Somos Primos

Shane McCormick: Hello everybody, this is Shane from cheaphomegrow.com introducing Dr. Holtzman,
I have a few questions for the doctor. Could you please tell my audience about yourself?

Dr. Aury Lor Holtzman: I did my undergraduate at UCI. I did my medical education in Mexico. I did post medical graduation at UCI and then at the VA hospital where I did an internship in internal medicine. I started practicing in 1987 in California, and then I opened my own practice in 1988. I was a general practitioner. In 2005 I added treatment of opioid abuse disorder with Suboxone to my practice and expanded. A few years later I started consulting for rehab for drug and alcohol rehab facilities and treating opiate detox and also alcoholism and a couple other conditions. I took some time off from my practice and started to do locums work throughout Los Angeles at clinics, mostly for the farm workers and low-income people.

Then on skid row, I worked the methadone clinics. I also worked in Fresno for about six months, at some of the clinics that treated farm workers out in the rural areas of Fresno. I was out there in 2009 during the swine flu, and I was the only doctor at one of the clinics. I drove up the road and I saw about a hundred people standing in front of the clinic with bandannas and masks over their faces because they’re concerned about the swine flu. So I’ve had a lot of experience over the years for treating opioid addiction, what I started noticing is that most people that are addicted to opioids, when you get them off, they go right back on. What I did start noticing some people didn’t go back on opiates. And when I questioned them about it, and they would start talking about marijuana or cannabis as an alternative treatment that they would use to keep from going back to opioids to help treat some of the problems they had, like anxiety or sleep issues or depression.

At that point in my life, I was educated in regular medical education, so I saw cannabis as just another drug, same as heroin, same as mushrooms. So I didn’t quite differentiate it out. In about 2010 I had an opportunity to work in a cannabis clinic doing medical cannabis evaluations. With that opportunity, I started seeing all kinds of people that were claiming miraculous cures with cannabis. I was obviously very skeptical, I’d have people come in and tell me they’ve had cancer and they use marijuana and their cancer went away. Over my 30 year career, I’ve seen cancer just go away because that can happen.

Shane McCormick: Really?

Dr. Aury Lor Holtzman: Yes. Disappear one day. I wasn’t impressed. It can happen. They just don’t print it in books because apparently, people wouldn’t get treatment if they knew that they had a one in a hundred million chance their cancer would just go away.

After doing cannabis evaluations, I decided to reopen a practice. In January 2011 I opened my own practice in Huntington Beach to do general practice, treat opiate addiction and also do cannabis evaluations. I did that until March [2018] when I closed the office with the recreational cannabis, the business had fallen off. So I decided I was more interested in doing consulting, giving lectures. I mostly do lectures for senior facilities because a lot of seniors are very interested in cannabis because the opioids just don’t react well to their lifestyle.

Dr. Aury Holtzman Espouses The Health Benefits of Cannabis

Shane McCormick: That brings up my next question, what method of ingestion do you recommend for your senior patients? Or what’s their preferred method of use?

Dr. Aury Lor Holtzman: Most elderly people probably prefer the edibles. A lot of them prefer things in a pill form because it’s closer to what they’re used to, the problem with edibles, they can take up to two hours to take effect, and they can last up to 12 hours. Its just way more difficult to time an edible than it is something shorter acting. So a lot of times when I have a new elderly patient, everyone is an individual, because everybody has different health problems. Everybody’s got different psychological conditions, everybody’s on various medications. Remember cannabis interacts with almost every medication to some extent. So everything has to be taken into consideration.

When I get an elderly person, almost all of them have some pain related to some kind of arthritic condition. Most of them I always consider at least using a topical. No matter what, if they’re not going to do anything else, I suggest them at least consider doing a topical. The problem with cannabis in California, I don’t know if it’s the same in your area, but here’s nobody medical making this. There’s nobody pharmaceutical producing this, it’s people making in their garage or in a kitchen or something. So everything’s a little bit unreliable. So you’re never sure going to get the same product every single time.

What I always recommend is when you’re looking for a product, ask for samples. If they don’t have samples ask them if they have very small trial size and give it a try before you buy it. Some bottles and containers will be a hundred bucks. So I always recommend people don’t spend more than $5 to try a topical. You can get a sample that’s better. Generally the topicals work better, the more fat-soluble they are; usually, an ointment will work better than a can of cream. Generally, creams and lotions in cannabis are not very good for pain because the cannabinoids are fat soluble, there lipophilic, if you put them in a water-soluble vehicle, like cream, they don’t tend to penetrate, so there better to be an ointment.

The problem with ointments is that they leave you sticky. Ointments are useful in a place like a back where can tolerate something sticky. For areas like hands or feet where you don’t want something sticky I usually recommend trying alcohol solution. That’s the second best for some penetration. That way it’ll penetrate, and it’ll evaporate, so you don’t have the stickiness. Another option for elderly people is a patch where you put it directly over the area. The patches are particularly suitable for somebody who’s had surgery like back surgery. Say somebody has had multiple back surgeries, you can put a patch, and that’ll give you local effects, and it also gives you systemic effects.

Shane McCormick: How long does it take to actually go into effect, whether it’d be a, a patch or a topical, how long does it actually take to see the results?

Dr. Aury Lor Holtzman: OK, it depends on what you’re treating. If you’re treating a topical pain, the closer to the surface the quicker it tends to work. For example, pain in a finger that’s going to be a little quicker than pain in a hip. If it’s an inflammatory condition, it might actually take a couple of days before it actually makes the inflammation down. I’ve personally used cannabis for hip bursitis, I used a topical ointment called, Xternal Topical Balm. The first time I put it on, you get a warm menthol feeling, similar to Icy Hot.

The inflammation took several hours before it decreased very much. So with inflammatory conditions, a lot of times you’re going to have to put a topical on for several days in a row before you’re going to get significant benefit. You’re going to get a decrease in a day, but to get significant benefit, it might take a couple of days.

When you use topicals something to be aware of is that if it’s a fat-soluble vehicle and it’s fairly high concentration, you’re going to get systemic effects from the cannabis in the topical. We want people to be careful if they’re going to put a lot of topical on and then they’re going to go and drive. Usually, I recommend people when they start cannabis products start them during the middle of the day since they’re not going to be driving. So they have a lot of time to assess what the effects are.

Shane McCormick: Depending on how much you physically put on your body, it can act like if you were ingesting it?

Dr. Aury Lor Holtzman: It’s going to depend on how concentrated it is, where you’re putting and how good the circulation is there. The best thing with topicals is to try them, and everything with cannabis is about balance. You start low and then work your way slowly. So you can access how you react to it and how it interacts with other medications and other products your taking.

Shane McCormick: I’m going to sort of switch gears, do you believe medical cannabis can be an effective opioid substitute?

Dr. Aury Lor Holtzman: Absolutely. Let me just give you an example. I had a patient that I saw as a general practitioner, that had multiple back surgeries. She was on very high doses of opioids, which I was writing for at the time. I used to write opioids.

She would take all the opioids I gave her and then she’d run out then she would go into withdrawals and end up in an emergency room. I told her, I’m not comfortable writing in higher doses. I have to send you to pain management. I sent her to pain management, and she maxed out all the pain pills they would give her. She would still end up in the emergency room. It was a really horrible thing, but after using cannabis, she looked me up and came in, and I explained about using marijuana for pain. By the third year she came back, she was off all our opioids, and I was surprised because the other doctors that we’re seeing her and I all consider her a drug addict. The first year she came back she put down she was on Oxycodone and Norco. By the last year she put down, and I said, “so you’re off Oxycodone?”, she said “yes,” and I asked “you just take Norco?” and she said, “I take nothing.” She goes on to say “I don’t have any pain, so I need nothing. I’m not a drug addict.” I said to myself, “wow, was I wrong?” So absolutely, cannabis can be used to replace opioids.

When I start patients with cannabis that have pain, I never tell them we’re going to get them off their pills. I explained to them as the cannabis goes higher, the synergistic effects of the pills are going to make the pills feel way stronger, they’re going to be kind of forced to decrease the pills. Most people that I see with pain issues are able to reduce their opioid use by anywhere from 25 to 100 percent.

Shane McCormick: That’s quite a statistic.

Dr. Aury Lor Holtzman: Absolutely. When that happened, it kind of blew me away to the point that I question the use of opioids in most patients.

Shane McCormick: How was that patient ingesting their cannabis?

Dr. Aury Lor Holtzman: She was taking an edible product that was a one to one ratio of THC to CBD in a hybrid.

She started off with candies; as her dose got higher she eventually had to switch over to the concentrated oils for costs. A lot of the candies are made with oils, so you’re paying extra to have them put into candy, when she finally came back she said, I don’t have to take any opioids, but this is not going to be affordable. So then at that point, I suggested, maybe you should think about getting the oils. The problem with the oils is most of our made poorly and contaminated.

Shane McCormick: I can agree with that. I see a lot of people on social media promoting their oils “as the best oils out there,” but I’ve always been skeptical of those type of products.

Dr. Aury Lor Holtzman: I’ve been in this industry since 2010, and I have yet to find a product that I would be willing to promote because there’s nothing that’s made well enough for me to promote. They would have to go through steps. The first thing they would have to do is grow the cannabis organically, but what everybody usually does out here, they just buy oils made from anybody or only by cannabis from anybody available and then they buy some solvent from the hardware store. Nobody is even using pharmaceutical grade, and they just make it up in a kitchen.

Shane McCormick: From your experience which is better for treating pain, Sativa or Indica?

Dr. Aury Lor Holtzman: All the strains are hybrids, there’s no really no such thing as Indica or Sativa. What I do is I look at Indica as the main effect you have. So if you think of every strain as a hybrid, every strain has its own characteristics like dogs, dogs think you can divide it into categories of the major effects which are, retrievers, terriers, shepherds, but among any group of those, we’ve got a lot of variations, like terriers. We have bull terriers versus a rat terrier. So there’s a lot of variations. With the Indica and Sativa and hybrids, that’s the general effect that you see from that plant, from that strain, but the strain is unique in that it has a lot of other effects. So generally the Indica effects are a body sensation and a calming effect, and usually, there’s some sedation.

The Sativa effects are generally an uplifting effect with a head sensation and generally tends to wake people up, and then the hybrids are someplace between the two; usually, the Indica effects tend to dull senses, and the Sativa effects tend to enhance senses. Generally, Indica effects are used for pain. Indica effects are used when we want to bring things down. For example, anxiety, insomnia, and pain we generally want to bring down, so we generally use Indicia effects for that.

The Sativa effects are generally used when we want to break things up like depression, lethargy, attention deficit, things that we want to increase or enhance the sense to make food taste better. Generally, Sativas for pain needs to be used with caution, especially if somebody has headache pain, migraines. Now think of if you have a Sativa, and you have a migraine? A migraine hurts your head because the Satica brings your focus to your head and the Sativa can actually enhance the senses. If your feeling pain, it can enhance it. What I recommend is if you’re going to treat pain with Sativas, be very strain specific because remember, they’re all hybrids. You get a strain with the overall Sativa effect, with an uplifting effect, but you could still have pain relief due to the Indica genetics that is still in that plant because they’re all hybrids. Does that make sense?

Shane McCormick: My next question would be what, what specific strains would you recommend it?

Dr. Aury Lor Holtzman: It depends on how much pain somebody has or even the time of the day. So for instance, if somebody is in a lot of pain and they need something really heavy to go to sleep, then you’d go with something on the heavy Indicia side, something with like a Kush. Kush all generally tend to be Indicas.

If you go with anything like a Master Kush or Bubba Kush, you’re going to get more heaviness. If you add anything purple to it, like a Purple Kush, strains that have purple in the name generally tend to have a lot of Indica genetics because if Indicas are grown appropriately, they are going to have little purplish color, most of the time. Anything Granddaddy Purple or something similar that’s heavy tends to be good for heavy pain.

The problem is if people do too much Indica people have a lot of residual effect and they can be depressed or lethargic because of it. So in those cases, you’d want to move more towards the hybrid range. For example, OG Kush, Girl Scout Cookies. What I recommend your listenership to check out is leafly.com. It’s a good place for people to get guidance on what other people use for issues. So if somebody is on the Sativa end, I usually recommend them go on leafly. Sativas are generally good for pain. Things that are derivatives of Blue Dream tend to be good for pain. The Blue Dream some people would classify it as a Sativa, dominant hybrid strain.

The strains that tend to be very sensory enhancing, like the Haze strains. Typically those aren’t good choices for people with migraines. Although they might make you careless, they might actually not help the pain but actually make it worse. I estimate about a third of Sativas make pain worse, about a third are neutral, about a third and make it better.

Shane McCormick: Concerning pain, how about Indica, what does that do for your pain?

Dr. Aury Lor Holtzman: Well the Indica effects bring the pain down, but it tends to make people sleepy. Want you to want to do is figure out how much Indica effects do you need. How much can you tolerate at that time when you want to take it. For instance, if you’re going to medicate in the morning for pain unless the pain is extreme, you have a lot of nervous system stimulation from the pain, you’re probably not going to be able to tolerate too much Indica effects. That’s why you might pick something like a Blue Dream, which is going to be a lot less pain relief, but it’s also going to be a lot less impairment. A lot of people might use like a Blue Dream in the morning and then they might use like a Girl Scout Cookie in the afternoon or a Master Kush in the evening, to get some sleep.

Then the other issue to think about is how’s this person psychologically? Are they depressed? Depression tends to be made worse on the Indicia side and made better by Sativa, but because they’re all individual strains. What I usually recommend is if you’re going to medicate with something on the opposite side of what the general effects are, so if you’re going to medicate at night with an Indicia, and you have depression, then pick an Indica strain that also helps with depression and leafly is a good choice. If you’re going to medicate for depression, but you also have anxiety or pain, then pick a Sativa type or Sativa dominant strain that is also good for anxiety, so you don’t provoke more anxiety.

Shane McCormick: Are there any cons for an individual using cannabis to relieve pain?

Dr. Aury Lor Holtzman: Everything’s about using the right dose at the right time. Obviously, if you’re using something too heavy in the morning, it’s going to impair your life, if you’re using too much Indica effects without an antidepressant effect, it might make you depressed and lethargic and lack of motivation. What I would like to stress it that it has to be used properly.

Shane McCormick: Do you believe cannabis is a gateway drug?

Dr. Aury Lor Holtzman: Not used medically. If somebody is a strict Mormon and they’re not going to do any anything, then they’re not going to end as a heroin addict. I’ve treated a lot of opioid addiction and a lot of times I would see kids come in my office that was 20 years and I would say, you’re 20 years old, and you’re addicted to using heroin. How does that happen? Huntington Beach is a beautiful area. They come from good families, and they’re saying, I don’t know how it happened. All I know is we’re going to parties were smoking weed then the next thing we know we’re smoking heroin then before I knew it, we were shooting heroin, and my friends are dying.

When people go to parties and they use marijuana and heroin is available, they’re like, well, I used marijuana. They told me not to, but I used heroin, so I guess I’ll smoke some heroin and it doesn’t seem that bad. Next thing they know they’re addicted to heroin. I could go either way on that.

I think that if it’s used medically and somebody comes in forgetting opioid pill for pain, then I don’t think it’s a gateway drug, but if somebody is doing it recreationally, it can open up people to using other drugs. I don’t see too many people that start shooting heroin that has never smoked a cigarette or had a drink. It does open it up, but it is also an exit drug because I’ve seen lots of people get off opioids using cannabis. One other thing I’d like to mention, any derivative from morphine does not control nerve pain. The only opiates that control nerve pain are synthetic opioids. Cannabis controls musculoskeletal pain like opioids, but it also controls nerve pain. So some person, like that woman that I talked about, will do better with cannabis than they will with opiates if they have a nerve pain component that’s primary.

Shane McCormick: Really?

Dr. Aury Lor Holtzman: Yes, like for neuropathy issues, cannabis is very good. I’ve seen neuropathy improve immediately with just topical alcohol sprays. I had a guy come in who had severe polyneuropathy where he had nerve pain all over the body. He was in a wheelchair because the pain was so severe and he was wheeling around because he said his legs were hurting, I said I’ve got some topical spray, do you want me to spray a little of it on? He said It won’t help. I said you’re making me nervous, by wheeling around why don’t you try it if it’s not going to hurt anything? So he said, it’s not gonna help, about five minutes later, he said it actually really helped. It depends on how close to the nerve pain is the surface and the potency of the concentrate.

Shane McCormick: That’s an incredible story.

Dr. Aury Lor Holtzman: My patient base was about 23,000 patients . . . that I saw, sitting in the office. A lot of people, I saw multiple times. So I’ve seen a lot of people.

Shane McCormick: What’s the most incredible or dramatic story you’ve seen?

Dr. Aury Lor Holtzman: I had parents bring in a young girl that had a genetic seizure disorder where she had almost cost from seizures, up to a hundred a day. These were so severe that she suffered brain damage from essentially was confined to bed or was strapped to a wheelchair because she was seizing. When I saw her, she was on three antiepileptic medications at high doses and the parents where there because they felt there was nothing else left to do, they were at their wit’s end. So we talked about using CBD because they had been a lot of research. Also, there’s a new CBD product that’s just been approved by the FDA. GW Pharmaceuticals, the drug is called Epidiolex, I think it’s gone through all the approvals, so we’ll see where that goes. That would be the first product that comes out of the American market since 1942 that’s derived from the cannabis plant.

But anyway, that wasn’t at the time. So we talked about that, we went over how they might consider adding it to her regimen, and by the next year she came back, she was still strapped in a wheelchair she was still severely handicapped from the brain damage. I asked the parents, how’s she going? They said “100 percent better”? I’m like, how is she a hundred percent better? She strapped in a wheelchair, and they said she hasn’t had a seizure for nine months. I said, excuse me, and they said she has not had a seizure for nine months since we started the marijuana, cannabis, and CBD, and we increased the dose. About three months into it, the seizures went away. The next year that I saw her, her medications had been lowered significantly. She was on very small doses. The last time I saw her, she was on a homeopathic dose of a prescription anti-epileptic, and they said she was just on that because the neurologist didn’t want to take her off everything. So he left her on a minimal dose.

I thought that was pretty dramatic. There was another case that blew me away, and it had to do with cannabis treating cancer. I actually did a research project on that, I followed 60 patients for two years that were on marijuana for cancer. I had a patient come in who was somebody that I known. He had cancer, I believe it was a sarcoma. He was told he had four months or so to live and all of his friends told him cannabis would help with the symptoms. So he wanted to try it. We talked about how he can use it for his appetite, for pain. Then he started asking me about how people are using it to treat cancer. I told him, obviously there’s no research on that, and I told him about how cancer sometimes just go away, but I explained how people were using at the time. That was before I did my research. So next year he followed up and so when he came in, I looked at his chart, and I put down you shouldn’t be here, and he said, I know. I asked him what is your doctor saying? He goes, well, he’s really happy, and I couldn’t believe it. He says the tumor shrank and everything is doing better. I saw him like over the next five years, by the last time I saw him, he said his tumors were essentially gone.

Shane McCormick: What type of tumors are you talking about?

Dr. Aury Lor Holtzman: A sarcoma, soft tissue tumor with some spread.

Shane McCormick: Let me see if I can wrap my head around this he ingested cannabis and his tumors essentially went away?

Dr. Aury Lor Holtzman: Yes, over a five year period. I’m not saying cannabis did it. I do not advocate cannabis for cancer. I advocate it for pain. There are so many people using cannabis for cancer, I thought, we should have a physician look at this someone who’s a medical doctor. So I started doing this with anybody that came in for cancer that was interested in getting RSO I asked if they would like to join part of a study and we would try to get free concentrates for them. I assigned one of my office staff to follow up with these patients, to do conference calls. What they would do is form a support group and then do conference calls during the week where people could call in and talk about their different problems.

Dr. Aury Lor Holtzman: So we contacted Phoenix Tears, and they had a representative contact us. They would go on the calls and talk to the patients about the issue, and as I said, I was not advocating, I was just trying to follow and see what the problems would be. What we’ll do is usually on Sunday I would get on and all the patients problems they couldn’t solve I would talk to them and see if we can help solve. What I found out from this project was that most people cannot tolerate a thousand milligram or a gram of concentrate a day like they advocate, it’s too much, they can’t tolerate it. The other thing we’ve found out is that all these people are getting products on the market. We check and send them all to a lab and found out they’re all contaminated with pesticides, with heavy metals, so that was not an option.

What I found was a better option that I’m advocating now when people come in, and they say I have cancer now what I recommend is use raw cannabis. I recommended juicing, Dr. William Courtney is the big expert on that. I recommend juice the raw cannabis for the acidic cannabinoids because I think it doesn’t have anything to do with the activated THC, it has to with the total cannabinoids which can be acidic which is the water soluble. It doesn’t have to be the fat-soluble because your body can convert them back and forth. I’m not advocating cannabis for cancer treatment, but if somebody wants to, I recommend them juice because it’s going to do no harm.

I also recommend juicing for any kind of inflammatory conditions like rheumatoid arthritis, Lupus, psoriasis, I also recommend using the activated forms, [the regular THC] for issues like pain or appetite when you’re going to get the head effect. The ascetics are water-soluble, the activated are fat soluble, the THC is fat soluble which allows crossing the blood-barrier interacting with the brain. The ascetics are good for inflammation, but they’re not that good for pain. The activated THC because it gets to the brain has good pain relief. So generally a lot of patients, I recommend them juice and then use a vape pen before meals for their appetite or for nausea.

Shane McCormick: Are you a supporter of home grow?

Dr. Aury Lor Holtzman: Absolutely. One hundred percent. If somebody is going to juice, the first thing I tell them is to grow your own, it’s the only way you’re going to be able to have organic without pesticides. The biggest probably we have in this industry is contaminants, pesticides, and chemicals.

I recommend growing organically with organic nutrients and obviously no pesticides. I recommend juicing and freezing the juice. Generally, I recommend people grow the plants, harvest them at their peak, don’t dry them, juice them fresh and usually juice the leaves and the flower together and then you save the cubes in ice cube trays and freeze it, that way it will be good for one to six months. That will give you time for another harvest. Then I recommend them to use ice cubes, put them in a blender to make a smoothie and drink that as their way of meditating. I usually recommend this for people with arthritic conditions, autoimmune type conditions like rheumatoid arthritis.

So absolutely, I recommend growing, absolutely. It’s like herbs. I have my herb garden, we use those for cooking. The best herbs are the ones you grow, not the ones you buy at the store.

The problem in the cannabis industry is there are not too many people encouraging people to grow their own because they want to grow in their big fields in a big warehouse under there lights. Then treat them with chemicals and then extract with solvents and sell people oils they can charge a lot of money for, so the industry out here is really bad. There are not many people that really care about helping patients.

Shane McCormick: How do you think the pharmaceutical industry will react to people growing their own?

Dr. Aury Lor Holtzman: I don’t think big pharma will care one way or the other because it’s not going to impact there market. I think with big pharma the future for them is to make the products like the GW pharmaceuticals and Epidiolex which is a CBD product. They’re a UK company, and they also have a product called Sativex that is a one to one THC to CBD product that they sell in Europe and Canada and is used for MS symptoms like spasticity and pain. So if they can get this on the market and the FDA approves it, and there’s already two synthetic THC’s on the market that is not derived from cannabis, it would be hard for them not to be able to get the Sativex that’s been used in Europe and Canada onto the market. So I think they’ll be making more making products. I believe that the pharmaceuticals will be more replacing the people that homemaker their pills, that home make their oils. All of these oils on the market, the majority are bad, and they need to be replaced. I’m a hundred percent for that. I don’t think they really can do much about the people growing their own for their own use. It’s like the farmers be concerned about people growing their own vegetables. I don’t think that’s going to make a difference. I think the only people that are going to affect are the drug dealers.

What happens out here is you have a grower, and he gets bugs into his plants, or he gets mold on them. They don’t look good, so he can’t sell it, so what they do is spray with pesticides, crush it up and go to harvest or buy some solvent. They’ll run that through, then they’ll make an oil and then they’ll sell it to people and tell them it will help with their cancer. The products on the market are usually the flower they can’t sell because it’s terrible quality, they tend to have chemicals, most of the products are really bad. I welcome the pharmaceutical industry to come in and take over.

But with homegrown, that’s like people grow their own vegetables or their own herb’s. It’s not going to affect them in one way or the other except improve people’s health.

The people that grow there own I believe are doing so for health reasons. I recommend people now make their own oils. I suggest that if somebody is going to make an oil, have it made by a pharmacist or a biochemist or somebody who knows what they’re doing.

Let’s say somebody has cancer and they grow their own cannabis, and they juice it, they still probably want a vape pen to help their appetite or to help their nausea. The reason why I usually recommend vape pens for the nausea is that a lot of people when they’re nauseated, aren’t able to put anything in their mouth without throwing up. Sometimes they can use depositories, but they take too long to take effect. If you’re getting nauseated, hit a vape pen, it’s going to go down within 15 minutes.

Shane McCormick: Do you see a future where cannabis can lower healthcare costs?

Dr. Aury Lor Holtzman: Yes, absolutely. I have seen lots of people that have autoimmune diseases like rheumatoid arthritis now remember rheumatoid arthritis can just go into remission. Somebody can be crippled in a wheelchair, and the next month it’s gone, they’re essentially symptom-free for a while. If these people were juicing, I think that a lot more of them would be in remission because it has excellent anti-inflammatory effects. It doesn’t have all the side effects of using cortisone. So for a lot of conditions using cannabis would decrease the chronic illness, which would reduce costs. Also, there’s a lot of costs incurred due to opioids. Addiction of overdose, opioid overdose is the leading cause of death in people under 50 years old. That’s more than car accidents, more than violence, that’s mind-boggling. These are things we can replace.

In the future, there’s a lot of possibilities for making designer cannabis-derived medications by adjusting the ratio of the cannabinoids, terpenes, flavonoids to get specific effects. So you can take the best strain out there for a particular condition. You could adjust the terpenes the cannabinoids and the flavonoids to get even better effects with fewer side effects. So the future for pharmaceuticals is astronomical. It’s unlimited. The differences with pharmaceuticals, what they’ve done so far is they typically take one medication, their highly purified, and they use one medication. With cannabis, we’ve got 100 cannabinoids, about a 140 terpenes and I’m not sure how many flavonoids, that’s a new field. So we’ve got a lot of chemicals to adjust, but we’re using multiple chemicals to treat different conditions instead of one to treat it. So I absolutely think that if used properly cannabis could significantly lower healthcare costs.

The problem is we’ve got too many people in the community that are nitwits, they’re running around with rasta hats smoking in public and telling people “I can cure cancer, you need to listen to me!” and they lose all credibility. I’ve been telling people in the industry, we need to reach out to medical professionals, the physicians, the pharmacists, and help them understand our point instead of trying to force it upon them and tell them they have to listen to us.

I’ve been trying to bridge that, but I haven’t done that good of a job. That’s why I try and get the word out to people. What I usually tell patients is here’s my website, tell your doctor if they have any questions I’m more than happy to talk to them. Just have them read my cannabis 101.

Shane McCormick: My final question is, am I missing any questions? Do you want to make any final statements?

Dr. Aury Lor Holtzman: We have a big problem with opioids, and that’s where my focus is, and I think this could help. We’ve also got a problem with PTSD. There’s also a lot of new legislation, the VA Hospital has not been pro-cannabis, but there’s apparently a bill that’s pending that would allow the VA to start doing research on cannabis, which would open up the market. If they begin researching cannabis, it would be easy to catalog the different effects from the different terpene profiles, and designer medications would presumably come next, it’d be a whole new market. With what I’ve done, as a general practitioner for 30 years. Using cannabis, I can treat about 80 percent of the conditions that I normally would see. For example, anxiety, depression, pain, and inflammation. Cannabis entirely is better than Benzos. We can easily get people off Benzos. A lot of the things that we would have prescribed, I can use cannabis if used properly.

Shane McCormick: Why isn’t the VA pro-medical marijuana?

Dr. Aury Lor Holtzman: When I first started doing cannabis, I saw a lot of veterans who said that their cannabis is the only thing that helped them. Their VA doctors told them “no if you do cannabis, we’re going to drug test you and we’re not going to give you any other medications, were not going to treat you.” More recently it was kind of like “Don’t ask, don’t tell.” If you do cannabis, just don’t talk about it.

I just met with the group a couple of days ago, that’s looking to help veterans with PTSD, and they’re interested in talking about using cannabis and bringing back to the VA. They’re looking at cognitive behavioral therapy and their stating that it helps but maybe adding cannabis to the regimen would help more. I’m hoping that they can get me into the VA and talk about this. If the V listens and is willing to look at it, I can give them all the information on how to use it and what products to use and hopefully we can help some Vets. Once we get the Va doctors involved then there pharmacist, then we could actually move forward. If the VA started using it, then the other doctors would be able to learn from it then it would come to main street.

My goal has been to try to spread understanding. For people taking the time to grow their own is the really only way to go about it. I think juicing is definitely something a lot of people should be doing.

Shane McCormick: One final question, what is juicing?

Dr. Aury Lor Holtzman: When you have a raw plant the cannabinoids are in the acidic form when you heat them, they convert to the decarboxylated, or fat-soluble form which allows from crossing the brain.

What you want to do is get the plant fresh, harvest it fresh, and then you want to juice it fresh. Usually, you take the leaves and the flour, typical dose and remember, nobody’s really studied this, but a standard dose with people is going to be anywhere from 15 to 20 leaves and anywhere from two to five times per dose. So what you do is harvest your plant, you cut off all the stems because that’s just fiber, usually put it through a weed crush juicer. The weed crush juicer separates weeds from the fiber. Then you place the juice and then typically some people will take a shot of it, which I understand it tastes really horrible, and other people will have to freeze it. It will last up to six months, and then they’ll take the ice cubes and put them in the blender with whatever they want to make a smoothie with to cover up the taste.

You could also use the raw form [of cannabis] and make that into a smoothie also, using kief, or you can put it in a capsule if you want to use the acidic. There’s a lot of different options. It’s a wide field, it would be nicer for us to figure out specific medicines for people.

On 11 December 1996, Reid Heller wrote: "The Dallas Carvajal Yartzheit" was successful, both in terms of the numbers attending (150-200) and the enthusiasm of the audience. Simon Sargon performed his Ladino song-cycle, At Grandfather's Knee in the Meadows Museum amidst masterpieces of Baroque Spanish Art and I delivered a lecture on Luis, El Mozo, next door in the Bridwell Library." The following essay is a condensation of research Mr. Heller conducted in preparation for the lecture.

Tzaddik of the Southwest

In Dallas, on the eastern edge of the great southwestern desert which extends southward through the hill country and past the Rio Grande, we are still mindful of the Indian and Spanish cultures that saturate the landscape. Since Hernando Cortez commenced the conquest of our region in 1521, this desert has been the setting for a parade of colonial oppressors and heroes. The Jewish imagination has much to reflect on here. For example, the story of Pope, leader of the Pueblo Revolt of 1680, continues to conjure images of Bar Cochba and another desert freedom struggle.

The Jewish role in this landscape is very real, though largely ignored. Nearly three hundred years before Adolphus Sterne and his fellow Jewish merchants made homes in and around our region, a young Jewish man known to history as Luis de Carvajal, el mozo, lived, prayed, and exactly 400 years ago, on December 8, 1596, was burned at the stake in Mexico City. His life is known to us, not merely through inquisition records, but in his own words, for he left to posterity a memoir, letters, poetry and a spiritual testament which together constitute the sole surviving Jewish writings of the Spanish colonial period.

Luis was born c. 1566 in Benavente, Spain and given the birth name of Luis Rodriguez de Carvajal. His uncle, Luis de Carvajal, el Conquistador, bore the title "Admiral" and later "Governor of the New Kingdom of Leon," a province of the Viceroyalty of New Spain. Luis, his parents and siblings arrived at the port of Tampico in the entourage of this famous uncle in 1580. In the New World they, along with thousands of other Jews, hoped to find a refuge from the fires of the Inquisition.

Commencing with the mass expulsion of the Jews in 1492, the practice of Judaism was outlawed throughout Spain and her territories. We do not know how many of the Jews who chose to remain under Spanish jurisdiction were secretly loyal to Judaism, but the number was not insignificant based on the Inquisition records available to us. These "crypto-Jews" superficially observed Catholic rites. But in small family groups and underground "congregations" they continued to observe and transmit as much of Judaism as their situation permitted. Luis' father, Francisco Rodriguez was one such crypto-Jew and, through his influence, his wife and most of his nine children lived as crypto-Jews. Francisco died in 1584.

Luis' situation was exceedingly complex following his father's death. He succeeded his father as the head of a large family. He was also designated the principal heir of his childless uncle, who, though descended from Jews, had no sympathy for crypto-Jews and could never be entrusted with Luis' secret. Luis explored the northern territories with his uncle, almost as far north as the present Texas border. On those journeys he sought the company of fellow crypto-Jews and attempted to learn what he could of Judaism from those more learned. Although a well educated man of his time, Luis' Jewish learning was not profound. His Jewish practice, like that of most Mexican crypto-Jews, was based on a Latin translation of the Hebrew Bible and a few fragments from the Jewish prayer book. Yet his memoirs evidence a remarkable and insatiable drive to acquire Jewish learning and to observe Jewish practice whenever possible.

This drive to become an observant Jew can be clearly seen in these simple, moving words where he describes how, after his father's death, he circumcised himself in a ravine of the Panuco River:

"When the Lord took my father away from this life, I returned to Panuco, where a clergyman sold me a sacred Bible for six pesos. I studied it constantly and learned much while alone in the wilderness. I came to know many of the divine mysteries. One day I read chapter 17 of Genesis, in which the Lord ordered Abraham, our father, to be circumcised -- especially those words which say that the soul of him who will not be circumcised will be erased from among the book of the living. I became so frightened that I immediately proceeded to carry out the divine command. Prompted by the Almighty and His good angel, I left the corridor of the house where I had been reading , leaving behind the sacred Bible, took some old worn scissors and went over to the ravine of the Panuco River. There, with longing and a vivid wish to be inscribed in the book of the living, something that could not happen without this holy sacrament, I sealed it by cutting off almost all of the prepuce and leaving very little of it."(Translated by Seymour B. Liebman)

Luis' family gradually emerged as the focal point of a network of crypto-Jews based in Mexico City. He and his sisters encouraged former Jews to return to Judaism. Through their efforts, Jews were circumcised, studied the Hebrew Bible together and observed the Festivals. But their enthusiasm led them to take risks. Luis, for example, spoke openly about Judaism with his brother, Gaspar, a Dominican friar. He then delayed an opportunity to escape to Italy out of concern for his sister, Isabel, who had been denounced to the Inquisition. Once Isabel was taken into custody, it was simply a matter of time. In this pathetic passage he describes his and his mother's first arrest in 1589:

"Two or three days after my return, I went to see my mother during the night, for I dared not visit her or be with her during the day. When we were about to sit at the table for supper, the constable and his assistants from the Inquisition knocked on the door. Having opened it, they placed guards on the stairs and doors and went to take my mother prisoner. Although deeply shaken by the blow from such a cruel enemy, my mother accepted her fate with humility; and crying for her sufferings but praising the Lord for them, she was taken by these accursed ministers, torturers of our lives, to a dark prison. " (Translated by Seymour B. Liebman)

Luis overheard his mother's screams as she was tortured on the rack, the horrible account of which appears in his memoir. In prison Luis experienced divine visions while asleep and in response to them took a new name, Joseph el Lumbroso (the "Enlightened"). He remained imprisoned with his mother, in separate cells, until he and his family were "reconciled" to the Church in a public auto da fe on February 24, 1590. Luis and his family were sentenced to service in convents and public hospitals. Additionally, Luis obtained access to an extraordinary library and used his free time to study and write. His literary production between the years 1590 and 1594 include his Memoirs, poetry and Jewish liturgy. For years to come Luis' mother and sisters trembled under the surveillance of the Inquisition. Once Luis' sister dropped a small book of Jewish prayers, written in Luis' hand, into the street. Luis lived in terror that it would be found and lead the authorities back to him. For four years he worked to buy his and his family's freedom from the penance and shame imposed by the Inquisition authorities. When he at last succeeded he believed it to be a miracle. But it was short-lived.

In the spring of 1595, Luis was arrested for the last time. Luis' friend, Manuel de Lucena, a crypto-Jew, had been denounced to the Inquisition by a brother. At Manuel's fourth hearing before the Inquisition and following several rounds of torture, Manuel denounced Luis. Luis was promptly charged with "judaizante relapso pertinaz" (being a perpetual, relapsed Judaizer) and arrested. While in prison Luis penned a spiritual Testament and some 20 letters of encouragement to his family.

Luis was imprisoned and tortured for nearly 2 years and finally, on December 8, 1596, he was burned at the stake in Mexico City with his mother, Francisca, and three of his sisters, Isabel, Leonor and Catalina. No Jewish woman had been executed in Mexico until then. Conflicting accounts of his death have been circulated. Before his body was consumed in the flames a priest claimed that he had been garroted. The same priest suggests that he kissed a crucifix held up to his lips. If the priest's account is correct (which is by no means certain), he almost certainly did so soley to avoid the pain of being burned alive, for such was the price of an expedited death. He was survived by his saintly sister, Anica, and a beloved disciple, Justa Mendez. His brothers, Baltazar and Miguel, escaped to Europe where they too changed their names to Lumbroso. Baltazar settled in Italy where he became a surgeon. Miguel may have settled in Salonica but is not to be confused with the famous Rabbi of that name.

Luis and his family are now all but forgotten in the United States, despite the efforts of his English translator, Seymour Liebman, and Martin Cohen's outstanding biography in English. The four hundredth anniversary of his Yartzheit has yet to receive a single line in our better known Jewish periodicals. But Luis' life continues to inspire us with his spirit of fidelity and remembrance. He is the proof that the Jewish spirit is forever in the process of resurrecting itself. In an era where Judaism is routinely defined with vague terms such as "identity" and "spirituality," Luis reminds us of the commitment and nobility that Jews have aspired to throughout the millenia. He is our region's connection to the pre-modern era of Jewish heroism and greatness.

This summer, I anticipate that my thoughts will turn several times to a small prison cell in Mexico City where an "enlightened" young Jew wrote these words amidst the terror:

"Oh Lord have mercy on Your people fill the world with Your light so that heaven and earth will be filled with Your glory and Your praise, amen, amen. Dated in Purgatory, the fifth month of the year five thousand three hundred and fifty-seven (six?) of our creation."

Luis de Carvajal, el mozo, Joseph Lumbroso, 1567- December 8, 1596, his memory is a blessing!

The primary sources for this essay are Seymour B. Liebman's The Enlightened, (University of Miami Press, 1967) and Martin Cohen's The Martyr: The Story of a Secret Jew and the Mexican Inquisition in the Sixteenth Century (Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society of America, 1973).

Reid Heller

Law Offices of Reid Heller
P.O Box 2526
Addison, TX 75001-2526
(214) 969-0192
Reid Heller receives e-mail at: law@reidheller.com

Letters to the Editor
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Mimi, I can't help but admire your commitment to what you post every month, Lots of interesting information. I can't help but to keep myself glued to the content you post. Love your work and thanks for your continued dedication. I am one of those individuals from Latino America and a native of Texas, a Vietnam Veteran, Retired Marine, High School dropout. I consider myself successful as I don't ask for any handouts although I don't have riches; I have a wonderful family and a roof over our heads. I come from a family of Jumano Indians from the west Texas area and I don't flaunt my heritage or culture. I am an American as I was born in Pecos Texas. My commitment to all my primos and Primas is to encourage an education as only those that have a piece of paper from a university get to move up in the American culture. So Thanks again for all you do Tu Primo “El Primo Felix” Felix Bonilla Salmeron 469-583-0191 1406 Nighthawk Dr Little Elm, Texas 75068 mar463@aol.com		Thank you Mimi for always sharing your posts.... I look forward to hearing from you.... enjoy your writings and your amazing history knowledge... always admire your love for your Hispanic Heritage.... keep up your wonderful work and please always keep in touch.... you’re one of the best I have found... muy agradecida, tu prima, Emma Gonzalez Barron....baremmb@aol.com Mimi que belleza!! Cada mes está mejor y más variada. Connie Vasquez cvasquez_us@yahoo.com My Grandson Nathan is the RN charge nurse with a Hospice care unit. He has LVNs working under him. On May 3, 2018, at 3:14 PM, he sent the following: I look at the charting my LVN did on our Arabic patient and under neurological assessment I see Anxiety - No Depression- No Agitation- No Confusion- No Speech impairment- Yes, comment (patient is unable to speak English) I could not stop laughing. Nate

Hi Mimi, I want to thank you wholeheartedly for allowing me to share your personal experiences that you so eloquently wrote in "Chapter 5: East Los Angeles, World War II, 1941-1945," with my family and friends. And, you were correct, it did trigger some memories. I would like to share with you one of them that I received from my good friend, Dr. Amy Jo Baker: "Thanks for sharing. My parents were in Los Angeles during World War II and remember them and my older sister talking about the air raids and blackouts. It was reported that flares went up during the blackouts from Japanese neighborhoods whether that’s true or not I do not know. I do know at the National Museum of the pacific In Fredericksburg there is a story about the attempts to set Oregon forests on fire. At least one person was killed. Very scary time for the west coast residents!" Gilberto Quezada		Thank You, Mimi, Your Somos Primos website is one of the most fascinating and interesting websites I read each month! I really mean that! Each month I get a slew of newsletters from a variety of websites that run the gamut from history and politics to travel and food. But none is as all-encompassing as SP. Thanks again for doing an outstanding job of informing and educating us Latinos a.e. Hispanics on our history and culture through Somos Primos monthly! Rosario aka Rosie Carbo, Texas freelance journalist rosic@aol.com mimilozano@aol.com www.SomosPrimos.com 714-894-8161

More than 90 Muslims running for public office across the U.S.
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More than 90 American Muslims, nearly all of them Democrats, are running for public office across the country this year. Many are young and politically inexperienced, and most are long shots. Although their number seems small, the candidacies mark an unprecedented rise for the nation’s diverse Muslim community that typically has been underrepresented in American politics. There are more than 3.3 million Muslims living in the United States, but Muslim Americans hold just two of the 535 seats in Congress. And the Muslim community’s voter participation pales in comparison to the general public’s. The rise of Muslim candidates coincides with the growth of the predominantly immigrant population and a partisan shift that has played out over a generation. In a 2001 Zogby poll of American Muslims, 42 percent said they voted for Republican George W. Bush in the previous year’s presidential election, while 31 percent said they voted for Democrat Al Gore. By last year, just 8 percent of voting American Muslims in a Pew poll said they voted for Trump, while 78 percent said they voted for Democrat Hillary Clinton. While Clinton’s campaign never garnered broad enthusiasm from Muslim communities, Trump’s campaign — which called for the monitoring of mosques and a ban on Muslims entering the United States — “It woke everyone up,” Nawabi said.		Now, Muslim candidates are running for a wide range of offices across the country, from local school boards to the U.S. Senate. Some are making their Muslim identity central to their campaigns. “When you put someone in a corner and they’re in survival mode, they have a tendency to come out and speak more prominently about their beliefs,” said Nawabi, who considers himself an “unapologetic Muslim” who can quote the Koran from memory and moonlights as a “freelance imam.” In Michigan, where 13 Muslim candidates are running for office, physician Abdul El-Sayed is hoping voters will elect him to be the first Muslim governor in the United States and has used his religion in campaign ads against Republican front-runner Bill Schuette, whom Trump has endorsed. “Donald Trump and Steve Bannon would love to see a right-wing radical like Bill Schuette elected in Michigan,” reads a Facebook ad for El-Sayed, who faces a Democratic primary in August. “You know what would be sweet justice? If we elected a 33-year-old Muslim instead of Bill Schuette. Send a message and help elect the first Muslim governor in America.” … Asif Mahmood, a 56-year-old pulmonologist, would be the first Muslim insurance commissioner in California. Deedra Abboud, 45, in Arizona, or Jesse Sbaih, 42, in Nevada, could be the country’s first Muslim senator. And any one of four Muslim women — Nadia Hashimi, 40, in Maryland; Sameena Mustafa, 47, in Illinois; or Fayrouz Saad, 34, and Rashida Tlaib, 41, in Michigan — could be the first in Congress.
Posted on April 18, 2018 Sent by Odell Harwell For more information go to: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml

The origin of the word, candidate,
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		In ancient Rome it was the custom for a person who wanted to be elected to public office to wear a toga that had been rubbed with chalk to make it white. The Latin word for "dressed in white" was candidatus. In time this word came to be used for the person himself, or the candidate. The Latin word candidatus came from candidus, meaning "bright, shining white." This in turn came from candre, a verb meaning "to shine, be bright." Latin candre has given us two other English words: candid, which at first meant "white, free from prejudice" but now usually means "honest, natural," and candle, the mass of wax with a wick that is burned to give off a bright light. Campce@gmail.com https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/In_Toga_Candida


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Mucho se critica el programa suicida de inmigración mexicano que les llevó a perder Texas y el 55% de su territorio. Pero también nos damos cuenta que España comentió ese mismo error antes que le llevó a perder Nátchez, Florida y Luisiana. España quería aumentar la población de Luisiana pero los españoles, alemanes franceses e italianos no migraban en gran número. Por lo tanto, en el año1787, los ministros del gobierno de España recomendaron un programa "crash" para atraer personas a la Luisiana. El plan surgió de las ideas de algunos españoles distinguidos, como el Conde de Aranda y Martín Navarro, y de aventureros escandalosos como el general estadounidense Jaime (James) Wilkinson. Navarro dijo: "No hay que perder tiempo. Méjico está en la otra orilla del Mississippi, en las inmediaciones de éstos hay formidables establecimientos, de Americanos."		Los políticos españoles recomendaban un cambio en las. leyes de la Luisiana, permitiendo los siguientes derechos: primero, la navegación libre del Mississippi (privilegio no extendido a los establecimientos estadounidenses de Kentucky y Cumberland); segundo, un lugar de depósito para sus producciones en la Nueva Orléans; y tercero, la tolerancia privada de su religión. Para atraer los colonos angloamericanos de sus establecimientos al Distrito de Nátchez, la corona españo-la proponía darles donaciones de tierras (240 arpenes) Demasiado tarde, el gobierno español reconoció el peligro de permitir a los anglo-americanos establecerse en el Distrito de Nátchez como "vasallos leales" del rey de España. Su amor y lealtad para los Estados Unidos permanecía a pesar de la política benévola de España.

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ALEGRIA Genealogists concur that the surname Alegría (“joy”) originated at Alegrí a de Oria in the Basque province of Guipuzcoa, and then spread to the neighboring Basque province of Vizcaya, as well as Navarra and Aragón. Some of the Alegrías traveled to Andalucía to serve in the conquest of the Moors at Granada in 1492. Others established a family seat at Totana in Murcia province. Family seats have long existed at Onate and Motrico in Guipuzcoa; at Guernica and Bilbao in Vizcaya; and at Alegría de Alava, Vitoria and surname Alegría during the U.S. colonial and post-colonial periods. In 1820, Ygnacio Alegría was living in Tucson with his wife, Guadalupe Castro, and their two daughters. They were gone by 1831, and no other Alegrías were recorded in the territory until 1870. In California, Jesus Alegría y Amparano was confirmed in the Catholic faith at San Luis Obispo in April 1856. His parents’ names are not mentioned. In Texas, Emilia Alegría and her husband, Juan Benavides, were living in Laredo in the late 1800s. Etura in Alava. New World family histories have been written only in the Dominican Republic, but there are several large Alegría families in South America, particularly in Peru. Jose Gregorio de Alegría Eraso, a priest from Ubago, Spain, and a member of the Inquisition as Cartagena de Indias (Colombia), presented his genealogy to the tribunal in 1752. In the U.S., Alegría is the 895^th most common Hispanic surname. Most Alegrías in this country come from Mexico. Miguel de Alegría, from Vizcaya, Spain, died in Mexico City in 1692. The following year, Juan Antonio de Alegría, a native of Madrid, also died in Mexico City. His widow was Catalina de Valdivieso.		ALTAMIRANO The surname Altamirano, which means “high appearance,” is believed to derive from the way the peasants of ancient Spain perceived the nobility. Its origins, thus are widespread and untraceable to a single place. Altamirano is the 677^th most common Hispanic surname in the United States. Most Altamiranos in this country can trace their ancestry to Mexico and, to a lesser degree, Cuba. Family histories exist in Chile, Peru, Mexico and California. In 1609, Juan Altamirano Osorio, a native of Mexico and husband of Maria Ircio y Velasco, presented his genealogy to the Inquisition at Mexico City. In 1722, Diego Altamirano Luengo, a native of Puebla de Alcocer, Spain, presented his genealogy to the Inquistion at Toledo. In 1797, Lt. José Altamirano was attached to the Milicias Provinciales Disciplinadas de Cavalleria del Valle de Chincha, Peru. Juan Antonio Altamirano, a cavalry sergeant, served with the Milicias Proviciales Urbanas de Dragones de Chota, in Peru, the same year. Altamiranos in the colonial United States appear only in records from California. Justo Altamiranos was a settler in San Francisco from 1791 to 1800. He is listed again in records for 1819-1823 as being “invalid” and therefore unable to work. Marcos Altamirano was in the military in San Francisco from 1819 to 1824. Gonzalo and Victoriano Altamirano were Mexican soldiers there from 1823 to 1829. Salvador Altamirano, presumably also a soldier, was there from 1832 to 1842. Domingo Altamirano was a Mexican soldier in San Francisco from 1837 until 1843. Juan C. Altamirano served on San Jose’s municipal council in 1809. Francisco Altamirano and his wife, Encarnación Bernal, were living in San José in 1841. In 1846, Abelino and José C. Altamirano were living in Los Angeles, and Luis Altamirano served in the military there from 1845 through 1848.
ALEMAN The origin of Alemán (or Alemany) dates to the seventh century, when Germans, or Visigoths, lived in the Iberian Peninsula. The surname means “German” in Spanish. Most Alemán families living in the U.S. today have roots in Mexico, Cuba, Puerto Rico or the Dominican Republic. Family records have been identified in the Dominican Republic and church records exist in California. California records for 1877 list Bernardo Alemany as the late husband of Ysabel Villanueva; she later married Jose Maria Ybarra. Julián Almania, 36, was living in Santa Barbara in 1834. In La Fourche, Louisana, in 1788, Juan de Alemán, 60, and his wife, Juana Ramilles, 45, were living along the Mississippi River with their children, Sebastian, Pedro and María. Also living there in 1798 were Francisco Alemán, 47, his wife, Tomasa, 48, and their children, Juan, Bastián and Antonio.		ALVARADO The surname Alvarado is of noble and ancient lineage. The archives of SImanas, Spain, indicate that by the year 744, several Alvarado houses, destroyed by the Moors, had been rebuilt. Alvarado is the 60^th most common Spanish surname in the U.S. Family histories have been written in Argentina, Costa Rica, Mexico and Peru. Juan Bautista Alvarado was part of the Gaspar de Portolá expedition of colonial California. Born in Villa de Sinaloa, Mexico, he arrived in the area now known as Monterey, in 1769. Francisco Javier Alvarado was a soldier assigned to the San Diego mission in 1780. He married Maria Ignacía Amador in 1788, and was assigned to Santa Barbara the following year. By 1797, he was living in Los Angeles. He died around 1818. Another Francisco Javier Alvarado was born in 1807, and in the 1830’s was active in the Los Angeles municipal government. Residents of Texas in the late 18^th century included Eusebio Albarado, a native of Reynosa, Mexico, who in 1792 lived in the area now known as San Fernando de Austria; and Agustina Albarado, a 60-year-old widow from Los Adaes, who took up residence in Nacogdoches that same year. In 1793, Felipe Albarado, a native of Edionda, Mexico, was living in San Fernando. In 1820 Pensacola, Florida, Francisco Alvarado, 24, was living with his wife, María del Carmen Rodríquez, and their son, Jose Ambrosio.
These little bios were part of a series that were written by Lyman D. Platt, Ph.D. and published in newspapers in the 1990s. His book Hispanic Surnames and Family History, published in 1996 by the Genealogical Publishing Company was considered a groundbreaking work on Hispanic surnames the first comprehensive analytical work on Hispanic surnames in the most extensive bibliography of Hispanic family family histories ever published.

Active Shooter Incidents in the United States in 2016 and 2017

New Historical Records on FamilySearch:
Week of May 7, 2018

Educational Fraud Continues

That means high school diplomas, which attest that these students can read and compute at a 12th-grade level, are conferred when 63 percent are not proficient in reading and 75 percent are not proficient in math.

Biografía

Priscilla Yanez — Civil Service Worker or Spy?
by Maria E. Garcia
April 28, 2018

Maria E. Garcia

How Urban Agriculture is Transforming Detroit

Great Performances: The Opera House
Premiered Friday, May 25 at 9 p.m. on PBS (check local listings
http://www.pbs.org/wnet/gperf/great-performances-opera-house-documentary/8440/

Source: Juan de Bermúdez - Wikipedia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Juan_de_Bermúdez

Por qué han sobrevivido los indios en Norteamérica

Las misiones españolas que fundaron San Diego, San Francisco o Los Ángeles
civilizaron pueblos que pudieron subsistir a la llegada de los anglosajones

Gobernadas autónomamente

Un reglamento de carreras de caballos de hace dos mil años, descubierto en Turquía (Turkey)

The Náhuatl Languages of Puebla

La odisea de Alonso de Ojeda: los españoles contra una horda de caníbales

Este navegante conquense haría una cartografía extensa de más de tres mil kilómetros
de costa junto a Américo Vespucio y Juan de la Cosa

Peripecias sin fin

Orígenes y primeros años

La expedición de Quirós

Antecedentes

El viaje

Torres asume el mando

La costa sur de Nueva Guinea y el estrecho de Torres

Resultados de la expedición

Relatos del viaje

Embassy of Spain in the U.S.

	SPANISH PRESENCE in the AMERICAS ROOTS
	HELP NEEDED to preserve DNA of Horse Herd.

			UNITED STATES
			July 7-10, 2018: UNIDOS-US Annual Conference July 17-21, 2018: LULAC National Convention and Exposition July 17-18, 2018: LULAC National Women's Conference New Leadership For The NAHP, National Association of Hispanic Publications The Final Toast! They bombed Tokyo 73 years ago. Omnibus Caregiver Act of 2010 Chapter 6: Reflections on WW II Memories by Mimi Lozano After 300 Years, San Antonio is a City of Metamorphosis Chapter Twenty-Two - The De Riberas and The American Civil War by Michael S. Perez Latino Literacy: The Complete Guide to Our Hispanic History and Culture by Frank de Varona Census returns for Latin America and the Hispanic United States by Lyman D Platt Glen Beck presents Walt Disney Waiting for Superman: The Limitations of Research, The Search for Truth by Rodolfo F. Acuña Regulators sue Albertsons, saying it violated Latino workers' rights by banning Spanish How Filipino Migrants Gave the Grape Strike its Radical Politics English speakers and the verbally insane FBI Acknowledges Life-Saving Potential of Armed Citizens Armed and unarmed citizens engaged shooter and Saved Lives More than 90 Muslims running for public office across the U.S. The origin of the word, candidate Book: The Heritage Guide to the Constitution, free online version When a University Student was Asked to Remove a Bible Verse from Her Graduation Speech

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			NAHP Media LLC has been re-established as a media corporation dedicated to generating advertisement for the members of the association. Fanny Miller, is the new NAHP President. David Cortinas, Publisher of La Voz Hispanic Newspaper, is the new Chair of the Board of the NAHP Media LLC. and Vice President of Corporate Sales for the NAHP Inc.

	HERITAGE PROJECTS
	Pensacola, Florida y Bernardo de Galvez en las noticias Gálvez Day Celebrated in Pensacola, Florida Galvez! Our Forgotten Patriot” film project (California) Bernardo de Gálvez Bronze Monument (Florida) Galvez Center on the campus of Texas A & M San Antonio (Texas)

	HISTORICAL TIDBITS
	Quién conquistó América? El problema de la inmigración de los anglos a los territorios españoles de América en 1789. Por si no sabían - Cart War Imagen del Cuaderno de Madame Curie

	HISPANIC/LATINO LEADERS
	Phil Valdez, Jr. A “giant” in the world of California colonial history

	LATINO AMERICAN PATRIOTS
	Brigadier General Irene M. Zoppi Placido Salazar, USAF Retired Vietnam Veteran Activist writes to His Representatives

Free DNA Essays and Papers www.123helpme.com/search.asp?text=DNA
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DNA and Enzymes - Have you ever asked yourself the question why my eyes are this color. Or any question as to why we look the way we do. All of our features come down to our genetics. Those genetics are family traits that are passed down through our bloodlines. It all comes down to what is considered the fundamental building blocks of life, our DNA.		DeoxyriboNucleic Acid is the actual name for DNA. We have all heard of DNA for years, but what do you really know about it. What is DNA made of. In this paper we will talk about this mini miracle called DNA.... [tags: DNA Essays] 12 Works Cited on this topic, but there are many topics.

	FAMILY HISTORY RESEARCH Recommended basic resources for Spanish heritage research: http://files.lib.byu.edu/family-history-library/research-outlines/Europe/Spain.pdf
	First Steps in Writing a Family History Story, Who are YOU ? Margarita de Castro e Sousa, to Queen Charlotte of the United Kingdom, la Lina Mullato New Historical Records on FamilySearch: Week of May 7, 2018

Margarita de Castro e Sousa, to Queen Charlotte of the United Kingdom

	EDUCATION
	Spain's World-wide Cultural Presence by Mimi Lozano Educational Fraud Continues by Walter Williams Death in Academe by Rodolfo F. Acuña National History Day in Texas

Educational Fraud Continues Ammoland Inc. Posted on April 25, 2018 by Walter Williams
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Earlier this month, the 2017 National Assessment of Educational Progress, aka The Nation's Report Card, was released. It's not a pretty story. Only 37 percent of 12th-graders tested proficient or better in reading, and only 25 percent did so in math. Among black students, only 17 percent tested proficient or better in reading, and just 7 percent reached at least a proficient level in math. The atrocious NAEP performance is only a fraction of the bad news. Nationally, our high school graduation rate is over 80 percent. That means high school diplomas, which attest that these students can read and compute at a 12th-grade level, are conferred when 63 percent are not proficient in reading and 75 percent are not proficient in math.		For blacks, the news is worse. Roughly 75 percent of black students received high school diplomas attesting that they could read and compute at the 12th-grade level. However, 83 percent could not read at that level, and 93 percent could not do math at that level. It's grossly dishonest for the education establishment and politicians to boast about unprecedented graduation rates when the high school diplomas, for the most part, do not represent academic achievement. At best, they certify attendance. Fraudulent high school diplomas aren't the worst part of the fraud. Some of the greatest fraud occurs at the higher education levels — colleges and universities. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, 70 percent of white high school graduates in 2016 enrolled in college, and 58 percent of black high school graduates enrolled in college.
Here are my questions to you: If only 37 percent of white high school graduates test as college-ready, how come colleges are admitting 70 percent of them? And if roughly 17 percent of black high school graduates test as college-ready, how come colleges are admitting 58 percent of them?


		Texas History Day's top 18 individual and group projects will advance to National History Day. More than 1,200 students in 6^th – 12^th grade competed at Texas History Day on April 28^th in Austin. Having won at regional contests, they advanced to the state-level contest to vie for the honor of representing Texas at National History Day in June. The projects these students researched and created—papers, websites, documentaries, and performances— represent the future of historical research.

	RELIGION
	Happy 70th birthday to Israel. Sisters in Blue by Anna M. Nogar and Enrique R. Lamadrid The Church is Under Siege By Alf Cengia Presidential executive order focused on protecting freedom of religion Secular and satanic forces are leveling a legal assault at Ten Commandments in Arkansas.

Sisters in Blue by Anna M. Nogar and Enrique R. Lamadrid
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Sisters in Blue tells the story of two young women—one Spanish, one Puebloan—meeting across space and time. Sor María de Jesús de Ágreda, New Mexico’s famous Lady in Blue, is said to have traveled to New Mexico in the seventeenth century. Here Anna M. Nogar and Enrique R. Lamadrid bring her to life, imagining an encounter between a Pueblo woman and Sor María during the nun’s mystical spiritual journeys. Tales of Sor María, who described traveling across the earth and the heavens, have traditionally presented her as an evangelist who helped bring Catholicism to the Pueblos. Instead this book, which includes an essay providing historical context, shows a connection between Sor María and her friend Paf Sheuri. The two women find more similarities than differences in their shared experiences, and what they learn from each other has an impact for centuries to come.		Anna M. Nogar is an associate professor of Spanish at the University of New Mexico. She is the coeditor of A History of Mexican Literature and Colonial Itineraries of Contemporary Mexico: Literary and Cultural Inquiries. Enrique R. Lamadrid is a Distinguished Professor Emeritus of Spanish at the University of New Mexico. Winner of numerous teaching and writing awards, he is the author of many books for a wide variety of audiences. His most recent book for young readers is Amadito and the Hero Children / Amadito y los Niños Heroes. Amy Córdova is an artist, author, educator, and two-time ALA Pura Belpré Honors Award winner for children’s book illustration. She lives in La Cíenega, New Mexico. Sent by Jerry Luján

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Anna and Enrique’s recent illustrated book for young readers and their mentors - Sisters in Blue / Hermanas de Azul: Sor María de Agreda Comes to New Mexico recently received the SW Book Award from the Border Regional Library Association in El Paso! The book features parallel English and Spanish texts plus vocabulary from five indigenous NM languages. On May 5th, the Manzano Mountain Arts Council (MMAC) in Mountainair, NM is showing Amy Córdova’s art work for the book, and there will be a lecture at the Salinas National Monument. Two weeks later Amy will be giving a workshop for MMAC as well.		In just a few weeks, Notre Dame Press will release Anna’s long awaited monograph, Quill and Cross in the Borderlands: Sor María de Ágreda and the Lady in Blue, 1628 to the Present. This ambitious book is sure to expand our understanding of Sor María, her lasting influence, and her many literary accomplishments. Querencias Series, $19.95 cloth 978-0-8263-5821-9 80 pp. 10 x 8.5 in. 16 color plates Uni of New Mexico press 800-249-7737 phone • 800-622-8667 fax unmpress.com Sent by Enrique Lamadrid

The Church is Under Siege by Alf Cengia Omega Letter
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Anyone who keeps track of the news should be somewhat aware that the church is under siege to varying degrees. The components of these attacks on the church vary depending on the global region. They range from mild persecution to outright murder. One only has to track websites such as Open Doors and Voice of the Martyrs for examples of extreme persecution and suffering which Christians are daily subjected to around the world. Gatestone Institute writer Raymond Ibrahim documents incidents as they occur. At the time of writing he has collected 2017 summary data for February and April. Unfortunately, as Ibrahim and others regularly point out, western churches generally ignore these atrocities. The church is under siege in America too. Attacks on the church take on a different form in the US. Notwithstanding, certain Christian progressive elements downplay or deny that Christianity is under attack in the US. There's a thinking which suggests fundamentalism draws criticism because of its inflexible stance on various social issues.		While Christians aren't being slaughtered here, there has been a progressive movement to silence (or mock) Christianity in the public arena and in schools. In a recent incident - by no means unusual - prayers were disallowed over a public school PA system because of an atheist complaint. There are numerous reports documenting similar instances. One 2017 National Review article cites cases where the ACLU has taken litigation to religious entities. It notes: Religious schools adhering to the historic vision of marriage are also at risk. They stand to lose accreditation and nonprofit tax status as well as eligibility for student loans, vouchers, and education savings accounts. In 2015 John MacArthur's The Master's Seminary was threatened for its stance on biblical marriage. I commented on it HERE. Notably, that particular threat was supported by a professing Christian activist. So the Western Church is also under siege. Despite the above cases, the real threats come from professing Christians. I see two main danger areas. Some will no doubt disagree with me.

The first one is a trend to conflate the gospel with social concerns such as racism, immigration and LGBT issues. I don't want to belabor this point too much as these areas are sensitive, contentious, and beyond the scope of this article. But, for example, Thabiti Anyabwile, Matt Chandler and David Platt recently raised the specter of racism in the church, the police force, and white America. Are they right? You can read the links responding to these people, at your leisure if you're inclined. In one controversial interaction, the biblical definition of the gospel suddenly became blurred. This is very serious. Is the gospel directly related to racial diversity? Why aren't churches more racially diverse? I liked what one pastor wrote in a Facebook comment: "Racial diversity is the outflow of the Gospel, not its specific aim." (See Col 3:10-11) And this: "...we should insist on fighting for the purity of the gospel in any culture. That should be our battle cry." A recent conference convened by high-profile Christians had the word "revival" tagged to its name.		However its focus wasn't the kind of spiritual revival Christians should associate with. This was a contra-Trump Social Justice rally. Any true revival must involve getting back to our first love - Jesus Christ. The second area has dogged the church since its inception. It is the systematic attack on God's word in the Christian market place. The movement professes to rescue the Bible from fundamentalism. In fact books written by these progressive Christians are designed to downgrade the authority of the Bible. One popular Christian writer says he's "not trying to convince gatekeepers" through his book. Allegedly the aim is to "start a conversation among those who want to have it." The conversations he's having center around not believing everything one reads in the Bible. If his target audience is the sheep, he's the wolf. Scripture-honoring gatekeepers have had the "conversations" with him. He doesn't like them and thinks "gate-keepers" are too "defensive" when challenged. That comes across as rather defensive to me.

Another significantly influential professing Christian recently published a book about the Bible. It purports to talk about "slaying giants," "walking on water" and to help readers to love their Bibles again. She writes: ...this book will rekindle in you a childlike love for the stories of the Bible, but in a way that engages the heart and mind, your faith and your doubts. (Emphasis mine) Sounds kinda nice, right? Not only is she an outspoken advocate for the first writer, she's also regularly on the best seller list. She wants her readers to love the Bible for its teachable stories while avoiding all those icky bits. You might say she's also a "gate-keeper" of sorts - just not in a good sense. In High King of Heaven, Brad Klassen talks about "Christ and the Completion of the Canon." Among other things he observes that Jesus regularly cited the OT' as authoritative. Klassen points to the classic passages of Luke 24:44-48.		Remember that Jesus promised the Holy Spirit would guide His apostles "into all truth" (John 16:12-15). What they wrote in the New Testament is therefore authoritative. And, like Christ, they respected the authority of the OT as well. God has revealed Himself through His written word. We can't honor and pretend to know Christ while picking and choosing from Scripture based on personal preference. It leads to confusion, the embracement of sin and, finally, apostasy. In the book The Inerrant Word John MacArthur notes that over the course of his ministry he's seen the worst attacks on Scripture coming from professing Christians rather than skeptics. But MacArthur points out that God is ultimately in control. He cites Puritan Thomas Watson: The devil and his agents have been blowing at Scripture light, but could never prevail to blow it out - a clear sign that it was lighted from heaven.

The church is under siege, globally, and by different means. God sovereignly allows this for His own reasons. There may well come a time when Christians in the West experience the type of persecution seen in other parts of the world. If this occurs it could be for the church's good. Despite all this we have assurance in the many precious promises found in God's word. Ironically this is the same source which is downgraded by progressive Christians.		But in all these things we overwhelmingly conquer through Him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor any other created thing, will be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord. Rom 8:37-39 God is always in control. Maranatha! http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml Sent by Odell Hardwell odell.harwell74@att.net

Secular and satanic forces are leveling a legal assault on a newly erected monument of the Ten Commandments in Little Rock, Arkansas.
The ground had barely settled after a crane set the beautifully engraved stone masterpiece when the joint efforts of the American Civil Liberties Union and the Satanic Temple declared they would get into bed together and target the monument. The work replaces one that had been destroyed in 2017. Led by Lucien Greaves, the Satanic Temple claims to have upwards of 100,000 members worldwide and has been a souring force determined to obstruct Christians from spreading the Word of God. Greaves and his henchmen were able to deny the good people of Oklahoma an opportunity to display the Ten Commandments back in 2012. After pursuing the ability to erect a massive satanic statue of the goat-headed Baphomet, the Oklahoma Supreme Court order the Ten Commandments removed based on a clause that prohibits religious icons on public property. In both cases, the Satanic Temple moved against the replacement of a formerly damaged Ten Commandments monument after the same man crashed into each with an automobile.
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Ten Commandments Monuments Rammed Like the Oklahoma incident where Greaves and his cohorts filed suit against a new monument, the Little Rock one was also allegedly toppled by Michael Tate Reed. Authorities consider this man a serial destroyer of religious monuments and he was charged with defacing public objects. Since ramming the three-ton slab of granite in Little Rock, Reed has not been directly connected to the Satanic Temple. He claims to be a man of faith who also strongly believes in a separation of church and state. “I’m a firm believer that for our salvation we not only have faith in Jesus Christ, but we also obey the commands of God and that we confess Jesus as Lord,” he reportedly said.		“But one thing I do not support is the violation of our constitutional right to have the freedom that’s guaranteed to us, that guarantees us the separation of church and state, because no one religion should the government represent.” He has also reportedly crashed a vehicle into a highway median, spit on portraits in federal facilities, threatened ex-Pres. Obama and publicly burned money. His mental stability has been called into question. Regardless of his motives or fitness, the commandment topplings have presented opportunities for the joint Satanic Temple and ACLU forces to attack the religious touchstones.
Christians Face an Uphill Battle in Arkansas In 2015, Republican state Sen. Jason Rapert and others approved a bill that allowed the privately-funded Ten Commandments to be housed on Capitol grounds. The state’s ACLU chapter and others claimed it was in violation of U.S. Constitution. Greaves and associates saw this as an opportunity to move the goat-head originally slated for Oklahoma to Little Rock. Recognizing that Arkansas, like Oklahoma, was more likely to have the Ten Commandments removed than showcase satanic icons, Greaves attempted to broker a deal. Should the state allow the goat-head, he would drop the lawsuit against the Ten Commandments.
Greaves went as far as to have his permitting approved under the Arkansas guidelines set out by the Capitol Arts and Grounds Commission. However, the statue requires legislative approval following public comment and the time passed without lawmakers taking up the measure. In a stinging press release, Greaves attacks Republican state Sen. Rapert for ignoring his organization and satanic intent. “Rapert is obviously a mindless tool for theocratic interests originating outside of Arkansas, as his bill utilized the exact language used in failed efforts to maintain a Ten Commandments monument at the capitol in Oklahoma — legal language that the simple senator was unable to comprehend,” the press release states. “Rapert’s misconstrual of law goes beyond mere incompetence, his manipulation of truth beyond mere misinformation, his abuse of his office beyond mere misconduct. I would posit that his bald efforts to undermine, ignore, and utterly diminish the constitution he swore to uphold, abusing his office to illegally impose his religious viewpoint, is tantamount to treason.” Apparently, Arkansas legislators do not make deals with the devil and this case will head to the courts.		What Satan Worshippers Are Really After On the surface, the goals of the Satanic Temple appear to be in lock step with the ACLU. But having the Oklahoma monument removed may not have been the devil worshippers end game. As the group’s founder and mouthpiece, Greaves went to great pains to navigate the Oklahoma bureaucracy in an effort to get the unsightly goat statue placed on government grounds. In Florida, the Satanic Temple hailed religious diversity legislation that would allow students to pray in school. Greaves was under the impression youths were interested in praying to Satan. The organization has been active in fundraising to promote themselves in New York’s “adopt-a-highway” program and has consistently organized counter-protests against pro-life groups outside Planned Parenthood abortion clinics. The reality Christians may want to keep in mind is that the Satanic Temple is far more bent on persuading troubled people to reject God. Greaves and his cohorts are nothing more than Satan’s insurgents. Source: Christian Patriot Daily, May 15, 2018

	CULTURE
	La Araucana, an epic poem written by the Spanish nobleman Alonso de Ercilla, 1569 Velvet Paintings Revival El sueño de pintar: Ernesto Apomayta viaja con sus raíces a todas partes El papel de la música en la Antigua Roma, de espectáculo a cultura


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DETROIT — Chicano art historian Tomás Ybarra Frausto describes the Spanish slang term rasquache as the concept of “making do” with very little. It loosely translates to tacky or shoddy. Some might even call it ghetto or kitschy. In describing the art of velvet paintings, rasquache or rasquachismo is fitting. For generations, these pieces have been placed on the mantles of Chicano households from L.A. to Texas, Oklahoma to Michigan, and yet, have never really gotten the recognition they deserve as a legitimate art form.		Three Michigan curators, Diana Rivera, Elena Herrada and Minerva T. Martínez, wanted to change that, so on a snowy January afternoon, the trio —all donning velvet attire— unveiled “Black Velvet: A Rasquache Aesthetic at Casa de Rosado” in Lansing. “This is the people’s art and we’re glad to be able to share it in a space that is welcoming,” Herrada said to the packed gallery.

Elena Herrada talking with guests about the collection (Photo by Serena Maria Daniels/Latino USA) The women reached far and wide across the country to curate a collection of 86 donated and loaned artworks. The resulting compilation provided visitors with a glimpse into themes popularized in Chicano culture: vintage Elvis, Marilyn Monroe, cartoon-like burros, matadores, the ubiquitous La Virgen de Guadalupe and the Legend of Popocatépetl. The traveling exhibit will move to Detroit this week, with an opening noon reception on Saturday, March 17 at the MexicantownCDC Latino Cultural Center. Future stops in Michigan include Saginaw, Grand Rapids and Adrian. At each stop, local artists are taking part by submitting their own interpretations of the art form. Previous showings have featured new works from Okemos, Michigan, native and Los Angeles street artist Diego de León, mixed media artist Judy Trujillo and first-time exhibitor Celia Ramírez from Adrian, Michigan, who during the Lansing opening showcased her work—a rendition of Frida Kahlo as a calavera.