Advertorial
Home > My Story > What I use
Doctors Told Me to Quit Cannabis After 50 Years. Instead, I Found a Way to Keep My Medicine Without Destroying My Lungs
Written by Larry Mitchell: retired machinist – full-time grandpa – Columbus, Ohio
My doctor told me to stop smoking. He didn’t say I had to stop using cannabis. There’s a difference, and it took me decades to find it.
I lit my first joint in the summer of 1972. Nixon was still in the White House. The Vietnam War was on the nightly news. And cannabis wasn’t a “wellness trend” you could order online. It was a felony that could land you in a cell.
I’m 67 years old. I’ve been using cannabis for over fifty years. Not because it’s cool or a trend. I’ve used it every single day simply because it works.
It works for the pain in my knees that two tours of duty left me with.
It works for the sleep I couldn’t find for decades after I came home.
It works for the mind that’s seen things no 19-year-old should see.
It works better than the fourteen different prescriptions the VA tried to put me on over the years.
Cannabis is my medicine. It always has been.
I don’t need a doctor to write that on a piece of paper for me to know it’s true.
But a few months ago, that same doctor told me something I couldn’t ignore.
The Morning That Changed Everything
It started the way it always did. I woke up, swung my legs over the side of the bed, and coughed. Not a polite little clearing of the throat.
A deep, rattling, wet cough that came from somewhere in my chest and didn’t stop for two full minutes.
My wife, Diane, was already awake. She didn’t say anything. She didn’t need to. I could see it in her face.
The same look she’s been giving me for the last three years, the one that says this is getting worse and we both know it.
I’d been coughing like that every morning for years. It used to go away after a few minutes.
Then it started lasting an hour.
Then it started happening in the middle of the night, waking Diane up, waking the dog up, echoing through the house like I was trying to hack up a lung.
I told myself it was nothing.
Allergies.
A cold that stuck around.
I’m 67 — things don’t work as well as they used to, right?
But then came the appointment.
“Larry, I need you to hear me. Your lung function is declining faster than it should be at your age. If you keep inhaling smoke, any smoke, we’re looking at serious respiratory problems within a few years. I’m talking oxygen tanks. I’m talking not being able to walk your grandkids to the bus stop.”
– Dr. Alan Pryor, my GP of 22 years
He wasn’t trying to scare me. He was trying to save me. I know the difference.
And look: I’m not naive.
I know smoking anything is hard on your lungs. Fifty years of putting hot smoke into your chest is going to have consequences.
I knew that. But hearing it from a doctor you trust, a guy who’s been treating you since your kids were in diapers. Hearing him say “oxygen tank”, that hits different.
I sat in that examination room for a long time after he left. And I thought about the two choices in front of me:
Option A: Give up cannabis. Give up the thing that helps me sleep, manages my pain, replaces the alcohol I used to lean on too hard, and keeps me from turning into a bitter old man counting pills from an orange bottle.
Option B: Find a way to keep my medicine without destroying my lungs.
Option A was never going to happen. So I went looking for Option B.
That search nearly broke me.
I Tried Every Alternative the Industry Told Me To. None of Them Worked.
Over the next several months, I must have spent close to $400 trying every smokeless cannabis product I could find.
Dispensaries.
Online shops.
Recommendations from guys at the VFW.
I tried them all with an open mind and a genuine hope that something would replace the ritual I’d built my life around.
Here’s what happened:
Attempt 1: Edible Gummies: “The Waiting Game”
Everyone told me gummies were the answer.
Easy.
Discreet.
No smoke.
So I tried them. Multiple brands, multiple doses.
And every single time, I played the same miserable game: take a gummy, sit on the couch, stare at the clock. Thirty minutes. Nothing. Forty-five minutes. Maybe something?
An hour later, I’d think “these don’t work” and take another one.
That’s when the trouble starts.
Because about 90 minutes after that second gummy, both of them would hit me at once like a freight train. I’d go from feeling nothing to being glued to the couch, room spinning, wondering if I’d ever feel normal again.
Diane found me sitting in the dark at 2 AM one night, just staring at the wall, convinced I’d taken too much.
I later learned that gummy dosing is wildly inconsistent. The THC isn’t evenly spread through the gelatin, so one gummy in a bag might have 5mg and the one right next to it might have 15mg, even though the label says 10.
And because your body has to fully digest them and run everything through your liver, you never know when it’s going to kick in or how hard it’s going to hit.
When I smoked a joint, I knew within two minutes exactly where I was and exactly where I was headed. Gummies took that control away completely.
Attempt 2: Canned THC Drinks : The Problem was Inside the Can
Canned THC seltzers seemed like a real step up. They hit faster than gummies. Maybe 30 to 45 minutes instead of 90.
And I liked the idea of sipping something instead of chewing candy. It felt more… like me.
But then a buddy of mine who works in the cannabis industry told me something that stopped me in my tracks.
Here’s the problem with canned THC drinks, and most people don’t know about it:
Every aluminum can has a thin plastic liner on the inside. It’s there to keep the metal from corroding.
Most of these liners contain BPA. A chemical you’ve probably heard you should avoid. But here’s the part nobody talks about:
THC is fat-soluble. It’s attracted to plastic and fats.
So when THC sits inside an aluminum can, it doesn’t just float there waiting for you to drink it. It actually absorbs into the plastic lining of the can.
It’s like a sponge soaking up the very ingredient you paid for.
The can says 10mg on the label. But by the time you crack it open, a portion of that THC is stuck to the inside of the can and never makes it into your body.
You’re paying for a dose you’re not getting.
Once I learned that, I couldn’t unlearn it.
Every time I picked up a canned THC drink, I’d think: how much of this is actually making it to me?
Attempt 3: Vape Pens: Solved One Problem, had Another
A few friends suggested vaping. “It’s not smoke,” they said. “It’s vapor. Much safer.”
Maybe. But I remember 2019.
I remember watching the news and seeing young, healthy people in hospital beds with destroyed lungs from vaping. The EVALI crisis, they called it. Over 2,800 people hospitalized. 68 dead.
Now, I know the vape industry has changed since then. I know a lot of those injuries were from black market products.
But here’s my problem: I went to my doctor because my lungs are failing from inhaling things. In what world does the solution involve inhaling more things?
I’m trying to take my lungs out of the equation entirely. Vaping still puts something in my chest. That’s a deal-breaker for me. Period.
“I was starting to think maybe there just wasn’t anything out there for someone like me. Maybe I really was going to have to choose between my lungs and my medicine.”
Three alternatives. Three failures. Each one got something right. Gummies removed the smoke, canned drinks were faster, vapes felt familiar.
But every single one had a flaw that I couldn’t live with. I was running out of options and running out of patience.
And then, on a Thursday night at the VFW, something changed.
How I Found What Actually Works
I was at the VFW post, same Thursday night as always. A few of us were sitting around talking about the usual stuff: grandkids, bad knees, worse government.
When my buddy Tom brought up cannabis. Tom’s been using it almost as long as I have, mostly for the nerve pain in his back from a training accident in ’78.
“You still doing the gummy thing?” I asked him.
“Nah,” he said. “Found something better.” He reached into his jacket and pulled out a small bottle, about the size of a 5-Hour Energy. “Try this.”
I read the label. High Rider. Orbit. 50mg THC.
“It’s a liquid THC shot.”
Tom said. “No smoke. No can. Hits in about fifteen minutes. And you can measure exactly how much you take.”
I looked at him like he was crazy. I’d heard it about gummies, about drinks, about vapes. I wasn’t in the mood for another letdown.
“Just try it,” he said.
“If it doesn’t work, I’ll buy you a beer.”
I took a sip. Not the whole bottle.
I used the little dosing marks on the side and measured out about 15mg.
The flavor surprised me. It tasted like a hawaiian punch. Not “cannabis-flavored hawaiian punch”.
Actual, honest-to-God, good-tasting hawaiian punch. No weed aftertaste. No bitterness. No medicine-cabinet vibe.
Then I waited. And I didn’t have to wait long.
“Twelve minutes. I looked at my watch because I couldn’t believe it. Twelve minutes and I felt that familiar warmth, that gentle lift, that softening of the edges. Not a hammer drop like the gummies. Not a question mark like the cans. Just… exactly what I needed. When I needed it.”
Why High Rider Solved What Nothing Else Could
After that night at the VFW, I went home and spent two hours reading everything I could find about liquid THC shots and why they work differently than gummies or canned drinks.
I’m a retired machinist. I need to understand how something works before I trust it.
Here’s what I learned, and why every other alternative I tried fell short.
The Speed Problem – Solved
They use something called nano-emulsion technology.
In plain English: they break the THC down into tiny, tiny particles. So small that your body can absorb them directly through the soft tissue in your mouth and stomach lining.
The THC starts entering your bloodstream the moment you take the shot. It doesn’t have to survive your stomach acid, travel to your liver, and get converted into a different chemical the way gummies do.
That’s why gummies take an hour or more. They have to be fully digested before anything happens.
High Rider skips that entire process. It’s the closest thing to the speed of smoking I’ve found — without putting anything in my lungs.
The Dosing Problem — Solved
The bottle has a measuring strip right on the side. I can see exactly how many milligrams I’m taking, down to the drop.
No guessing. No biting gummies in half. No hoping that the THC is evenly distributed inside some piece of candy. With a liquid, the THC is perfectly mixed throughout.
For a guy who spent 35 years measuring metal to a thousandth of an inch, this matters more than you might think.
The Packaging Problem — Solved
High Rider comes in a small bottle. Not a can. There’s no plastic liner for the THC to absorb into. What’s on the label is what you get.
All 50 milligrams make it from the bottle to you. After learning about the canned drink problem, this alone would have been enough to make me switch.
The Lung Problem — Solved
This is the big one. The whole reason I started this search. There’s nothing to smoke, nothing to vape, nothing to inhale. It’s a 2-ounce liquid shot. I drink it. It works. My lungs never get involved.
I went back to Dr. Pryor six weeks after I started using High Rider and my breathing test numbers were already improving.
What Changed After I Made the Switch
It’s been about four months since Tom handed me that first bottle at the VFW. Four months since I stopped smoking. Here’s what’s different:
The Cough Is Gone
Gone. Not “better.” Not “improving.” Gone. I wake up, swing my legs over the side of the bed, and the first sound Diane hears in the morning is me saying “good morning” instead of hacking into a towel.
She told me last week it’s the happiest she’s been in years. That hit me harder than I expected.
I Sleep Through the Night
I take my Orbit shot about 20 minutes before bed. By the time my head hits the pillow, that warm, heavy calm is already settling in.
I don’t wake up at 2 AM. I don’t stare at the ceiling replaying things I wish I could forget. I sleep seven hours straight, and I wake up feeling like a human being instead of a zombie.
My Knees Stopped Running the Show
I’ve got 67-year-old knees that did two tours in Southeast Asia. They’re not great. They used to wake me up in the middle of the night . That deep, throbbing ache that no amount of Advil touches.
Since switching to High Rider, the pain didn’t fully disappear, but it doesn’t run my life anymore. The relief hits fast enough that I can take my shot and feel it working before the pain has a chance to settle in.
I Haven’t Touched Alcohol in Four Months
This one surprised me. I wasn’t a heavy drinker, but I’d have two or three beers most nights. Partly habit, partly because it helped me wind down. Since I started using High Rider in the evenings, I just… stopped wanting the beer. Not a big dramatic decision.
I just realized one day that I hadn’t opened one in weeks. No hangover. No empty calories. No waking up at 3 AM to use the bathroom. Just a clean, calm evening and an actual good night’s sleep.
“I didn’t just find a cannabis alternative. I got my mornings back. I got my sleep back. I got my lungs back. I got to walk my granddaughter to school without stopping to cough. If that’s not medicine, I don’t know what is.”
Which One Is Right for You? Here’s My Honest Guide.
High Rider makes a few different options. Here’s how I use each one, and who I’d recommend them to.
ORBIT – 50mg THC Shot (My Go-To)
This is the one I use every night. 50mg is a serious dose. This is for people who have been using cannabis for years and know what they’re doing. It’s a deep, full-body experience.
Calm, euphoric, and long-lasting. I take it 20 minutes before bed and I sleep like I did in my twenties. If you’re an experienced user looking for real relief, this is the one.
Click here for the 50mg THC shot.
RUSH – 20mg THC + Caffeine Energy Shot (My Daytime Pick)
This one surprised me. It’s got 20mg of THC plus natural caffeine and nootropics, and it gives you this sharp, focused, elevated feeling without the couch-lock.
I take it before a round of golf or before working in the shop. It’s like the best cup of coffee you’ve ever had, but with a clean buzz underneath. My buddy Tom calls it “creative fuel.”
Click here for the 20mg THC Energy Shot.
VIBE – 10mg THC Shot (For Beginners or Lighter Days)
If you’re newer to this or just want a lighter touch, Vibe is where you start. 10mg with a dosing strip so you can even go lower. 3mg, 5mg, whatever feels right.
It’s perfect for social situations, an afternoon on the porch, or if you’re the kind of person who wants a slight lift without going deep. I keep a few around for guests.
Click here for the 10mg THC Shot.
What Changed After I Made the Switch
If I could go back twenty years and hand myself a bottle of High Rider Orbit, I would.
Not because smoking was bad, it gave me fifty years of good memories, good sleep, and good medicine. But because I didn’t need to trade my lungs for it. I just didn’t know there was another way.
Now I do. And if you’re reading this because you’re in the same spot I was:
coughing too much,
worrying about your lungs,
trying gummies that don’t work,
drinking cans full of compromised THC
If this is you, then I want you to know:
You don’t have to choose between your medicine and your health. That’s a false choice. High Rider eliminates it.
Here’s what I’d recommend:
Start with the ORBIT.
It’s their 50mg flagship, built for experienced users like us.
Right now, they’re running a special offer for new customers:
Every Orbit order comes with free Rush energy shots (you get half the number of your Orbit order for free, so if you grab a 12-pack of Orbit, you get 6 Rush shots at no extra charge).
It’s the perfect way to try both.
Ships nationwide.
Arrives at your door.
And if for whatever reason it doesn’t blow your mind the way it blew mine: they have a 30-day, 100% money-back guarantee. No hassle, no questions, every penny returned.
I spent $400 on alternatives that disappointed me.
I’m 67 years old. I’ve been using cannabis since before most of you were born. I’ve seen it go from a felony to a pharmacy shelf, and I’ve tried just about every way there is to consume it.
High Rider is the best thing I’ve ever found.
I’m saying that because I wake up every morning without coughing, I sleep every night without pills, and I still get to use the plant medicine that’s been part of my life for half a century.
After fifty years, I finally found my solution.
Plant medicine doesn’t have to mean lung damage.
This is the future of cannabis wellness. And it fits in your pocket.
Stay green,
Larry Mitchell
Your Lungs Have Done Enough. Give Them a Break.
Order the ORBIT 50mg THC Shot now and try it yourself risk-free for 30 days.
Your Gift: Every new customer gets the RUSH caffeine + THC shots for FREE