About

Thanks for taking the time to take a look through shop.themarijuanavape.com which is the shopping partner site for themarijuanavape.com. I hope you have found it helpful if you are shopping for something particular or just browsing.

You may be wondering about the motivation behind the creation of the main site, the shop site and the owner behind it.

Raison d’être

themarijuanavape.com is a website that is dedicated to the use of Cannabis products and Marijuana as plant agents for health and healing; for the body, mind, and spirit.

This site does not view marijuana or other cannabis products, like CBD oil, as ‘drugs’ but as natural plant-derived healing agents, or medicines, from one particular very special plant – a great gift of nature that had, in my opinion, been given an undeserved reputation as a  dangerous plant. Cannabis and marijuana are now steadily reemerging in the limelight as valuable plant aids for healing difficult medical problems.

ALL medicines, either man synthesized medicines/drugs or plant-derived medicines/drugs are neither good nor bad in themselves but depend on how they are used and the purpose of use.

A big factor in the power of any medicine is the intentions brought to the use of a medicine and the mental attitude. What is your mindset?  Do you have a good reason and purpose? How are your going to use the medicine?  Are you armed with all the information you need to understand the medicine – its benefits and risks– fully, before you use it? Are you personally taking responsibility and control? This understanding is the underlying driving purpose behind this site.

My personal primary healing experience, using a powerful psychoactive plant medicine, brought me to ask my team to create this information resource site for marijuana, as marijuana leads the field in the legalization and broader political acceptance of a very important and valuable psychoactive plant medicine and a source of non-psychoactivebut equally valuable CBD oil.

An unfair label leads to a horror classification and reputation

The so-called ‘war on drugs’ from the late 1960s and the Nixon era ’70s induced public paranoia, disgust; even horror in people’s minds for marijuana.

From the average public standpoint this was largely due to marijuana being firmly linked in ordinary people’s minds to the counterculture of the ’60s, misinformation from government agencies that ‘dope’ damaged the brain, crime with the explosion of underground ‘drug’ distribution, misuse, uncontrolled abuse and the outlawed drug label – schedule 1 (of no medical benefit or purpose!)  accompanied this broad assault.

The initiation of a journey into the unknown and healing by the most powerful psychedelic

My own breakthrough experience was in 2014 with the profound and powerful DMT psychoactive healing plant medicine from the Amazon: ayahuasca.

I am an Australian but have lived and worked in China for many years. I had not had any reason to use plant medicines while in China but I was utterly fascinated with the amazing and complex treasure trove of natural plant medicines for every ailment that is a part of Chinese culture.

This cornucopia of complex herbal remedies is available everywhere in China and has been for thousands of years here, including some psychoactive herbs used to induce lucid dreaming, which I have recently bought here in China, one being Tian Men Dong This herb is valued by Taoist monks and can help you have lucid flying dreams. In this country, drug stores (or chemist if you are a Brit or Aussie) run two sections, a modern Western medicine section, and a traditional Chinese section; like an old apothecary where strange dried plants and substances are weighed and mixed on battered, brass traditional scales.

Even modern hospitals in China have a Western drug dispensary and another dispensary altogether for traditional Chinese herbal medicines. This fascinated me and it was clear that China is closely bound to its traditional plant medicines and their preparations, unlike the West where this has been mostly lost to Big Pharma’s pills in a box preparations. Regardless of how ‘Big Pharma’ has made its presence felt here China, these natural plant healing agents are still trusted by Chinese culture.

In 2014, my beloved partner suddenly died in China. This for me was a harrowing experience. My spirit felt utterly scarred and depleted. It left me desperately searching for answers and my grief drove me to look for answers in unusual areas while I was forced to maintain a facade of all being well in my job.

Amber Lyon of reset.me

In my search, I stumbled on a podcast with Joe Rogan and a former CNN reporter/journalist called Amber Lyon. Amber was a startling person and grabbed my attention.

She had been a war journalist and covered parts of the Middle East on the ground. She was suffering from mild PTSD from her firsthand exposure to war atrocities and detainee abuse in the Middle East, and also the rejection of the MSM to run her stories accurately on subjects to do with war and the Oxycontin addiction epidemic in Southern states. She was blonde and beautiful, like a movie star, incredibly intelligent, morally balanced and articulate, while clearly exceptionally brave and not troubled by ‘roughing it’ in difficult conditions.

When Rogan heard her story and anguish, he said that she should go down to South America and try ayahuasca as a way to process her grief and trauma.  My attention was instantly on hyper-alert when I heard this! His words and advice resonated with me and I had never heard of ayahuasca before!

Later I discovered that Amber was equally mesmerized and Amber had boarded a plane the very next day and flown to the Amazon jungle to try ayahuasca. Her story can be read on her website: reset.me (a website she established as a resource for the latest information on the healing properties and research breakthroughs concerning plant medicines, particularly psychoactive medicines).

Selecting the right psychoactive plant in nature’s pharmacopeia

Being cautious, still employed and living in China, I took a more gradual research approach to learning about this medicine than rushing to South America, which for me was about the furthest place on the earth from where I was in Chengdu at that time.

For six months I researched everything I could find about ayahuasca and at the same time covered many other medicines such as Marijuana, magic mushrooms (Psilocybin), San Pedro (Huachuma) and Ibogaine. All of these medicines have different, amazing and unique healing properties but for me, everything pointed to Ayahuasca being the right path for what I needed then at that time.

Ayahuasca promised something truly amazing but I won’t deny I was feeling trepidation

I was excited and a little frightened discovering that Ayahuasca tastes truly DISGUSTING (and it does!), drinking it is not for the faint hearted and that purging is part of the process. Also, to access ayahuasca I had to travel into the Peruvian jungle, so access was not cheap or easy.

Ayahuasca is regarded in the West and by the shamans that administer it as the most potent form of a natural psychedelic: DMT, the strongest and certainly the longest lasting form, with a journey potentially lasting from 3 to 5 hours!! (ayahuasca medicine and shaman practices are protected by an act of the Peruvian parliament and under national Peruvian law as a culturally protected heritage“patrimony”) If you think that DMT is a harmful and synthetic substance alien to nature and to your body, think again! It is found in abundance in many plants and it is actually manufactured by your own brain, in the pituitary gland, and is believed to be released in large quantity at certain moments in your life cycle.

Deep meditation is now postulated to trigger the release of DMT from the pituitary gland. I had read that one ayahuasca journey and experience was for many the equivalent of what could be achieved by years of dedicated meditation and fasting or 100 hours of intense psychotherapy. That sounded fantastic, but also weird and rather frightening to my comfort driven, rational, Western mind.

All care and take your own responsibility

It was obvious to me that such powerful plant agents, which these medicines are, need to be respected and taken with care under the right conditions and in the right setting, with the right intention, attitude and with the right safety and guidance from an experienced administrator nearby (In Peru the shamans are deeply respected and regarded like natural remedy doctors). These powerful medicines are not entertainment and taking them alone, without knowing what you are doing, is completely foolhardy.

Plunging into the wilds of the Peruvian Amazon

After researching many jungle retreats and finding the majority were western/foreigner owned and run, I chose one that is run and actually owned by a true Peruvian shaman who is highly regarded, and who has a lifetime experience, training, and knowledge (thank you from my heart Percy!). This amazing healer had been featured on National Geographic and in British documentaries.  I knew he was the right choice.

I prepared carefully for four weeks prior to my journey, eating the special diet in China before going (no pork and abstaining from any sexual activity of any kind leading up to my visit).

I spent 2 weeks in the Amazon jungle near the jungle-locked city of Iquitos in the Peruvian Amazon. I lived in a little hut in the jungle at the retreat compound, ate the simple but delicious natural foods and was totally removed from Wifi and electricity – as close to pristine nature as could be experienced in a short time stepping off a plane in this day and age.

Living so close to the natural thriving jungle in this way was amazing, a way of life so strange but natural, like remembering something good that has been long forgotten! I went through 7 ceremonies at that time. My first experience was mind and spirit boggling. Its shattering effect challenging many of my old beliefs and pain.  Each ceremony was very unique and different. Some terrifying, as old conditioning was stripped away, and others utterly sublime, and being beyond ordinary words to describe.

No one can know without experience and no one should have the right to deny another that experience

After I completed the seven ceremonies and returned to China, my life was utterly changed!! No one can understand the power of ayahuasca without first-hand experience and knowledge.

Words cannot truly describe what is experienced. Only those that have been through this journey would truly know. This can also be stated for all the psychoactive plant medicines, including marijuana.

No one has the right or authority to condemn plant medicines and speak of them in judgment as if they have the knowledge and direct experience UNLESS they have tried them. Experience is needed to truly understand them in an unbiased way.

The exception would be those who can approach what others say about them in a completely open, curious and unbiased way (on this note I would recommend Dr. Rick Strassman’s excellent groundbreaking research and book ‘DMT the Spirit Molecule’. Strassman conducted the research with volunteers having secured US government funding for his research against all odds, but did not try DMT himself, so as to not skew his research by injecting his own experience)

A return to China; but nothing is or can be the same now – in the best possible way

When I returned to China and our old apartment, I came back refreshed and able to function again. I saw the world very differently. I felt ready to move on and embrace change. Not long after, I moved to Shenzhen nearby to Hong Kong.

A profound personal realization – Ayahuasca’s gift

Probably the most exciting thing for me was my new first-hand knowledge that we do not actually die, only the body does! I know we are told this by religion but to actually know it for yourself, from your own direct experiential proof is something else.  I no longer wondered about it from a position of faith, fear and logic. This was an enormous gift from ayahuasca.  I had lost my fear of death and no longer grieved for my partner.

Big Pharma doesn’t like these powerful natural healing agents

I wondered about these incredible natural medicines, like marijuana and ayahuasca. Why do we think we can do things better by always using synthesized drugs that often have brutal side effects? Why can’t we follow the Chinese way with two approaches, two streams that coexist in harmony, even in hospitals?

I also understood why mainstream medicine was scared of these natural low-cost medicines. Their healing properties are profound and can in many cases do away in short time with the need for the long-term ongoing use of patented modern symptom management drugs. People getting better permanently is bad for business!

Study, explore and try, but take responsibility

I encourage you to have the courage to responsibly explore the use of these powerful plant medicines, and enjoy them too, but understand them properly and approach them with great respect and care. Your life could be transformed, if not healed. I can certainly and personally vouch for the fact that you will see the world very differently and in a more positive way.

Eric Bray

Shenzhen, China