control-alt-delete
did you know that that simple and
familiar keystroke was never meant for
our fingers in fact it was first
invented in 1980 by an IBM engineer
meant for internal use only next thing
you know 10-15 years later we all have
pcs those pcs don’t always work and
control-alt-delete goes wide and plus we
as humans love a good reset button we
need a good reset button because so many
things in life you know to be true and
then it becomes a fact and most of those
things they stand as facts the rest of
your life only some of them don’t some
of those you recognize that you’re wrong
and you need a reset button
control-alt-delete imagine walking the
streets the cobblestone streets of
Florence Italy in the 1600s and Galileo
looks over to you and says hey or you
know how we think that the Sun revolves
around the earth well I what if it’s
actually the exact opposite
control-alt-delete we need these moments
in our lives and if you would be so kind
how about a quick group exercise because
I’m going to envision that this big
beautiful auditorium is actually a big
beautiful keyboard and ctrl key is over
here alts we got delete over here we’re
going to take a collective breath and in
this process when you exhale will you
envision yourself pressing those three
keys or whatever reset button you like
because what I’m about to speak about I
believe requires a reset on all of our
friends we are in pain existential pain
always but real actual physical pain as
well and we need to kill this pain
humans and adults in the modern world
especially men are not known for their
pain tolerance but the painkillers are
killing us in record numbers and the
opioid crisis is very very real there’s
a safer alternative painkiller out there
and we’re not talking about it and so
that’s what I’m here to talk about let’s
talk about it let’s let’s talk about
weed let’s talk about weed yeah you know
it’s funny it’s still a punch line all
these years later
even after legalization in Boulder
Colorado of all places and that’s okay
let’s lean into it for a second real
quick what do you call a stoner with two
spliffs double-jointed yes terrible joke
I know but the truth of the matter is
marijuana can save lives and I know this
to be true because I read it in the New
more importantly I know it to be true
because I’ve seen it with my own eyes
time and time and time again that said
if I’m you wondering who this guy is up
here talking to you about marijuana
saving lives and potentially helping us
curb the opioid epidemic at hand I’m
wondering two questions first what are
you smoking and two who are you so to
answer that first question nothing at
the moment
second question hi I’m Ricardo Baca I’m
a Colorado native 41 years old I live in
Denver with my wife two dogs and a cat
30 years ago
I was sitting in the front row of a
classroom in a suburb not far from here
my green t-shirt says just say no the
teacher at the front of the class she’s
telling us that marijuana can kill us I
have a couple friends they’re going to a
drug-free camp for the weekend I asked
my mom she’s cool with it
we walked through the doors under a
banner that reads hugs not drugs sure
sounds like a good time lots of hugs
fast forward all these years now and I’m
a journalist and I unintentionally made
international headlines a few years ago
when my editors at the Denver Post
appointed me as the newspapers
first-ever cannabis editor and I promise
you it’s true you may have read about it
in the New York Times or you may have
seen me on The Colbert Report for that
matter but let me tell you when I first
got this job I had a first imperative
that I held myself to and I knew I knew
that I needed to seek out the most
respected voices on each side of the
legalization debate and so I went and
hung out and got to know the
prohibitionists and I got went out and
got to know the people who were just
legalizing marijuana in Colorado and I
will always remember those conversations
because they were incredibly formative
and educational and one of them still
sticks out to this day a guy named Mason
taverts
he and I set up a meeting and many of
you probably know the name he was
instrumental for legalizing cannabis in
Colorado and if in fact if you google
Mason’s name you will see that there is
a quote that I bet he is told that two
hundred and fifty three hundred
journalists at least and that is
marijuana is safer than alcohol it went
contrary to what I was taught with the
whole marijuana will kill you part and
so I knew that I had some homework to do
before I met Mason and so before this
meeting I set aside three four hours for
research and I sat down to my computer
ready to do the work and five minutes
later I had everything I knew I needed
and that is I had the information that
told me from trusted resources that
cannabis is indeed way less toxic than
alcohol in fact last year we lost nearly
80,000 Americans to alcohol-related
causes in that same time we lost zero to
cannabis is non-toxic control-alt-delete
yes I was lied to my entire life in fact
I would argue that most of the people in
this room were lied to our entire lives
and and yet here we are talking about it
and and I’d like to have some real talk
on the subject of cannabis as medicine
but also more related to this talk and
especially since this is bleeding edge
information that I personally find a lot
more interesting cannabis as a
painkiller so as we’ve been discussing
we are in pain pain affects more
Americans than heart disease diabetes
and cancer combined we need to kill this
pain I was speaking with a dear friend
of mine recently and she was telling me
about the debilitating pain she lives
with day today today sometimes it keeps
her up for three or four days on end I
didn’t even know that kind of pain
existed and then when I was doing
research for this talk I learned this
quote from a 1930s French physician pain
is a more terrible Lord for mankind than
death itself but the painkillers are
killing us and this is brand-new data
from the CDC 49,000 Americans died last
year from opioids from prescription
opioids that’s more than the AIDS crisis
at its peak and how long did we ignore
that and how long are we going to ignore
this opioids epidemic especially when we
now know and are learning that there is
a safer alternative painkiller out there
yes I am talking about marijuana but no
I’m not saying that cannabis is a
cure-all because it’s absolutely not but
it is our responsibility to pay
attention to the vanguard of science and
medicine because increasingly these
physicians and researchers are telling
us that cannabis is medicine and in
Ede cannabis is an effective painkiller
a landmark study came out last year from
the National Association of Sciences
engineering and medicine telling us that
cannabis and cannabinoids are effective
treatments to chronic pain in adults and
that is huge that’s huge and when in put
in concert with other research that’s
been done in the last three or four
years at universities ranging from
Columbia in New York to the University
of Georgia in Athens we now know that
cannabis legalization is changing our
relationship with the opioid crisis ever
so slowly this research is telling us
that fewer opioids are being prescribed
in states that have legalized that fewer
people are going into emergency rooms
with opioid based conditions and most
importantly fewer people are dying in
these states from opioids and that is
because these states have access to
legal marijuana and they have
liberalized their cannabis laws and so
what we’re seeing is the gateway drug
suddenly becomes an exit drug for
something far more serious something far
more deadly which oddly reminds me of
another weed joke do you ever hear the
one about the big bad scary drug we were
taught to fear that we were told would
kill us and then later emerged as this
potential life-saving option to save
tens of thousands of lives
after we’ve needlessly lost hundreds of thousands of others thank you very much
did you know that that simple and
familiar keystroke was never meant for
our fingers in fact it was first
invented in 1980 by an IBM engineer
meant for internal use only next thing
you know 10-15 years later we all have
pcs those pcs don’t always work and
control-alt-delete goes wide and plus we
as humans love a good reset button we
need a good reset button because so many
things in life you know to be true and
then it becomes a fact and most of those
things they stand as facts the rest of
your life only some of them don’t some
of those you recognize that you’re wrong
and you need a reset button
control-alt-delete imagine walking the
streets the cobblestone streets of
Florence Italy in the 1600s and Galileo
looks over to you and says hey or you
know how we think that the Sun revolves
around the earth well I what if it’s
actually the exact opposite
control-alt-delete we need these moments
in our lives and if you would be so kind
how about a quick group exercise because
I’m going to envision that this big
beautiful auditorium is actually a big
beautiful keyboard and ctrl key is over
here alts we got delete over here we’re
going to take a collective breath and in
this process when you exhale will you
envision yourself pressing those three
keys or whatever reset button you like
because what I’m about to speak about I
believe requires a reset on all of our
friends we are in pain existential pain
always but real actual physical pain as
well and we need to kill this pain
humans and adults in the modern world
especially men are not known for their
pain tolerance but the painkillers are
killing us in record numbers and the
opioid crisis is very very real there’s
a safer alternative painkiller out there
and we’re not talking about it and so
that’s what I’m here to talk about let’s
talk about it let’s let’s talk about
weed let’s talk about weed yeah you know
it’s funny it’s still a punch line all
these years later
even after legalization in Boulder
Colorado of all places and that’s okay
let’s lean into it for a second real
quick what do you call a stoner with two
spliffs double-jointed yes terrible joke
I know but the truth of the matter is
marijuana can save lives and I know this
to be true because I read it in the New
more importantly I know it to be true
because I’ve seen it with my own eyes
time and time and time again that said
if I’m you wondering who this guy is up
here talking to you about marijuana
saving lives and potentially helping us
curb the opioid epidemic at hand I’m
wondering two questions first what are
you smoking and two who are you so to
answer that first question nothing at
the moment
second question hi I’m Ricardo Baca I’m
a Colorado native 41 years old I live in
Denver with my wife two dogs and a cat
30 years ago
I was sitting in the front row of a
classroom in a suburb not far from here
my green t-shirt says just say no the
teacher at the front of the class she’s
telling us that marijuana can kill us I
have a couple friends they’re going to a
drug-free camp for the weekend I asked
my mom she’s cool with it
we walked through the doors under a
banner that reads hugs not drugs sure
sounds like a good time lots of hugs
fast forward all these years now and I’m
a journalist and I unintentionally made
international headlines a few years ago
when my editors at the Denver Post
appointed me as the newspapers
first-ever cannabis editor and I promise
you it’s true you may have read about it
in the New York Times or you may have
seen me on The Colbert Report for that
matter but let me tell you when I first
got this job I had a first imperative
that I held myself to and I knew I knew
that I needed to seek out the most
respected voices on each side of the
legalization debate and so I went and
hung out and got to know the
prohibitionists and I got went out and
got to know the people who were just
legalizing marijuana in Colorado and I
will always remember those conversations
because they were incredibly formative
and educational and one of them still
sticks out to this day a guy named Mason
taverts
he and I set up a meeting and many of
you probably know the name he was
instrumental for legalizing cannabis in
Colorado and if in fact if you google
Mason’s name you will see that there is
a quote that I bet he is told that two
hundred and fifty three hundred
journalists at least and that is
marijuana is safer than alcohol it went
contrary to what I was taught with the
whole marijuana will kill you part and
so I knew that I had some homework to do
before I met Mason and so before this
meeting I set aside three four hours for
research and I sat down to my computer
ready to do the work and five minutes
later I had everything I knew I needed
and that is I had the information that
told me from trusted resources that
cannabis is indeed way less toxic than
alcohol in fact last year we lost nearly
80,000 Americans to alcohol-related
causes in that same time we lost zero to
cannabis is non-toxic control-alt-delete
yes I was lied to my entire life in fact
I would argue that most of the people in
this room were lied to our entire lives
and and yet here we are talking about it
and and I’d like to have some real talk
on the subject of cannabis as medicine
but also more related to this talk and
especially since this is bleeding edge
information that I personally find a lot
more interesting cannabis as a
painkiller so as we’ve been discussing
we are in pain pain affects more
Americans than heart disease diabetes
and cancer combined we need to kill this
pain I was speaking with a dear friend
of mine recently and she was telling me
about the debilitating pain she lives
with day today today sometimes it keeps
her up for three or four days on end I
didn’t even know that kind of pain
existed and then when I was doing
research for this talk I learned this
quote from a 1930s French physician pain
is a more terrible Lord for mankind than
death itself but the painkillers are
killing us and this is brand-new data
from the CDC 49,000 Americans died last
year from opioids from prescription
opioids that’s more than the AIDS crisis
at its peak and how long did we ignore
that and how long are we going to ignore
this opioids epidemic especially when we
now know and are learning that there is
a safer alternative painkiller out there
yes I am talking about marijuana but no
I’m not saying that cannabis is a
cure-all because it’s absolutely not but
it is our responsibility to pay
attention to the vanguard of science and
medicine because increasingly these
physicians and researchers are telling
us that cannabis is medicine and in
Ede cannabis is an effective painkiller
a landmark study came out last year from
the National Association of Sciences
engineering and medicine telling us that
cannabis and cannabinoids are effective
treatments to chronic pain in adults and
that is huge that’s huge and when in put
in concert with other research that’s
been done in the last three or four
years at universities ranging from
Columbia in New York to the University
of Georgia in Athens we now know that
cannabis legalization is changing our
relationship with the opioid crisis ever
so slowly this research is telling us
that fewer opioids are being prescribed
in states that have legalized that fewer
people are going into emergency rooms
with opioid based conditions and most
importantly fewer people are dying in
these states from opioids and that is
because these states have access to
legal marijuana and they have
liberalized their cannabis laws and so
what we’re seeing is the gateway drug
suddenly becomes an exit drug for
something far more serious something far
more deadly which oddly reminds me of
another weed joke do you ever hear the
one about the big bad scary drug we were
taught to fear that we were told would
kill us and then later emerged as this
potential life-saving option to save
tens of thousands of lives
after we’ve needlessly lost hundreds of thousands of others thank you very much
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