Hello, my name is Steve Kravetz the old story-teller, and I am here with an old friend of mine, Russell Langhammer, a former athlete and retired Airline Professional, also a long-time cannabis advocate with an amazing story. 

Steve Kravetz: This is a 100 % true story, is it not Russell? So, tell us a little bit about yourself and what has drawn you to this cause. 

Russell Langhammer: Well Steve, yes, my story is 100 percent true. I can now look back… Starting with my dysfunctional childhood and its difficulties, through my time as an athlete and sex symbol and of course my many years as an Airline professional. I was also dealing with many life-threatening health problems, plus I also had to deal with a few serious work injuries–which found me addicted to pain relievers for 15 years to work and make a living for my family. It was my search to find something better that led me back to mother nature’s help.

Steve: So, brother, tell us how it started for you.

Russell: Well in January of 2019, I died. One moment I was chewing a piece of potato and the next moment I was in the middle of a field feeling the best I have ever felt. Then ninety-three seconds later I was shocked back to life. They would be the most important minute and half of my life. 

Steve: Wow, well I guess you are among the few who have experienced death and came back to talk about it.

Russell: I guess I need to go back to my first-time consuming cannabis. My home life growing up was not very good, so I spent a lot of my time out running in the streets. At least until I met Coach Gail Kingery, the head football coach of our high school. I was only a freshman in Jr. High, but the man had a sixth sense about boys in need. He convinced me that if I had extra time, put it to good use. He put me with older kids in the weight room. By the time I reached high school, I was already a member of the team and a key player. When track season came around, he had me running the hurdles and I found myself excelling in both sports. It was on a weekend after football season but before track started, that I was turned on to Miss Mary Jane at a party. I had consumed alcohol before, but this was so much better.

So, like most athletes this was to be my introduction into drugs. In college while playing football, I was introduced to steroids and was expected to use them routinely.  

Cannabis too had been part of my routine, it dulled the pain from exercise, and running track or down the field chasing passes. Until a leg injury after graduation got me to start training as a professional powerlifter and then a bodybuilder. 

Drugs in these two professions were more than just a thing, the competitors from the rookies to the famous people we all know, all take meds to increase body mass and growth in the areas they choose. Before workouts and after workout, smoking hippy hay was our standard mode of operation. 

I had been working part-time at the airport handling freight while still in college. I was working full time at Dallas Fort Worth Airport in November of 2000, when a freak storm came out of southwest Texas. It brought rain that turned to hail, then ice, more snow than more ice. I had been working a double shift and was on a twenty-foot-tall scaffolding hand signaling pains into the depot. Just as I finished and began to turn and go down, a gust of rushing cold air hit me just right. My shoes slipped on the slick deck. I fell the whole twenty feet, landing on my back. Breaking my back’s L4/L5 and S1 and fracturing my skull causing my brain to swell. 

It was at this point heavy opiates were introduced into my life, just so I could breathe without screaming in pain. I would become totally addicted to pain pills for the next fifteen years just to be able to work and live.

A February of 2009 emergency brought me to visit the hospital, and find out I had cancer of the jaw, too many years chewing tobacco. 

I had surgery right away to remove the cancerous part of my jaw. Chemo and radiation treatment were in my routine for months. My addiction now was being fed with first class meds. But the radiation destroyed my heart. By October of 2009, I was back in the hospital for my first pacemaker, number one of what would be four.  

At work I became a ramp terrorist. Running rough shod over my fiefdom, I blamed everyone for my situation. Then the job disappeared, November of 2015 I finally checked myself into a drug rehab. Sixty days later I came out clean, but still left with my old problem. Living life in a lot of physical pain. Pain that Aspirin or Tylenol was not going to fix. 

Steve, I’ll tell you the truth why I am still here and still alive today…

It is because first my doctors told me to go home and to take care of whatever business I needed to do before I died. Then a priest came in behind him and gave me Last Rights, again.  I said to myself, screw you both. I am not that type of person. I am Russell Langhammer, I compete head-to-head and we Langhammer’s do not quit. I will not walk away from this challenge, even if it is the biggest I have ever faced before, in my 54 years of living so far.

If I learned one thing in all my years in gyms across the world. If you have a body issue, somebody has a fix. I had to find a fix, but not just a chemical one, but ones that mother nature could provide.

I had already started reading up and began using Yoga and breath control to help with pain while the uncontrollable force raced through me. I had not reached any expertise but anything that potentially helped, I was open to look-in to and try. So naturally it is India where I started my journey to find more about mother nature’s cures for my many pains.

Old Indian texts sing the praises of cannabis, and its healing qualities were used in many salves and potions. I found that as far back as 1000 BCE the Hindi used cannabis for a very effective pain reliever. It was common for women’s monthly pains, earaches, and even given to pregnant women during childbirth. The Hindi’s make a holy drink called Bhang. The holy drink's main ingredient is made from cannabis plant leaves.

Bhang it is said, is a drink that will cleanse your sins. It will allow you to become mentally ready to be united with the great spirit, Siva.

I was open to trying anything and I sure needed some of that sin cleaning. AMEN.

If I was about to start a new healthier lifestyle, then let’s do it correctly. I can now see why this is such a popular drink in India,

My next deep research was other ancient Asian treatments. Of course, acupuncture, which I had done several times while competing. Also, I found lots of potions that had some very interesting animal parts. But guess what one of many of their ingredients that keep showing back up over and over was? Mother earth’s gift to mankind, cannabis. 

In 2800 BCE, China’s first ancient ruler was Emperor Shen. He is considered the father of Chinese medicine and wrote what is considered the first book of pharmacopoeia. In it he used the whole cannabis plant as a component for many of his treatments. Along with various mushrooms. 

I also found out, surprisingly, mushrooms had wonderful medical qualities as well. They are used for curing bronchial lung issues, cancers, it is used to help open wounds to heal. When added to any other treatment program they enhance the total curative effect of that treatment.  Then when I found out mushrooms booted immune systems, helped lung issues and fought cancer, I was in.

No matter where I looked in early civilizations Rome, Greece, Turkey, Israel, Africa, Afghanistan, the Vikings and most all the early tribes of Europe all used cannabis for pain relief. Mushrooms too, were often an ingredient in the medicine given.

I bet you Steve that you did not know what the Jewish religion calls, holy oil. Oil that was only used in anointing holy visitors to the Temple in Jerusalem, and the few high priests who worked there. This holy oil had cannabis oil as one of its main ingredients. The holy oil was also found in every house of Jewish worship. It is in the everlasting light which can be found hanging above their pulpit. It shows the spirit of G-D residing in his house, it also while the oil burns, gets the holy houses participants high. Making those who are shaking or praying as the body moves by swaying back and forth the most intoxicated.

Steve: No, I did not know that, but it makes sense.

Russell: Cannabis has been part of my life since I was a kid. But now my investigation brought me to a deep look into this miracle plant, which led me to FECO or Full Extract Canna Oil = whole plant extract. From root to flower and everything between. 

The process combines molecules and terpenes from various parts of the plant to create the most versatile healing, thick oil. When processed, you had a whole plant extract by using different plants with different terps or not from a cannabis plant but also the sister plant, hemp, which is a plant with more CBD molecules for a different end product with more CBD being the base ingredient. 

Both forms of FECO are a significant help to their educated consumers.

After only four months of my new regiment, less than six months after I was sent home to die, I was boarding a plane with my wife, heading to Germany to visit family, then on to Budapest, last stop Austria, before heading back home.

The summer of 2018 Gunther, my son, and I attended our first cannabis event. I had no idea what that day would lead me to DFW’s NORMAL meetup–a social gathering at a place in the mid-cities called Jekyll N’ Hides. At the meeting, someone asked if anyone had a good marijuana story. I raised my hand. Slowly from the back of the room, like Moses, the space between me and the stage parted, and I found myself being pulled by an invisible rope. Climbing the steps to the center stage, I had nothing planned, I swallowed and opened my mouth.

“My name is Russell Langhammer, I am a former athlete and retired airline professional. In November 2000 I fell off a twenty- foot tower while working at FW Airport. I broke my spine in two spots and cracked open my head. For the next fifteen years I was addicted to opiates just to be able to work and live with my constant pain. It was only through the help of cannabis that I am still here today, alive, and free of all poppy plant addictions.”

My story shared that day with the people at this NORMAL event was just the beginning of my journey, and it was to be my key to speaking at NORMAL events throughout the United States and in Germany at their NORMAL events, plus in Buenos Aires Argentina and Cabo San Lucas.

I have spoken at conferences like, Americans For Safe Access, joined like-minded people visiting politicians to change the hemp and cannabis laws. Over the last several years, I have been on too many to list PODcasts, it seems at least one a week. I have many YouTube videos and a growing following on all the social media sites. 

I now know we are all living on borrowed time, with that in mind I hope that when we–each of us–come to see our last tomorrow, we can say, I gave my best, and hopefully I was a positive influence on others. 

Cannabis–in all forms, and mushrooms have allowed me to live mostly free of physical pain since 2015, and I have mother nature to thank for that.

Fans' requests have brought me to write my own story in a book to hopefully inspire others. It is called, “Pain Is My Companion,” and has been recently released and can be found on Amazon Books.

Steve: Thank you, Russell, for allowing us to glimpse into a bit of your life’s journey. The old story -teller here until next time.

–Steve