Episode 459: From PTSD to Political Advocacy: Michael Balderstone’s Journey with Cannabis and the Fight for Reform in Australia

Welcome to Cannabis Health Radio, where we share powerful real life stories from people around the world who are using cannabis as medicine. The goal of this podcast is to raise awareness of the healing potential of cannabis and is not intended as medical advice. And now, here's your host, Ian Jessup.

Foreign. Welcome to the Cannabis Health Radio podcast. I'm Ian Jessup. Joining me today from Nimbin Australia is Michael Balderston, a longtime cannabis advocate and president of Australia's Hemp Party and one of the key voices behind the Nimbin Hemp Embassy. Often described as a sanctuary for those seeking healing through cannabis, Nimbian has become a kind of outdoor weed hospital, a place where stories of recovery, resilience and activism intersect. Michael's personal experience with PTSD and his late introduction to Cannabis at age 25 shaped his passionate journey into advocacy. Through his work, he's connected with countless Australians using cannabis daily for a wide range of medical issues. And he also helps publish Voices from the Real World, a booklet filled with the powerful testimonies of those who've turned to cannabis when conventional options fell short. Michael, it's good to talk to you. We've tried this a couple of times, but because of the reception and time issues, we didn't get it done. But today looks good. How are you?

Yeah, good. Perseverance furthers. Yeah, thanks for hanging in.

Michael, tell us about your PTSD issue. What's behind that?

So I'm a country boy, grew up in the country, you know, went to a tiny little school we'd ride a horse or a bike to. So my parents sent me off to boarding school when I was 10 and it really was a bad experience for me. I kind of, I realized now I shut down. It was an all boys school, old school, English traditions.

So.

As I understand it now, when you have childhood trauma, you kind of draw the curtains on it to, you know, stop you. I couldn't cry, for example. So I leave school early, didn't enjoy school, leave school early, go home on the farm, restless, drinking. I ended up joining a stockbroker and got on well and they sent me to London. By now I'm 23 or so. I was always drinking a lot. I didn't really know anything about drugs. Had a sheltered life, I guess, in many ways. And anyway, I kind of, you know, there I was in London ringing up Swiss banks, helping them get richer, and life wasn't making enough sense to me. So I quit and we drove overland to India. I think really I was on a spiritual search. I needed to know if There was a God or not? Or was it just dog eat dog? What's going on here? So it was actually in Afghanistan the first time I really got stoned and possibly the strongest hash on the planet. I'm hallucinating, you know, and I don't know, it let the plug out of the back of my head or something, you know, I just took the pressure off. I experienced kind of a state of mind that was peaceful or something and also just I was in an orange orchard, the whole thing went liquid in Kandahar. It was interesting. Anyway, that sort of set me off on a search and I never really drank alcohol much again, always loved cannabis. I've had periods where I didn't smoke for a while but always went back to it. I used to get shocking migraines and at some point I smoking pot, I realized I'm not getting any migraines. That was huge. Anyway, it's been a long journey, that's 50 years ago now.

And.

I blew my head up once, trying too hard to work out God, which you can't kind of work out. And I ended up back in Australia 40 bit over 40 years ago with children and came to Nimbin looking for like minded people. I'd spent 10 years wandering around overseas, a few years in India, the Middle east, lived in Greece for two years trying to work out who I was, what am I going to do, you know, where's my path if you like.

Yeah, you're on, you're on a path of self discovery.

Yeah, definitely. Anyway, Nimbin, the university students in Australia held it Back to the earth Festival in 1973 and Nimbin was a like dying little country town and they bought lots of the buildings and started hippie communes and possibly a bit like Northern California or something back in the day. And here I kind of found my tribe, if you like. But meanwhile Nimbin had become, you know, the marijuana capital of Australia, if you like. People knew, oh, we could always go to Nimbin, you can score pot. People would be on the street selling pot and it was mostly heroin addicts selling pot then. And they were the ones desperate enough to take the risk. They're the ones who went to jail. There were sporadic police raids and on it goes. You know, this is, I didn't say I visited during the 70s and then came to live here in the mid-80s and it was really the street dealers, the junkies who taught me about prohibition and I hadn't really thought about it and they, I read a bit and the more I Read. And the more I looked at it, the more I realized this drug war is huge. Pain relief is probably the best business on the planet. And here's all these people fighting over the profits from it and not so much caring about the people. And, yeah, I think I slowly woke up. And then with a few mates, we used to get bad, big police raids on the communities. They come with helicopters. It was like military exercise. And, you know, we started this rally. We made a big joint, a giant joint, sewed sheets together on a bamboo frame and marched to the police station on May 1. That was, I think, back in 1992. We had such a good day and felt kind of empowered that we thought, we're going to do this every year. So Mardi Gras was born, which is now in its 33rd year, and that kind of embedded nimbin as a bit of a marijuana capital. But again, the more I learned, the more I thought, what can we do about it? So we formed a political party and that trickled along for a long time. The Hemp Party, help end marijuana prohibition. And then maybe five or six years ago, I'm not exactly sure, Queenslanders started a Legalized Cannabis party and we changed our name to Legalized Cannabis and that gave us quite a hit. And I think the legalizing of cannabis in Canada and America, particularly all the publicity with America, kind of put it on the agenda and we started getting votes. And then the government legalized medical Cannabis here in 1996. It was very hard to get. It had to be a special access scheme, had to have tried everything else first, hang up there. And again, they put it on the agenda more. And then when Covid came along, telehealth marketing started in Australia. They started doing cannabis and that was terrific. You know, just a lot of people got access to it, really. It was a bit of a scam, I'd have to admit.

People.

People were just finding a way to do it, but it opened it all up. So I think there's been like a million prescriptions now maybe a million people have accessed legal cannabis. It's nearly all coming in from Canada, although quite a few other countries now. But suddenly, you know, cannabis was on the agenda. And we've now got four members of parliament in, you know, two in Victoria, one New south, one in Western Australia. So back in the day, it used to be just to get the issue on the agenda, but now, you know, how can we really make change? And it's proven to be extremely difficult.

When you say the cannabis is coming in from Canada, explain Exactly what is arriving in Australia from Canada.

So there would be tincture or mostly it's flour and it's possibly a lot of it is quite cheap leftover flour from Canada's excess. I think we're not. The government wouldn't allow importing from America because federally you're not legal. Some of it's coming from Europe. I see Thailand now. All sorts of countries are trying to send it in and I think the conditions for Australian growers, it's a lot of money to get a license and I think probably more rules here too. So more than 50% is coming in from Canada as I know it flower and people then are buying it. Telehealth marketers. It's in the mail two days later and the doctors are trying to crack down on it, but the horse has bolted. In a way, I'm not sure what will happen. It reminds me of Thailand where suddenly they legalized cannabis. Now they're trying to pull it back in. We'll see what happens.

What is the. You mentioned doctors. I assume that the attitude of the medical profession in Australia is in opposition to cannabis.

It always has been. It's still officially got no proven medical use. It's just, you know, because basically our Therapeutic Goods association, which controls which medicines are acceptable or not, have set up an obstacle course if you like, which cannabis has never got through being a herb and you know, you've got to do double blind placebo trials. So they really made the rules and made sure cannabis stayed out of the market. And I think it was epileptic children that changed the course of it. And it was an Aboriginal fellow who was making his own medicine and treating epileptic children. And he started doing it here from the Hemp Embassy. We started this Hemp Embassy along with Mardi Gras 30 odd years ago just to educate people about prohibition really. And in the end he got arrested and jailed and but got the publicity. And who was going to argue against, you know, little children having hundreds of seizures and suddenly cannabis just stopped her. Was like a miracle. So that opened, that kicked the door open and from there it's like the plant is the teacher in the end. Because the doctors are not taught anything about cannabis at all in their getting their degree. But once people started getting it, here's the patients talking to the doctors and the doctors are saying, whoa, suddenly you're sleeping okay or your cancer's come back or retreated a bit or you know, you're not having seizures like you were. So it's like the patients are teaching the Doctors here almost at the moment. It's an interesting situation and somehow the doctors have got control of the market. Really?

Yeah. I mean you can talk to a doctor today and talk about the endocannabinoid system and they would have no idea what you're talking about.

Yeah, there are some Doctors, the last 10 years have run courses for a few doctors. But the telehealth thing is like doctors who have just finished university with a big debt to getting paid, well, to pay it off and talking to people on the phone. So a lot of cannabis users, it's always been popular in Australia. A lot of cannabis users are rolling over to get medical weed because if you do get busted, the courts are a bit more sympathetic and we have terrible driving rules where, you know, police can pull you over, test your saliva and any trace of thc you lose your license. So it's been our big struggle to change. So Victoria's, Victoria's now got, if you've got legal a prescription, a magistrate can let you off now. So that's about where we're up to. So people are keen to have a prescription. It's got a bit more respect. But the stigma is still huge, I'd have to say.

Well, it is, it is in North America as well, surprisingly. I mean you can go out and you can buy a case of whiskey and go out and get absolutely shit faced drunk, start a fight and somehow that's fine. But if you want to get high thc, that's against the law, you can't do it. Yeah. And it just, you have to, you have to think, are you people crazy? Just think about it. I mean, I want to stay home and I don't want to get high and I want to help my family by making some cannabis oil and assisting others to improve their health. But you will allow me to go out and get drunk but you won't allow me to help other people. It's insane. It just, it baffles the mind and I think that's one of the things that you're struggling with in Australia. Correct.

Well, I think what did Hitler say? If you tell a lie often enough, it'll be believed.

That's right.

And I read recently how the pharmaceutical industry is putting more money than ever into their propaganda and lies and you know, they've got the money so they're taking out the political ministers in their minders and yeah, I'm constantly amazed. By now it's like medical cannabis is safe but that stuff that's not grown legally, that's clearly dangerous. I mean we're talking the same plant everywhere. So yeah, it's a slow process. I read a thing last week where California's, I think 37% of Californians had used cannabis in the last month and you know, 50% of them using it daily. So it takes a long time for people to rediscover how this plant might be good for you.

And the biggest increase in usage is people our age, the older generation, because of the aches and pains that we have and how it eradicates a lot of that or assists. And you know, on this podcast We've done over 450 interviews and we've done some incredible stories about people saving their own lives or saving the lives of someone else. Corey Yellen, my co host who passed this year, she was given four to six months to live with anal canal cancer and it was cannabis that saved her life and she got an extra 12 years and she didn't die of anal canal cancer, she died of polymyalgia rheumatica and sepsis got her. So it's, I mean it's unbelievable the stories that we've had on this podcast and the help that this plant has given people and saved lives. And I mentioned this over and over again, Michael. We've interviewed about 25 people who've had brain cancer, very, very bloody serious. And all but two of them are still alive today. And it's remarkable. No pharmaceutical has that success. Right.

And you know, to think in 10,000 years no one has died from using it. It's extraordinary really. And I think, you know, from what I see most pain is inflammation and swelling and cannabis has this fantastic property of, you know, anti inflammatory and also people don't realize you don't actually have to get stoned to get some benefit out of it also. So yeah, there's a lot of propaganda and nonsense that has to get sort of washed away. It will take a while yet, but certainly Canada especially, I think you guys carved the way in many ways in the, in the Commonwealth anyway, like England is still the same and sometimes I think Australia, you know, until the motherland makes a move, we're not going to either in a big way. Our Prime Minister won't even utter the word and he's not a bad guy. It's like, yeah, he's just not game to go for it. So we are, we're optimistic. We've got a three step policy in the parliament where we've got members which is, you know, to allow people to grow six plants and carry 50 grams and share their cannabis and eventually have social clubs and dispensaries and try to have micro licenses, give people jobs rather than let big cannabis take over, which kind of is already happening, I'd have to say. But I think slowly but surely, like you mentioned that book, we've got voices from the real world. There are so many fantastic stories now getting out there and, you know, people come to us and like you say, old people. So. So the old grumpy grandpa goes home and starts getting a good sleep and his arthritis is not as bad and everyone hears about it. So really people are doing it, aren't they?

They are, yeah. It's. In Australia is, I think, like around the world, the stigma of cannabis is related to smoking cannabis and getting high. The health benefits are something that people obtain afterwards. They think, oh, my God, like. Like you with your ptsd.

Yeah.

And all of a sudden, you know, that cleared up and you got focus in life. Is that a fair comment?

Yeah, that's a good comment. One of my ways of trying to explain it, what happens to me is, you know, if you've got a muddy pool of. You stir up a pond of water. When I smoke cannabis, all the mud settles and you can see clearly through the water. It's a bit like that for my mind. And. And out of that comes the healing. You know, I don't get the migraines, I don't have the stress I carry or whatever. I think a lot of people with PTSD love cannabis and I think, you know, on different levels, we've all got ptsd. No one had the perfect childhood, so we all carry various levels of trauma and, I mean, when veterans came back from Iraq and Afghanistan, they just love cannabis. That is serious ptsd. I mean, I wish the police would use it because the police carry heaps of this kind of stress. So it's, you know, the word is spreading, it's slowly getting out there. And Australians are kind of a bit of a cynical mob anyway, I reckon, so that they. There's a lot of cannabis use and it goes with drinking. There's not a lot of people who politically engage and we don't have a bill of rights in this country, so we could never kind of get it on the agenda for the people to vote. So we've just got to try and get politicians interested anyway. It's hard to get it to the top of the pile.

Michael, tell us some of the stories that you've experienced over the years of people in Australia who have used cannabis and the benefits that they. They've obtained from it.

Well, ptsd, like I said, I see as super popular. A lot of people, I think, are daily users because of childhood trauma. To be honest, A lot of people use cannabis to get off other drugs. I find, you know, they talk about cannabis being a gateway drug. It's a gateway out of other drugs. I find. Like we have 30 or 40 different volunteers that help in the Hemp Embassy. Some of them are old ice addicts, heroin addicts, alcoholics. Nimbin is this funny little village, bit of an outdoor hospital, like you mentioned, and heaps of alcoholics here who don't drink, they smoke pot instead. So I would say that's one of the great things I've seen about cannabis. It can help you, you know, it's. You can still operate, it's less, you know, it's not harmful, doesn't have the side effects that. That other drugs do have. The other. Lots of people treating their cancer with cannabis, heaps and heaps of people. And if it can't heal it, it certainly can hold. It would be, my experience, can keep it at bay. And a lot of people are having smaller chemo hits and using cannabis. That seems to work also, which is interesting. So, you know, I'm not adverse to some pharmaceutical products. It's more. I wish they weren't be so greedy and let us be involved as well, the herbal world, you know.

Yeah. Do you.

A lot of people with. On the spectrum love cannabis, I find, or all sorts of, you know, adhd, add, ocd, all those that nervous. I call that the sort of nervous world, you know, they love cannabis for just settling them down. I find people with Parkinson's love cannabis. I also hear they're loving mushrooms for Parkinson's too. Quite a bit, yeah.

Do you only smoke? Do you take oil at all?

I reckon I'm hooked on the smoking habit from. I used to smoke tobacco and I stopped smoking tobacco, but I reckon I like smoking, so I do smoke joints mostly, but I take CBD in a tincture form. I've taken THC in a tincture form to get around the driving problems. We have capsules which, from what I understand, don't come back up into your saliva. So a lot of people use capsules, which is a great way to go, but it's quite different and I find edibles affect you different. Come on, slowly. You've got to get your dose worked out or you've had too much or too little and it's an hour later before you really know. So I guess that self titration is the easy bit of smoking, but I'm sure it's not the healthiest way to take cannabis. And it's a social thing, I think, having a smoke together. I think people like that too.

Yeah. The edibles I find a bit tricky because you don't know how much you're getting. And like, you say you could have an edible and think, well, there wasn't much in that, I'm gonna have another one and then bang, I'm a zombie. That's right. Like you were when you took your hash in Afghanistan.

Yeah, it is like that. It's just too much. So finding the dose is a very big part of cannabis use, I think. And for a lot of people it's just a toke, just a tiny little shift, you know, you don't need heaps. So this is all part of where I think a good dispensary will have people to educate people, you know, and that's barely happening now. I mean, Nimbin is unique. It's a unique situation here. And the police at the moment are very cool, very tolerant. They know that, you know, if they raid Nimbin, everyone will go to the pub and get drunk and then they've got real problems.

Yeah.

So, you know, we don't have the fentanyl issues that you have, although there's an edge of it in the cities, I'm sure. But we really, we're a country of big drinkers, really. Australia. So I noticed that's coming back a little bit. Cannabis use is going up. We're in the midst of big change.

Yeah. One of the stories that I'm going to do in the next month or so is a woman whose nine year old child was suffering seizures and she started giving the child cannabis and the seizures stopped and the child now is 19, 20, 21. So he's working. So we're trying to arrange mutual time and I love stories like that because I think nothing can be worse for a parent than having a child have multiple seizures every single day. I mean, if that's not PTSD for a parent, I don't know what is. But for the child, it's just. It's horrific.

It is horrific. Yeah. I mean, I guess you've seen them too. There's videos here. We've had just shocking children and really young children having seizure after seizure after seizure. And for cannabis to completely stop them not only change the child's life, the parents life, the whole extended family life. So it's like a miracle, really.

Yeah. Have you seen the YouTube video that came out about 10 years ago of the guy with Parkinson's who was shaking really badly, just terrible. And then he took a couple of tokes and he just normalized. Yeah, I mean, it was beautiful to see.

That was my first introduction to the medic, really realizing the medical properties. So it's very early days in Nimbin and this old couple used to get their welfare check every two weeks and they'd come down and they'd buy cannabis off the street and they'd get ripped off. And so they asked me to help them. And so every two weeks we'd help them buy a good bag of cannabis. Then one day we said, so it was his wife Bob buying it, and he's in the car and we asked her what it's about, and she goes, oh, it's about Fred and his Parkinson's. So we got Fred out of the car and he had the shakes badly and he had two big, big lungfuls and completely stopped shaking and swayed from side to side with a grin from ear to ear. Was a great moment, I always remember. Quite extraordinary for him.

Oh, I love stories like that. It's just amazing. I mean, politicians should see that.

Politicians have seen it. I went and talked to the health minister with the mother of an epileptic child and they listened politely. And somewhere that's 15 years ago, the door, they're just not doing it. I know they're not doing it now. We've got some members of Parliament. Certainly there's a new respect and a bit of ear for it. But the police, I'd have to say, I think, have enormous power in Australia. The New South Wales Police is the oldest police service on the planet. And, yeah, it's their power. They don't want. They don't want to lose that power. Even though a lot of police on the ground I talk to would be very sympathetic and even voted for us in the election. But somewhere up high, I don't think they're into it. And I think it's very hard to admit they've made a mistake. They've actually been ruining people's lives rather than helping them. That's a big pill to swallow. You know, the drug war is their war. It's more than half their work. And the whole thing is a sham. For me, you know, it should be a health issue, drug use.

Where do you see it going in Australia in the next months? Five years?

I would think we'd have to get it legal, you know, the beginning of legalization within the next few Years. Something like what happened in Germany, though, in the act, a tiny little state, or we've got where Canberra is, people are allowed to grow two plants and carry 50 grams. So we're going to. We're chasing a change like that. We'd rather have six plants and you can not only carry, but share 50 grams. And that's what we're going for. And I think there's a fair chance we'll get some breakthrough in the next few years, I think. But yeah, the resistance is huge. Not just the police, the remnants of the church, which is absolutely. Got a lot of power still. The alcohol industry, they lose money, but really it's big pharma. Big pharma. Clearly you're gonna lose money. And they're making so much money. It's just business. From what I can see, it's just money, money, money. And yeah, they'll spend billions to try to stop cannabis getting legal. And I think just public opinion is shifting quite quickly now. So it'll have to come, I reckon within five years we'll be allowed to possibly grow some plants and no one will get busted for personal amounts anymore. And it's coming.

Yeah, it's. There are two countries in the world that allow pharmaceutical advertising on television. That's the United States and New Zealand. And in the United States, they spent over $5 billion on advertising. And so you don't have the media on your side because they realize the pharmaceutical industry helps pay their bills. Yeah, it's.

You're spot on. And you know what it is in Australia also, it's gambling. They tried to stop the insane gambling that's going on in Australia and they couldn't because the media is making a fortune out of advertising.

It's all about education, Michael. It's all about education and that's what we have to continue to do. And I really appreciate you doing this. Thank you so much.

Absolute pleasure. Love your work. Good on you.

Thank you.

We'll get there.

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