By James Hehn, Pendletonian Times
PENDLETON, Ore. – A Pendleton businesswoman feels like she’s being harassed after Pendletonian Times mocked her for exploiting a child with cancer beginning in 2012 and giving Vice News an exclusive story. Erin Purchase says she has reported the harassment to Facebook.
Purchase is not a medical doctor, but on March 7, 2022, a YouTube channel operated by Tokeativity published a video called “Tokeativity Presents: How to Heal Cancer with Cannabis with Erin Purchase, Kind Leaf Pendleton.”
In the video, Purchase claims to have entered “the industry” in 2009. “I used cannabis as a teenager, quit using it when I was pregnant with my first daughter, because I really just didn’t know much about plant medicine.”
She then claims that cannabis made her a better mother: “… little did I know that cannabis was actually what was going to help me be the best mom ever … in 2009, I lost my job due to health problems and I began working on the black market. As most of us, it just helped get me through.”
“I actually helped medical patients in my rural communities. I would go to the big city of Portland and get quality medicine [and] bring it back to … rural Oregon, that’s how I got my foot in the door.”
“I have two daughters, Mykayla, who is known as ‘Brave Mykayla’ and she’s actually a big part of my Cannamom story, because … she’s a Cannakid.”
“I was turned into Children’s Services for breastfeeding my baby with a bong in my hand at [Seattle] Hempfest [2011]. And it began a year full of a lot of stress fighting four counts of neglect and fighting to keep my children, because I wouldn’t let [Child Protective Services] into my home …”
“They tried to take custody of my two girls and it was the fight of our lives just to keep my two little girls. During that time, my oldest daughter, Mykayla … just a mix of genetics, environment, the stress from all of what we were enduring, having to fight [Child Protective Services], and everything, she got sick and she developed acute lymphoblastic leukemia, which is cancer of the immune system … she was diagnosed on July 13, 2012.”
Purchase says that a user on Oregon NORML’s website turned her onto the idea of using alternative medicine to treat her daughter’s cancer because of her black market connections: “… I was working on the black market and I was working with cancer patients … and I had found out that kids could use cannabis and three months later my daughter had cancer … so I knew I wanted to use cannabis medicine for her, because it just … I’d watched it work wonders on adults.”
“Mykayla used up to anywhere from one to three grams a day. We started off with a little pin drop size of cannabis oil and we worked our way up … I got her a medical marijuana card under the Oregon Medical Marijuana Program and I gave her her first dose and within 10 days she was in complete remission and her oncologists used the words ‘baffled’ because her cancer [was] cured.”
Purchase admits that her child was given a slogan and a website that she now uses as a reference in the field of pediatric cannabis therapy. “Mykayla was graciously accepted into the industry, without the love and the support of the cannabis industry I don’t think that we would have had so much happiness in our life.”
According to Purchase, these events all happened prior to the passage of Oregon HB 3460, which requires the Oregon Department of Land Conservation and Development to study foreign investment in Oregon’s agricultural land, however, she claims that HB 3460 is the Medical Dispensary Act in the Tokeativity presentation.
The Oregon Medical Marijuana Act was Ballot Measure 67 and passed in 1998. It allows patients with certain medical conditions to possess, cultivate and use marijuana if a doctor recommends it.
Purchase claims that studying alternative medicine on children is ethical: “When human studies are ethical this plant could be a treatment and save thousands and thousands and thousands and thousands, probably millions of people, like just not even just from cancer, but from all sorts of conditions … and despite her doctor telling me I would kill her with my choice, I knew that I wouldn’t … I went ahead and signed the dotted line!”
Purchase then begins to describe her current business venture: “So this is Kind Leaf Pendleton, we are also celebrating our five year birthday coming up in March, which I’m really excited about. It’s been a labor of love. We started off with 14 strains [and] we now have Oregon’s largest inventory of cannabis products. We carry anywhere from 140 to 160 cannabis strains on our shelf at any given time.”
On April 20, 2022, Willamette Week reported that the largest dispensary at that time in Oregon was Northwest Cannabis Company.
Tokeativity is a feminist movement of cannabis users that claims to fight for cannabis normalization, equity and empowerment and attempts to achieve these goals through creative, social, and political, intersectional feminist forward activities and marketing campaigns that work to create radical, positive change.
On July 8, 2017, Pendletonian Times reported that a neon sign was being installed by Sign Men Neon Co. at Kind Leaf Pendleton. Purchase’s former boyfriend Brandon Krenzler said in a statement at the time that “we don’t need cannabis leaves and green crosses to show people [that] we are [a] recreational cannabis dispensary.” This was a reference to signage commonly displayed at recreational and medical dispensaries in the “Green Mile” area of Sandy Boulevard in Portland, Oregon. “We want to help end the stigma associated with cannabis and dispensaries … by having a tasteful and acceptable logo for our craft cannabis boutique; one that encourages other companies to step away from the cliches and become originals themselves.”
The Kind Leaf Facebook page was published on March 23, 2022, just over five years after the dispensary opened on March 10, 2017. Facebook reports that the dispensary has approximately 6,400 likes and 6,700 followers.
According to the National Institutes of Health, robust evidence exists for pure cannabidiol (CBD) to treat specific types of refractory epilepsy and in most cases, artisanal strains of CBD-rich medical cannabis are being used to treat children with various types of refractory epilepsy or irritability associated with autism spectrum disorder. Kind Leaf Pendleton is among the top results on Google when you search for artisanal strains in Pendleton, Oregon.