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Homegrown Weed: The Garden Returns As Medical Cabinet

For centuries, actually millennia, humans have known of the curative properties of cannabis. Anthropologists have found mummified remains of shamans buried with stores of cannabis for a pleasant afterlife. As recently as the early 1900s, doctors used it for everything from asthma to promoting uterine contractions in childbirth.

I like growing tomatoes and having their fresh summer fruits, but I really love growing my own medicine. As a registered patient in the state of Washington, I grow at home, sourcing good genetics and grow organically as possible. The process continues to teach me lessons I just don’t learn anywhere else. For many people, the idea of growing for healing is a novel idea. But, as author Michael Pollan reminds us in his book, The Botany of Desire:

“For the most part of their history, after all, gardens have been more concerned with the power of plants than with their beauty – with the power, that is, to change us, for good and ill.”

We live in a day of single compound medicines, synthetic molecules, magnetic imaging systems and genetic manipulation. Many of our great grandmothers knew volumes more about natural healing than we do. Often we accept that medical knowledge is something that belongs to surrogates and sometimes take a passive role in the process.  

Home growing involves the patient and allows for a greater level of input and control. Jerry Whiting has worked with medical cannabis patients for years. He is the co-founder and president of LeBlanc CNE, specializing in cannabis genetics, formulations, product development and education and is quite passionate on the matter:

“It’s important for patients to grow their own medicine to have control over what they ingest. It alleviates fears about unwanted fertilizers and pesticides. Not only does it save money but citizen farmers play a vital role in preserving vintage heirloom genetics that large commercial farmers ignore. Growing your own cannabis is as important as making your own tinctures, topicals and edibles.”

That is why the chance to grow your own medicine is unique. If you are in a position to home grow legally in your state, I encourage you to do so. You may get occasional pests and may even accidentally kill some plants. But in the process, you just may find yourself with a better awareness of how the plant affects you, a more distinguished palette and a higher expectation for your medicine.

7 Amazing Products You Need For A Fresh & Healthy Vagina

There are all kinds of healthy vagina products out there that serve multiple purposes such as making you look and feel good, taking care of your period related pains and aches, or for building up some muscle in your private parts. That’s a thing. Whatever the purpose of the product, they’re all welcome and worth a look. Check this list of 7 of our favorite vagina products:

Period Store Monthly Subscription Box

 

This store specializes in subscription boxes that are meant to arrive right when you need them so you can have less of a bad time when your period comes around. On the site, you can create the type of box you want to have, with different pain relieving products and price ranges. It’s a simple way of having all the tools you need on a monthly basis while also making the best out of a shitty situation. Everyone loves getting packages.

Lovelife Krush Kegel Exerciser

A post shared by SiteGeekFR (@sitegeek.fr) on g 4, 2016 at 11:11am PDT

 

Kegels are well known for improving the health of your pelvic floor muscles, improving the sex life and health of the vaginas of women with a wide range of ages. Lovelife Krush Kegel measures the pressure of control of your muscles, helping you improve them while also having some fun in the meantime.

Go Primal PoPo Powder

 

If you’re an athlete or someone who sometimes struggles with odor control in your groin and armpits, this powder is a great and safe solution that features no talc powder and no toxic materials.

Thinx Period Underwear

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Thinx underwear is known for their infamous ads that caused a whole lot of controversy, but they’re also popular because they work really well! Featuring an unbelievable technology that’s capable of holding up to two tampons worth of blood, these panties are reusable and practically magical. What are you waiting for?

Joy Ride Creme

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If you’re someone who has a hard time when it comes to chafing and all that, Joy Ride is the perfect solution to all your problems. The plant based formula protects your vagina and avoids itching and burning of all sorts.

Lelo Luna Beads

 

The Luna Beads are perfect for women who are looking to improve their orgasms and to try new things. Featured in two sizes, the Luna Beads vibrate accordingly to your body’s movements and try to raise your levels of arousal.

DivaCup & Lunapads

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DivaCups are great for people who are bored and annoyed with the traditional tampons and pads. These cups can be worn for 12 hours at a time and are reusable, saving you some money on disposable and expensive products.

Singer Miguel Wished He Had Weed During This Interview

Celebrities aren’t hiding anymore. Thanks to widespread cannabis legal reform, as well as the massive public support marijuana currently generates, everyone feels more comfortable openly discussing their marijuana usage. Some celebs are very active in the cannabis space while other are just active users. Apparently that also includes Miguel, who lamented in a recent Billboard interview that he didn’t have any marijuana on him.

“Damn—I should’ve brought the weed with me,” Miguel said.

Now it wouldn’t be truly Miguel if it weren’t for a few details. The R&B singer told Billboard this two days before his birthday, “staring out at the rows of yachts moored by the waterfront patio of the Marina del Rey Ritz-Carlton in Los Angeles,” while munching on some avocado toast and sipping an almond-milk latte.

But more revealing is Miguel’s change in musical approach. Known for producing sexy, baby-making music, with songs like “Quickie” and “Pussy Is Mine,” the singer is becoming “woke,” as Billboard decided to describe it.

Via Billboard:

After building his career — which includes two No. 1s on the Hot R&B/HipHop Albums charts, 2015’s Wildheart and 2012’s Kaleidoscope Dream — on songs about lust, love and lechery, Miguel has gradually been putting his political beliefs more front and center, starting with the Black Lives Matter tribute “How Many” he dropped on SoundCloud in July 2016. On War & Leisure, due later this year, his focus is still on the bedroom, but the music is threaded with a subtle yet undeniable subtext: Donald Trump and the dystopia he’s ushering in.

So Miguel smokes weed and doesn’t like Trump. Yep, guess that means he’s woke.

This Cool Dad Built Harry Potter’s Diagon Alley For His Kids

It’s safe to assume this man has won Father of the Year. Two or so weeks before Halloween, Seattle dad Jon Chambers quits his job to build something for his daughters and community. It was something straight out of the movies—literally.

Thanks to a little inspiration from his daughters, Chambers built a replica-size Diagon Alley, famous from Harry Potter, the London shopping district wizards and witches access behind a brick wall of the Leaky Cauldron pub. Most of the Harry Potter stories feature Diagon Alley and is a major access point for all the characters.

“I’ve always wanted to do something massive for Halloween or Christmas,” Chambers told GeekWire earlier last week amidst the alley’s construction. “I was born the day before Halloween, and October is like my power month. So I decided to quit my job and focus on this crazy thing.”

Chambers was formerly a creative director in the tech world, and also previously worked in construction, so he really was the perfect man for the job. His Diagon Alley features six storefronts like Ollivanders Wand Shop and cost a few grand to build.

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But the costs went down as more and more members of the community started pitching in, donating resources or time to help the project. Diagon Alley will stand through the New Year, with possibly some new additions, and will help fundraise for local cancer charities.

“People were floored, elated and genuinely in awe of what we all created in the short period it was under construction,” Chambers told Mashable. “The number one comment I received last night was ‘Thank you for doing this for a community.’ It is a good news story in the middle of a lot of depressing ones currently.”

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Scientists Just Discovered A ‘Massive Void’ Inside The Pyramid Of Giza

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The pyramid of Giza is the largest pyramid in Egypt. Historians and experts believe it was built around 2560 BC in honor of the pharaoh Khufu. It’s 2017, and experts on the matter only just discovered that there’s a massive void within the pyramid that’s as large as an NBA basketball court. What does that say about our detective skills?

Pyramids have long been the source of interest and study for us, being mysterious and dark and providing us with curiosity, wonder, and a million of hidden possibilities. Since the 60’s researchers and historians have used different kinds of imaging technologies to map the insides of the pyramids. The Huffington Post reports that Muon imaging was the technology responsible for uncovering the hidden chamber within Giza, located just on top of the Grand Gallery as a way of relieving weight. That’s what researchers think at least. The Grand Gallery was discovered a long time ago, and it’s a passageway between the King’s and the Queen’s Chambers, which has no murals or decorations whatsoever.  

The discovery of this ancient, vast, and empty space was achieved by the collaboration of Scan Pyramids project and physicists from Japan and France, who placed detectors and monitored the pyramid’s activity for several months. These advances in technology suggest that we’ll soon discover more things regarding pyramids, which is as exciting as it is scary. We’ve seen The Mummy and we’re not all that thrilled to discover other massive voids in ancient and magical places.

Big Winners Of The Election: Democrats, Diversity And Marijuana

If you pay much attention to news headlines and cable news chatter, you know that it was a big night for Democrats and diversity candidates. Election Day 2017 was also a huge success for marijuana reform.

On the five year anniversary of the first two states — Colorado and Washington — voting to legalize recreational cannabis, marijuana advocates celebrated a new wave of election results that should give the legalization movement added momentum. The two most significant headlines were gubernatorial election results in New Jersey and Virginia, where cannabis-friendly Democratic candidates sailed to victories.

New Jersey Closer To Legalization

In New Jersey, Democratic candidate Phil Murphy won convincingly, replacing Chris Christie, one of the nation’s most vocal opponents of marijuana. Murphy’s campaign emphasized his support of legalizing the herb. In his Tuesday night victory speech, he declared:

“The criminalization of marijuana has only served to clog our courts and cloud people’s futures, so we will legalize marijuana. And while there are financial benefits, this is overwhelmingly about doing what is right and just.”

A Victory For Social Justice In Virginia

In Virginia, Democrat Ralph Northam defeated Republican opponent Ed Gillespie, who received support from President Donald Trump throughout the campaign. Although Northam is not a backer of recreational legalization, he has been outspoken for his desire to decriminalize cannabis.

Earlier this year, called for expanding the state’s medical marijuana program and decriminalizing the herb:

“We need to change sentencing laws that disproportionately hurt people of color. One of the best ways to do this is to decriminalize marijuana. African Americans are 2.8 times more likely to be arrested for marijuana possession in Virginia. The Commonwealth spends more than $67 million on marijuana enforcement — money that could be better spent on rehabilitation.”

Here are some of the other election results that will have a bearing on marijuana reform laws:

Detroit Relaxes Medical Marijuana Rules

In Michigan’s largest city, votes agreed to ease restrictions on medical marijuana facilities, making it easier for dispensaries to open and operate in the city.

City In Ohio Removes Penalties For Possession, Growing

Voters in the college town of Athens, Ohio, overwhelmingly decided to eliminate all penalties for possessing, cultivating, and gifting of up to 200 grams of marijuana. More than three quarters of the voters agreed with the proposal.

What Kind Of Baller Thanksgiving Meal Can $527 Buy?

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Thanksgiving is very busy, we get it. Sometimes you can’t fit in the time to cook, especially if you’re hosting a dinner and have to get your house ready for family members. Maybe you don’t like cooking, or are bad at it, that’s okay. Neiman Marcus doesn’t care about the reasons why you might not be cooking, they just want to provide a fancy solution in the comfort of your home.

The full price of their Thanksgiving dinner for eight people is 527 dollars, including shipping. The meal includes eight 4-ounce servings of roasted turkey, gravy, sausage stuffing, sweet potato casserole, monkey bread, strawberry butter, pecan bread pudding, whisky sauce and more. As you can tell, this meal is made by professional people, not amateurs, which is great for impressing your guests and family members.

While the meal is pretty pricey, everything is sort of cooked for you, so you really don’t have to do much. You do have to roast the turkey, thaw the gravy, and heat some things up.

It’s a steep price, but it’s kind of like eating out at a restaurant, only a little cheaper and in the comfort of your home, where you can get drunk and no one can say a thing about it. You can also have a food coma at your dining table. All is fair on Thanksgiving.

You can order the full meal and some other Thanksgiving options on their website.

Low Calorie Thanksgiving Cocktails

There are few things more caloric than cocktails. The more delicious and fruity the drink is, the more sugar it has and the worse it is for your weight. These sugary drinks give terrible hangovers and are also super easy to drink, making you get drunk much faster than with other types of (boring) alcohol.

The Fresh Toast – With the Thanksgiving meal, here are low calorie Thanksgiving cocktails to give your waist line a break and your mouth a treat

Luckily, the world is obsessed with being fit and healthy right now, which means that talented bartenders from all over the world are coming up with delicious drinks that are low on calories, and that you can consume without feeling guilty afterwards. These drinks use liquors such as Vermouth and Lillet which have lower calories than other options and that won’t sneak up on you and leave you vomiting in the corner of the bar. The following drinks have manageable levels of alcohol, low calories, and are super delicious, check them out:

Aperol Spritz

Related: Why You Should Consider Adding Golden Milk To Your Diet

This recipe is from Aperol.comclaiming to be the original Italian recipe of the famous aperitif. With a fruity and aromatic flavor, this low strength cocktail is bound to become a favorite at work dinners and places where you want to look like a person who has their shit together.

Ingredients:

  • 3 Parts of Prosecco
  • 2 Parts of Aperol
  • 1 Splash of Soda

Prep:

Add ice into a glass and pour the Prosecco, the Aperol and the splash of Soda. Top the drink with a slice of orange that’ll bring out the fruitiness of the drink.

Bacio Di Rosa

 

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This recipe is from Popugar.com and it’s perfect for a hot and summery day or for a classy drink during the daytime.

Ingredients:

  • “>1 1/2 ounces Cocchi Americano Rosa
  • 1/2 ounce thyme-lemon syrupn>
  • >3 ounces soda water

Prep:

First, you have to make the thyme-lemon syrup by bringing three cups of water to a boil and adding the zest of 1 lemon. Add thyme and take the water off the heat, letting it rest for 10 minutes. Add 3 cups of sugar and stir.

After the cooking part is done, add the Cocchi Americano Ropan>sa and the thyme-lemon syrup onto a glass, then top with ice and soda. For garnishing, you can add a lemon peel.

Vodka Soda

 

A post shared by Stephen Kurpinsky (@sjberto) on

This cool and refreshing recipe is from Liquor.comand it has a strong level of alcohol with very few calories, making it a great drink of choice.

Ingredients:

  • “>/span>;” data-mce-style=”font-weight: 400;”>2 oz. of Vodka
  • -mce-style=”font-weight: 40pan>0;”>1 Squeeze of lemon
  • Soda to top >

Prep:

>In a tall glass, add the vodka, fill with ice and top with Soda. Add a squeeze of lemon and garnish with a lemon peel.

The Surprising Reason Many Teenagers Aren’t Smoking Marijuana

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It seems pot has fallen out of favor with teenagers. Why? Because they’re smoking less of everything, tobacco included.

That’s according to a new study that spent 25 years monitoring more than a million teens (1991 to 2016). Findings are somewhat of a paradox. Researchers discovered that while teens who consider marijuana safe are more likely to do the drug, they weren’t indulging.

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The reason is a fairly simple one. Teenagers today are less inclined to smoke cigarettes (or drink alcohol, for that matter), which is an indicator of whether or not they’re likely to pick up a joint. Not smoking cigarettes is conducive to not smoking cannabis. In fact, the number of teenagers interested in smoking and drinking is steadily declining. 

Richard Miech, a research professor at the University of Michigan who led the study, found that a decline in adolescent cigarette and alcohol use over the past decade has brought marijuana prevalence to “historic lows.” That reasoning seems to explain why the use of marijuana isn’t accelerating even though more teenagers consider it a harmless drug. 

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According to the study, “researchers posit that youth who do not use cigarettes or drink alcohol are less likely to experience associated processes that promote marijuana use, such as exposure to drug-using peer networks and the ‘priming’ of the brain’s reward system for substance use.”

Miech tells Medical Express:

I think a big message of this study is that policies and interventions that reduce teen smoking seem to have the added benefit of reducing teen marijuana use.

But again, teens who believe pot is harmless are still more likely to use it. And that number hasn’t changed much over the past decade; the percentage of high school seniors who’ve smoked marijuana continues to hover around 30-percent.

Dr. Nicholas Chadi, a pediatrician and adolescent medicine specialist at Boston Children’s Hospital, tells Medical Express “Marijuana is harmful to the developing adolescent brain” and is more likely to become a gateway drug for teenagers who use it.

Conclusion: Perceived risk of marijuana remains tightly associated with use, and adolescent marijuana prevalence today would be at or near record highs if cigarette use had not declined since 2005,

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Gossip: Kelly Clarkson Thought She Was Asexual; Kevin Spacey In Hiding

Five years and two kids later and they’re still going strong.

During a private show for SiriusXM listeners at the Highline Ballroom in New York City Friday, the 35-year-old Grammy winner revealed to the crowd that Blackstock was the first man that gave her that feeling inside.

“This isn’t a downer to anybody I dated before him, but I’m just going to be real: I never felt like, honesty, sexually attracted to anybody before him,” Clarkson confessed. “And I’m not downing my exes. You know, everybody’s different. But there was something about him.”

“I honestly thought I was asexual — I’d never been turned on like that in my whole life,” she said. “I was like, ‘Oh that’s that feeling… okay! That’s what they were talking about in Waiting to Exhale.’ I just got it. I just didn’t have a clue.”

She first saw him 2006 when he was married and felt a spark but didn’t talk to him until 2012
“Literally, I’m not joking, he walked past us at that time [in 2006] And he walked by, I was like, ready to take it all off. I just felt something.”

“We didn’t really know each other; I had just met him that one time,” Clarkson recalled. “Just from that one time, even six years later, I had never really dated anyone. I honest to God thought, ‘Is this what it’s like to be asexual?’ I was just not attracted to people.”

“We didn’t even know each other, but he had walked past me once and there was a moment in my crazy head,” she said. “He thought I hated him, too. When I finally confessed that, ‘I really dig you,’ He was so shocked because he thought I hated him. I hadn’t let on that I liked him. Inside I was like, ‘Ask me out!’ but outside I was like, ‘I love being single and coming home every night alone. It’s awesome.’

“It’s a hard thing to find that feeling,’ she said. “I always tell [Savannah, her 16 year-old stepdaughter], ‘Wait it out. Wait until you get those goosebumps.’ Because if it’s not, it’s not worth it.”

Kevin Spacey In Hiding

Kevin Spacey has gone silent on some of his closest friends following allegations of sexual misconduct, a source tells ET.

“He has not been communicating with people in his inner circle since,” our source says. “He’s been MIA, even from those closest to him. He realizes how terrible this is and he knows the chances of him getting good work in this town again are very slim.”

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