Until the age of 17 Josh was a star athlete. Baseball was his life and he was even part of a team representing the United States in international competition at the Junior Olympics. Every moment outside of the classroom was dedicated to training and competition. He never imagined a future that didn’t include him attending university on a baseball scholarship and, once there, pushing his mind and body to the limit to have a shot at the professional leagues.

That was until one unfortunate day when he was struck by a wild pitch during a game and injured. Little did he know that a single impact injury, common in most sports, would be the beginning of a lifelong battle with neuropathic pain.

His injury in the game lead to increasing bouts of pain that grew to a consistent condition requiring Josh to visit the emergency room regularly with almost unbearable bouts of pain. The only tool that he and his doctors had to get his pain under control was opiate pain medication. Even worse, Josh had to abandon his lifelong love of playing baseball.

It seemed like a ridiculous idea to him at first - cannabis as medicine? All he knew about cannabis was that other people he knew smoked occasionally, and cannabis consumers are often the butt of jokes on TV.

Desperate for anything that could provide relief and with nothing to lose, he decided to give it a try. The results were almost immediate. Far from turning him into the stereotype of a stoner burnout, with cannabis, Josh was finally able to focus again. That’s because he required less and less prescription painkillers to get through the day.

Josh joined the medical cannabis program in New Mexico after graduation.

With the help of a couple of friends he began to focus on his new passion - software development. When he wasn't programming, Josh began to visit medical dispensaries to shop for medication. At the dispensaries, he found that he had a new problem.

There were a LOT of options to choose from and very little information about the differences between them. As he tried different products, some seemed to help with his condition significantly more than others. Why was that the case? He couldn't figure out which products would help without purchasing and trying it blind.

There was no information to even begin establishing a pattern. That’s because most dispensaries only had simple information about their products - just a strain name and THC percentage.