the reason that a lot of opoid users keep using. Once a person reaches the point where they get itchy without a fix, that dragon has its claws in them like a parasite. When a person has been awake for 75 hours straight and they feel like their muscles are melting off of their bones and a trip to the corner can fix that, the bigger picture is hard to see.

Opiate withdrawal is so bad that I didn't use them after having surgery to fix a shoulder injury, because the withdrawal is worse than the pain was.

Certain strains of cannabis (and kratom, which is another "natural opoid" that is very addictive, but satisfies the cravings without the risk of OD), and many kinds of edibles can mitigate how symptoms of withdrawal manifest. Many people that are addicted to opiates can't eat properly until their first "fix." We all joke about the munchies, but cannabis can help with that.