In an earnest and heartfelt manner, allow me to illuminate the essence of my profound journey into the realms of research, innovation, and patenting the revolutionary vapor cartridge technology.

I am 76 years old. I grew up during the Vietnam war. Nearly all of my neighborhood male friends got drafted. I had a student deferment (S1) and was able to finish my college degree and get an excellent job with 3M company. My friends came back from the war depressed, scared, and jaded. A close friend of mine, Chuck Doole, got two purple hearts and nearly died. I felt a bit of guilt for being the only one in my neighborhood that did not go to Vietnam.

After I retired from 3M after 40 years. I had a good life, and I was grateful for it. Most of what I did was enjoy my beautiful family, work in my garden, take classes at the U Of MN and take an occasion golf junket in the winter. Then I learned about our soldiers coming back from what seemed like endless wars mentally wounded. Many had PTSD. I learned that many of our soldiers were committing suicide rather than deal with the unrelenting pain of PTSD ..at a rate of 22 per DAY!

I learned about a clinical study being done by Dr. Susan Sisley and her determination to investigate new treatments for posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) using marijuana. Dr. Sisley was President of Scottsdale Research Institute & best-known serving as Principal Investigator for the only FDA-approved randomized controlled trial in the world examining safety/efficacy of smoked marijuana flower by combat veterans with severe post-traumatic stress disorder PTSD. I was very excited and reached out to some of her supporters. During those exchanges of information, I came across this eye-opening letter.

This is the author of the letter.
Sarah A. Wattenberg MSW
Sr. Advisor on Substance Abuse Policy and Marijuana Research Review Committee Chairperson
Office of the Assistant Secretary of Health
U.S. Dept. of Health and Human Services

This particularly paragraph got my serious attention.

As you must know, the current HHS Guidance explicitly rejects providing marijuana to privately funded medical marijuana drug development protocols seeking to obtain FDA approval for the prescription use of smoked marijuana in plant form. Section II of the Guidance, “Availability of Marijuana For Research Purposes”, states, “The goal of this program must be to determine whether cannabinoid components of marijuana administered through an alternative (drug) delivery system can meet the standards enumerated under the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act for commercial marketing of a medical product (see e.g., 21 U.S.C. 355). As the IOM report stated, “Therefore, the purpose of clinical trials of smoked marijuana would not be to develop marijuana as a licensed drug, but such trials could be a first step towards the development of rapid-onset, nonsmoked cannabinoid delivery systems.”

I thought that if I could develop that alternative (drug) delivery system, then FDA approved clinical research into the effects of cannabis extracts on PTSD could begin. It took me 5 years but I found a solution. My goal is to see this technology commercialized and utilized in the medical industry to develop drugs to help those suffering from PTSD, severe pain, multiple sclerosis, ALS, epileptic seizures, multiple forms of cancer, Alzheimer’s and nausea. In the recreational market my goal is to eliminate the illegal drug trade for cannabis by simply giving the consumer a far better way to achieve the desired physiological outcome.

These are noble goals. Please help me achieve them.

Gratefully yours,
Tim McCullough
Inventor and Owner
Vapor Cartridge Technology LLC