Cape Coral, Florida, United States
About Jaime
Present Chapter... Jaime Renee Cruz, Founder, 420Rx
Jaime Renee Cruz has 25 years of experience in the medical field, beginning in the U.S. Air Force and continuing in civilian life.
Jaime founded 420Rx Cruz Cannabis Cooking during her quest to find a simple method to medicate in microdose strength. Her search yielded few options, so she began developing and reworking recipes in her own kitchen.
Thorough research into the science of confectionaries and cannabis, coupled with hundreds of hours of trial and error in the kitchen, yielded dozens of recipes with which she could accurately dose her medicine using delicious confectionaries.
Having recently sold a successful DJ business, Jaime turned her focus to producing videos documenting her kitchen adventures. After posting a few videos online, patients began reaching out to Jaime for advice and content. Since then, Jaime has produced over 50 instructional videos of unique, cannabis-infused confectionaries that patients can create in their own homes. These short, precise videos have been viewed over half a million times.
Jaime has facilitated live classes throughout Florida, instructing patients as they create their own cannabis-infused gummies. She is frequently contacted and interviewed by local media outlets for cannabis-related stories. Her content has been referenced often, with permissions, as far as La Sexta Television from Spain.
Jaime has also travelled to Tallahassee to address the state legislature about the benefits of medicinal cannabis. Her current personal mission is to “break the stigma” of cannbis use.
Jaime currently lives in Southwest Florida and enjoys time with her three adult daughters, Samantha, Ashley, and Emily, their partners and her first g-baby, Charlie.
New Chapter...My Passion, More Than A Hobby
The founder of 420Rx Cruz Canna Crew, Jaime Renee Cruz, was cannabis naive. In the quest to find a simple way to medicate in microdose strength, she found the selection of microdosing-reworked recipes to be lacking, and a near complete absence of short and precise instructional videos.
Having spent 25 years in the medical field, both in the US Air Force and as a civilian, she knew there was a missing element for herself and many others. It started as a hobby, producing concise instructional videos to assist others in creating microdose edibles. Hundreds of thousands have viewed her videos and learned to create microdose edibles in their own kitchens.
Past Chapters... I Am Me. No More, No Less... I Am Enough
A brief history.
I experienced back pain for the first time in grade 10. I was an active gymnast and it had taken its toll. I’m an Air Force veteran with 25 yrs in the medical field.
I have run the storybook gambit of short and long acting pain medication, injections, anti-inflammatories, etc… I also have MCTD, which, for myself, is comprised of Lupus with overlap symptoms from Sjogren’s and Rheumatoid Arthritis.
I experienced a particularly severe flare in 2016. In a matter of months, my weight dropped from 140 lbs to 97 lbs with 13% body fat. I was cachectic and grossly underweight for my height of 5’4″.
On September 26, 2016, I nearly lost my life. I went into hypovolemic shock. After several hours of fluid resuscitation, I was transferred to ICU with an IV to force my blood pressure to stay above 100 systolic. After transfer from ICU, I remained hospitalized for several more days with several specialty consults and various tests. Upon discharge, I followed up with GI, Hematology and Rheumatology.
Lupus had taken aim at my bone marrow and my digestive tract. I showed anemia of chronic disease and autoimmune pancytopenia. The GI specialist scheduled the standard two diagnostic tests, EGD and colonoscopy. Upon conclusion of the EGD, I was informed that I had gastroparesis with accompanying gastritis among a couple other three-plus syllable words. My stomach was not emptying as it should, causing my body to ignore nearly all caloric intake. I had stopped the weight loss, but was unable to put weight back on. I had no appetite and severe bouts of acute nausea.
November 2016 is when I met woman, whom I’d been told was a bonafide granola-baking, macrame-making hippie with a great molasses cookie recipe. She only made molasses cookies for one reason, to allow the spice and molasses to assist in masking “the dank, as we so lovingly call it”. I did some rudimentary research to acquire the best cannabis for my particular needs. We settled on Bubba Kush, an Indica strain.
Moving forward, Bubba Kush… Near the beginning of my journey into adulthood, I joined the USAF. I never judged my friends for smoking cannabis, I simply did not partake. It was outside the boundaries in my mind.
Enter the molasses cookies. At first, it was a few cookies here and there. I started gaining weight! I was on the rebound from this severe flare. I started bringing cannabis to Joe’s mom and we would bake molasses cookies. As I did more research, I learned about decarboxylation prior to baking the cannabis into a cookie. Then I learned how to make CannaButter. Before I knew it, I’d gained back 30 of the 43 that I had lost. My clothes fit again, I looked healthy and I felt good. I felt really good. Really really good. I believe that point is made. I wasn’t reaching for Percocet as often, and frequently forgot to take one at a scheduled time.
Fast forward one year. I was making molasses cookies with decarboxylated ground flower flour at a ratio of 14 grams to 12 dozen cookies. Joe and I deduced that we could expect a 10% THC content on the cannabis and therefore surmised I was packing 1400 mg into 144 cookies. My estimate was about 10 mg per cookie. In July 2017, my spine physician was in agreement that I was a prime candidate for MMJ. I saw a local physician in Fort Myers, Dr. Sonn, in December, 2017, to get the process started. I received my approval email in January, 2018. I’ve since discontinued opiate pain medicine and with minimal withdrawal symptoms thanks to medical cannabis.
It may have taken me another month to come out of the cannabis closet, but I have formed a hobby around this new passion. I’m a microdoser. I hope to help others openly enjoy what cannabis has to offer. That is my driving force behind 420Rx.
Support 420Rx Cruz Canna Crew
Your support and contributions will assist us in continuing community education on cannabis and its wondrous medicinal benefits. Your generous donation will support travel to advocate and assist in our efforts to Break The Stigma
