A Story of Inspiration

By Seana-Marie Sesma Founder, Mary Jane Services Network

My passion for the medicinal and adult-use cannabis industry arose from a medical situation in my family. My uncle had a failing liver and was in need of a liver transplant. He was getting treatment far from his Santa Barbara home at a hospital hundreds of miles away and was on the waiting list to receive a new liver. The doctors performed THC testing on him to make sure everything was okay to stay on the transplant list. They found THC in his system, and it had to be reported which did not work in his favor at this hospital or future hospitals.

For the months leading up to this point, my uncle had been using medicinal cannabis, which had been prescribed to help him through his chronic pain and nausea. When the doctors discovered cannabis in my uncle’s system — support and healing got worse and his body’s system continued failing. My uncle’s system did ultimately fail and he died. It was during a time when medicinal cannabis was legal in California via Prop 215, hospitals had policies that they would not award organs to patients that were “drug users.” This tragically misguided policy resulted in lesser care and ultimately in the death of my uncle.

Out of this avoidable loss of my uncle, plus the many stories we’ve learned about people in similar predicaments, the vision for Mary Jane Services Network was born: To play an essential role in making medicinal cannabis accessible for all who need it –– whether for the purpose of relieving people from pain, side effects from other medications, or

for any other form of healing this remarkable plant provides. Cannabis is now legal in an increasing number of states in the United States, but now our crucial objective is to help cannabis cultivators, manufacturers, distributors, and retailers become compliant with local and state regulations and licensed for business, making cannabis truly accessible, as it should be, for all people in need of healing.