Defeating Alzheimer's: B. Smith Cofounder Dan Gasb
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By The Bluntness, Wednesday, March 10, 2021 3:05 PM
This article by Gregory Frye was originally published on The Bluntness, and appears here with permission.
They built an empire together. Dan Gasby with his late wife Barbara Smith (better known as B. Smith) opened restaurants, ran a magazine, cultivated a retail line, produced a TV show...
Together the couple accomplished what most only dream of – defeating the odds every step of the way. Nobody could stop them.
And then it happened.
In 2013, Smith was diagnosed with early onset Alzheimer’s. Over the next few years, as she slowly declined, Gasby transitioned from full-time executive powerhouse to a 24/7 caregiver as this cruel disease destroyed the beautiful, vibrant mind of his life partner.
Since then, Gasby has learned and witnessed how much cannabis could have helped Smith if she’d had safe access to it early on her Alzheimer’s journey.
Now, he intends to be part of the cannabis solution for others, as a means to restore balance, promote progress, and ease suffering.
Turning to Cannabis for Alzheimer’s
Did you know that every 67 seconds a person develops Alzheimer’s? By 2050, researchers estimate it will be every 33 seconds.
It is a terrible disease with no known cure, although studies are showing how cannabis can help.
Gasby only wishes he and Smith had known about that at the time of her diagnosis.
“For years, my wife slowly declined with Alzheimer’s taking a bigger and bigger impact on her life, mood, and mental stability,” Gasby says. “The pharmaceutical drugs she would take worked for a while, but I noticed at night she would get agitated – and her personality began to change.”
What a lot of people don’t realize about Alzheimer’s, Gasby continues, is that loss of memory and cognition are only one part of the disease. “What really happens is they start to do dangerous things because their brain is broken. And that’s everything from taking a paperclip and scratching things, to picking up all the floor vents in the house, or taking apart the Christmas tree.”
The experience of supporting Smith during her journey with early onset Alzheimer’s led Gasby to joining the American Brain Foundation Board of Directors, where he helps raise support for the cause while digging further into the disease itself, including the potential of cannabis to help Alzheimer’s patients.
“There are so many receptors in the brain that work naturally with cannabis, and no one has found any sort of toxicity to cannabis per se, so it seems like the perfect wellness product for these patients,” Gasby says.
Bringing Balance to the New Jersey Cannabis Industry
When Gasby understood that legal cannabis was coming to New Jersey, he knew he had to get involved.
“I wanted to be a part of this because I’ve seen what it can do from the standpoint of helping someone in the ...
Full story available on Benzinga.com
Source: Benzinga (newsletters@benzinga.com)