Episode 496: A Head Injury, Migraines and a Life-Changing Plant

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 Jessop.

Welcome to the Cannabis Health Radio podcast. I'm Ian Jessop. First of all, a big shout out to Swan Apothecary for supporting Cannabis Health Radio and helping make episodes like this possible. Swan Apothecary isn't just about selling cannabis. They're committed to creating safe, lab-tested products that truly support your wellness. From tinctures and oils to topicals and capsules, every product is carefully formulated for consistency, potency, and effectiveness. Not sure which product is right for you? Reach out to Swan Apothecary directly. Their knowledgeable team can guide you based on their goals, whether it's easing pain, improving sleep, or supporting overall wellness. And to explore their products, go to cannabishealtheradio.com and use the code cannabis health to receive 15% off. Once again, our thanks to Swan Apothecary, because how it's made matters. And now to our guests. The life of our guest today changed in an instant in 1985 after a devastating construction site accident left him with blunt force trauma to the head, permanent blindness in his right eye, and relentless migraine headaches caused by pressure inside the damaged eye. Once a successful construction engineer, he became bedridden, unable to work, and dependent on prescription medications that offered little relief. On this episode of the podcast, he shares his remarkable story of survival, healing, persistence, and the plant he calls a miracle from God. And joining us from Thailand is William Angolia. William, thanks for doing this. When did you move to Thailand?

4 years ago, right after Biden got elected and the world started going to shit.

Okay.

Yeah. Yeah.

William, I read your story. It's, it's really interesting what, how cannabis has changed your life, but let's go back to that accident in 1985. What exactly happened on the construction site?

Being a construction engineer, project superintendent, I do daily inspections of the building. I was walking around the building and the next thing I know, I woke up in a hospital. Apparently a sprinkler pipe had fallen from the ceiling that they were installing and hit me on the side of the head and sent me to the hospital. And through that blunt force trauma, I got a, I got a detached retina. They tried to reattach it and it wasn't successful. And then I eventually lost my sight in my right eye.

Wow.

From that, from that, from that damage coinciding with the damage to the eye. Because of the damage caused increased pressure in the eye, which inherently led to having the migraine headaches. Um, and they were debilitating. Um, all I can explain it to you is having your head in a vice and someone just squeezing as hard as they can. And no matter how much medication you take, it's never enough.

Were you experiencing these every day?

Yeah, this is an everyday thing. Right, right. After, after the damage and through my rehabilitation and the medications that the doctors had me on, um, it was a daily thing that occurred, but the pain levels would vary. From, from day to day, just like anyone else. You have good days, you have bad days.

Yeah.

Uh, but sometimes they were so debilitating that I knew I'm not getting out of bed today. Um, it was so debilitating that I wasn't able to work for the, the whole 3 years that I was under my rehabilitation and under doctor's care for it. And it wasn't until I had a, a conversation with a gentleman at a doctor's office that, you know, he told me something that I had never heard before. And that was, hey man, have you ever tried cannabis for, for your migraines? And I said, tell me more. I mean, I've used cannabis as a teenager growing up. Experimented with it, but never used it on a daily basis. So I took it to heart, and that was back in 19— by that time it was '88. And even with a little bit of information that was out there, there was documented evidence showing that the THC in the cannabis had direct results of lowering your eye pressure with patients who had had some kind of trauma to the head.

I guess at that time you were looking absolutely for anything that would help you get rid of these bloody migraine headaches.

Yes. Oh, most definitely. Because even with Even with the— other than a morphine or some kind of codeine, the medications they were giving me were still not enough for me to even go out and hold down a full-time job.

How was it emotionally for you, Willie?

Shit.

Um, that explains it.

Well, all I can say to anyone is, if they want an idea of what it's like to go blind in your— or in any eye— is to cover, to cover your eye for a 24-hour period and try to live a normal life and see how it goes for you. So through, through the rehabilitation that I went through therapy that I had helped me a lot to learn new techniques in order to do things a new way so I wouldn't continue to have those kinds of problems caused from, from having the damage in my eye. Um, and that took a while. Um, I don't turn to my right anymore. I always turn to my left. Uh, I'm, I'm always scanning, and I had— because I, because I have a blind, uh, uh, right eye, my field of vision is hindered to my, to my right. Yeah, I have to turn my neck further in order to compensate for that. So until I learned how to do that all the time, it caused me problems. I'd be running it, it'd be crazy. I'd be running I remember when it first happened, my son would have to take me shopping and I would run into people. I would run into things because I would turn to my right and because I had a blind spot, I didn't see what was there and I ran into it or I fell over something or I bumped into someone. You're either making yourself look stupid or you're apologizing to someone.

Yeah, it's interesting you say that because as you, as you were talking, As you were talking, I closed my right eye, and in order to see what I— I had to turn my head like you mentioned. So, like, right.

So, so, so, yeah. So, so through the therapy and the physical and the rehabilitation, they teach you how to, like, where to sit rooms at, like when you're at a restaurant, so you have a majority of your Like when I go to concerts, I always want to sit in a certain part of the arena because that's the best viewing area for me with my vision. So I always want to sit to the right of something, right?

Yeah.

Okay. So all my vision is to my left. So anything when I have a public speaking engagement, I mean, I've told my stories throughout the Northeast for legalization of cannabis in states. As an activist. I was very involved in that. And this is a very powerful story only because at the time, even when I asked my doctors about the benefits of it, they wouldn't tell me. They would just say, we can't do that. It's illegal. It's not federally mandated. It's not FDA approved. So throughout the years, I just told my story. So in telling my story one day, it led to an opportunity, and that was in 2010 through some political people that I know. They were starting the legalization of cannabis, put it on the, uh, as an Initiative 71 of Washington, D.C., and I was initially involved with that. Um, and I was lucky enough to be able to see that to fruition and through the legalization of cannabis, not only for Washington, D.C., but the nation.

Yeah, that's interesting. Before, before you get to that, I just want to back up to this, uh, in, in this fellow telling you about cannabis and for your migraines. Uh, tell us what, what you went through after he told you that.

Well, I mean, the first thing is always curiosity, uh, because this is something that no one else has ever told me about, uh, any kind of resolution to Like, like today you see commercials on TV for Botox for migraines. Okay, but, but it's a chem— it's a, it's an artificial man-made chemical. I don't want to put chemicals in my body. I, I, I don't want to take pharmaceuticals. I don't want to live my life having to rely on a pharmaceutical and me paying them to live my life. That's not living life. I mean, I understand there are certain things that you have to do that in order to maintain living your life. I understand that part. But to have to, you know, take this or take that or— I don't know. I would credit— I would credit cannabis to not getting COVID. Yeah, I would, I would honestly say that as a person who was 100% thrown into the lion's den when COVID hit, and it was a wonderful thing. And not a whole lot of people ever want to talk about that. Yeah.

So when, when this fellow told you about the cannabis, did you go— did you start smoking it originally?

No, I— well, first thing I did, I researched it, uh, and then after I researched it and found evidence that it did, yeah, I made a phone call and got some weed and, uh, I started smoking. And, um, you know, you don't notice anything right away, but after a couple days, I found that as soon as I started taking the cannabis I stopped taking my pharmaceuticals because I even probably should have waited to, uh, a little bit of time, um, to get that out of my system, uh, but I chose to just start right away. I started smoking a couple joints a day, uh, and then like after a week, 10 days they seem to be getting fewer and fewer apart, the headaches. Mm-hmm. And then like 3 and a half weeks in, bingo, I had one full day of not having a migraine headache. And that was a wonderful— that was a wonderful day.

Yeah, I can imagine after—

because, because if you're not, if you're not worrying about having the migraines and dealing with what you have to deal with, then you can live a normal, productive life. And that's when everything changes. And it's like, okay, I didn't have no headaches today. And you know what? I didn't have no headaches the next day, and I didn't have any headaches the next day. And then a week went by, a month went by, and then years started going by. And then every once, every once in a while, um, I would have a migraine or two throughout the year, but nothing, nothing major, nothing not manageable, nothing that I would even have to take a 1000mg Tylenol to take care of. I just smoke a little bit of weed. I'm usually pretty good.

Do you still get the occasional migraine?

Let me tell you a story. Um, I had a situation where I was going to another country, and if you enter that country, if anything were to ever happen and they found out that you had THC in your blood system, They could prosecute you and put you in jail in that country. So in order to, to get around that and not have that problem when I got to that country, I stopped for a month before I traveled to that country. I didn't start getting headaches right away, but when I got to the country that I was going to be traveling in, I was only there for like 10 days. Uh, so, but yeah, when I, when I— and that was only last year when I went to Malaysia. I went to Kuala Lumpur, and when you go there, you don't want to have any signs of drug use in your system. Because like I said, if anything were, you know, you could be in a car accident and be taken to the hospital and they're going to test your blood. And even though I've never even used in their country, they could hold me responsible for, um, uh, the use of it in another country legally. Yeah, um, just like the, the DMV laws. The DMV laws for intoxication or impairment, um, and the, uh, and what they consider the intoxication levels, the blood levels that they hold you to, any normal user will always fail that. Always. So it's a trap. You know, you're, you're, you're already convicted. You've already convicted yourself of a DUI before you even get behind your car. I actually wrote a really pretty good story about that. About an experience in Pennsylvania that cost me a year and a half of my life of dealing with just that.

Well, you know what, luckily your story is extremely interesting because on the previous episode, 495, we interviewed this fellow from Nevada who was driving with his son. He was a veteran. He was in the Navy. He was on opioids. And to get off opioids, he switched to cannabis, which helped him. He was driving with his son. Yes. A guy ran a red light, smashed into his car. The driver who smashed into his car was killed, but they tested the blood of this fellow and he had THC in his blood.

Correct.

And he ended up with a SWAT team surrounding his house. They went in and he was in 6 months imprisonment. And in order to avoid a lengthy prison, he went for the Alford treatment, I think it is, Alford plea. And he didn't smoke cannabis that day or the previous day.

Right, he wasn't impaired.

He was not impaired.

No, no, that's what I'm saying. You can have— every state has a legal definition of what impaired is under each state statute. And if you're just a casual user, it's like 0.04 microns of blood level. If you're just a casual user, say once or twice a month, You're still gonna— you're gonna still test positive for being impaired under a blood test in every state that has it. Yeah, I promise you, you will do that before you even get behind the wheel of a car. Now, my argument that we made was, well, Your Honor, we may be— we may be over the legal limit of what the state considers impaired, But we can prove to you that the impairment isn't the issue here. It's that there is no test for cannabis in one system to determine impairment. No one can— no scientist on this Earth can produce that. So what's their— what's, what's their, their justification? Setting an arbitrary number 0.04, that if you're over that limit, you're impaired. Yes, you're true. No, we disagree with you.

Yeah, exactly. Now, over the years, have you had to adjust your— how much cannabis you consume for you?

No. What I found— no, I mean, I love cannabis. I've come up the whole gamut of business owner, cultivator, genetics, activism, statehood for, uh, the legalization. Um, I, I like to specialize in the right to home grow. Um, like, everyone should be able to have the right to grow their own medicine without having to go somewhere and pay top dollar, and it's all state tax. You know, a lot of, a lot of the jurisdictions that you go to, um, probably sometimes more than 50% of the price of the product is taxes added by the jurisdictions. Yeah. Um, you know what, I'd rather just grow my own. We used to offer free grow classes because we wanted to teach it. To as many people as possible so they could grow their own. Um, and that's a really good thing. So when anyone can grow their own medicine, um, you know, now we're getting into growing medicine and using that for your endocannabinoid system and, um, what it does for you. And I've lectured and talked about that if you want to talk about that.

Yeah.

Uh, the endocannabinoid system is a very powerful thing if you know how to use it. And you can only get that from readily from the cannabis plant.

Now, besides eliminating your migraines, did cannabis improve other aspects of your health or your quality of life?

Well, it's kept me— by nature, I like to think that I'm a healthy person, other than, you know, you know, currently I'm heading back to DC to get a double hip replacement. So after 69 years, I, you know, I've really not had any other major health issues other than my, my damage to my eye. What, what has caused that is either good genetics or, uh, just like through COVID, Um, I had a very unique experience with COVID because my life went on overdrive because people didn't want to leave their home, and the only way that they could get their supplies is if they made a phone call and had it delivered to them. Um, so I was a very involved person going house to house with people who Some of them were okay with it and some people didn't even want to meet you personally. They would like just like leave money in the mailbox or something and you put— you replace it with the product. Yeah. So that was a very interesting time because I dealt with the death of my mother being in a hospital right before COVID So I was in a lot of places where there were a lot of unhealthy people, and I never even once got a cold. So I'll dress it up to trying to live a halfway decent life and a healthy life, and the grace of God and good genetics. How about that?

That's good. William, William, how different do you think your life would have been without cannabis? This?

Well, it, it's kind of hot. It's kind of hard to prove a, a negative. Um, yeah, where I, I, I, I, I would have had no idea other than it probably would not have been a very productive life for me if that was— if that's how I— if that's how I would have had to live the rest of my life. Knowing that, well, I'm older now, but back then I was only 25. But, um, yeah, yeah, I grew up in a very violent, dysfunctional demographics of Washington, D.C. as a white child growing up in the '60s and '70s. I don't, I don't know if you can imagine that, but Uh, it is— that was a very difficult time in our history. Um, and I love history. I'm a history buff. Um, but one of my regrets in life is that I thought I would never live this long, only because of the environment that I grew up in and the area that I came from. Um, so I've been fortunate in my life. Uh, Again, we— no one knows where that road would have took us if, if that cannabis had never even entered into my life. All I can tell you is that if that's how I would have had to live my life the rest of my life, knowing that, I would not have been a very happy camper at all. Um, so I, I'm a solutions-oriented kind of person. So just because you tell me you can't do something doesn't mean it can't be achieved. So with, with the knowledge that I had at the time, I just made an educated decision and tried it and see if it worked. And it does. And I went on for other people to benefit from that knowledge. And that's really all I've ever wanted in my life is for other people to do that. And I've been fortunate enough in my life to be able to pass that on to a lot of people through being able to teach them how to make their own tincture and their own, uh, bombs and their own oils and teaching the extraction process, teaching growing. Uh, it all starts with teaching. It's all in the power of the plant, and that's where all the power comes from. Yeah, absolutely. And it's just everyone has their own dedication level to the power of the plant. But to all of us who know what that means and have it, it's a great thing. It's a great thing. So, William, go ahead. Go ahead.

No, I was just going to say, what message would you give to people suffering from chronic migraines today?

Well, I wouldn't just isolate it to the people with chronic migraines. I would break it down to doing your homework on and researching the endocannabinoid system, of how the endocannabinoid system within the cannabis plant aligns directly with the human freaking body. Okay, so without that replenishment of the endocannabinoid, it's a finite system that you have within one's body to heal itself. It's not rocket— this stuff is not rocket science. I, I, I don't know why so many people try to make it more difficult than what it needs to be. But if you replenish your body with the endocannabinoids that you need in order to heal your body, the body itself will heal itself. The body is a— the body is a miraculous thing, and it was designed perfectly. People don't understand that. So it isn't until you start putting chemicals and pharmaceuticals into your body, you start being in environments that are bad for your health and doing destructive things to yourself that will cause you to have negative connotations, then, you know, that's what you have to live with. All right.

Yeah.

Me personally, I mean, me personally, I don't want any complications when I go to my doctor. I've been to doctors here. I've been to doctors here in Thailand about my hips. And they asked— the first thing they asked you is, what, what pain medication are you on? And I said, I don't take any pain medications. I just use it. I just use cannabis. Not one doctor here discouraged me me from stopping using cannabis for my pain relief because they told me that there's nothing that they could give me from that is in their pharmaceutical inventory that could do any better, period.

How is, how is cannabis viewed and accessed in Thailand compared to the U.S.?

Well, it's a 6,000-year hemp. It's an herb. It's just the whole reason they're changing their medical process here for the use of cannabis is for the medical and herbal part of it. You know, they're not making it better. They're just making it more restrictive because this is a— this is a monarchy. We let the people here live in a monarchy. So if the government doesn't have a hands in it, they don't want it to exist.

Yeah, that seems to be the same everywhere, isn't it?

Just all different levels. Yeah, I've been through different state legislations of legalization of different levels. Some states, you know, people will— you— what were— what are some of the best states to get legalization in? Well, it's not the— what's the best legalization? It's what are the boundaries for you as an individual to enter the market? What, what are those barriers? There are some states you can go to for $10,000, I can be in business tomorrow. There's other states that I couldn't take $10 million and go buy a cannabis license right now in states. What— why is that? Yeah, well, we all, we all, we all, we all know why. Um, that's a whole nother story. Um, yeah, yeah, cannabis in itself, of learning the endocannabinoid system and how it replenishes your, your system within your body for it to heal itself. Now, I, I unfortunately had an injury that can't be surgically repaired and it can't be naturally repaired yet. I think yet I say yet, because once the, once the retina detaches from the back of the, the, the, the eye, the eye membrane, it's gone forever. So, you know, there may be some new research coming. I've seen some tentative stuff, but it really hasn't been very successful yet.

William, as we wrap this up and as you approach your 69th birthday, what are you most grateful for today?

Well, I'm grateful for a lot of things. That one, I'm alive and well and being able to survive and take care of myself in this in this world today. Uh, a lot of people can't say that. Health-wise, other than, you know, having to need a double hip replacement, I'm pretty healthy. And hopefully I got at least a good— another good 20 years in me. Uh, my mother, uh, she, uh, she was fortunate enough to live until she was 99 years old. Wow. And I have some uncles and aunts that even in their 90s, they're still alive today. My father unfortunately died when he was younger. He died at 59 of lung cancer. And he was a D.C. policeman. He smoked. He owned a couple of gas stations. So he spent his life around a lot of pollutants. One lesson I learned early in life is, uh, polluting one's body. You know, do I like to drink and can I drink? Yes. Do I enjoy it? No. Why? Because it's not in my best interest and I don't like it polluting my body. Just like taking medications. If I don't have to take it, I won't take it because I don't want those chemicals in my body. Polluting my body. I know that with putting the THC in cannabis in different forms— vaping it, smoking it, uh, tinctures, uh, bombs— I love cooking with it. I make a really good, uh, stuffed crust salmon. It's, it's actually pretty famous. Um, and some awesome brownies and maybe some gummies every once in a while. Um, but, uh, no matter how you do it, uh, if you give the endocannabinoid system within your body the chance and the opportunity to work its magic, 90% of people's problems would probably go away. I bank on it.

Yeah, you're absolutely right. William, I appreciate you. I really appreciate you doing this, and I want to thank you for reaching out. I realize it's late in the evening in Thailand, but it was good of you to do this. Thanks very much.

Anything else I can do for you? If anyone wants any information or would like to have a conversation, feel free to reach out.

Great. Thanks, William.

Thank you, Ian. Have a good day, brother.

You too.

Peace.

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