Welcome, guys, to episode 218 of Behind the Shield
podcast. As always, my name's James Gearing,
and I am so excited to introduce this week pediatric
ER physician, cannabis medicine physician, and
author of the book Cannabis Revealed, Dr. Bonnie
Goldstein. Now, this is an area that I really
wanted to expand my knowledge in and obviously
bring that knowledge to you guys as well. I'm
a huge advocate for CBD. It's the product that
we can safely take as first responders if there
is no THC in it. But the THC has incredibly healing
powers as well. And you'll hear how Dr. Goldstein
came across the cannabis medicine whilst trying
to help a friend who had cancer herself. Once
she was on that road, she realized the amazing
healing properties it was having in autism, in
seizures, and even in pediatric cancer. So I
really want to tell this story. On top of that,
you will hear me mention about Red Pill Medical
CBD that I take. This is a pure CBD. There is
zero THC in it. You can request the lab reports
for each batch. And I've been taking it for over
a year with incredible results. And they have
offered you guys, the listener, 20 % off any
of their CBD products. So the one I use is the
Daily Gold Zero THC. If you go to my website,
jamesgearing .com or Red Pill Medical's website
and then use the code SHIELD, S -H -I -E -L -D,
you will get a 20 % off any of the products that
you use. But like I said, if you get tested at
work, make sure it's a zero THC CBD. So with
all that being said, before we get to the interview.
please go to your podcast app make sure you subscribe
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may be looking for something like this to change
their life or even their child's life So that
being said, I introduce to you Dr. Bonnie Goldstein.
Enjoy. Dr. Goldstein, I want to start by saying
thank you so much for coming on the podcast.
Thank you for having me, James. All right, so
where on planet Earth are we finding you today?
I'm in Los Angeles. Okay, and where exactly is
your office? So my office is located in a little
area of Los Angeles called Lawndale. It's kind
of about 15... minutes south of la international
airport okay brilliant i used to work in burbank
live in burbank excuse me so i know the area
well um okay so the first question then where
were you actually born so i was born in new york
city and um raised in um suburbia in new jersey
very nice upbringing with my two lovely parents
who are i'm very blessed to still have And I
went to medical school in New Jersey and then
came out to California to do my residency in
pediatrics. Okay, so going back to your parents
for a moment, what did they do? So my mom was
a stay -at -home until about high school. And
my dad worked in sales. Did you get any of your
holistic medicine influence from either of your
parents? No, I didn't. It really came from my
own interests. I mean, I'm pretty lucky my parents
are healthy. They're both in their 80s. But they,
you know, they believed in allopathic medicine.
I knew when I was eight years old that I wanted
to be a doctor and I kind of stuck with that
and followed it. I do feel it was a calling for
me. My parents are of that generation, kind of
stoic. We used to joke around that unless the
arm was hanging off or you were unconscious,
you didn't get taken to the doctor. I remember
my sister climbed on the car and fell off and
hit her head and was passed out. And I remember
my dad saying, yeah, she's going to be okay.
So not something that would happen today, of
course. Yeah, unless you're a son or a daughter
of a first responder, we're the same. We've seen
so much worse that our kids' injuries normally
are kind of brushed off a little bit. All right,
so you mentioned about having yearning for medicine
early on. So was that immediately out of high
school you went into that tract? Yes. I mean,
I knew that I wanted to be a doctor, like I said,
around eight years old. And so I'm not sure what
the influence was. I joke around that maybe there
was this TV show. You know, let's see. You know,
I was a kid born in the 60s and remember the
70s very well. So I think there was some TV show
on that showed kind of the drama and the excitement
of the emergency room. the saving people's lives
and ambulances, and I just got kind of caught
up in that, I guess. And I went to college and
majored in science, biology, and then went directly
into medical school straight out of college.
Right. Now, back then, obviously, I know things
are a little different now, but how much exposure
did you have to areas like nutrition and sleep
and plant medicine through your traditional med
school training? Zero. Nothing. Right. And then
so that's something that so the doctors of your
generation really were on that specific area
were set up for failure in understanding some
of the more natural options then. Yeah, I mean,
it was really something. So, you know, the unfortunate
thing is that there's so much to learn now in
those four years of school that it. You know,
when the curriculum is made, I think what happens
is they focus on, you know, they build on what
came before. And very few medical schools incorporate,
you know, what we might call holistic or alternative
or complementary. It is something that you have
to kind of seek out. Right. So what took you
to pediatrics specifically? You know, it's funny,
I wasn't sure about what I was going to focus
on during medical school. And, you know, in medical
school, I don't know if people know this, you
rotate through a surgical, the surgical ward,
like, you know, you do that for two months, and
then you rotate through the internal medicine
ward for two months, you do OBGYN. psychiatry
and pediatrics. Those are the big five that everybody
has to kind of go through because it gives you
probably the broadest experience. That's during
your third year of medical school. And I'm sure
some schools have added or changed it, but that's
pretty standard. And I kept waiting for this
kind of epiphany of, oh, I love this. This is
what I'm going to do. And it just so happens
that pediatrics. for me was the last of the rotations.
And I remember kind of getting worried thinking,
no, this isn't for me. I mean, it's okay. It's
interesting, but no. And then when I went through
the pediatric rotation, I thought, oh, oh yeah,
no, this is it. And I just, I, there was, it
was an emotional feeling. It was an attachment
to trying to help these little vulnerable people.
who really had no, uh, you know, when it's an
interesting thing and I'm hardly a judgmental
person, but these kids were just so innocent
and they had no vices and they had no, um, no
agendas. They were just, they were just there
trying to get better. And, um, I, I really liked
that. And it, and it's also, you can be silly
and, and, and funny and, and playful, sometimes
in a career that is so serious. Right. And that's
something I've seen as a medic as well is there
are definitely areas that we've done to ourselves,
whether it's addiction, whether it's obesity.
And it's sad because a lot of these men and women
are sold certain philosophies that are just incorrect
regarding their health that leads them to all
these areas. But with kids, especially with areas
like cancer, for example, They are, as you said,
just so vulnerable and they haven't done anything
yet to themselves that therefore would cause
these disease processes like some of their adult
peers have. That's right. That's right. And they're,
you know, and I'm a pretty patient person. And,
you know, a lot of times I felt very comfortable
and I still do, you know, dealing with the parents.
of the children. I know for a lot of my colleagues
at the time, they'd say, oh, how can you deal
with the parents? They're, you know, they're
worried and they're over the top. And, and I
said, I don't know, there's just something about
it that I like. I, I, I guess I just like that
part of it. I, I like dealing with the parents.
I like explaining to the parents what's going
on. I like taking care of the children. It was
just, it was a fit. Right. And then you, you
were in the ER specifically, is that correct?
Yes. After my After my internship and residency,
I stayed on at Children's Hospital Los Angeles
to be chief resident. And during that time, I
also kind of worked part time in the hospital's
critical care transport program. And I really
enjoyed that. And that kind of extended. I did
that for a couple of years, and then there was
an opening at another major hospital local to
where I was living that had pediatric emergency
medicine positions open. This was prior to the
fellowship specialty, so I kind of grandfathered
into that, and I did that for many years. Okay,
and during that time, obviously we're going to
talk about cannabis and THC and CBD. What were
some of the things over those few years that
made you start to wonder if there were other
methods that may be more effective than the ones
that you've been taught in medical school? Well,
I have to tell you, you know, it didn't really
come up during my ER years. You know, remember
when you're in an ER and you know this well,
I'm sure a lot of your listeners know you're
you're, you know, saving lives. You're you're
trying to. reverse some serious damage, you know,
when somebody comes into your ER and they're
pretty sick. So it wasn't really on my radar,
you know. It wasn't until a friend of mine got
sick and brought it to me asking me about medical
marijuana, very nervously, of course, but she
was sick. She had cancer. Her husband reached
out to me and said, you know, we're looking at
this because she's really struggling and we just
want it for. you know, to help her get through
the chemo. And what do you know? Can you help
us? And I was like, I don't know anything. And
here I am living in California that had already
had a law for about 10 years. So again, it was
just, you know, I wasn't against it. I just didn't
know anything. I was neutral and ignorant. So
I started doing some research for my friend and
lo and behold, I couldn't believe what I was
reading about the endocannabinoid system and
like this whole body of literature, scientific
literature that talked about how we have this
system that I had never heard of as a doctor
that controls much of our well -being. The more
I read, the more I was intrigued. And then I
watched my friend kind of go through the process
of using medical cannabis and it helped her so
much. And I just really was intrigued. And, you
know, at the same time in my personal life, I
was trying to balance working. graveyard shifts
with being a mommy during the day. And as you
can imagine, you know, that gets kind of difficult.
There's sleep deprivation and lack of self -care
that we all deserve. And I took a leave of absence
and I wasn't sure what I was going to do during
that leave of absence. But once I kind of started
looking at this whole world of medical cannabis,
again, since I was amazed by it, and I'm a science
geek, so I delved in, and I got a part -time
job in a medical cannabis doctor's office. And
after about three months just working part -time
there, I was hooked. I loved the science. I loved
helping these patients with the natural treatment,
and I really felt like... you know there was
a time for if if there ever was a time for change
in my direction that was going to be it and so
i jumped right in brilliant now i i have tried
to bring a lot of holistic things to this podcast
and as a medic like you said in emergency medicine
we get to see i mean really we get to see what
works and what doesn't it's really crunch time
and we and you and i both know there's you know
patients after patients after patients that have
all these chronic disease management meds And
they're lying in front of us in cardiac arrest.
And so clearly these thousands of dollars of
meds haven't worked. And the promise was to extend
their life. Whereas, you know, the emergency
meds that we use, I agree wholeheartedly. I think
that's where the pharmaceutical industry has
done incredible things with the cardiac meds
and the Narcan and all those kind of medications
that are truly out there saving lives. But it's
the chronic disease management. that I started
seeing as I got into this that wasn't working,
the blood pressure meds, the statins, the arrhythmia
meds. And so it's been so frustrating because
when you then find some holistic methods, whether
it's organic food, whether it's CBD and cannabis,
there's this resistance. And in my industry specifically,
my peers, my firefighters, my police, They're
subjected to these drug tests. They're terrified
even of CBD itself. And I want to explore that
later in the interview because of the THC. And
what if I fail a drug test? But then there's
no problem with them being on opiates and sleep
meds and antidepressants and going home and drinking
legal alcohol. And so I'm really looking forward
to this conversation of not only educating us
and the audience, but also. holding basically
holding the hand and leading them down the road
and saying look this is another alternative and
it's there's no negative health you know side
effects whatsoever but it might replace some
of the poor coping mechanisms and poor drug choices
that are out there at the moment very true i
agree wholeheartedly All right. So I'd love to
start that process by, if you don't have a dove
in detail, but the history of prohibition of
cannabis specifically, because I know there are
different stories floating around the reefer
madness and the paper industry. Through your
research, you know, what is the kind of cliff
notes of how we ended up being so scared of this
plant in the first place? Sure. Well, look, there's
books written about this. So if anybody's interested,
they can really delve in. The shorter version
is that there was outside of the medical community
this need for getting rid of the hemp plant,
the cannabis plant, due to, like you mentioned
in the paper, you know, really what was going
on was people who owned lots of trees and land
with trees on them, wanted trees to be the source
of paper. And also, according to the research
I've seen, a company wanted to introduce nylon
and kind of the early plastics into the country
to replace hemp rope. And so these kind of wealthy
men got together. bought some favor in Washington,
D .C. with Harry Anslinger, who was kind of the
drug czar. And there was propaganda begun against
hemp and cannabis. And that's where Reefer Madness
came from. And I've seen these old time posters
that say insanity, death and all kinds of bad
things that can happen with the use of cannabis.
And there was a target towards people of color,
especially Mexicans or, you know, classically
people talk about black jazz musicians who were,
you know, smoking cannabis at the time. And there
was this propaganda using. the, you know, based
on racism to get rid of the plant so that other
compounds could be introduced and, quote, take
over the market. And so it really does come from
this kind of underlying, you know, financial
interest. And again, looking back at the time.
There were a few scientists looking at the cannabis
plant. Cannabinol had been identified. Cannabidiol
had been identified. THC not yet as the intoxicating
compound. That didn't come until the 60s. But
we're talking about the late 1930s and early
1940s when... All of this propaganda comes out.
And at the time, what we have to remember today
is at that time, they knew nothing about the
endocannabinoid system. They knew nothing about
the cannabinoids and the medicinal properties.
They didn't know about the terpenes that were
in the plant and those medicinal properties.
So that decision to vilify hemp. which includes
the drug variety cannabis and the fiber variety
cannabis, which we can talk about, was really
based on non -scientific, non -medical knowledge.
We have to remember that those decisions and
that propaganda started. And look, my father's
89 years old. He saw reefer madness. He bought
into it. And I joke around, but it's true. For
85 of his 89 years, my father was heavily anti
-cannabis. To him, you know, dope is dope. Whether
you're smoking it or shooting it up, it's the
same thing. They were very good at getting the
propaganda out there and creating a huge stigma
against this medicinal plant. Now, during this
time, just correct me if I'm wrong, I know Ansting
was demonizing it and basically being completely
hateful towards certain races. I know there's
a story about him and Nina Simone that is just
awful. But they were requested to do tests and
those tests always came back as there were no
ill effects to cannabis. Is that right? That's
correct. And even at the time, the American Medical
Association spoke to Congress and people in Washington
telling them there's no reason to get rid of
this. Because remember, it was available as medicine
at the time. It came in tinctures and doctors
would recommend it. I mean, doctors recommended
a cannabis cigarette for asthma at the time.
You have to remember there weren't the slew of
pharmaceuticals that we have now. So it was considered
medicine by most doctors. But after the Marijuana
Tax Act was passed, which created a lot of hoops
for doctors to jump through and taxes to pay
if you're going to recommend or prescribe cannabis,
you know, they did a pretty good job of shutting
it down. And so doctors didn't have that tool.
But again, at the time, the American Medical
Association was against getting rid of it. Most
doctors found it to have some medicinal value
at the time. Yeah. And then fast forward to the
war on drugs that made it even worse. Absolutely.
So remember, you know, in the 60s, we have this
crazy time here where people start using cannabis
for truly recreational use, you know, just getting
high, hanging out, listening to rock and roll
and so on. That's really when people point to
the medical marijuana movement starting in that
with this explosion of people using it, people
were finding my migraines are gone. My menstrual
cramps are gone. My chronic back pain that I've
had since I had an injury when I played high
school football just doesn't bother me anymore.
Or I'm sleeping better or it helps my ADHD. And
remember, the intent was, you know, purely recreational,
but people were connecting that this was helping
with conditions. And, you know, I just want to
make a point here real quick that there are a
lot of people who make comments about young people
using cannabis. And what I'd like to always tell
people is that, look, I trained in Children's
Hospital Los Angeles. It was packed full of sick
young people. And there are thousands of children's
hospitals across the world that are packed full
with sick young people. Young people get sick
as well. So I have heard people say, oh, you
know, you go into a marijuana dispensary in California
and there's young people. Well, you know, my
son has had six broken bones. And so I have sat
in an orthopedic surgeon's waiting room many
a time. And when I look around, sure, there's
some elderly people. There's a lot of young people,
you know, in a orthopedic surgeon's office who
skis, who snowboards, who rides dirt bikes, you
know, who plays football. There's a lot of young
people that get hurt or who have underlying illness.
So, you know, to point fingers at, oh, that young
people are, you know, don't need medicine. That's
just silly. If you saw a young person standing
in line at the local. drugstore waiting for their
medication you wouldn't have anything to say
about it so I just like to point out that we
should not be so discriminating against you know
the quote who the cannabis patient is because
when we think about the 60s we always think about
like you know it's the hippie smoking pot right
but really there were a lot of people using cannabis
afraid because it was you know illegal but they
found relief and young people have illnesses
too that that can be medicated with cannabis.
Brilliant. Well, thank you for leading us through
that. And I'm very excited. What I think is a
paradigm shift where the internet and this disbursement
of... information without any buffers anymore
has really opened our eyes including me i only
really became aware of cbd and and the healing
properties of that and that led me to to you
know the thc side as well literally i don't even
know it's been five years probably less than
that so it's a very exciting time but um so before
we talk about you know all all the great effects
that you're seeing. If I could just get you to
explain the cannabinoid system and the effects
of CBD, THC, and then the combination of both,
that would be fantastic. Okay. So the endocannabinoid
system is a physiologic regulator that we have.
All humans have this system. In fact, all animals
that have vertebrae have this system. They describe
the system being like 600 million years old,
and it's been in our evolutionary chain for a
very long time. What is the system? So the system
is made up of receptors. Receptors are parts
of our cells. Basically, if you think, go back
to high school biology, remember a cell? uh it's
like you know a little round um circle and it
has a nucleus inside and it's got some other
what we call you know organelles inside of it
mitochondria and so on so sitting on the cell
wall is a receptor and the way to look at a receptor
is to think about it as a lock that needs a key
and it has a specific key and once you put the
key in the lock it sends a message to the cell
so for instance if i eat a piece of chocolate
Um, my brain releases serotonin, which is a neurotransmitter,
which acts like a key and it binds to a serotonin
receptor on another cell. And when serotonin
hits the serotonin receptor, it sends that message
to that cell for me to feel happy. Okay. So,
so we have a key in a lock system. Many of our
much of our physiology is the same key in the
lock system. So we have opioid receptors that
everybody's heard of now because we have this
opioid crisis. Well, we don't have opioid receptors
because there's opioids like Vicodin and Norco
or morphine. We have opioid receptors because
we make a chemical called an endorphin. It's
our feel good chemical as well. So it turns out
that in 1964, Dr. Raphael Meshulam in Israel
and his colleagues decided to figure out what
was the intoxicating compound in cannabis. So
they were able to isolate out numerous different
compounds and they figured out when they isolated
THC and gave it to young people, THC was the
compound that caused intoxication. When they
isolated CBD and gave it to young people or volunteers,
there was no intoxication and they did that.
with a number of different compounds that they
were able to isolate from the plant. So they
identified, okay, here's THC and it causes intoxication,
you know, an effect, but they didn't know how
it worked. And when you think about the 1960s,
there wasn't a lot of scientific equipment. It
was pretty crude back in those days. And in 1988,
A scientist at St. Louis University, who, by
the way, now has a more state of the art lab.
She's got an electron microscope. There's cat
scanners. There's radioactive dye. There's all
kinds of tools now to be able to investigate
further. She took THC and put radioactive dye
on it and followed it in a rat's brain to see
where it went. Now, at the time in the scientific
literature, scientists had seen this. particular
receptor, what they knew to be a receptor because
it sat on a cell wall, but they had no idea what
the key was. They could not figure out what key
opened this particular receptor lock. And so
they called it an orphan receptor. Well, with
Dr. Howlett's research in 1988, she saw that
in the rat's brain, the THC with the radioactive
dye went to this receptor. each and every time
they did the research. So they changed the name
of this particular receptor to a cannabinoid
receptor. Now, again, what we know is that we
make receptors, but we only have receptors for
keys that we make internally. You do not have
a receptor for something, a lock. And you don't
make the key. Every receptor has a corresponding
key that we make inside ourselves. So he or she
found this lock, this receptor that matches up
with something that comes from outside our body,
THC from the cannabis plant. So they went in
search of, and it took them four years, but researchers
found that we make a THC -like molecule in our
brains and in our bodies. that plays the role
of basically what we call homeostasis. So here
you have this cannabinoid receptor sitting, and
it turns out that when your brain, let's say,
for instance, your brain's sending a message
that is an out -of -balance message. So what
could that be? Nausea is an out -of -balance
message. Yes, it's adaptive and it's good for
your survival. You should know when you're poisoned
so that you can expel, right, whatever that bad
toxin is. But let's say, you know, getting pain,
that's an imbalance message. An epilepsy, a seizure
is an imbalance message. Anxiety is an imbalance
message. These can be adaptive messages, but
our body has a mechanism, the endocannabinoid
system, that tries to put this, maintain balance,
to put the cells back into balance. So those
out of balance messages aren't being sent. So
your body actually makes. a THC -like compound
that we call an endocannabinoid, endo from within.
You make these compounds on demand when you need
them. They get released out of a cell. One cell,
they head back to the receptor in the cell that's
sending the imbalance message. And when the key,
the endocannabinoid, fits into the receptor lock,
it sends a message to that cell, for instance,
stop sending. So much neurotransmitter that's
sending the message of pain or nausea. So it's
a feedback loop in the brain. I often describe
it as a system like if you're a boat on the ocean
and a wave comes along and tips you, your endocannabinoid
system kicks in to put the boat back in, kind
of to right the boat, to put the boat back in
balance. That's how you have to look at the endocannabinoid
system. It's a protective mechanism. It is a
balancing mechanism, and it's key to many of
our basic physiologic functions. When you look
at where the cannabinoid receptors are located,
it's in areas of pain, memory, learning, nausea
and vomiting, appetite, emotion, cognitive function,
just about everything that we do. These receptors
are also located in our immune system. which
is a huge mechanism to keep us well, and also
throughout the gut. And remember, you know, now
as we've learned, and you probably know about
this, we talk about our gut being our second
brain, the gut microbiome. And this is why food
and nutrition is so important because it affects
the way the brain works. So this endocannabinoid
system. is throughout your entire body with densities
in kind of the three main players in your health
your gut your immune system and your brain yeah
and that aligns so closely with what i've seen
in myself what i've heard from so many people
now that have taken the cbd um and you know and
told me their experiences but it's just that
it's not a magic pill you're not going to be
you know morbidly obese and then take this and
all of a sudden your blood pressure is perfect
you never have to exercise but i tell people
that bolsters whatever is is lacking at that
moment that then enables you to start fixing
it within your body so for example if you've
had hip pain it removes that hip pain or at least
lowers that hip pain but then you're able to
move which in turn is going to improve your hip
pain improve your mobility and so it's just as
you were saying it's helping you create your
own homeostasis but it's it's that that first
step that people need to be able to address whatever
is going on that's right and what's interesting
about the endocannabinoid system is that For
many, once people start to feel better, you know,
I always tell like people will say, well, how
did somebody lose 40 pounds who's using cannabis?
Like everything. So you get munchies and you
just sit around and eat potato chips laying on
the couch. And what I say is when you're using
it medically, you start to sleep better. Then
what happens is your pain is down and all of
a sudden you say, you know what? I think I'm
going to take a walk today or maybe I'll go to
the gym because you're not waking up exhausted
in the morning because you only slept two hours
or you're not. Look, pain is, is a heavy chronic
stress and it changes everything about us. Um,
chronic pain is so difficult. And when you can
make some headway in chronic pain, what happens
is, is that you are bound, you, you're alleviating
a lot of that stress and allowing, you know,
again, that sense of wellbeing, you know, that
relief. But underlying all of it, you have to
remember, here's this system that's fighting
hard to get you into balance, right? Your physiology
is trying, whether or not you're conscious of
it, your physiology is trying to get your cells
to be in balance. And chronic sleep deprivation,
chronic stress, poor diet, no exercise, all of
that contributes to that system being depleted.
And we have studies that show that if you can
augment that system with the addition of this
plant that helps that system run better, it's
kind of like putting oil in your car engine.
You know, you wouldn't expect your car engine
to run well on low oil. So this is a system that
you want to feed, that you want to augment, that
you want to take care of so that your overall
well -being is is optimal. There has been identified
now, James, a condition called endocannabinoid
deficiency. And this is very important for people
to understand that just like you, a person can
have type one diabetes, which is when your pancreatic
cells are no longer able to produce enough insulin
to control blood sugar. So remember, if I ate
a candy bar, and my blood sugar goes up my body
recognizes that the sugar is high and through
a cascade of chemical reactions in my cells insulin
is released which then tells my body how to utilize
the glucose the sugar from the candy bar and
to either you know use it as energy store it
as fat and so on so there's a mechanism by which
when my sugar is high my body kicks in and takes
care of it Same thing with people who, let's
say, for instance, have low thyroid hormone.
Your thyroid gland makes a hormone. It's a complex
relationship between your brain and your thyroid.
But we all know there's people out there who
have what's called hypothyroidism, and they take
a thyroid replacement. Well, it turns out that
there are people who have an endocannabinoid
deficiency. They're lacking some of the machinery
to put together uh, and make their endocannabinoid
compounds, their inner cannabis. So for instance,
some really exciting research from last year,
um, and from this year. So last year out of Stanford
university, they demonstrated for the first time
that children with autism, uh, have low levels
of one of their very important, um, endocannabinoids.
And then it, this, um, finding was reproduced
out of Israel and some studies that they're doing
over there on children with autism and cannabis,
that they have low circulating levels of endocannabinoids.
Now, remember, your endocannabinoids function
to keep your brain in balance. And when we look
at children who have autism, they have an imbalance
in their social interactions, in their communication
with repetitive motion, sometimes aggression
and violence. And remember, what's happening
is their brain is telling them to behave these
ways. Their brain is not they're not choosing
these behaviors. It's the way their brain is
telling them to function. And I have found much
success. And now there's research coming out
of Israel clinical trials where they're allowed
to do clinical trials in children with autism
that giving children. with autism, CBD and or
THC and some of the other cannabinoids really
helps with a lot of the imbalances that these
children have, these behaviors that come from
brain message imbalance. So this endocannabinoid
deficiency syndrome is now a proven condition.
And believe it or not, the other conditions that
also have this. are migraines, fibromyalgia,
irritable bowel syndrome, autism, seizure disorders,
failure to thrive, Alzheimer's or other neurodegenerative
disorders, chronic motion sickness. I mean, the
list goes on and on. And that is because the
endocannabinoid system is just about everywhere.
in your body and it plays a role in much of your
physiology. So many of these conditions, and
if you'll notice all the conditions I listed,
James, are these kind of chronic, difficult to
treat conditions, right? Nobody's cured of their
migraines. Nobody's cured of fibromyalgia. These
are like ongoing. Now. You can get into remission
with these conditions. But for many people who
say, oh, I have migraines, it's something that
they've had on and off their whole lives. And
they may kind of go in and out depending on,
you know, various things that they try. And they're
always seeking different medications. But ultimately,
if you are missing or you have low endocannabinoid,
until you replace that, you may suffer with a
deficiency that kind of leaves you in an untreated
state. I joke around that if the underlying condition
is an endocannabinoid deficiency and I treat
something else, I'm taking medicine that targets
a different system, it's like saying my arm is
broken and I'm putting a Band -Aid on my toe.
It doesn't make any sense that you're not targeting
the underlying abnormality. Yeah, and I couldn't
agree more from what I've seen. You talked about
autism for a second. I think it's interesting
because you're talking about the connection between
the endocannabinoid system and the gut. Isn't
severe gut distress something they discovered
in autistic children, especially severely autistic
that weren't able to say how they were feeling
and they realized a lot of that was actually
the gut issues that they had? Well, so autism
is this great example of how the endocannabinoid
system is like so, you know, interconnected in
the body. So when you look at a child with autism,
the number of things that they have been shown
to have is they're four times more likely to
have gut issues than what we call neurotypical
children, right? They're also have a huge amount
of neuroinflammation and abnormalities in their
cytokine levels. Well, think about what I just
said about the endocannabinoid system, brain,
gut, immune. So autism is kind of a classic example
of where the endocannabinoid system goes haywire,
whether it's an underlying genetic abnormality
or if it's something that occurs after, let's
say, a child is born and the connections, remember,
with developing human beings. You know, a lot
of things can go wrong with during development.
And so maybe the underlying neuronal circuitry
kind of goes haywire. And, you know, that all
remains to be seen. But, you know, as a clinician
that takes care of so many kids with autism in
my practice, I feel very sad that in many places
cannabis is still illegal. and not accessible
because many of these families have very difficult
day -to -day existence when you have a child
who's, I mean, you would never leave a child
with type 1 diabetes without insulin. That would
be malpractice. You would not treat hypothyroidism,
but yet we allow children to run around with
low levels of a basic compound in their brain
and their gut and their immune system that's
wreaking havoc on their lives. And we're spending
all this money doing a bazillion other types
of treatments and pharmaceuticals that have terrible
side effects that aren't really addressing, again,
the underlying condition. So autism is a great
example of just how the endocannabinoid system,
when it's not working, can create such difficulty.
side is one of the big contributing factors in
autism as well that are able to sleep better
which then in turn helps the whole body heal
yes absolutely and so you know it's twofold james
so one is everybody needs sleep okay we need
respite and um for many of these kids it's the
number one thing like i've actually had parents
tell me we have not slept in seven years and
they brought their seven -year -old with autism
I have an interesting anecdote. There's a teenager
I take care of who his father is his main caregiver.
And when they came in, the dad had already tried
lots of different cannabis kind of on his own
trying to help his son. And he just couldn't
figure it out. His child was just he just wasn't
responding. But he was getting very high doses
of THC, which can be indicated in children with
autism. Remember, if you're low on your endocannabinoid.
THC may not make you high. You're so low, you
have to fill the tank with something that's going
to help trigger the system. So he was on very
high doses of THC and some other products, and
they just weren't getting anywhere. And I had
suggested using high doses of CBD as we have
found that some patients just need really high
doses. We started him off right away on 100 milligrams
of CBD three times a day. And one of the first
things that this father reported to me was this
boy was falling asleep at a proper time at night
after a pleasant day with no aggression, no violence,
focusing, engaging more, just all positives.
But he was falling asleep at night and he was
getting eight to 10 hours of sleep every night.
And over time, the dad was sharing all these
wonderful stories with me. And I had asked him
if I could share his son's story, you know, anonymously,
of course, at a speaking engagement. And the
dad said, fine. And I said, will you send me
a picture of your son? Because I'd like to show
a picture on my slide. And he actually sent me
a picture of his son sleeping, which I thought
initially was odd. And I wrote back, why did
you send me a picture of him sleeping? And he
said, because this has changed our lives. The
fact that our son sleeps eight to 10 hours at
night has changed everybody in the house's life.
Because, you know, when you're up at night all
night with a child who won't wind down, that
affects you as well. And that creates an endocannabinoid
deficiency in the parent. So sleep is huge. And
it's one of the main things that people ask first.
Can we just get the sleep under control? Because
if the whole house could get to sleep at night,
everybody in the family would feel better. Yeah.
And sleep is so important for our profession.
So whether it's anyone who's on shifts, really.
The challenge is twofold. Firstly, for the fire,
their work week is ridiculous. They do, you know,
56 hour weeks. So the 24 hour shift is followed
by a 48 period. They're off and they're back
again and they're never really able to catch
up. So that's one area that I'm hoping that we
can fix. But the other side is the use of CBD.
And, you know, we're going to talk about the
combination of CBD and THC and some of the treatments
that you do. But I'm trying to get them to understand
that. The product I use is Red Pill Medical.
It's Dr. Gregory Smith. I don't know if you've
heard of him. He wrote the documentary American
Addict and A Big Lie, I think it was. But anyway,
it's a zero THC. CBD. And it's completely, they've
got independent drug tests and everything to
show that there's none of the THC in there because
our community is terrified of failing a blood
test or a drug test. Now that in itself is tragic
when you think about all the things that are
legal that they can take. But just from your
perspective, CBD alone, how much of a healing
effect can you get purely from CBD if that's
the only compound that you're allowed to ingest?
Right. So if it's CBD alone as a single molecule,
it's going to have some benefits for some people.
Some people need the other cannabinoids in there,
like CBC, CBG, THC, even in low amounts, and
the terpenes as well. So if we're talking about
single molecule CBD by itself, I'm not a huge
fan. However, I recognize that for some people
it does work. It's just what I don't want to
put out there is that if you try that and it
doesn't work for you, then you say CBD doesn't
work. So I want people to understand that CBD
is a single molecule by itself away from everything
else that it kind of is packaged with in mother
nature's plant may or may not work. And it's
fine to try. One of the things that many people
don't realize about CBD is that in low doses,
CBD is actually considered to be a stimulating
compound. CBD is not sedating in low doses. CBD
in higher doses can be sedating. And this is
what we call biphasic nature. So, for instance,
biphasic means, of course, two phases, that it
has two and often opposite effects at. ends of
dosing. So for instance, THC is biphasic in that
low doses of THC can be very anti -anxiety. Two
and a half milligrams, five milligrams, people
say, wow, my anxiety is gone. I don't feel that
intoxicated, but it took the edge off. I feel
calmer. But if you, let's say, smoke too much
pot, high THC can cause paranoia and anxiety.
Very well described. So here you see opposite
effects at the different ranges of dosing, right?
So CBD is kind of the opposite. It can be overstimulating.
It should not cause anxiety. But for some people,
10 or 12 milligrams of CBD, even 25 milligrams,
they may feel actually more awake. And they say,
you know, I took this right before bed and I
couldn't turn off my brain. How come I have friends
who take CBD and go to sleep? Well, it just depends
on your chemistry and your body. But what I tell
people is that if a lower dose of CBD does not
help you with sleep, you must try a higher dose.
Because remember, there's these biphasic effects.
Dosing is extremely important with CBD because
we have such a wide therapeutic range of dosing.
10 milligrams all the way up to hundreds of milligrams
for conditions like epilepsy, schizophrenia.
autoimmune disease, autism. I have many patients
that need in the hundreds of milligrams. But
again, it's a wide range and depends on your
chemistry. You know, I had a family come in a
few weeks ago with a boy with autism and the
parents had started giving him some oil prior.
They had to wait a little bit to come see me
because I just didn't have an opening at the
time. And when they finally did come in, they
said, oh, we're using some cannabis and like
even the teacher or some CBD oil. And even the
teacher noticed this huge benefit. And I said,
well, what are you using? And let's figure out
how much he's getting. This boy was getting four
milligrams of CBD. I mean, I was almost in shock
that that tiny little dose would work for him.
And it was helping. And we tried to bump it up.
And sure enough, it didn't work that great. He
is a child who needs low dose. In the same diagnosis,
autism, I have patients like the boy I explained
to you getting 300 or more milligrams a day for
control of his symptoms or to help with his symptoms.
So again, there's this very wide range. Now,
THC is different in that dosing for THC for the
vast majority of people is pretty low except
for occasional. So epilepsy, autism. And some
people with chronic pain end up taking higher
doses. One of the things that's very important
for people to understand is that THC works directly
at the receptor. It's what we call an agonist
at the receptor. So it binds right on. It's the
key for the lock. Okay. CBD does not work the
same way. It kind of, let's say it's like a switch
on the side of the lock that regulates how the
lock works. And the reason I bring this up is
because THC, when it's binding to that receptor,
if you take too much THC and everybody's heard
of tolerance, if you inundate that receptor with
THC, with chronic heavy use of THC -rich cannabis,
the receptor eventually... decides I'm not going
to hang around for this. That's too much. And
the receptor will hide or what we call down regulate.
So there's less of them available. They kind
of hide inside the cell. CBD does not do that.
There appears to be no tolerance with CBD. So
this is why high doses can be very helpful over
time where you don't have to take a break and
you don't have to reduce your dose. There are
people, and I'll give you an example. My mother.
has had severe chronic neck arthritis, probably
bone on bone in her neck, struggling for many
years, was reluctant to try cannabis because
she's of that reefer madness generation, but
she finally agreed to try it. She's been on 100
milligrams of CBD a day, probably for the last
three to four years, with tremendous relief of
pain. Living at, well, I was living maybe nine
or 10 on a pain scale. Now she says, Oh, I don't
even notice it really. But if I had to scale
it, I'd scale it at a two. So, and she has never
had to change her dose. She's never had to take
a break. So CBD can be extremely helpful. It's
just dosing, dosing, dosing so important. And
I don't get to say a hundred percent very often,
James, but a hundred percent of patients that
come into my office already using CBD who have
not found relief are under dosing. Yeah, I agree
100 % because I've only had one person so far
that has reported they haven't had effects. And
that's my sister. And I know she has high levels
of anxiety. I think she tried it for like two
or three days. But it was almost certainly the
15 milligram dose. And there's no question in
my mind, I think if she doubled up on the dose
and tried it again, that she would have noticed
a difference. But when you're talking about...
Yeah, maybe even higher than that, right? Yeah,
exactly. I mean, to me, when you're talking about
homeostasis, she's a lot further from that homeostasis
than other people that I know that have tried
it, especially with emotional issues. That's
right. And I'm sure you know in your career,
when you give people medication, people need,
you know, in the emergency, you know, you're
in the ambulance and you're delivering either
morphine or, you know, Valium or whatever it
is that you're giving to people. There's a range
of dosing. We have recommended dosages for pharmaceuticals,
right? And we know at what point we shouldn't,
like basically a max dose that we shouldn't go
past. But there's a whole range of response to
medications. And same thing with people who take
insulin for their diabetes. That's why we call
it a sliding scale of insulin, right? You have
to be able to. adjust that dose to a person's
needs. And it's the same thing with cannabis.
And, you know, I often get interviewed and asked
about, you know, what dose should somebody with
Parkinson's disease use? Well, you know, there
is no one dose. There is no one strain. There's
no one combination of cannabinoids. It would
be nice to be able to have it so, you know, tied
up so pretty in a little package, but that's
just not the way that cannabis works because
it's more complex than that. We're talking about
a very sophisticated, widespread system in the
human body and then a plant that has hundreds
of compounds and now we're trying to dose it
by one compound. I mean, it almost doesn't make
any sense. However, you know, there are ways
to adjust our kind of allopathic thinking to
this. plant so that we can kind of figure out
what one person in particular needs. But there
is a fair amount of trial and error involved.
And again, for anybody listening, if you tried
CBD or you have a loved one that tried CBD and
say, oh, it didn't work, please think about dosing.
But also make sure that the product that you're
using is tested and actually contains CBD. Because
unfortunately, there are a lot of products out
there that don't contain what the label says.
Yeah. And that's something that I'm fighting
because I, like I said, I had Dr. Smith on the
show. I use his. I have for over a year now.
So that's why I tell people this is the one I
trust. I know that it's zero THC. So I know there's
that fear of them not failing a drug test because
for our profession, that's, you know, awful.
It's not you can just go walk into somewhere
else and be a fireman somewhere else. At the
same time, my email junk file is filled with
CBD ads every single day. Every corner drugstore
now sells CBD. So yeah, hearing people like you
and going to see you as a patient or finding
people that can truly advocate for one that they
trust. I'm sure there's other great ones out
there as well, but this is the one I use and
this is the one I know works. I've seen it work.
And yeah, so that's, I think, a powerful thing.
Right. And one thing people also need to realize,
too, is that we don't absorb every milligram.
Believe it or not, cannabinoids actually have
very low what we call bioavailability. There
are claims that some companies are making about
certain technologies, how they're making their
CBD, like either nanotechnology or water -soluble
and so on. Be very careful with claims. Because
really, ultimately, for someone to claim that
their CBD is better absorbed, they would have
had to do what we call PK studies, pharmacokinetics,
and actually prove, let's say, have you take
a CBD in a non -changed form, draw blood, see
what your CBD levels are, and then have you take
it in this, quote, more advanced form that has
higher bioavailability, and then draw blood.
There's not a lot of companies doing that. because
it's expensive to do those kinds of studies and
you have to have rigorous science involved to
really be able to prove that. And in general,
the bioavailability of CBD is low through the
sublingual or the gut. And that is the way that
most people are taking it, although there are
some people inhaling it, which can improve the
bioavailability. But you have to remember that
if you only take 10 milligrams, you may only
be absorbing 2 milligrams. And again, that may
not be enough of a dose. And that is why higher
doses are often needed. Right. Well, I want to
go to cancer next. One last thing, and you just
mentioned it. The ingestion or inhalation process,
to me, obviously, Smoking, marijuana specifically,
seems traumatic to the lungs from what we've
seen from smoking for a long, long time. Even
the vape pens that people have, to me, physiologically
seems like there's probably some sort of detriment
to that. What are the roots of ingestion or inhalation
that you recommend yourself to your patients?
So for some patients, there's a small percentage
of patients that I do think benefit from inhalation.
I do recommend vaporizing the flour over the
oil cartridges. However, there seems to be some,
many of my patients over, remember, I'm following
patients over years. They do quite well with
the vaporizing the products that are kind of
turned into oils, as long as there's not a lot
of junk in there, right? So if it's pesticide
free and solvent free. Most people who take one
or two puffs, you know, a few times a week are
not going to have any issues with their lungs.
It appears to be fairly safe. And by vaporizing,
you are minimizing the inhalation of, you know,
we talk about carcinogens when you light things
on fire and inhale them. So of carcinogens, but
really with cannabis, you have to remember that
the cannabinoids are in there and are actually
somewhat protective against the carcinogens.
And there was a very large study at a UCLA in
the last decade that shows that there's no increased
risk of head and neck and lung cancer with cannabis
smoking. Of course, putting cannabis into a tobacco
cigarette increases the risk. of, um, cancer,
but not to the levels of when somebody smoking
tobacco. And it was a really elegant study. It
was done by Dr. Donald Tashkin and that research
is available online. I know he has some YouTube
videos, but what he did find this, he's a pulmonologist
at UCLA. He did find that when you smoke cannabis,
you're putting pollution in your lungs and the
pollution can irritate. the lining of the lungs,
and it irritates the immune system that lives
in your lungs to keep your lungs healthy. And
that can lead to increased risk of bronchitis
and phlegm and coughing. And who wants that,
right? I mean, there's no reason that we have
to take a medicine and create a new problem for
ourselves. Of course, because I work with so
many children, we're using the oral route. So
either if they can cooperate, they hold it under
their tongue. If they can't, they swallow it.
Again, liquid tinctures or extracts, whatever
you want to call them. Again, for very sick pediatric
patients who have gastrostomy tubes, the liquid
can go through the tube so the child can get
it through another route. I am highly in favor
of using the oils or the extracts. because you
can titrate a dose. Remember, if you get a capsule
and it comes in a standard, let's say, 20 milligram
form, again, because I work with children, maybe
I don't want them to take 20 milligrams. Maybe
based on their weight, I want them to get 15
or 30. If it only comes as 20 milligram capsule,
you know, you end up with a dosing issue. I think
for adults, capsules are fine, or, you know,
teenagers, anybody who can swallow a capsule,
it's fine. But we have to remember that sublingual
and through the gut, there is less bioavailability,
less absorption. The gut with cannabinoids has
what we call erratic absorption. So what you
have eaten may change how you absorb. And I've
had patients say, you know, sometimes it feels
like it kicked in right away and sometimes it
didn't even work. These are different rates of
absorption. A same person can absorb 4 % in the
morning. And then 20 % at night, depending on
what they've eaten, time of day, and so on. So
if you're a person that's finding a little bit
of an erratic absorption, you might want to try
sublingual. It's also not the best bioavailability,
but the sublingual route has been shown to be
less erratic. It's a little bit more stable in
the amount that you absorb each and every time.
Much of how people take it is personal preference.
Remember, too, if I've got a rip -roaring migraine,
taking something that takes two hours to kick
in is probably not the best thing. If you take
a puff off a vaporizer and your migraine's gone
in five minutes, you get your next day back.
That makes a big difference for many people.
So somebody in chronic pain doesn't want to wait
two hours for something to kick in, or let's
say a person who has severe nausea. from chemotherapy.
So there are certain conditions in which we would
encourage somebody to inhale. But in general,
for most of my patients, they are using oils
or capsules. Okay, perfect. And that makes perfect
sense. I suffer from migraines. And actually,
they're far less than now through CBD and chiropractic
as well. But I would take the capsule and then
I just vomit up anyway. So it'd be pointless.
So that's nice to know there's another another
route now. So we talked about very sick children.
That's kind of where I want to go to next. So
Weed the People, W -E -E -D, was where I discovered
you. Fantastic documentary. I recommend everyone
listening to watch. But it's an area that I've,
you know, the whole chemotherapy thing to me,
I'm not a smart man. I'm barely able to hang
on as a medic when it comes to the high science
of it. to destroy an immune system with the hope
that you're going to kill whatever else is going
on in the body never really sat well with me.
It just doesn't make a lot of physiological sense.
And the diet side, the fasting, the plant -based
diet, and then the cannabis side, to me, seem
to be a much more... just intelligent way forget
about the holistic side it just makes a lot more
sense you create as much homeostasis in the body
to give it the highest chance of destroying the
the ill effects of the cancer so firstly how
did you discover using cannabis in the you said
your friend was sick so how did you bring that
into your own practice and then what were the
things you started seeing Well, when I first
started doing this about 11 years ago, I did
have a fair number of adult patients that came
in who were on chemotherapy who were, and this
was how my friend, you know, began using it.
So I saw a lot of patients who were, you know,
using chemotherapy. They were getting somewhere
with their cancer, but they were having a hard
time tolerating the treatment. I mean, as you
know, it's just, it's. It's like, you know, a
bomb going off in your body. And cancer chemotherapy
doesn't always select out for the malignant cells.
The healthy cells get very sick as well. So I
started, you know, early on again in my career.
And again, back 11 years ago, we only had THC
in California. We did not have CBD products.
So we did not see CBD on the market until about
2012 or 2013. And I started doing this in 2008.
So patients would take a little bit, even people
who didn't like THC, but if they just took a
little bit, boy, the nausea was gone and the
appetite came back and the anxiety was down and
the pain was down and the sleep was better. It
was almost too good to be true. How is it possible
that cannabis does all that? Well, the endocannabinoid
system, right, which is linked or which is present
in all those areas of the brain that control
all of those basic kind of life qualities. I
would see that. And then what started to happen
was there were notices in the scientific literature
about in test tubes when you put cannabis with,
let's say, breast cancer cells or lung cancer
cells. And by the way, the first report that
cannabis could kill cancer was from 1975. by
Munson and his group where they show that if
you put cannabinoid delta 8 THC in a test tube
with lung cancer the THC kills the lung cancer
and again how does that work many malignant cells
have cannabinoid receptors that sit on their
cell wall and when THC binds to that receptor
remember in a healthy cell let's say expressing
sending the message of nausea THC binds to that
receptor which then triggers the cell to turn
off the nausea message, okay? If THC binds to
the receptor sitting on the malignant cell, the
message is sent, cell suicide. Now that's one
of the mechanisms. We now know there's numerous
mechanisms that both THC and CBD interact with
cells to stop cancer. So CBD is well known now
to stop metastasis. What is metastasis? It's
the spread of cancer. CBD, one malignant cell
tells another malignant cell, sending a chemical
message, hey, go spread. CBD blocks that message.
So there's lots of now understanding in the scientific
literature. And when I started seeing these reports
coming out, it's very hard to jump from test
tubes and mice to humans. But you have somebody
sitting in front of you who says, they've got
nothing left for me. And they're telling me I'm
going to die in the next, just go home and die.
But I don't want to go home and die because I
read somewhere that maybe cannabis might help.
As a physician in the state of California, I'm
allowed to recommend cannabis, educate that patient
and allow them to use it. And boy, would I love
more research to tell me which cannabis, which
strain, which compounds, how long should they
take it? What dose should they take? How often
should they take it? But until we have human
clinical trials, some of that is missing. But
I just started treating patients. And, you know,
I've lost a lot of patients. But many of them,
many of their loved ones would come to me and
say, even though it didn't work, my husband didn't
suffer at the end. He was happy. He was eating.
He wasn't nauseous. His pain was controlled without
being on loads of morphine. So there was always
this benefit of using it. Some patients responded
and some didn't. And, you know, wouldn't it be
nice to have that information if we could do
clinical trials? So, look, I just started giving
people in the research. There's evidence that
higher doses seem to work. You have to hit these
high doses. We know bioavailability is low. So
I recommend high doses for the vast majority
of patients that come in. There's some research
now out that's showing that maybe you don't need
high doses for every kind of cancer. But certainly
if I'm going to err on the side of either underdosing
or overdosing, I would overdose because cannabis
is so safe and well tolerated. And if somebody
said to me, I have a side effect, we can change
the dose. But I've seen now a number of patients
who came with advanced cases of cancer. And,
you know, in the movie, there's one particular
teenage boy that came to me with. 90 days to
live. He had tumors everywhere. He had osteosarcoma,
particularly nasty bone cancer. And we put him
on high dose CBD and THC. And lo and behold,
three months later, over 20 tumors were gone
and there was no evidence anywhere. And his doctor
checked, believe me, she did a PET scan, an MRI,
a CAT scan and a bone scan, and there was no
evidence of cancer. In that boy's body. And this
was back in 2015. And I'm happy to say he just
turned 20 a few months ago. And I do stay in
touch with the family. They're lovely. And look,
this boy is now a survivor. He was and people
will ask, OK, well, what else did he take? How
do you know it's the cannabis? He was on a chemotherapy
called gemcitabine. Gems are. which at the time
when he came to see me was not helping him. According
to his oncologist, had stopped working. And he
had been beaten up by two and a half years of
chemo. He shows you in the documentary how all
of his scars, I think you see that in the documentary.
And also, you know, they cut nerves to his right
arm. And so, you know, when they took out some
vertebra, I mean, he's had 17 surgeries, I believe.
And there is a report in the literature of mice
with pancreatic cancer getting a combination
of gemcitabine plus cannabinoids, which increased
cancer killing. And they were synergistic, meaning
that the combination worked better than either
alone. Well, look, I have this bit of information.
It's not in humans, but I also have a family
sitting in front of me saying they're going to
lose their boy in three months if we don't. do
something. So we tried and it worked for this
child. And so it was the combination of gemcitabine
and cannabis. I believe it was the combination.
Can I say it was the cannabis alone? No, but
certainly I believe the cannabis had something
to do with it. And his oncologist believes that
cannabis had something to do with it. And he's
just one of a number of patients I have. And
I, I say in the documentary and I say it now,
I cannot say cure. I say extension of life. I
say better quality of life. I can say no evidence
of disease the same way an oncologist can tell
you, I think it's eradicated, but you never know
if there's cells lurking in there. And look,
we try. And again, I would love clinical human
clinical trials. Do you know right now, James,
there's literally two trials in humans that are
documented in the, that are published in the
literature and it's 2019. I mean, what the heck
are we waiting for? That's awful. And there's
probably all kinds of trials on ridiculous things
like McDonald's doesn't make you sick. You know
what I mean? So observationally, because this
is we keep hearing this, like, for example, you
know, plant based diet. Oh, it works well alongside
chemo cannabis. It looks well alongside chemo.
Observationally, have you had any patients that
chose just to do cannabis and not chemo that
had good results? Yes, I do. So I have a number
of women who have come to me with breast cancer
who just philosophically were against having
chemotherapy and they've been using cannabis.
Now, remember, when people show up in my office
is critical in terms of their outcome. It's very,
and I, look, I just talked about this young man
who came to see me at the very end. We got lucky
with him. But cannabis is a natural treatment.
It needs time to work. There was a recent report
published, observational, retrospective, not
a clinical trial, on 119 patients that were using
CBD for various cancers. And one of the things
that the authors report is that Using cannabis
for three to six months was crucial to the outcome,
to seeing results. You don't take a dose of cannabis
and eradicate cancer the same way you don't hit
the gym one day and then have a bodybuilder's
body. It takes time for natural things to work.
So I have a sad story, but look, it is what it
is. A little girl came to me with leukemia. She
had a certain genetically aggressive type of
leukemia and had undergone at least a year of
chemotherapy, relapsed, and then was given a
bone marrow transplant. And then I think after
three months relapsed again, the parents weren't
offered much and the child was sent home on hospice
and was very ill when I met with them. And leukemia
cells happened to be very sensitive to the effects
of cannabis. And there is a case report in the
literature that shows that just on cannabis,
a young lady in very similar circumstances in
Canada was sent home basically to die. And her
parents decided to give cannabis. At that time,
you know, it wasn't measured. You didn't know
milligrams. It came in a syringe. It was what
they call the concentrated form of cannabis.
And they were just squirting it in her mouth.
But luckily, the doctors, remember, leukemia
is a cancer you can measure in the blood. So
every three to five days, the doctors that were
taking care of this girl, you know, you form
an attachment when you take care of patients
over a period of time. They wanted to see what
the cannabis would do to the leukemia cells.
So every three to five days, she had blood work
drawn and they were able to show what we call
a dose response. a dose response curve or a dose
response to the THC that she was taking. So she
was sent home and her leukemia cells, which again,
if you measure in a healthy person, there's zero,
right? And they're called blasts. Her leukemia
blasts when she was sent home. was something
like 228 ,000, which is very high and can be
quite deadly on their own, you know, because
it's almost like sludge in your bloodstream.
By day five of cannabis, they had risen to 375
,000, something like that. But then all of a
sudden, they started to go down. And with increasing
doses and every eight -hour use of this thick,
gooey cannabis oil, and we knew it was THC without
testing based on The fact that the authors report
that she was euphoric, she was high. But she
responded and she wasn't taking anything else.
So, yes, there can be a response without any
other treatment. Again, leukemia happens to be
sensitive. So it was a very good case report
to put in the literature. One of I saw a little
girl a couple of years ago that came to see me,
this little girl who had, you know, the relapsed
leukemia even after a bone marrow transplant.
They put her on a plant -based diet and cannabinoid
treatment and nothing else. And she was in remission
in eight to 10 weeks and stayed in remission
for about eight months. At which point, unbeknownst
to me, the parents stopped the cannabis oil.
I don't know why to this day. And then she relapsed.
So I can't say that it was completely eradicated.
But if you looked at a picture of her from the
first day she met me to, you know, after she
was in remission this is a kid who gained weight
was running and playing was happy kind of went
back she she had taken a lot of steroids and
so she kind of had that steroid look that went
away i mean she was well and unfortunately they
stopped the oil um and she ended up passing away
after another attempt at a bone marrow transplant
she ended up with a fungal infection and passed
away from that unfortunately i was devastated
However, it it does go to show that this is something
that you probably should be on. All of my patients
that have achieved remission with cannabis is
either part of the mix or by itself. I encourage
them to stay on cannabis. And what I say to them
is if you have to stay on, quote, medication
the rest of your life, at least it's a plant.
And there are other reports from some of my colleagues
of. patients who were in remission for eight
years, let's say, and then stopped using cannabis
and then subsequently relapsed. So look, we have
a lot of unanswered questions. Maybe it doesn't
eradicate cancer. Maybe it just controls cancer.
Yeah, it's heartbreaking to me because I feel
like we are, I mean, we're still fighting this
fight too, but... Type two diabetes, hypertension,
heart disease. We were told these were irreversible
diseases and you would be on meds the rest of
your life, as you said. And then like the China
study and some of these other groups came in
and like, wait a second, if you just change the
way you eat, you know, it's not plaque in the
arteries, it's inflammation and it goes down.
Well, I feel that's. kind of where we are now
with the CBD, THC and cancer as well, is obviously
one part of the story is the prevention. And
I wish we could find out some of the things that
are causing these poor little boys and girls
from getting sick in the first place. But the
other thing is, what if, and this is what really
irks me, is how many people have died from all
the wrong meds given for the heart disease? Or
what if we're losing boys and girls and men and
women? from the chemo and there were natural
alternatives plant -based diet you know uh going
in ketosis using cannabis and thc and cbd if
we look back and realize that we've been poisoning
our men and women and you know children for years
and years and years how awful would that be but
we're only going to discover that as you said
we start freaking researching it and putting
money into that because from what i understand
when they call you a cancer survivor that's five
years and you could die you know, the sixth year
and you're always going to be a survivor on the
chemo. So when you factor in a true survival
rate, they're pretty piss poor when it comes
to the chemotherapy. It's so true. And with children,
especially, you know, remember, we're giving
them these toxic medications when they are still
developing human beings. Secondary cancers, growth
retardation, kind of complications down the line.
They say, you know, I read a statistic, 60 %
of childhood cancer survivors struggle with leftover
problems from their treatment. And that's lifelong.
And again, most of them would say, or their parents
would say, well, at least they're here. I have
my child. I don't care. But wouldn't it be nice
if we could prevent those issues from continuing
on? And maybe they wouldn't have to be lifelong.
Maybe there's, look, I don't, I agree to a point
about chemotherapy. It appears like if my kid
was sick, I'd throw everything at it. And right
now, because I can't say, oh, I have a clinical
trial that shows that, you know, this kind of
cancer is going to respond to cannabis 90 % of
the time or 40 % of the time. I don't have any
of that. I would say that if you're going to
put chemotherapy in your body, To me, and I said
this for years, you should start cannabis the
day before you start chemotherapy. The earlier
you start it, the more protected you are, the
more likely it's going to help you. And again,
this is only from my clinical experience. This
is not from studies that I've done, but I've
been doing this a long time and I've been doing
it repeatedly day in and day out with thousands
of patients. I mean, I've had patients that have
come into my office. For help with, you know,
end of life cancer who went home and died that
day. That is not when you should start cannabis.
Yesterday, I saw someone who had just been diagnosed,
who hasn't started chemotherapy yet, came to
my office just for like fact finding and basically,
you know, walked away understanding that she
should start cannabis now. You don't wait till
you get sick with the chemo. Do it beforehand.
There are studies that show that CBD especially
can mitigate many of the unwanted side effects
of chemo. So many chemos cause what we call neuropathic
pain. They actually are neuropathy. They basically
harm your nerves to the point now for the rest
of your life you're going to have nerve pain.
And nerve pain is miserable and it's difficult
to treat. Well, why not take CBD early on to
try to prevent when there are studies that show
that it prevents or mitigates the chemotherapy
-induced nerve pain? I mean, it just doesn't
make any sense to me that you would not use prevention
if you were going to go on chemotherapy. Now,
for people listening, obviously, I'm sure...
amazed by this some people already know about
it but some i'm sure are new to this whole concept
but they're in a state where it's still perceived
as the devil's lettuce for lack of a better word
um can people come into california and become
patients that way even if they reside somewhere
else so Look, I practice medicine with an attorney
who's hovering over me because, again, it is
still controversial, believe it or not, even
though I don't think it is. But I have to be
a good doctor, and that means I follow every
rule to the letter. I follow every guideline.
Right now, the interpretation of the California
law is that I am allowed to practice medicine
in California, taking care of California residents.
There are people who have moved here and established
residency. Even in the movie, they show a family
that moved here and established residency so
that they could be treated by me. That is unfortunately
what. I have been told I shouldn't say, unfortunately,
it's what my attorney has advised me. And, you
know, I hate talking about that. But, you know,
in order to be able to practice medicine, I have
to follow the rules. It's expected of me. And
I want to be professional and ethical and moral
and all of that. It bothers me so much when people
from out of state reach out and I just can't
help them. But the one good thing is that there
are other doctors out there now who are. coming
to this and are willing to take care of patients.
So we're trying to create a network of physicians.
There's a group called the Society of Cannabis
Clinicians, and their website is CannabisClinicians
.com or .org. I'm sorry, I don't remember. But
you'll find it if you Google Cannabis Clinicians
or Society of Cannabis Clinicians. And it has
a network on there of probably about, I want
to say over 300 doctors. who are similar uh to
me in that they recommend cannabis and are knowledgeable
about um using cannabis as medicine brilliant
all right so i'm just going to ask about one
one more area then we'll do some closing questions
you've been very very generous with your time
but um the the mental health side so yeah we
talked about cbd and thc working well for seizures
which is Amazing to know we know about the asthma
side. What about the anxiety, depression element
and also TBI? Because that's another. So those
three together plague many, many first responders
and members of the military. Absolutely. So,
again, the area in the brain that controls emotion,
mood, anxiety, depression is chock full of endocannabinoid
receptors of the endocannabinoid system is present
in that area. It is not a straight line like
when you have strep throat and penicillin kills
strep. It's a straight line, right? It's not
like that. It's very complex neurochemistry.
But the bottom line is that THC has been shown
to have anti -anxiety and anti -depressant both
in animal models and also in humans. CBD has
been shown. Also as well, anti -anxiety, anti
-depression. In terms of TBI, we're talking about
brain injury. CBD is extremely beneficial. The
earlier, the better to decrease neuroinflammation
and protect those cells. There are trials in
animals that show if you cut off blood flow to
the brain and cut off oxygen and glucose. And
obviously brain cells are going to die. But if
you give CBD even six hours after the insult,
it is protective. And when they look at the brain
of an animal who had this anoxic hypoxic injury
with no CBD added and versus the animal that
got CBD added, it is clear. that the animal who
had CBD had less brain cell death and damage.
There are now, from what I understand, some newborn,
believe it or not, human clinical trials where
they're going to give newborns who have birth
injury, brain injury, anoxia, hypoxia, what we
call HIE, hypoxic ischemic encephalopathy, going
to give CBD, like a purified CBD intravenously
at birth to see if there is a way to protect
the brain. I mean, what a breakthrough. Hallelujah,
finally, right? No question that CBD and THC
are what we call neuroprotective. So not only
do we see changes in mood, we also see this neuroprotection
and decrease in neuroinflammation. So yes to
all of it. The big question is, is what, okay,
doc, what do I take? So CBD is a good bet, okay?
That's the one that you're not going to develop
tolerance to. That's the one that... you can
take on a regular basis without feeling intoxicated,
not having the side effects that some people
report to be unwanted. There are some people
who like THC and the effects of it and are able
to handle it. If I was going to design a medicine,
you know, the problem with THC again is tolerance.
That doesn't mean you can't use it. Studies show
that in low doses, especially if you're using
it in combination with CBD, you don't develop
tolerance. Every person can find their balance.
So for some people, it's what we call high CBD,
low THC, like 25 to one ratio, 25 parts CBD to
one part THC. You're not going to feel the THC,
but a little bit in there may do the benefit.
For some people, CBD by itself, as you've described,
may work for them. And for others, they need
lower. I have a patient who had severe anxiety,
depression. She was terrified of using anything
with THC because she had had a bad experience
at a younger age where she felt like she was
hallucinating and she was going to die. And she
had this perceived sense of doom and death with
THC. So she came into my office terrified of
that. And we started with high ratio CBD to THC
to treat her debilitating anxiety and depression.
And even at high doses, it didn't do anything.
It just did not seem to help her. And I was able
to kind of explain to her, well, we'll just slowly
add in a little THC, lowering that ratio, but
you will not be intoxicated because CBD blocks
that effect. When you have CBD present with THC,
if CBD is in a higher amount over, let's say
four times more, it will block any type of anxiety,
paranoia, intoxication that you may get with
THC. We kind of worked our way down. And this,
I have to tell you, is a person who could not
work because of her mental illness, who now is
working a full -time job on a ratio of four to
one, four parts CBD to one part THC in low dose.
Maybe I think it's 18 milligrams of CBD per dose,
about four to five milligrams of, or maybe about
four to five milligrams of CBD. I'm sorry, THC
per dose. with great results. And because it
was a slow increase, she never felt uncomfortable
from any of it. And again, if we're going to
ask CBD to do the trick, and it's without THC,
especially in the population that might be listening
to this podcast, if you go higher dose on CBD,
you may be able to achieve those same results.
Remember, if you've got two compounds working
together, you can use less of both because there's
going to be some synergy. But if you're asking
one compound to do the trick and it's CBD, you
may need a higher dose. But it really is very
fascinating how we have patients who can completely
control their anxiety, depression, mood disorders.
And then you have patients who have TBI who have
this kind of secondary, you know, the anxiety,
depression is coming from the TBI. But yet CBD
also treats the problems in the cells from the
TBI. The inflammation and the damage. That's
amazing. That lines up with the sleep deprivation.
I know Doc Parsley, who I had on, who was a Navy
SEAL that became a doctor and ended up realizing
how sleep deprived his SEALs were. The correlation
between TBI and the demyelination of the sheath
of the nerve was the same exact thing they were
seeing in sleep deprivation to the nerve. Yes.
There's a lot of overlap, sure. A lot of redundancy
in our brains. And the beauty of the endocannabinoid
system is their scientists have called it a redundant
system, a promiscuous system, not promiscuous
the way we use the word promiscuity, in that
it's not very selective. It can work in multiple
different locations, but it's also very complex.
And so, you know, there's still so much research
that needs to be done, but I think that we have
shown. And, you know, I joke, my husband teases
me that I'm a chicken in a mommy suit, right?
If you unzip me, there's a chicken inside. Because,
you know, when you work in the ER and you see,
that's my nature anyway, to be kind of conservative
and careful. And then you put me in an ER for
15 years and I see every horrible thing under
the sun. You know, you start to get, you know,
I'm very, very careful, conservative doctor,
even though I'm a cannabis doctor. The one thing
that I'll tell you is, especially if there's
medical supervision, cannabis is so safe. All
of the garbage that we've been taught about it
is just not true. I just don't see it. And I
take care of babies. Yeah, and that's what's
so frustrating is my generation, our generation
really, whether you look at the food that we
were taught to eat, the way we were taught to
exercise, just every element we were told so
many. non -truths you know i mean you know backwards
yeah so our generation with old you know as we
are now literally having to reverse engineer
to get to the truth again and what we were told
was healthy is actually causing a lot of disease
and then things that are healthy whether it's
you know cbd you know cannabis and hemp or whether
it's using mdma for psychotherapy those are the
the practices that are fighting and fighting
and fighting against all this litigation just
to be free to actually use. Meanwhile, we're
losing all these men and women to opioid overdoses
and all these legal things that are killing my
brothers and sisters. So it's so frustrating.
And I want everyone to get pissed off as listening
because we need a change. There needs to be more
than two studies in a plant -based medicine that
could potentially save millions of lives. 100
% right. We're just going back very quickly and
then we'll do the questions. You mentioned the
effect on ischemia in the brain. In that theory,
is there potential for post -cardiac arrest and
drowning patients to actually be given that to
improve the potential of brain recovery? Yes.
The answer is yes. The studies in animals where
they... cause an insult to brain, to liver, to
heart have been done. And CBD infusion either
before, during, or after the insult has been
shown to protect the cells and there is less
cell death. So there's an elegant study that
looks at basically a model of a heart attack.
And when you have CBD infused in what we see
is less heart cells dying. What a tremendous
finding, right? Why aren't we looking at that?
So again, I'm excited about this CBD study on
newborns. However, look, you know, I know research
is slow. One of the biggest problems is funds.
And also remember that a lot of our research
is driven by pharmaceutical companies that want
to have a monopoly on that drug in order to reap
the financial benefits down the line. And look,
many people are alive today because they take,
you know, certain pill that does keep them alive.
And like you said, you know, when we're in emergency
situations, we're able to keep people alive and
get them to the next step with pharmaceuticals.
Kind of there's no nobody's doing really, you
know, here and there. You can get a grant. You
can get research money to do a study on cannabis,
especially outside of the United States. But
it's just moving at a snail's pace because there's
no financial interest because you can't own the
plant. You know, it's look, the federal government,
the United States federal government owns the
patent. on the neuroprotective properties of
CBD and THC on one hand, and then on the other
hand, they're saying, and this is said in the
movie, we the people. On the other hand, they're
saying there's no medicinal value. I mean, explain
that. Exactly. I mean, did you see the Jon Stewart?
speech that he made on um the new york city uh
actually i think it was congress not supporting
the the first responders that were sick they
said that the money had run out well i think
that that was such a powerful moment because
it illustrates exactly the the lack of empathy
and care from these people that are making decisions
that are our employees you know in this country
versus the population and the population with
the men and women the responders that were sitting
in front of them And I think we've got that backwards
and it's time for us to start slamming our fists
on the desks and demanding that there's a change.
Well, and why isn't the NIH here in the United
States or the CDC or the FDA, somebody pushing
for, look, potentially, like you said, cannabis
can save millions of people, right? But there's
a lot of money in cancer chemotherapy. Now there's
a lot of money in what the new immunotherapies
that are coming out. which may or may not work,
just depends on which one, and they're doing
trials. But why are we as a society allowing
pharmaceutical companies to drive our research
as opposed to the government helping us with
research where somebody maybe doesn't own, right?
Why does it always have to be about money? I
mean, I just, I get kind of frustrated that it
always seems to boil down to money. There's many
questions. Why are we still selling cigarettes?
Why are our kids' food still terrible in the
schools? You could go on and on. Well, I want
to transition. So for people listening, I could
talk to you for hours and hours and hours more,
but you wrote an awesome book that you sent to
me, and thank you so much for that, Cannabis
Revealed. So if you want to tell people listening
about the book and where they can find that.
Sure. So the book is called Cannabis Revealed
and the subtitle is How the World's Most Misunderstood
Plant is Healing Everything from Chronic Pain
to Epilepsy. It's available on Amazon. And what
I did in the book was similar to kind of the
topics that we've touched on. I talk about the
plant, what the plant contains, what's in it.
and what those ingredients do. What do we know
about their medicinal properties? I talk about
the endocannabinoid system, as I've explained
it to you as well, a little bit more in depth
in the book. I talk about the risks associated.
So there are some risks associated with cannabis,
most of them with THC use, not really CBD or
the other compounds. THC is not a bad cannabinoid.
THC is a good cannabinoid. They're all good.
compounds when used properly. I talk about the
use of THC in healthy teenagers. This is a problem.
In general, if somebody wants to experiment here
and there, that's fine. But the problem with
our teenagers is that they have no judgment.
And if they're self -medicating and let's say
they do have an endocannabinoid deficiency and
they happen to fall upon cannabis, THC, rich
cannabis. they tend to overdo it and then they
start to mess with their receptors and then they
can spiral into more anxiety. Because remember,
if you shut down your endocannabinoid system,
you can have worsening anxiety and potentially
actually aggravate your mental health that may
carry on into adulthood. So there's a chapter,
you know, I talk about that in the book. And
then I go through about 28 ailments. including
arthritis, cancer, epilepsy, Parkinson's disease,
and talk about the research. So what does the
research tell us? I talk about what I've seen
clinically with my patients. And then I talk
about kind of, you know, pointing people in direction
of which cannabinoids may help. I cannot give
dosing advice in a book. That would be irresponsible.
Someone on Amazon gave me a bad review because
I didn't give dosing for his lung cancer. I'm
sorry to you. But I cannot practice medicine
through a book. So again, this book is meant
as a primer on what is this and should I look
into this. Yeah, and it's fantastic. And the
reason why I want to be. public with this i've
tried you know marijuana before i personally
don't like it i don't i'm one of those i guess
more sensitive to thc thc rich cannabis yes exactly
but so i'm not on this soapbox because i want
to legalize this plant and be able to smoke every
day it's the opposite i don't recreationally
like that side of the drug at all but I see the
healing properties I take CBD every day you know
and now right now I'm volunteering with the fire
department if I'm ever off that again where I'm
away from the the drug testing the the the THC
CBD interaction that you talk about would probably
even more beneficial and that's what this conversation
is about the the recreational side there's people
that love that but I'm not that person. This
is purely a health and medicinal conversation.
And the book itself was so good because it really
breaks it down, you know, to the layman level,
which is what we need. If it was a giant textbook,
no one would get it. But you've broken it down
into the history and, you know, the healing properties
and the limitations. And I think that's exactly
what we need. It's the next step to educate people,
to then get them curious and start asking why
we don't have that in our country. That's right.
And what I'm obviously here talking about what
I do day in and day out. So I always tell people,
though, like, so don't say you believe in cannabis
because it's not a religion. It's science. And
I say that in the book. This is science. For
some people, it feels miraculous because they've
been struggling for so long with illness. Then
they finally come to cannabis with trepidation
and then they find what works and they say my
whole life has changed. When I get an email from
a family who says. that their child didn't have
any outbursts or aggression. Like, look, I take
care of kids who are seven years old and been
thrown out of four schools already because the
school can't handle the child's autistic symptoms.
It can feel like a miracle to many people because
one, it works, and two, it doesn't have any negative
side effects when you're using it properly. So
it does feel miraculous, but at the same time,
it is a... Uh, it, this is science -based. We
know where it works. We know for the most part
how it works. There's still a huge amount of
science that, that needs to be done or research
that needs to be done. Um, but I always tell
people, don't tell me you believe in cannabis
because it's not a religion. That's like telling
me you believe in oxygen. Well, look, all right,
we know. Okay. Um, and then the other part of
it too, is that education's the key. If you don't
know, and look, many of us have been poisoned
growing up and learning that cannabis is bad.
Marijuana is bad for you. It's bad for you. It's
bad for you. If that's what you know, and that's
the only part that you know, you need to educate
yourself. So learn more. Whether it's for you
or not is beside the point. If you became sick
or a loved one became sick, you need to have
this as an option, as a medicine, on the table.
without any political or legal problems associated
with it. How sad. Right now I have a patient
who's a girl who was severely damaged at age
four in a car accident. Her sister was killed
in the car accident. This child has severe brain
damage. She has seizures. She's in a wheelchair.
She requires 24 -hour assistance. She has had
improved quality of life on CBD to the point
where her seizures have stopped. Mom wants to
take her on a cruise. They're a family that likes
cruises. Now that she's been on CBD for the last
year and a half, the mom asked the cruise line,
a well -known cruise line, can we bring her CBD
oil, which is a version of a legal hemp oil version.
uh, with very, very little THC in it. Um, not
considered a marijuana product under the California
marijuana rules. Cause it's very, very, very
low in THC, hardly any. And she, um, was told
zero tolerance. Absolutely not. You cannot bring
it on the ship. Now, how sad that this girl who
has done better on this natural plant cannot
take a cruise with her family. Yeah, well, I've
taken mine on two cruises since I started taking
it. And the first one had the THC in it. So my
answer to them off the record would be just take
it anyway, put it in your suitcase because they're
not going to know the difference. Just put it
in a different bottle. But that's ridiculous.
As a physician, I'm not really allowed to recommend
illegal. It's considered unprofessional and unethical.
So look, I walk the line. But of course, I mean.
Here, how many times have I heard the story in
the last, you know, number of years that I've
taken care of pediatric patients who were in
no way, shape or form able to even think about
going on a vacation, who now are either seizure
free or whose autism is so under control that
they can get on a plane. I mean, think about
a child out of control on a plane. I mean, God
only knows what's going to happen. And people
don't understand. People get annoyed. You could
get thrown off the plane and banned from flying.
I mean, we hear all these stories. And now these
children are well enough to go experience life,
to go participate in life as the rest of us have
had the honor and pleasure to do. And they can't
because their medicine is, quote, illegal. Yeah,
they can't have it on the plane, but can I get
you another Jack Daniels? It's nauseatingly,
you know, hypocrisy. But yeah, I hope that this
changes and you're definitely driving the movement
on that. And I thank you so much, not only for
the book, but for this conversation. So aside
from your book, which I personally recommend
to everyone, it's incredible. Are there any other
books that you love to recommend to people? It
can be about what we've talked about today or
something completely different, even fiction.
Well, so there's a wonderful book written by
a friend and colleague, Michael Backes, B -A
-C -K -E -S. It's called Cannabis Pharmacy. It's
excellent. I also highly recommend that free
online, you can go to Google Scholar and Google
anything written by Dr. Ethan Russo, R -U -S
-S -O. He is a board certified neurologist who's
also an ethnobotanist who has been a leading
researcher. He's very prolific in his writing
and he writes all about plants and how to use
plants as a beneficial part of your health program.
And he wrote the forward to my book, which I'm
so happy to have him. As part of my book, but
also he puts out articles that are just spectacular
about cannabis, about terpenes, about other plants
as well that have tremendous benefits. So I encourage
that. Excellent. All right. So the documentary
that you were in was Weed the People, W -E -E
-D. Are there any other movies or documentaries
that you love? Oh, my. The list goes on and on.
So, you know, like, look, it's on Netflix. There's
a whole bunch that talk about, you know, paleo
diet, keto diet. I forget. I always forget the
names, but there's one I, you know, saw about
a guy who goes on a juicing quest. He was overweight
and sick and had his brother had a heart attack
or maybe he had the heart attack and he completely
changed his entire life by just changing his
diet. So, you know, I'm right there with you,
James. You know, many of the patients that come
into my office that are doing well with cannabis
and they just come in for their yearly checkup,
I always try to have a conversation with them
about other benefits, you know, with holistic,
you know, what's so crazy that, you know, doctors
don't talk to their patients about their diet.
Are you doing meditation, yoga? Do you get vitamin
D? Are you out in the sun? You know, just basic
good choices. Right. And so there's so many documentaries.
It's hard for me to name one. But, you know,
I think sometimes we need to watch something
and like see it with our own eyes to go, OK,
you know what? I need to incorporate that. Yeah.
Was that one called Fat, Sick and Nearly Dead?
Oh, there you go. Yes. Yeah. That's a good one.
I mean, it's really astounding. And the guy's
on the road with a juicer. So those of us who
think that you can't travel and be healthy at
the same time, you know, that's not true. You
just it's just an effort. And you are worth the
effort. Your health is worth the effort. Yeah.
And, you know, to be fair to the physicians,
I mean, A, they're not being taught well in school.
B, they're under that pressure of, you know,
cycling through patients in a day to justify
the amount of money that they need to run the
practice. But the other thing is as patients,
we need to educate ourselves. We shouldn't have
to go to a physician to learn how to move and
how to eat. That should be something that we
learn on our own, especially in 2019 when all
that is available online. Absolutely. All right.
So then next question. Is there a person that
you'd recommend to come on this podcast as a
guest to speak to the first responders in the
military of the world? Oh, I'd have to think
about that and get back to you. Okay. Well, Dr.
Russo sounds like he might be a good one. Yeah,
he's awesome. Okay. And Michael Backus, who wrote
the book Cannabis Pharmacy. I mean, it's so incredibly
knowledgeable. Brilliant. All right. Well, thank
you for that. And the last one before we talk
about where we can find you, what do you do to
decompress when you're not out there helping
all these sick men and women and kids? So I live
in a kind of suburban area of L .A. that is right
on the coast and that has tremendous land conservancy.
So I go hiking. And the area where I hike, I
get to kind of look out over the Pacific Ocean.
and i see catalina island and i just get this
kind of robust intake of nature and it's extremely
healing brilliant yeah that's that's a common
common answer when i ask that it's amazing how
connection with nature can be so healing all
right so then the very last thing then where
can people find you if they want to find your
work and reach out to you So really my website.
So my company is called Canna Centers, C -A -N
-N -A -C -E -N -T -E -R -S. And the website is
cannacenters .com. There's information there.
We're working on adding more information. I do
have an educational program, but I've been doing
so much speaking outside of my program that I
don't really even have any. Any lectures on the
docket except for July 13th, I'm going to be
doing a lecture called Cannabis for Seniors.
You can attend in person if you're in the area
by signing up online or you can sign up for the
live webinar. So you would just, we send you
a link and you tune in at the time of the lecture
and then after the lecture gets recorded. We
change it so it's available as a recorded webinar.
Right now, there's a handful of recorded webinars
on my website as well that understanding cannabis.
There's a seminar for nurses that's available.
There's also one called Finding Your Medicine
to try to help you understand the different types
of medicinal cannabis products that are on the
market and how to pick between them. And there
is some dosing suggestions in that. Again, it's
not specific to any one particular person, so
it should not be substituted for a discussion
with a physician, especially if you're on other
medications that might interact with CBD. But
in general, people can just reach out to me through
my website. I do have somebody that helps me
because I'm inundated with emails and I can't
possibly call everybody who wants a call or meet
with everybody who wants to meet just one person.
I apologize for that ahead of time, but I do
try to help as many people as I can. Well, speaking
of that, I want to thank you because you did
return my email and take almost two hours of
your time to come on this show. So I want to
start by saying thank you so much. And I know
so many people listening to this are going to
hopefully have their fears put to ease, but more
importantly, they're going to go down their own
rabbit hole and figure out on the prevention
side or the cure side how they can bring this
to their family. I hope so. Well, thank you so
much. Thank you, James. And thank you for the
work that you're doing.