Hello, and welcome to the hundredth episode of Shaping Fire.
I am your host Chango Lowes. Before we get to the meat of the program,
I'm gonna take a little bit of time here at the top of the show and share some
of the philosophy and themes behind the Shaping Fire podcast that we've never
really talked about in the first a hundred episodes.
I get questions about these things and I figure I might as well, you know,
what better time than a hundred episode to share it with you. So number one is,
uh,
of course the main guide behind the program is to make cannabis enthusiasts
self-sufficient. Uh,
I appreciate that access is increasing across the United States as normalization
kind of creeps in and, and it's good to support those stores. However, um,
I also think that patients should be able to grow and produce their own medicine
and preparations at home.
And every episode of Shaping Fire works towards that goal.
Also,
each episode I try to make sure is packed with information that you can take
action on.
I try to include everything you need in an episode to make a decision or take
action, or at least feel like you have a handle on that topic.
Too often I listen to a podcast to learn,
and I'm only given about 65 or 70% of the information I actually
need. And so I still have to continue my research to fill in the holes
With Shaping Fire episodes,
I really try to give you everything you need to start making decisions.
And sure, there's almost always more research that's needed,
but at least you know that you have the basics covered and you can go forward on
your second layer. Race Research with Confidence. Um,
I book Shaping Fire episodes or my guests based
on topics,
and I don't do company profiles and I don't do people profiles. Um,
I find a topic that I'm interested and I think that the audience would be
interested in, and that is undercover in cannabis media.
After I've got that topic and that I want what I want to cover,
I then go and find a guest who is an industry expert in that area,
and then I invite them on the show. Um,
every week I get lots of people interested in being on the show,
or they're press agents and,
and they let me know that this person is very interesting,
except Shaping Fire is not about that person.
Shaping fire is about cannabis patients,
and those are the people who are important.
And so I see my role as a role of service,
bringing you topics that you are interested in learning in,
and then we just go and find the right person for it.
Before people are on my show, we have a conversation.
So they too understand that this show is not about them, and it's not about me.
Is this doing this show is a role of service for cannabis patients,
and that's how we treat it.
And people who don't work in that way,
they don't end up on shaping fire. So that's how I choose guests. Similarly,
I choose my advertisers based on those same kinds of morals.
I choose advertisers that have a message or a product that I actually think
that regenerative minded Cannabis u are going to be interested in.
And so because of that, you don't see me, uh,
accepting money from a bottled salt fertilizer
companies. And boy, do they wanna be on the show. And gosh,
have I had to turn down a lot of money,
but it would be very difficult for me to have all of these regenerative
guests and then cut to,
and commercial that is some kind of a plus B salt
nutrient for indoor. It just would be out of integrity for me.
And so I don't do it, um, online.
I don't fight with trolls. I just restrict them and move on with my life.
You know, a lot of people really get into the fight online, and I just don't,
I just don't have the energy for it.
I don't like that feeling of stress in the middle of my chess when,
when people are involved in online fighting. So, so I just,
I just don't even respond and I block 'em or restrict them and get on
with my life. I got way more important things to do than,
than internet fighting. My first podcasts,
my first 55 of them were actually for entrepreneur.com. Um,
I worked with them for a year doing weekly shows,
and I recommend that you go over to Go entrepreneur.com and, uh,
check those out. Um, I love the guys there. Um, but, you know,
I realized that I was pretty darn good at this podcasting thing,
and I wanted to own all my own intellectual property. So, um,
I said goodbye to the fellas and I wished them best,
and we're all still friends. And, uh,
and I formed Shaping Fire so that I could be in control of my own destiny,
choose my own advertisers, own my own intellectual property, and move forward.
And now, five years in, I think that was a great decision. And, uh,
happily I've been met with a lot of success and can support myself, um,
off the show. Uh,
I've also done a hundred episodes of Shaping Fire over the last five years, uh,
20 per year, roughly twice a month with, uh, a break around Christmas.
So at 20 episodes a year. Um, it's certainly not as, uh,
fast as many podcasts that have got weekly or even daily episodes. Uh,
I've just never been interested in that and I,
I spend too much time curating my content and, and finding, um,
difficult to find guests and then reading their books before they're on the
show, or if they're a scientist, all of their scientific papers. And, um,
doing lots of episodes has just never been attractive to me, attractive to me.
I'd rather do less shows and have them be more in depth. And that's,
that isn't to to shame anybody else's show. Like,
there's lots of room in this scene for lots of different shows,
and people love different types of entertainment and education.
So while Shaping Fire isn't the show that I'm gonna be smoking out with the
guest and we're gonna be talking about what we're smoking on, um,
there's certainly a place for that.
And I think that there's enough room for everybody. And certainly, um,
my audience appreciates how, how I approach things.
There's also the YouTube channel, in case you're not familiar with that,
there's almost 200 videos of, um,
various speakers speaking on cannabis and antigens. Um, and it's,
it's kind of funny because the, the,
the YouTube channel was an accident actually. Um, when I started traveling, um,
back in 2015 or so, uh,
people were flying me out to speak at cannabis conventions. Um,
you know, since I was at the Cannabis convention,
I was also going to see really good speakers, and it,
it seemed like a waste to not record them.
So every time I went to see a speaker,
I also recorded the speaker so that I could bring home that
content to you so you could enjoy it without ever having to travel.
And so I started dumping those videos onto the YouTube channel,
and, you know,
eventually more and more people started watching them and subscribing. And,
you know, we've got over 10,000 subscribers now.
I think we're at like 13,000 perhaps, and, you know, over,
over a million and a half minutes served and, you know,
serving 30 to 40,000 people a month. So, um, it's pretty good.
It doesn't generate any money at all. Um,
but it's just a good resource for people. And,
and I'm glad we started it all that time ago.
I talk in this episode a lot about patients I've been involved with, and I have,
but I don't practice medicine. I'm not a doctor. Um, or do I have an office?
Nor do I charge a fee for these consultations.
So you'll hear me refer to patients a lot in this episode.
And this is simply because when you are interviewing
medical doctors and scientists every week
and then speaking about that publicly,
you start to attract people with questions and stories.
And then I tend to keep in contact with people.
And so it's been over this decade of learning from patients that I
have been able to amass this knowledge for myself as a cannabis patient and to
help the people around me here on Vaon Island where I live. But,
but it's important to be sure that,
that I am not a doctor and, uh,
I am not cosplaying as a doctor at all, nor charging money.
So not practicing medicine without a license.
And I always encourage you to talk to your doctors about anything that you
decide to do after listening to Shaping Fire. That said,
with this episode,
I'm trying to offer this dosing information in a way so
people don't have to reach out to me all the time. So, um, please,
this is not an invitation to send me Instagram messages and emails asking me
about, um, your specific, um, ailment. Um, I'm,
I'm not really working with patients anymore except for my local neighbors. So,
so I hope that you get what you need from this episode,
and I tried to make it as complete as possible just for that reason.
So going forward, you can expect more soil episodes,
more regenerative techniques, more making hash and oil and such at home,
and of course, more cannabis and health.
And I'm going to keep up with the mushrooms, dmt, and other antigen topics too.
So thank you for being part of the Shaping Fire community and thanks for telling
your friends about shaping fire.
If you wanna learn about cannabis health cultivation and technique efficiently
and with good cheer, I encourage you to subscribe to our newsletter.
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You are listening to Shaping Fire, and I am your host, Chango LOEs.
My guest today is, well, me sh go Los.
I have been a cannabis educator for the last decade and have been involved with
cannabis medicine since 1989.
I have listened to the stories of more patients than I can count.
I founded the VAs on Island Marijuana Enthusiast Alliance many years ago to
gather cannabis patients and those who love them to share best practices and to
bring in international guest speakers. And boy oh boy, has that been a success.
I presently spend my time producing the Shaping Fire Podcast as I recover from
burnout and study neuro divergence. This is a long episode,
but I was careful to add out anything that felt like filler.
My hope is that it's a comprehensive guide for those who are new to dosing
cannabinoids so they can take their next steps toward healing with confidence.
This is the first time I've ever recorded solo like this,
so perhaps cut me some slack. If you like this sort of episode,
please let me know because I have an episode like this written on the 90 Day
Cancer Protocol too that I do if you happen to like this format. Okay, friends,
let's go. So here we are friends.
I have been wanting to record this episode for a couple years now.
It's one of the most common things that I'm asked for.
I I teach about dosing a lot to, uh, you know,
small groups of people in their homes. And, uh, you know,
occasionally I'm asked to do this talk at, um, you know, at conventions or, or,
or, you know, caregiver events or whatever. Um,
but those are always so informal and there's always lots of questions. It,
it never really, um, seemed appropriate to, to put any of those recordings out.
So for the first time here for the hundredth episode, I figured I would, uh, uh,
give it a shot to, um, uh, put this body of information that I've got, um,
here for you, um, so that you can, um, you know,
potentially learn some yourself and share it with caregivers and family and
friends in a way that can get folks up to speed on cannabis dosing
in a way that, um,
is useful to them in their everyday life and isn't packed with
misinformation. Cuz as we all know, most of the information that you can get,
um, from just searching online is pretty bad. Um,
but I will take a moment and plug project c.org. Um,
Martin Lee has done a great job pulling together, um, you know,
accurate cannabis information with, um, excellent articles on different, um,
medical conditions and using cannabis for it. And, um,
at the end of all the articles, um,
they have got links to all of the original cannabis white papers, um,
on that particular cannabis medical topic. So, um,
if I would recommend that you go anywhere else, it would be to, uh, project cbd.
So this episode is primarily designed for patients
and those who love them. Um, you know,
I pretty much consider everyone who uses cannabis to be a, you know,
air quotes cannabis patient because, you know,
even if you're just using cannabis as a, you know, you know,
recreationally cuz it, you know,
makes you feel good and maybe decreases your anxiety and, you know,
causes you to have fun when you're out in nature or playing video games or
whatever, you're using it, uh, to, you know,
as a euphoric to improve your life so that, um, you know,
you have a life that's worth living, right?
Things are hard now for a lot of people,
and a lot of us turn to cannabis for quality of life and, um, you know,
and that's a good thing. Um,
so I wanna point out that the vocabulary I'll be using today is a
layman's vocabulary, primarily. Um,
it's true that I do a lot of teaching to caregivers and doctors and nurses and
things like that to help them understand how best to, you know,
assess and plan for and dose cannabis medicine in their clinics.
But the vast majority of the people that I talk to are just like regular folks,
you know, like somebody's mom, somebody's uncle, somebody's neighbor, um,
and, and hell,
a lot of the times it's just the people that I run into at the grocery store on
the island where I live. And so, um, that's, those are the people that, uh,
you know, i, I talk to most because I think that's where I can have, um,
the most authentic, uh, impact. So, um, this episode is, is for those folks,
for you folks, um, who are don't, don't necessarily have medical training,
and yet you really want to have a specific dosing information, um,
for yourself or to help the people that you like. So, um, you know,
my experience is with, um, consulting, teaching,
however you wanna put it, for over a thousand patients, um,
for almost a decade now. And also as a, um,
a medicine maker for myself. I've had a brain injury, a couple car accidents,
things like that. And so, um, I've had the opportunity to, uh,
participate in the Washington medical market, um, and,
and learn lots of different feedback from different types of patients at
different ages and, uh, you know,
economic levels on different types of products,
from tinture to flour to edibles to, uh, you know, um,
what we call rso. But, uh, I don't prefer that name.
I I prefer just full extract cannabis, oil, all that stuff, you know, and, and,
and after you spend this much time talking with people and learning everybody's
best practices and then giving suggestions to people and then hearing back
from them, you know, I've developed a pretty, um, good, uh,
body of information in my head. And then, um, you know, four years ago, um,
uh, I put together a study on vaon on CBD oil dosing,
I guess has five years ago. No. Um,
and then three years ago I did the same thing with, uh, CBG Oil,
and that brought up a whole bunch of, uh,
very interesting applications for cbg and we'll talk about that later. And then,
um, I'm just setting up one right now on C B D V, the Veron version of, uh,
cannabidiol. And so, um, you know,
these are opportunities that really afford me a lot more, um,
first person information than, than even most clinical doctors. So,
so here we go. During the first set,
we're gonna talk about some basics about the endocannabinoid system
and, uh,
different methods of use of cannabis and their pros and cons specifically
for patients. And then, uh, during the second set, we're gonna talk about,
um, the specific, uh, cannabinoids that we are most familiar with, and we,
and we have actual dosing information for. And then, um,
to help get your head wrapped around, um,
like how to actually apply this stuff. The third set is, uh,
is all about very specific medical conditions, um,
that once we talk about those medical
conditions and how to think through the dosing on those,
you'll have a really good idea of how to think through similar medical
conditions and, and how to think through dosing on those.
Because my goal with this episode is not just like,
give you a spreadsheet in your head of, okay, if you've got this, take this,
if you've got this, take this. Because really every human is different.
And in individualized medicine is something that we can attain with cannabis.
So, so let's do that. And so instead of just giving you very, um, you know,
tight dosing specifications for,
for assuming everybody's the same,
I want to teach you how to think about cannabis dosing so you can understand
why the dosing is the way it is. And,
and so you can make subtle changes based on you or your patient's needs,
and you can be a mo more dynamic cannabis user than,
um, than you would be if you were just, you know, hearing, you know,
the specific milligrams you need. Because honestly,
people's dosing needs flexibility.
Let's start by talking about the endocannabinoid system.
The endocannabinoid system is, uh, the human body's primary,
uh, regulatory system.
It's kind of like a thermostat for all of the mission critical systems of the
body. Um, if you've got a system that's running hot, it cools it down.
And if you've got a bodily system that's sluggish, um,
it fires it up and, um,
it brings everything back to the middle, A balanced place,
what they call in, um, Chinese medicine to tonify, right,
to bring back into balance. And that's what the endocannabinoid system does. Um,
I think of it, and, and I often explain it as being a second grade teacher.
When the second grade teacher is in the classroom,
the kids are generally behaving, right?
They're doing their work and doing their thing. Um,
but if somebody comes to the door and the second grade teacher needs to step out
into the hallway for a moment, the kids will be fine for a while,
but eventually some kid will, you know,
crack up or make a noise and then another kid will crack up and then, you know,
eventually a bunch of the kids are cracking up until the second grade teacher
comes back into the room. Same thing with your endocannabinoid system.
When the endocannabinoid system is thriving and strong, um,
it is regulating all of those bodily systems the way that it's supposed to. Um,
the challenge comes into when, um, our endocannabinoid system, um,
becomes weakened and different folks have different systems
fall into dysregulation. Um, that's one of the odd things of why,
uh, endocannabinoid deficiency can look so different because when you have a
weakened endocannabinoid system, you know,
different people have got different second grade students that go bad, right?
So some, somebody, somebody might, um, see it in, uh,
migraines and somebody else might get it in irritable bowel syndrome and
somebody else might get fibromyalgia. And, um,
since somebody else might get a combination of these things,
and the longer they ignore it,
they start to stack up more and more of these ailments from the
endocannabinoid system no longer effectively keeping their different bodily
systems in balance.
And so that's why it's so important to keep the endocannabinoid system from, um,
beginning becoming deficient.
Some of the most common first things we see are ibs, fibromyalgia, migraines,
but also autoimmune issues and Parkinson's and dementia. Um,
these are all ailments that at their core have got an
endocannabinoid, um, base.
So let's talk a little bit more about endocannabinoid deficiency.
So these are aspects of a dysregulated endocannabinoid system,
right?
When the endocannabinoid system is not making enough,
uh, andogenous cannabinoids, which means cannabinoids that are made in the body,
um, it doesn't have enough signaling molecules to go around the body and,
and do the work and to regulate these systems. And,
you know, if you, if you refer to Dr. Ethan Russo's original paper on,
uh, endocannabinoid deficiency,
and you look at the causes for endocannabinoid deficiency,
it reads just like a normal day in America, listen to this. These are,
these are the five, uh, big things. So number one, environmental toxins,
number two,
pharmaceuticals that repress the immune system or intentionally dysregulate the
human body in some way, like chemo being an extreme example. Um, but, you know,
antibiotics are another example. So it doesn't, it doesn't take much.
You're just,
we're just talking about any pharmaceutical that's gonna be repressing normal,
uh, endocannabinoid operation, poor sleep,
poor nutrition, and stress. Well, my gosh, that's,
that's just the modern world. So, um,
it is very likely that most,
if not everybody in the country has got an endocannabinoid deficiency.
And that explains why we've got this is, you know,
such a terrible situation with, uh,
so many people getting sick in different ways and,
and having weakened immune systems, which, you know,
cause us to walk around our lives with heightened anxiety and, uh,
susceptible to all sorts of, um, you know, disease and virus.
So, you know, when teaching specifically about C B D,
cannabis medicine in general, but really about cbd,
some people become skeptical asking how can one supplement help so
many different ailments,
but it's really just one thing that CBD supports, right?
And that's the endocannabinoid system,
but that system touches nearly everything in the body.
So when we add a cannabidiol c b D as a supplement,
it just makes sense that if you would strengthen the body's self-regulation
system,
that you would also empower the body to make the changes it needs everywhere.
So this is why they say, oh, you got migraines cbd,
you got irritable bowel syndrome, you got, you know, cbd,
you got poor sleep cbd, you got pain cbd. It's like, ah, come on, man. Like,
it can't be a panacea. But it is.
And it isn't like it really does help alleviate all of this suffering,
but it's really just because it's helping one system.
And that system is the endocannabinoid system,
and that's the master regulatory system.
So it's really just a matter of perspective. Um,
if you wanna learn more about this, uh, firsthand from Dr. Ethan Russo, his,
uh, seminal paper on that from 2004 called Clinical
Endocannabinoid Deficiency, um, is available easily for free online.
And if you go to the, uh, shaping Fire website for this episode number 100,
um, I've got a link to it, uh, for you there. Um, also if you want to hear Dr.
Ethan Russo talking about endocannabinoid deficiency in medical cannabis,
I actually did an interview with him about endocannabinoid deficiency
a long time ago, back in, uh, 2015, um,
when I was still a partner over@goentrepreneur.com and hosting the
Go entrepreneur.com podcast.
So if you go over the to preneur.com into 2015,
um, you can find my interview with Dr.
Russo there before I left Entrepreneur and started Shaping Fire.
Um,
you can also read a very helpful article on endocannabinoid nutrition,
um, from 2016. Um, actually it's not an article,
it's another interview I did with, uh, Ethan Russo, um,
at Entrepreneur again. So, uh, I did a,
I did a full year of weekly episodes for them, like,
I think I did like 54 episodes before, um, before I wished them well,
and came over and started, uh, shaping Fire. So, so in 2016,
that episode's called Endo Cannabinoid Nutrition. And, um,
it's probably really easy if you just, you know,
Google endocannabinoid Nutrition,
Ethan Russo entrepreneur, that'll get you there.
Um, also, uh, more recently though, uh,
if you want to learn more about endocannabinoid mechanics,
I also recommend shaping Fire episodes 78 and 81,
and they're both with Dr. Miab Shields, who is an endocannabinoid researcher.
And, uh, we talk in detail about endocannabinoid mechanics and, um,
you know, kind of the endocannabinoid system in depth. And, um,
and Miab is, uh, absolutely, uh, a fantastic guest and, um,
a, uh, pharmacologist and really understands, um, you know, the,
the biochemical, um, workings of,
of the human body. So, all right, so, so let's move on to the next section.
You can always look up more on the endocannabinoid system, but, uh,
I think that that is a good enough explanation for, for most folks, uh,
to get a good picture of it in their head.
So the next thing we're gonna talk about is a method of use, right?
How do you get the, um, uh, cannabinoids into your body?
And so,
so how we jump from endo cannabinoids to using the cannabis
plant is pretty simple. Um, I mentioned that the endo cannabinoid system,
uh, creates and manages, uh, cannabinoids.
And when they're made inside the body, they're called endocannabinoids,
cuz they're endogenous to the body. They're, they're germane to the body, they,
they come from the body. Um,
but if your body is not making them because you have endocannabinoid deficiency,
you've gotta get them elsewhere.
And then you've got to put them in your body to strengthen your endocannabinoid
system, and hopefully you'd be able to decrease those, um,
those five things that cause endocannabinoid deficiency, right?
So that you can start making your own again. Um, in the interim, you're gonna,
you're gonna supplement with phyto cannabinoids, which are, uh,
cannabinoids that come from plants. So, you know,
your long term goal is actually to take phyto cannabinoids from cannabis,
but then also go back and, and fix as best as you can,
the five things that cause endocannabinoid deficiency, right? The poor sleep,
all right? Get better sleep, poor nutrition, eat better food, eat fresher food,
don't eat as much processed food, environmental toxins. Well that's pretty,
that's, that's pretty difficult if you live in the city. But, you know,
do what you can to decrease environmental toxins. And then, um, uh,
decrease the, the, you know,
as much as you can the pharmaceuticals in your life that are screwing up your
endocannabinoid system, which, uh, for,
for many of these ailments we take pharmaceuticals for, um,
we would be better to take a cannabis medicine full of phyto cannabinoids
to strengthen our endocannabinoid system,
to let the endocannabinoid system solve these issues for us instead of taking,
um, more radicalized pharmaceuticals, um, that often have,
um, uh, unpleasant, um, side effects. So,
so we want to get phyto cannabinoids into our body and,
and those are in the plant. And so, um,
let's talk about the different ways that you can, um, take,
um, the cannabis plant into your body.
Let's start with the most common way that people get cannabis into their body,
which is by smoking it. So, um,
while the most traditional and accepted way to use cannabis dosing
from smoking cannabis plants is hard because it's
very inexact,
and often patients don't have proper test results for whatever they are smoking.
Um, the inexact part is that you,
you don't know how much of the flour or a joint or a bowl
or bong to smoke to get the dosage that you're shooting for.
If you're, if you're shooting for five or 10 milligrams of, of thc,
um, you know, it's, it's a very, you know, it could just be, you know, another,
an extra two puffs that take you from where you wanna be to actually being more
medicated than you want to be. And, and you've missed the zone that you want,
that you want to target, um, to help you with your ailment. I mean,
we've all had the experience of,
of wanting to have a little puffy puff before we go somewhere,
and it ends up coming on a lot stronger. And then we're like, oh,
I guess I can't leave right now.
And you have to wait to come down a bit before you go. Well, you know, if,
if you're in the social time of your day and you don't have a lot of pressure on
you, well, that, that's, that's fine, you know, you can do that. Um,
but if you've gotta like get, you know,
if you're in a lot of pain and you have to get to work, if you are, uh,
if you're having a lot of suffering and you have to stay sharp to take care of
your kids, you know, really, um,
smoking may not be the way to go because it is so hard to
titrate your dosage and know exactly what you're taking. Also, you know,
the, the, the, the,
the most patients don't have test results for the flour that they're
smoking. Most folks don't get the flour that they grow at home tested. Um,
most folks don't get, um, uh, analysis,
testing, um, when they buy their weed from their neighbor.
And, you know, if you're, if you're shopping at a medical or a licensed, um,
you know, recreational store, you know,
they may or may not have the analysis on hand.
Some states they don't have to have it there, they just, you know,
need to have it back at the original grower and you can, you know,
email them for it, right?
So a big difference whether or not it's available in the store or if it just
like theoretically exists in the world, and you could ask for it also,
just because, you know, the,
there is a certificate of analysis in the store and you can look at it.
That doesn't necessarily mean those are the ratios that are in your particular
flower. Um, you know,
they're different parts of the plant will develop different cannabinoids.
So the things on the top that are going to the,
the flowers on the top that are getting, um, uh,
longer and more intense sunshine, they will develop different cannabinoids then,
um, flour that is, you know,
more in the interior or on the middle or towards the low.
And so different parts of the plant are,
are actually going to be different medicine to some degree. Um,
also smoking cannabis results in cannabinoid conversion. Um,
you know, it's, it's,
it's kind of a myth that the lab results that you are getting about your
flour is showing what exactly is going into your body when
you smoke it. Um,
we know from significant research that when you combust, um,
the, the, the flour,
the cannabinoids convert to different cannabinoids often.
And so, um, you get this, um, you know, cannabinoid drift and,
um,
you would only know what you're actually getting in your smoke by testing the
smoke, which is not something that's available to nearly anybody.
The reason why smoking is, you know,
move so fast is because when you inhale the smoke,
your lungs are very efficient at, um, at bringing in cannabinoids,
um, through the, through the lung, and, um,
it's very quickly in the blood and then it's very quickly, um,
to your brain and distributed around your body. So it's just the fastest.
And so as soon as you smoke, you know,
within the first 10 to 15 minutes, you take this fast,
fast ride up, this rollercoaster,
and then you slowly start to, you know, come down over time. Um,
whereas, uh, you know, when you are using a different method,
which we'll talk about, you're not, you're not going up really fast.
You're going up at a measured pace,
and you're coming down as a measured pace and for repeatable,
for results and for continuing to be able to be productive during your day.
This is what is called for, uh,
most of the time for patients rather than smoking.
So obviously with the added caveat that, um, you know, if you, uh,
have got a, an acute situation as a patient and you need medicine now, you know,
top of mind would be, uh, severe pain patients, um,
and some types of, uh, you know, anxiety patients.
Sometimes you need to smoke now and you need the, the,
the cannabinoids to hit your bloodstream now. And for those folks, certainly,
um, smoking makes the most sense. Um, but generally speaking,
for most ailments that most cannabis patients have,
smoking will not be your option cuz it's, it's too uncontrolled.
So let's talk about cannabis oil. So cannabis oil is, um,
the concentrated resin that is found in the trichomes on the cannabis
flour. Um, this is where the majority of the medicine lives that,
that we remove from the plant. Um, there are, uh, you know,
a lot of different, uh,
solvents that you can use to remove cannabis oil from the plant
material. Um, over the years, um, hydrocarbons have been very, you know,
pop popular, um, butane propane, and, um,
but there's been a lot of pushback around that because not everybody knows how
to purge, um, those hydrocarbons from the oil correctly.
And, and some of that can end up in your human. Um,
I much prefer, as does many, um, uh,
medicine makers to use ethanol because ethanol does a really good job at,
uh, removing, uh, the,
the vital components of the resin and, um, is,
is quite easy to, uh, remove after the fact, um, by just adding,
um, a small amount of heat and the alcohol just vapes off. So, um, it's,
it's pretty hard to get into trouble with ethanol and, uh,
is is certainly what is most called for for home medicine creation.
But honestly,
I've got a lot of respect for licensed companies that use ethanol too. Um,
because even though it's a, it's a little bit more, uh, laborious than, um,
you know, hydrocarbons often, um, uh,
I think it gives a much better snapshot of,
of all of the healing potential that is in, um, the resin. So,
um, so yeah, a lot of people call it rso, Rick Simpson Oil. Um, you know,
while Rick Simpson, uh,
deserves some respect for popularizing rso, um, you know,
it's not like he invented it, you know, um,
he did bring it to a larger audience and for that will ever be grateful.
Um, but, you know, a lot of his original recipes, you know, when we look at now,
um, you know, they're using dangerous solvents. And so, um,
that was a little sketchy, but, you know, building on what, um,
Rick made popular, um,
there are now more modern processes that, for example, use ethanol, uh,
which is the primary solvent use nowadays.
And so we all still kind of call it RSO because that's what people
know it first. Um, but um,
it's been a whole bunch of other names have been tried to be given to it. Um,
another popular one is feco, uh, full extract cannabis oil. Unfortunately,
FECO sounds like fecal though, right? I don't,
I don't think fecal is ever gonna like, catch on fully nationally,
but full extract cannabis oil that, I mean, that, that sounds good, . Um,
and, uh, and,
and so some companies have tried to name their process different things, but,
um,
I'll probably sometimes accidentally say RSO during this episode.
Um, but I usually just, uh, I just usually call it full, full, uh,
extract cannabis oil and just say those words and don't usually use fico. But,
um, but now you're at least familiar with the terminology. So, um,
one of the reasons why using, uh, full extract cannabis oil is,
um, is,
is probably at the top of the list of what to use as a patient is
because once the oil was made, um,
all of the oil is pretty uniform and homogenized. Um,
it's not like, oh, this part of the batch, um,
has got these cannabinoids and this part of the batch has got these other
cannabinoids. Um, once you have, um,
soaked the cannabis in the ethanol and then gone and
vaped off the ethanol,
the the sticky resin that you're left with is pretty homogenized and it's all
the same. And so when you go ahead and you, um,
send it off to a cannabis lab to have the
analytics done,
you know that those analytics are representative of all of the
medicine in the batch.
And you can compare that to what we were just talking about,
about cannabis flowers, where, um, the flowers that are at the top, middle,
bottom or interior of the plant will all have slightly different, um,
cannabinoid profiles. Um, but by the time it's in oil,
because it's all been put, you know, it's all been soaked and, and, um,
vaped off together, your oil is, is essentially uniform.
And that's great. And, you know, if,
if you happen to live somewhere where you don't have access to a cannabis lab,
at least you know that when you,
when you take your first trials of your oil to see how strong you made it,
once you've, you know, you've taken it three or four times and you're like,
okay, I know how much I need as a patient of my stuff.
Um, it's gonna be like that for the rest of the, that oil that you take.
It's not like, um, you're gonna take the first couple and you'll be like, okay,
I now know that I need, you know,
0.05 milliliters of this oil for the
medicinal experience that I'm looking for only to like,
take that same amount four days later. And you're like, oh my God, I'm so high.
Like,
that's not what medicinal cannabis about is about medicinal cannabis is about
repeatable results that you can rely on to improve your health and improve
the strength of your endocannabinoid system and allow you to take cannabinoids
while you can still function in life by, by, you know, going to work or,
or taking care of your family, or I don't know if you're bad enough,
just live, right? So, um, we're looking for repeatable results,
and that is one great aspect of cannabis oil.
Another thing that's great about cannabis oil is, um, you know, when you're,
when you're buying flour, um,
flour costs money. If it's got any part,
it costs more money if it's got any sort of bag of peel, right?
So the,
the least expensive flour to buy is flour that is ugly.
And I don't, I don't mean all molded and and such, but I mean like,
like mids and lowers and stuff that was trimmed badly or wasn't trimmed
at all. Like,
this is the best stuff to be making cannabis oil out of,
and it also happens to be the cheapest stuff in the market. And so, um,
it's not, it's not uncommon for a,
a home grower to take all of the tops off their plant and,
and cure them and either keep 'em or sell them and then take all of the,
the lowers and either process it themselves or,
or give it to a loved one who's a, a patient to make into cannabis oil.
And so, you know, back in the day, you know, we used to call that trash,
and so people would all like, where'd you dump your trash? Because all,
all of those, all that trim that came off the plant, uh,
people weren't really doing extraction yet. And so, um,
people were just trying to play find places to dump it where no one would find
it and, and bust them back in the day. And then, then all of a sudden, um,
people started, uh,
blasting bho in their backyards and trim became like, really valuable.
And then, you know,
we've just evolved from there that we now use every part of the plant. And, um,
we're not gonna talk about making cannabis oil today,
but I just want you to understand that, um,
the advantages of cannabis oil in its, um, uh,
consistency of analytical results throughout the batch and the
fact that once you put it in a capsule and take it,
your body will process the capsule and, and take the cannabinoids in.
And then you will slowly feel, um, you know,
the cannabinoids or not feel them depending on the dose that you, you choose.
And you'll slowly have an inten intensity of cannabinoids and it'll
slowly go down. And that process usually takes between three to four hours.
So a patient who is, uh, doing a cannabis oil protocol,
um, will often take their capsule every three to four hours, depending on,
um, you know, their needs and, and what they can afford. Um,
the last thing I wanna say about the cannabis oil is that, um, you know,
because it's usually, um, offered in syringes, like oral syringes,
um, it's also quite easy to make, uh, capsules. Um,
most folks will pick up, um, one milliliter capsules on eBay,
excuse me, one milliliter syringes, oral syringes on eBay. And, uh,
you make your oil at home and you fill your syringes. And then the, uh, the,
the, the nozzle,
the nipple non nozzle on the one milli milliliter syringe fits
really nicely into a number three size capsule.
And so it,
it makes making your capsules really easy and the sides of the syringes
are marked. So you know whether or not you're putting in, you know,
0.05 milliliter or 0.1 of a milliliter, which is, you know,
usually where most people are. Um, and, uh, and people can, uh,
take it by there. Um, one note, if you are going to buy your own capsules,
um, uh, I recommend that when you buy them, buy them separated.
I went years before you could,
before I realize that you could buy your capsules separated. And so I,
I would just buy bags of capsules that were, that looked like capsules,
then I'd have to separate them all by hand before I filled
my, um, my capsules with the oil. And I gotta tell you,
when I was first starting making my capsules after I got my dual concussion
resulting in a traumatic brain injury, um, like that was,
that like filling capsules was mentally a lot of work.
And so I wanted to make the process as slow as possible,
and it would've been really nice to have known that I could have just bought
caps that came in, two bags separated. So, um, so there's pro tip for you.
Okay, let's talk about tincture now. So, um,
one of the interesting things about tincture is that tincture
is at its most essential cannabis oil that we just talked about,
suspended in ethanol. Um, because,
uh, when you make the cannabis oil,
you are using ethanol to extract the resin components
from the trichomes on the flour with a tincture.
What you have is the cannabis resin suspended in
ethanol, which is what's used to extract it. Um,
now it's certainly true that some people will add, um, you know, uh,
vegetable glycerin or coconut or honey or a lot of other
things to adulterate the oil to make it more palatable, right? Because, um,
a straight ethanol tincture, I mean, that's got, that's got some bite to it,
right? Um,
I normally tell patients that if they're making an ethanol tincture to be
prepared to just, you know,
take their dose and put it in a little bit of water and then just drink the
water. Cuz you know, if you're, if you're gonna be using, you know,
food grade ethanol at 190 proof, say for example, ever clear,
I mean ever clear burns most people's tongues, right? And so, um, you know,
just putting it,
putting a little bit of water in a sock glass or a shot glass and then
adding your tincture to that will make the ethanol a lot more palatable
if you happen to be in recovery from alcohol. And, um, you, you know, are,
you're not, you, you have chosen to not have any alcohol at all in your life.
Um, what many patients do is that they will make a, uh, hot tea,
not boiling, but just like hot tea,
and then they'll put their tincture into the hot tea and the tea
just like let it sit for a couple minutes and the hot tea will vape off, um,
you know, the ethanol aspect of it and will just leave the, uh,
cannabinoids the resin, uh, in the tea. And then you just drink your tea.
And that seems to work for them. Um, so,
so one of the things that's great about tincture is that when you put the
resin into the ethanol, um,
once you let it sit for a little bit, it will, uh, self homogenize, it will,
uh, become ubiquitous, uh, throughout the jar.
And which means that, um, if you,
if you make your tincture and you strain your tincture and then you let it sit
for, you know, a day and, and let it come to, I don't know,
I wanna say homeostasis, but I don't think that's right. But if you wanna,
if you give it time to self homogenize, um, uh,
you can go ahead and, and, and take a sample out of it. Um, you know,
I like using a Turkey baster. Take a sample out of it and,
and put it in a little one ounce bottle and send it off to your, um,
cannabis lab. And you'll know that the test,
that test results that come back apply to, um,
the entire jar of tincture that you've made. And so, you know,
that's the same thing I like about cannabis oil, right? That it's,
that it's uniform and it is one of the biggest problems with smoking flour.
Cause that's not uniform. So, so tincture we like,
because it's really easy for anybody to make. And, um, you know,
if you don't add the adultery and,
and I don't add any adultery to the stuff that I make for myself and, um,
the stuff that I make for my parents because, um, you know,
as we get older,
it is more difficult to shake a bottle of tincture.
And if, and if you've got, you know, cannabis resin in there,
maybe a little bit of ethanol and some glycerin, uh,
those have all got different weights and they will not be uniform in the,
the, in the tincture bottle. And so if you, if you, you know,
give it the kind of shake that you,
you can imagine you do with a tincture bottle, like you, you,
that's not gonna homogenize it, right? You're just gonna like,
kind of mix it up a bit. Um,
but that means that if you are taking a tincture that has got THC
in it, which, um, you know, can and can, can cause intoxication,
um, you will not be getting consistent doses, right? If, if one,
um,
if one squirt of the dropper is usually gonna be five milligrams and,
and your tincture has got, you know,
honey or glycerin or something else, you're gonna get, you know, you, your,
your your drop or could have anywhere between like, you know,
maybe two to eight milligrams of THC in it. Um,
and that's a, that's a really big swing for, uh, most patients,
especially new patients. And so, um, so yeah, uh,
and a lot of the, you know, a lot of folks can't, they don't have the wrist,
you know, to be able to, to shake it anymore because, um, they've got arthritis.
So, so, you know,
if you're making your own stuff and you're making a C B D and
like the,
the actual amount at any particular time doesn't matter as much
as you making sure you take it four times a day and making sure you get a daily
dose. Well, sure, you know, put glycerin or, you know,
agave or honey or whatever with your c because having
each dose be exactly the same, it's not really as big of a deal with cbd.
Um, but with THC it does because if, if you,
if you go too high, um, you know, you may get, uh,
more THC than you are prepared for at that part of your day.
Another thing that's great about tincture, um,
when it's in ethanol is that it's, uh, shelf stable, right?
And so for a lot of patients, um,
you don't have an opportunity to make tincture all the time.
You might grow your few outdoor plants every summer,
and then you're gonna wanna, you know, you'll,
you'll choose to process that into tincture and that tincture needs to last you
a whole year. And, um, you know, uh,
cannabis oil and tincture and ethanol are both, you know,
quite shelf stable if you keep them out of the sun and cool.
Um, and, uh, cannabis oil specifically does pretty well in the crispr.
Um, but if you're putting your, uh, you know,
you don't have to do that with the tincture as much because of the ethanol. Um,
you can either just store it in a mason jar in a dark closet or, um,
if you, if you wanna stay, keep strict controls over your use,
you can put it into one ounce tincture bottles that you can pick up online for
places from places like specialty bottle.com and then just, you know,
um, fill those bottles for yourself, label them and put them away.
And for a lot of people, um,
managing their tincture use that way is very visual because, you know, like,
okay, I've got, I,
I've made 30 bottles and this has gotta last me the year.
And so you, you can just see them in the box and as the box gets lower,
you've got a really good, um,
visual example of of how much you've got left and, uh,
and, you know, if,
if you should be getting nervous and maybe figuring out where to get some more
flour to make some more or, uh, more hopefully you're just re you know,
reinforcing the peace of mind that you are a self-sufficient cannabis patient
and, and you can take care of yourself and you got what you need.
So that's great. Another thing that's great about tincture is, uh,
being able to, uh, control and fine tune your dosing.
So with the cannabis oil that we talked about, and certainly with smoking, um,
with cannabis oil, because the oil is concentrated, um,
it's harder to hit low numbers. So, um, you know,
most of the time when I'm talking to patients, if, if they,
if their need is only for five or 10 milligrams of, um,
of thc, it makes sense that they are going to use a tincture.
Because a tincture, you can, you can get it down to, you know,
number of drops out of the dropper if you want, whereas with oil,
you know,
which is essentially the resin without the ethanol that's in the tincture,
um, you know, it, it's kind of hard to, um,
extract resin from a plant that's high in THC
and get your doses dose down to five or 10 milligrams.
You know, you might, you might, um, you know,
at 0.05 milliliter, which is a usually one of the,
the smallest markings on a syringe,
you might already be up to like 17 milligrams of thc.
And so when it comes to thc, um,
I'm usually recommending that new patients to THC focus on tincture.
But if you have a very significant ailment in your, um, your,
your tolerance is very high because you're taking a whole bunch of THC
every day, well, you've probably graduated up to cannabis oil. Now that,
that's different if we're talking about C and CBG, where, um,
you know, if we're gonna, if we're gonna grow a plant that has cbg, we,
we might use tincture so that we can have, make it last longer.
But in most cases you're, you'll probably make an oil, um, because,
and then just make caps with, you know, 0.05 in it, um,
because it's just more convenient and you don't have to use,
keep the,
the ethanol in the tincture bottles and you can pre-make a whole bunch of
capsules because the difference, you know, whether or not you take five, 10,
or 20 milligrams of cbg, um,
it won't end up in you potentially getting intoxicated like it would if you were
taking thc. So, um, you know,
when I make my CBG caps, um, I'm a little more casual about it.
When I make my THC caps,
I'm very exacting because I don't want to accidentally over medicate myself.
But if I'm making CBG caps, well, you know,
I might watch TV while I'm doing it or something, right? Because, um,
if I squirt a little bit extra in, um, it's, it's,
it's not really going to be, um, you know, bad in any way.
I might be a little wasteful, um, but it, but it,
but it's not gonna make me super stoned. And so, um,
this is one of the reasons why tinctures are good, because, um,
once you have,
once you've got test results and you know how much is in one,
um, one dropper of your tincture, if,
if you wanna take a little bit less,
less one day or a little bit more another day,
you can totally make those changes on the fly. And it gives you,
you as a patient a lot of control. And, and that's what, you know,
that's what we want. Um, some days you might wake up and you know,
you have to go to a doctor's appointment and so you want to go a little bit more
conservative on how much THC tincture that you take,
cuz you know that you're gonna have to interact with people in an hour or
something or maybe drive there, right? Um, but,
but on another day you may have slept really badly and you are experiencing,
um, your ailment significantly and you don't have anywhere to go and you might
triple your dosage cuz you're like, you know,
all I'm gonna be able to do today is, um, sit on the couch and, you know,
try to, try to not be miserable. Well, you know,
that gives you that kind of flexibility.
If you've already made all of your oil into capsules, well, you know,
unless you've made different potency capsules,
all your capsules are gonna be the same strength. And so that is a,
a great reason that, um, you know,
tincture can be a superior choice for patients.
So let's talk about edibles. So, um, edibles have got a place,
but I gotta admit that I am not the biggest fan of edibles except for specific
kinds of patients. And, um, first I'll talk a little bit about, um,
why I tend to recommend cannabis oil and tincture over edibles,
but then we'll also talk about,
about why edibles are the perfect thing for particular patients.
So first of all, um,
edibles are usually non-homogenized and, um, or,
or poorly homogenized, right? Um, which means either,
either at home or at a, uh, at a licensed, um,
cannabis bakery, they are infusing an oil, a fat,
a butter, um, with cannabis, either the,
the flour or an oil or some, or an isolate, I guess. And, um,
and they're mixing that into the oil.
And then you add that oil to your recipe of whatever
you're making for, for the sake of this discussion.
Let's say that they're making brownies since that's so traditional.
And so you mix it into your brownies and then you bake your brownies. And, and,
and, you know, most of us who have been, you know,
using cannabis for a few decades,
we've all had the experience where you make a batch of
brownies and the first brownie you have is a, uh,
different strength than the fifth brownie,
which is a different strength than the 10th brownie, right?
Because it's kind of just luck of the draw where how much oil
ends up at different parts of the brownie pan.
And so you could eat one and it could, you know, you, you, you're like, okay,
I know that if I eat, you know, a half a brownie, that's about the right amount,
and then you go to eat a different brownie,
and that half a brownie actually has got a whole lot more oil on it just
from luck, you know, from randomness. And now suddenly you're like, you know,
really high and you need to go lay down, and you're like, damn.
Um, I really thought that all those brownies were gonna be the same strength.
And that is very, very hard to do with baked goods, um,
especially in the home, right? Like,
like this primarily happens when people share the cookies or whatever that they
make at their house. And, um, you know, they're, they're moving along,
and they, they just mix the brownie mix or whatever, um,
until it gets the right consistency, well,
it being the right consistency may not be also
homogenized.
And suddenly now you're making brownies that where each one you have is a
lottery ticket to being too stoned. So, um, uh,
that is, that is one significant issue with edibles now. Now,
certainly in the commercial markets where they are increasingly using, um,
isolate and they have more control over their processes, um, you know,
they're a lot of these 10 milligram, uh, gummies, for example,
they're quite, you know, homogenized. Um, you know,
unless any company that's got a worthwhile lab and kitchen is doing
a pretty good job putting those together, so there's not huge swings. Um,
but that's not true, man. You, you get a, you get a company that's,
that's newer or have less, less experienced employees, um,
or you know, what's happening as, you know, some states go medical, right?
Because you get all these people who are trying to go professional for the first
time, and they, they, they made, they made edibles at home, right? For their,
and, and now they're suddenly trying to scale up,
but they haven't learned their lessons and best practices yet.
And so suddenly you've got a new company in a medical market that's putting out
edibles with wild swings, um, with their potency. And,
you know, they'll get complaints and they'll get best practices, and, you know,
eventually with time they'll be more consistent.
But if you're buying from them at a medical shop, you know,
early on in your state's process, uh, chances are very high that you're,
you're gonna get something that's got a certain level of risk to it.
So that's homogenization also, um,
for many of the patients that I talk to, um,
they're not in a position to be taking on these extra sugars and flowers
and artificial colors,
and sometimes even artificial flavorings that edibles have. Um,
especially if you are, um, you know,
an advanced patient and you need edibles, you know, four times a day.
Oh my gosh. Like, let's go back to the brownie example. Like, like,
you shouldn't be having a brownie four times a day or a cookie,
or probably a gummy. And, um, and, you know,
you may decide for you that that's okay, and that's cool.
Like we're all our own empowered patients,
but I'm talking about general best practices and generally speaking,
the edibles that are, are available,
you're not gonna be wanting to eat them four times a day or maybe even every
evening before you go to bed, right? If you're taking it for insomnia.
So you gotta be really aware of, of the, you know,
what your cannabinoids are encapsulated in, right? Are they,
are they surrounded by, you know, sugars and GMO flowers? Um,
certainly there are really healthy, um,
whole plant resin edibles out there. They exist,
but, um, they,
they almost always cost more because they're made with quality food products
and, um, and, you know, they might not have 'em by you. Um,
so the next thing we're gonna talk about is the delayed effect due to digesting,
right? So, um, in,
in our first example when we were talking about smoking at top,
one of the great things about smoking is that it comes on so fast.
You've got all, you know, you, you're peaking on your cannabinoids in your,
in your bloodstream at, you know, 10 to 15 minutes in, um, that's super fast,
right? Um, edibles are the opposite, right? Because, uh,
you're gonna chew it up and then you're gonna swallow it,
and then it hits your gut, and then it goes through your liver,
and then now it's in your, um, blood.
And so it comes on, um, you know,
most people say between 30 to 45 minutes, but for,
but everybody should be aware that sometimes you do get a, a, a sneaker edible,
and it takes a while for your body to process it. Maybe, maybe you had a,
a meal earlier,
and so the edible is actually behind all the other food that's gotta go
through you. And so, yeah, sometimes it does take two hours, but you know,
that's, that's, that's,
that's pretty rare compared to like 30 to 45 minutes. Um,
and so if you need relief now,
waiting for 45 minutes may not be the right solution for you.
So that's something you gotta weigh for yourself and your own needs. Um,
also one thing that's interesting about it is that, um,
when THC goes through the liver,
it changes to 11 hydroxy THC in the liver. Um,
which means that, you know, even though we're, you know,
we're talking about cannabis and even though we're talking about thc,
it's really a different form and it, um, it feels different.
It acts differently on the body. And so this is probably, um,
where the,
the best benefit of edibles comes from because there are
certain patients, um, I would put at the top of the, the list, um, uh, uh,
pain patients, um, rheumatoid arthritis patients, and,
um, uh, pretty much any of the inflammation, uh, diseases,
lots of, um, uh, immune compromised folks.
They find that the 11 hydroxy THC experience that comes from
an edible is far superior to them,
then a Delta nine thc, um, preparation.
And, um, so you'll have to find this out for yourself.
Um, you know,
11 hydroxy THC is not going
to be the choice for most patients,
but for those that it works better for, um,
they become very serious about their edible consumptions and making
sure that they are finding the edible that they can make homogenize that is low
in sugar,
that they can eat the smallest amount of edible and get the more profound
effect. Um, and it,
and it really does become something that the patients are dedicated to. So,
um, so yeah,
sometimes 11 hydroxy THC is the, is the way to go, and you'll just have to, I,
if you are that patient, you will, you will come to that realization yourself.
I just wanna let you know that it's there. So, um, so that's edibles, right? Um,
a a very common way to take thc, um,
but also probably not necessarily the best for most
patients, if you're gonna be taking it every day,
because you can take a tincture or a cannabis oil, um,
that's not gonna have any of those extra sugars and flowers and colors. Oh, my,
okay, the last one we're gonna talk about is suppositories. And, uh, you know,
suppositories are not used all that much, um, because usually, um,
um, you know,
taking your cannabinoids orally is gonna be appropriate for just about
everybody. Um,
but I have certainly worked with patients who came to me because they were
having problems, uh,
taking their cannabis oil orally because they had something going on
that was, um, you know, chronic and dastardly with their gut.
Um, say for example, that their,
their gut was dysregulated and they were not creating, um,
digestion enzymes properly. And so, um, you know,
putting anything into their gut was a really bad experience.
Um, or potentially, um, they have something going on in their gut,
so they can't take any fats or oils into their gut. Well,
you know,
it's true that cannabinoids in cannabis oil are really great for the gut,
but if the vehicle is an oily resin from the plant, um, you know,
some patients, they can't be taking any oil into their gut, and so,
or else you know, it, it causes, um, you know, lots of grief and suffering. So,
so that might be a case as well. Um,
I'm sure that there are other ones that I haven't come across, right? Like,
you know, potential, uh, ulcers or lacerations in the gut that, that,
you know, you might not want to get oil in as well. Um,
but for some people, they, they need to, uh, skip the gut.
Um, also there, there are some other, uh,
ailments that, that suppositories are just a great idea for, for example,
um, for mittal cramping, right? For menstrual cramping, um,
you can use a suppository either in the rectum or in the vagina, and, um,
you will get more targeted placement of the cannabinoids
to relieve your symptoms. Um,
if you are gonna put cannabis oil in, um, a vagina,
be really careful about the amount you use, um,
because you don't want to throw off the pH and, and cause other issues.
Um, luckily we don't really have the same kind of, uh, pH issues, uh,
for the rectum. Um, also rectal cancer, right?
If you are, uh, you know, if you are dealing with, uh, uh, tumors or, or,
uh, such, um, in the rectum, a placing the cannabis oil right there,
um, um, is going to increase the level of, you know,
targeting that you can do for it. And then also if you've got, like, you know,
just general hip pains, right? If you've got,
if you've got pains or discomfort in, you know, in the area between, say,
your belly button and your thighs, right? Like that whole area,
applying it to the rectum may be a solution that works for you.
Now, granted, most people are going to take it orally, and it can work great,
but, um, you know, this is where you decide,
because every patient works out their own protocol in the end. Um, you, you,
you know, you, you learn these things from people who have done it before you,
like, I have, but you know,
you do this for two weeks and now you are gonna become the expert on your body.
And that's what we're, that's what, you know,
good cannabis educators are gonna do, is give you all of the options and say,
choose what works for you. Um, instead of saying, all right,
I have the solution for all patients because, um, you know,
each patient is unique, just like growing, um,
different types of cannabis are unique, you know, uh, and, uh,
and we need to, we need to treat each person, um,
in a way that works the best for them. So, um, if,
if you've decided that suppositories are something that, um,
that might be appropriate for you,
there's lots of great kits out there for making your own at home. Uh, on,
for example, eBay, um, uh, they, they sell these little molds, um,
that mold them into like a, like a little suppository, like a football,
you know. And, um, there's a bunch of different recipes, uh, that you can, um,
that you can use. Some people use shea butter, some people use coconut oil.
Some people use a combination along with a little bit of, uh,
full extract cannabis oil. And, um, you know,
people find what they like.
Some people won't use Shay at all because they don't care for it. Uh,
some people will have different, uh, percentages of each, right?
Um, and so what you do is, you, you would, you would make up,
you'd fill up these little molds with whatever you're gonna put in your
suppository, and then you put 'em in the freezer, right? And then they get hard,
and then you pop 'em out, like ice cubes out of an ice cube tray. And, um,
and then when, when it's time to dose,
you just like pop one of those outta the freezer and you,
you put it where you're gonna put it. And, um, um, you know, ,
it's, you might be cold for a moment, but, uh, it doesn't last long.
It's not like they're that big. And, um, and then it, it melts where you put it.
And so, um, that can be a really great win for, um, a lot of folks.
Um, that said, it doesn't have to be that much work.
Um,
when I was first learning about suppositories and practicing with them so
that, um, I could, um, teach it to patient groups, um,
I went through that whole process and I'm like, oh my God, this is so much work.
And, um, you know, it's so like, kind of oily and everything on my fingers.
Um, in the end, um, you know,
I realized that you can also just take a boring cellulose
cap that, um, that you would use for cannabis oil.
You know, up in the cannabis oil section when we talked about that,
you can just put your,
your cannabis oil in a cellulose cap and put that in your rectum too. Ah,
I don't think I would do that vaginally. Um, I haven't had that experience. Um,
but, but, um, but in your rectum it works. And, um, you know, the,
the, the fluid or that's in your rectum will break down the,
the cap. And, and then you will, you'll, you'll get the oil through the,
the rectal rectum wall, and that works. Um, you know,
um, but you know,
most people do recommend against it just because it's, it's kind of in elegant.
But, um, but you know, if you're, if you're,
if you're a serious cannabis patient and you are already to the point that you
need to be taking suppositories, you are probably, um,
doing what you need to do and don't really care about elegance anyway. Um,
so by the time you're at that point,
you're doing what you need to do to not suffer. But, you know, there is, there,
there are the great options cuz you know,
there is nothing as luxurious as a shea butter and coconut oil suppository
, but, but you know, if you don't have the time for that, um, or,
or the money for the inputs, um, putting it in a, uh,
a vegan cellulose cap works as well. Um, alright, so that,
that was a great topic to end this set on. Um, so, uh,
so my goal at this point in the show was for you to have, um,
a really solid understanding of the different methods,
um, of cannabis, uh, intake,
and a good picture for yourself of the endocannabinoid system,
why we are taking cannabis at all so on from this platform.
Um, we will now in the second set, um, uh, go into, uh,
specific cannabinoids and understanding the amount of each that we would
wanna take, um, to reach different effects.
So we're gonna go ahead and take a short break and be right back.
You are listening to the hundredth episode of Shaping Fire. And I am sh golos.
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Pit moss. Welcome back.
You are listening to the hundredth episode of Shaping Fire, and I am your host,
Shang Golos. During the first set,
we talked about the endocannabinoids and made sure you had a decent
understanding of that,
and then we talked about the different methods of getting cannabinoids into your
body.
And so you're starting to get an idea of how your body functions
and the different ways that we can add the cannabinoids, um,
to meet your particular needs, um, as a cannabis patient.
So now on, um, set two, what we're gonna talk about is, um,
the specific dosing, um,
for particular cannabinoids that are commonly available
and that we have actually got some decent research on. So, you know,
I'm not gonna go through all of the cannabinoids that exist because some of them
we barely know anything about yet. Um, however, um,
we do know quite a bit about, uh,
THC and cbd B D and we know a bit about cbg
and so we are going to cover those. And the idea is that, you know,
with those three, you can get well on your way to, uh, relieving your symptoms.
Um, and also once you understand how to think about individual cannabinoids,
as new cannabinoids become popular and the research starts to come out, um,
you'll,
you'll have a good idea of how to think through bringing a new cannabinoid into,
um, you know, your health protocol. So, you know,
we have to start with a conversation about isolates and whole plant,
um, resin. Um, I would've originally, and I would've been the old days,
say that whole plant resin versus isolates because historically I have
not been a fan of isolates. But, um,
over time as the quality from some distributors have increased and,
um, you know, some people don't have access to certain novel cannabinoids.
Um, it does, there is a place for isolates, uh,
in the health program of many cannabis patients. And so, uh,
I really can't, um, justify writing them off anymore. Um,
though it's very important to know what their good uses are and where their
limitations are. So, so first of all, let's, um, let's go back a little bit.
So historically people sought whole plant cannabinoids
simply because, um, it was the only thing that existed. I mean,
the people took the plant and they used the resin as they got it off the plant,
either by smoking the plant or, or, uh,
mechanically removing the trichomes and making hash, um, or,
you know, as, as, uh, solvents were developed, um, mixing it with, uh,
ethanol alcohol. Um, so whole plant was like the whole deal.
But as technology evolved, um, the creation of isolates became possible.
And pharmaceutical companies were very interested in isolating these compounds
so that they could study 'em for potential future healing products in the
future. And, um, you know, if you're not familiar with the term isolate,
the isolate just means a single molecule of the cannabinoids.
So,
so one single molecule of thc or one single molecule of cbd,
whereas in a whole plant resin, you're getting a melan of,
of different, um, cannabinoids and flavanoids and, you know,
fats and all these other things that, that make for this particular synergy,
which works so well with the human body. So, you know,
the first time I saw that there was a really good, uh,
reason to consider CBD is, was in the early days of cbd,
before CBD plants were available just anywhere. Um, there was a time,
you know, not too long ago, let's see, um,
let's call it like seven or eight years ago, um,
where people started wanting C B D, but getting your hands on,
on plants that were bred with CBD was,
was pretty challenging unless you lived in California, you know, when you were,
you were getting 'em from folks there who were intentionally trying to spread
them out. And so, um,
we got to a point where people wanted CBD and they especially wanted C b D in
their cannabis oil concentrate,
but it just wasn't to be had in any kind of significant dosage. And so,
uh, companies started filling that void by, uh,
extracting CBD single molecule isolate from the cannabis plant and selling
that separately as a powder. And, you know, like I said, I was pretty, uh,
pretty against that at the time as, as being an overprocessed product. Um,
but after I got over myself and realized that, you know,
you didn't have to take CBD powder alone and,
and we would eventually find out that CBD powder is helpful for some
applications,
that the important thing was people should have the understanding
that they can spike their regular THC dominant cannabis
oil with C B D to expand the benefits. A great deal.
And I, uh, I remember speaking first with Dr.
Sunil Agarwal at the, uh, Washington Cannabis Conference.
I asked him while he was speaking whether or not he thought that spiking
THC dominant cannabis oil with C B D to make it
slightly more whole plant, right? Since, since CBD used to be in, uh,
land race plants, but we progressively bred out over the years,
so our cannabis plants were stronger in thc. So, you know, a a land race,
a natural plant actually has a lot more C b D in it. Then, um,
then the bread plants that,
that are are used for more recreational, um, uh,
use nowadays. And he said, yeah, he's like, he said,
that would make sense to me, uh, to him, Dr. Sunil Agarwal. And he said that,
um, you know, until,
until more plants can be evolved that have a significant amount of CBD
in them, and they can be distributed across the country,
if you can get CBD isolate, go ahead and, and,
and add that into your brew when you are making your,
um, your THC dominant RSO or cannabis oil.
And I was caught off guard, but I considered myself, um, you know,
smarter for it. And then, um, on an episode with Dr.
Ethan Russo about five years ago, I asked him the same question. He said, yeah,
yeah, you know, if if you, if you need CBD and you can't find whole plant cbd,
well go ahead and, and take the isolate and then spike your,
your cannabis oil because your THC dominant canus oil will have the thc of
course. Plus it'll have a whole bunch of those other, you know, um,
flavonoids and can flavin and, and, and novel cannabinoids and trace amounts.
And then you're adding a, um, you know,
he dose of C B D from the isolate. And while, um,
everyone agreed that, that when possible,
it's always better to just extract the plant and take the plant as is, um,
you know, we don't live in a perfect world. And sometimes you need to,
sometimes you need to spike your oil with a cannabinoid you need. So, um,
so another thing that's, uh, interesting to consider when comparing, um,
ice isolates and the whole plant is that in the early days of cannabis research,
they were doing cannabis research with the whole plant resin, right?
And so the early studies that you can look up when you,
when you read what they were using and, and how they actually performed it, um,
they were extracting a, uh,
a THC dominant resin and experimenting with that. But as,
um, you know, creeping normalization started and, and companies,
pharmaceutical companies started, um, uh,
considering what pharmaceutical products they were gonna make out of it. Well,
suddenly the medical study scientific studies started, uh,
focusing more on isolate. Because, you know,
the two main advantages of isolate are that number one,
you do isolate the molecule.
And so you can be sure, um,
for repeatability of results because, um, you can,
you can make that isolate molecule discreet from all the other
components that are usually in resin. And then second, you can't, um,
you can't patent the plant.
But if they made a medicine and they made it out of isolate, uh, well,
then they would be able to patent that and call it a product and sell it,
which is how you get products likes ofx. So, um,
so if you look at the, uh, if you look at the scientific studies now,
they are much more dominantly using isolate now,
um, to varying results. And, um, and,
and one thing we know is generally you need to take a whole lot more isolate to
get the same kind of results that you normally get with a whole plant resin.
And, uh, and that when you take isolate, um, it,
your efficacy goes up to a point and then it plateaus. Whereas, um,
when you take whole plant because of all the synergistic materials, um,
generally speaking, the more you take, the more reaction you're gonna get.
It's worthwhile to note too that, uh,
whether or not you want to use isolates or a whole plant often just depends on
how much money you've got. Um,
there is no question that isolate is far more affordable than a whole plant
resin. Um, you know, your mileage may vary with it, but if,
if it's what you can afford and it happens to give you benefit, we'll then,
you know, you should definitely go for it. Um, it's really interesting, um,
as the market for cannabis medicines and other fund products evolve,
how odd the, the price ratios work. So, for example, um,
whole plant resin is very expensive compared
to isolate single molecule. And so, you know,
you need to have enough money to be able to afford the resin.
And when it comes to CBD resin,
most patients their dosages as much as they can actually afford,
because they always want more. And so in this case,
the the resin is very expensive and the isolate is very inexpensive. However,
in contrast, if you are a cancer patient and you are trying to use,
um, THC to straight up beat the cancer,
and you're taking a 90 day THC protocol versus doing chemo,
well suddenly now a THC cannabis oil is very
affordable, right? Because, you know,
spending 1500 to $2,000 for, um,
60 syringes to take over 90 days, um,
is very affordable versus a round of chemo and all the associated costs
of that. So, you know, um, we can't jump to any conclusions about this is,
you know, cannabis medicine is so expensive, or cannabis medicine is so cheap,
or don't use this, or don't,
we really need to think it through for each patient what their
unique needs are and what their financial capabilities are.
So yet another reason why, you know,
we really don't wanna just group cannabis patients into big buckets and tell
them what's good for everybody, because, because each patient is really unique.
All right? With that discussion of whole plant resin versus isolates, um,
past us, um, let's go ahead and talk about, um,
the first cannabinoid we wanna talk about in detail. And that,
of course is the very popular thc. And by that I mean delta nine thc,
tetra hydro cannabinol. And so this is the one that, um, you know,
people have known about, um, forever. And it's the one that if you take enough,
um, you can get intoxicated. Um, they referring to that as a euphoric.
Um, but you don't have to take that much.
And for most of the things that patients need, um, you do not need to take, uh,
enough that, that you will necessarily get high. But,
but let's talk about in in detail.
So a THC strongly activates the CB one receptors in the body and the
endocannabinoid system triggering a feeling of euphoria.
And this activation also increases the blood flow,
blood flow to the prefrontal cortex in the front of your brain,
which is the area that controls your ability to focus as well as your motor
skills and attention and memory and like your, your ability to make decisions.
And then THC also interacts with CB two receptors, uh, providing the,
the analgesic or pain relieving effect, um,
also giving muscle relaxation and antic effects,
which is like helping with nausea and vomiting.
When we're thinking about THC dosing,
we have to be really aware that there are two different timeframes for thc.
You've got,
what can THC help with me today and what will THC
help me with over, over the time?
So the short term effects of THC are, number one, it's an analgesic that,
uh, lessens and softens your experience of the pain. Um,
it's a distracting and meaning that you forget about your ailment and you can
focus on other things for a while, like, you know,
working or caring for the kids or focusing on a fun activity. And, um, you know,
when I say it's a distracting, it,
it kind of just makes you forget about the thing that you are suffering from,
which is why it's especially good for PTSD patients, right?
They can set aside their,
their memories of a trauma or of a war zone or a of a bad experience,
and for a moment be distracted by the use of the thc,
which allows them to do other things that give their life, um, value. And so,
and, and honestly,
that's one of the I I'd additional ways that THC is an analgesic,
cuz like,
not only does it soften your experience of the pain and kind of turn down the
volume, but then it distracts you from it as well.
And so THC actually helps with pain in, in two different modes.
It's also an anti-inflammatory. And so, um,
this is used a lot by people who are experiencing, you know,
rheumatoid arthritis or, you know,
just regular arthritis or of swelling or in inflammation of the joints.
Uh, so in the, in the short term, once you take some thc,
those will go down temporarily as part of the short term effects.
We'll talk about that more in the longer term effects. Um, as mentioned,
it's also an amatic, um, meaning that it decreases nausea.
It's a muscle relaxant, which, which decreases spasticity. And, and,
and if you're unfamiliar with that, that is the, the,
the involuntary clenching of your muscles that make your body feel all tight
and stuff. And and we can apply this to lots of different types of patients,
right? Um, Parkinson's patients, uh, who, um, have got tremors,
uh, also Parkinson's patients who start to get crampy and they, they start to,
um, hunch over, um,
people who have got pain pretty much anywhere in their body because very often
the other side of their body starts to clench in response to the side that
you're trying to, um, keep safe, right?
You're trying to keep one side of your body, um, out of harm's way,
which means that your other side of your body is doing more work.
And those muscles, uh, tend to get tight and annoyed. Um,
and then also when you have muscles that are relaxed,
it decreases your experience of stress. I mean, so often with stress, we, again,
we clench our body and as soon as we're like, ah,
and you can kind of like open up and your muscles feel relaxed, um,
your anxiety will go down with it and the thc, THC can, um,
help with that as well. And then finally,
it can help with sleep due to relaxation,
because if you're having a hard time sleeping because you're stressed out and
tight and in your pain, um,
you add some THC and suddenly your muscles are relaxed and your pain is turned
down and you're kind of distracted from it, and, um,
some varieties of THC can cause drowsiness and lethargy will boom,
there you go. It's gonna help with, um, with your sleep now.
And that lethargy can be used for other things too,
or combined with other things. So if, if you were to get a,
a THC plant that also is high in terpenes like Meine or Lin Lu,
which are both relaxing, um, you're,
you're really setting up a good combination for somebody who has insomnia,
especially if they're insomnia is compounded by discomfort when
they're trying to, um, go to sleep. It's also, uh,
really good for people who are, uh,
who have just had surgery because so many of us, after we've had surgery,
we're like, okay, I'm feeling better.
I wanna like start moving around the house. And we're like, no,
you're supposed to stay in that bed for a week and, and like,
I'm supposed to bring you food and, and people start to get antsy.
But if you give them some, some cannabis tincture, well, you know,
they can, they can enjoy that lethargy,
take more naps and like, you know, be more easily entertained with like,
color book coloring books and crosswords and word searches and stuff.
Stuff that just like keeps them in bed so their body can heal.
And the last short term effect of thc, I'm gonna hit it here, is, um,
as an appetite, uh, stimulant. And, you know,
we can all joke about getting the munchies and,
and sometimes it is very funny and sometimes it's dangerous cuz we eat all of
our food. But, um, but for folks who actually are having a difficulty eating,
um, perhaps because they are going through, um, you know,
a cancer treatment or some other kind of treatment that, um,
suppresses the appetite or they're depressed or,
or anything that's gonna decrease the appetite, um,
very often if you use cannabis while suddenly, um, you're feeling snacky,
um, because THC interacts with the hunger part of the brain and also,
uh, thc, um, makes food taste better and smell better.
And so you're more likely to, uh, to smell or, you know,
smell food being made in the other room and start to salivate and you're like,
oh my gosh, I'm actually hungry. And so, uh,
so those are the short term effects of thc.
So there are additional benefits for specific ailments, but this,
this list gives you a good understanding of the most commonly used benefits of
thc. And, and one or more of these are,
are probably appropriate for you or the patient that you're working with. So,
so those are all the things that THC will do for you now, today,
as soon as you take it. So now,
when taken over time from once a day to twice a day or more for a few
weeks, these daily benefits start to stack up. Um,
one of those reasons is a decrease in chronic inflammation, right? If,
if you're taking THC and in that moment you're pushing back
the inflammation a little bit, if you continue to do that over time,
you will be decreasing your overall inflammation,
not just decreasing it a little bit for, for the next four hours.
But if you decrease it now and then you take THC again in four hours,
and then you take it again in four hours, and then you do that tomorrow,
you can, um, decrease your, I guess,
standard inflammation that your body has, uh,
which buys you some time to decrease your discomfort while you are
trying to figure out what is causing your inflammation and,
and decreasing those and decrease those causes. Um,
the second long term THC benefit that I will tell you is probably
the one that's the most important, and that is, uh, apoptosis, um,
THC kills cancer cells. And, um,
it's very interesting to watch it happen in a Petri dish.
A a THC molecule come up against a cancer cell
and, and burst its side wall, um,
which I swear has gotta be the word where the term apoptosis comes from.
And, um, and it kills the cancer cell. And so, you know, if you just took,
um, THC today, um, you know, it would kill some cancer cells and that's great.
And that's why a lot of people use it as a, um, you know, some,
a preventative for cancer. Because if there are any cancer cells in your body,
the THC will hopefully mop them up while they're still small.
But if you are taking THC every day, you're, you're, you're,
you're killing cancer cells now and then you're killing more in four hours and
then more in four hours, and then more in four hours,
and then you sleep and then you do it again tomorrow.
And so as you start to stack these days, um, next to each other, um,
suddenly you are decreasing the size of tumors and other forms of cancer. And,
and we have seen significant, um, you know,
both scientific and anecdotal evidence that this works for a great many people
on a variety of cancers. And so, um, you know, uh,
hopefully there will be another episode like this where, um,
where I'll be doing it solo and I can, I can lay out the, um, you know,
the entire application of, of the cancer protocol. But, uh, for now,
just understand that it causes apoptosis and it's a great thing to take as a
preventative. And finally, um, kind of in the same category as the,
as the appetite stimulant, that's a short term effect long term, um,
you can get weight gain from the appetite. And,
and so for people who have got like a wasting disease or they're just losing
weight long term because they're depressed, well, you know, the, the,
the munchies that you have today and tomorrow and the third day,
they start to add up and you start putting weight on and,
and hopefully start feeling better. So, okay, so, um,
now that we've kind of got an idea of what the short term effects are and the
longer term effects of taking, uh, THC generally, um,
let's start about talking about some real specifics of, of the amounts, the,
the milligrams that we're talking about when taking thc. So, um,
the first benchmark we wanna look at is, um,
a generally a sub perceptible dosage of 2.5
milligrams. Now at 2.5 milligrams, um, you really shouldn't feel it at all.
It would be, it would be a surprise if your patient felt it. Now, um,
they may have anxiety about it, and so they may think that they're feeling it,
um, because placebo is a strong thing. Um,
but generally at 2.3, unless, unless somebody is exceptionally sensitive,
they're not gonna feel it yet. So 2.5 is,
is generally pretty safe for most people, um, who are either, um,
scared of the intoxication experience or they've got control issues and they
don't like to feel like they are in any way, um, out of control.
Or perhaps they had a really negative, um,
THC high when they were younger, and they just never wanna feel that again.
And yet they need THC for some reason. And so for these people,
we start them off at, uh, 2.5, uh, milligrams, which honestly,
the most of us who use cannabis regularly might scoff at 2.5.
If you're taking 2.5 milligrams of thc three to four times a day every
three to four hours, and you're doing that every day,
you are going to see tremendous results with your arthritis and,
and other sorts of inflammatory, um, issues, um,
that just need to be addressed every day in a small amount and not
today in a large amount. So, so don't rule out, um,
2.5 milligrams. Uh, it can also be used to, you know,
create appetite and, uh, to a lesser extent,
but it is true to, uh,
give you a little bit of muscle relaxation for just like physical comfort.
So that, that would be our first, our first benchmark is 2.5 milligrams, but,
but five milligrams is where most people start to feel it in some way.
Um, it's often compared to one glass of wine for most people, and this is, this,
five milligrams is a, is the baseline dose for most cannabis patients.
Once patients get comfortable here, um,
many to most we'll move up to 10 milligrams if they also like
the feeling of it being a slight euphoric, right? Because if,
if the job that you need is getting done at five milligrams,
but if you take 10 milligrams and it's also pleasurable, well,
you know, a lot of people go to that 10 milligram mark pretty quickly, um,
just because they're like, well, if my medicine can make me feel good, like,
okay, let's do that. Um, you'll find that, uh, the majority of, uh,
edibles that are sold in, um, medical and licensed recreational shops,
um, are 10 milligrams because it, it just seems to be a, um, a,
a uniform dose that can, um,
help a wide range of people. And so they'll give you, you know, whatever it is,
uh, 10 milligram gummies, 10 milligram cookies, um,
10 milligram gum drops, you know, like whatever. Um, they'll, they'll,
they'll likely give you 10 of those to a package.
So there'll be 10 milligrams each,
and then they'll be in a package of a hundred milligrams that you can just take
yourself. And so, um, at, at this,
at this five to 10 area, um, you're gonna need to,
I mean, if you don't have an experience with cannabis already, um,
starting with 10 milligrams might surprise you. And so, um,
this is one of the reasons why I recommended, um, tincture earlier in the show,
because if, if you have zero experience with cannabis, um, starting with 10, um,
milligrams, it might be great, but then also it, it might not be for you.
There's, there, there is a lot of variability in folks,
and even though 10 milligrams sounds low to people who use cannabis all the
time, um,
to somebody who's particularly sensitive and they've got a lot of CB one and CB
two receptors,
and so their body takes on a lot of that THC really fast.
They could have an uncomfortable, um, you know,
dysphoric experience and it happens all the time. So whenever possible,
you know, um,
perhaps start with a tincture and experiment at 2.5 and five
and 10 and kind of find out what your appropriate dosage
is for what you're trying to take care of. Um, and then, and then to,
to understand what the really high end of the numbers look like. Um, let's,
let's, let's talk about extreme examples. So, so,
so if we're talking about like five or 10 milligrams for most folks,
if taken regularly, um, in contrast,
it's common for cancer patients seeking to beat the cancer to take as much as
750 milligrams of THC of whole plant oil extract
every day divided into three servings of 250 milligrams.
So,
so we're comparing a potential 10 milligram THC serving to
a 250 milligrams serving three times a day.
That's a whole bunch and actually a devastating amount actually. And, um,
you know, you don't start at that, at that dosage. You know,
part of the cannabis, uh, cancer protocol is that you tight trade in.
So you're starting with, you know, lower amounts and then over,
over the weeks you increase the amount that you're taking with the hope that by
the time you're taking 250 milligrams at a time, um,
that you've got some amount of THC and awareness of what it is to be high
and, and, you know, awareness of what it means to be, um,
kind of uncontrollably high. Um,
there are certainly people who can handle 250 milligrams, um, you know,
no sweat,
but the vast majority of people will be absolutely blown out at
250 milligrams to the point that, you know,
they could be questioning their sanity, right? Which is,
which is why you don't just take 250 milligrams without knowing what
you're doing and in a cancer protocol,
why you titrate your your way in so you build up over time.
It's also important to understand that the, the,
the maximum dose of THC that is necessary for a patient is really their
call.
And even though somebody might not be taking high levels of THC intentionally to
cause apoptosis in cancer,
there are other very unique patients who take extraordinary amounts
of, of thc. Um, you know, my,
my my most significant example is my buddy Nick Ryden, um, back in Michigan.
He's a cannabis and dog breeder who also has Lyme disease.
And when I first visited him at his home, uh,
I was astonished to see him taking 400 or 500 milligrams of THC and cannabis
oil three to four times a day. And I was just astonished as, as he's just like,
you know, squirting these syringes into his mouth to, um,
to help quell his seizures and ease his pain. And, and, and I was,
I was just astonished watching it, and I was actually afraid for him,
but he's like, oh man, I do this every day. This is, this is all right. And,
and so, you know, this is,
this is where patients start to really have to grow their own cannabis because
being able to afford that much as a patient on the open market is, is, um,
very unrealistic. And so why I always, um, you know, stand up for,
for patients having the rights to grow their own and be, um, self-sufficient.
So the next thing we're gonna talk about is, um, you know,
once you're going over 10 milligrams,
you're gonna learn how your particular body responds, um, from thc,
and you can move away from dosage guidelines, um, like this one. Um,
because all it's gonna take is, is a couple weeks of you, uh,
taking THC every day and, and you are going to learn what works for you.
And so guides like this are to help you understand
how to think about cannabis dosing, but once you're doing it,
you become the expert for your body because everybody's body really is
different. This is why I always recommend that people keep a, uh,
a dosing journal of their cannabis use because, um,
over time you might forget how much you used to take for this or that, or,
or you, you might wanna look back and see how you try titrate it in. Um, also,
if,
if you're gonna bother to tell your doctor about your THC use as,
as part of your overall health solution, um,
doctors like really dig it if you can show them that you're taking, that you're,
you know, keeping a journal and that you're tracking this stuff, um,
cuz so many doctors are already very suspicious of cannabis medicine,
but if you can show that you're doing it in a controlled air quotes
responsible way, um, you know, they might be more likely to, to,
you know, play with you and, and, and not give you, you know,
a hard time about using it. So, um,
there are two varieties of black swan patients that we need to talk about
before we end this, um, this discussion of, of THC specifically.
Um, the first one, um, we're gonna talk about our rapid metabolizers. Um,
there is a variety of human that just metabolizes everything super fast.
And, uh,
I have worked with these patients and they metabolize THC so fast and,
and often mushrooms and Ls, L S D and, um, you know,
anything you give them, they,
they metabolize it super fast to get almost no effect.
And, um, we have to know that these folks exist. I,
I worked with this one patient who, um,
had no experience with cannabis prior, and then they decided that they,
um, you know, needed to take it for their health. And so they started with,
you know, the, you know,
the 2.55 milligram 10 milligram and like didn't feel anything,
and so then moved up to 40 and didn't feel anything and,
and they found that their, um, uh,
efficacious dose was actually, um,
80 milligrams of THC at a time. And,
and this patient was still like doing stuff around the house and being
productive and it's, it's,
it's actually what they needed to take care of their, um,
their ailment and function like a normal human. But,
but if you told me that somebody who had only been taking THC for two weeks was
already at 80 milligrams, I would fear for them, you know, that they, that,
that they were taking so much that, um, you know, if,
if they took that 80 milligram amount that they would have a very bad day. Um,
and yet this,
this patient just like worked titrated themselves up over the course of four or
five days, and now they sit at 80 milligrams and you know,
that kind of rapid metabolizer is very rare,
but if you are a caregiver, you know,
it's also important that you know that it exists. And if you are a patient, um,
now you have keywords to, um,
to search so that you can show your caregivers that yes, you, you,
you may require this much thc. Um,
the second variety of black swan is that it's estimated that about one in 10,000
patients are wildly sensitive to thc. Um, the point where,
you know, only a, a gram or two, or excuse me,
a milligram or two is, uh,
going to give them a very bad experience. And I've only seen this once. Um,
uh, a patient, uh, reached out to me during their very bad experience. They,
they took a, um,
a five milligram tincture that they got at the, uh,
licensed store and they experienced dysphoria,
hallucinations and,
and like intense energy for 12 hours from such a small dose.
And honestly, I wouldn't have believed it if I hadn't first,
if I hadn't seen it firsthand.
And I was familiar with that product and knew that, um,
that analytics on it were, were likely right and,
and that that dose is so small and,
and should have such an incredibly small effect. But I, I saw it happen.
And so, um,
we do do need to be aware that on the rare occasion you can give a very small
dose to a patient and they will have an outside resized
response to it. And, um, they're gonna need some support in, you know,
just trying to stay calm and feel okay until it wears off,
like towards the end of the day. So, um, you know,
I hope for you that you don't come across either rapid metabolizers or,
or hypersensitive folks to THC because, um, it,
it's always a real surprise and, and as a caregiver, um, you know,
you feel so bad for 'em, you know, because they're, they're, they're,
they're trying to do their best with cannabis medicine and now they're like
blown out and they've had a really bad experience and, um,
and now they, they now they really hate cannabis medicine. So, um, so I, I,
I hope that, um, I hope that you aren't one and I hope that you don't, you know,
come across them in your work. All right, so let's move on to CBD Now,
you probably have got a pretty good idea how to work with THC at this point,
hopefully. So, so cbd, um, which stands for cannabidiol,
uh, it activates the CB one and CB two receptors,
but to a much lesser extent than THC does. Um,
it doesn't cause intoxication, but it's is certainly psychoactive. You know,
a lot of people say, oh, it's not psychoactive, but, um, while it,
it won't get you high like THC will, um, it is definitely,
certainly psychoactive in the sense that it can change perceptions by bettering
your mood. Um,
how CBD exerts its therapeutic impact on a molecular level is still being
sorted out. Um, cannabidiol is a pleo pleotropic drug,
which I don't usually have much,
much opportunity to say in that it produces many effects through multiple
molecular pathways.
The scientific literature has identified more than 65 molecular targets of
C B D, and the study of these pathways has always only just begun.
So while we do talk about C B D interacting somewhat
with the CB one and CB two receptors,
it isn't that they overdose don't interact with receptors,
they interact with a lot of things, and we're just now trying to,
you know, figure out what those, what those other types of, of receptors, um,
might be, what those might look like.
CBD is a very active signaling molecule, and it's one of the most useful,
um, cannabinoids for the endocannabinoid system. Um,
because of this variety of 65 plus targets. Um,
it does a lot, uh, to support the endocannabinoid system.
It feels very much like a utility player, like whatever's needed, you know,
come, you know, fill in, you know, uh,
phyto cannabinoid version of CBD to replace endo cannabinoids.
And so it's, um, it's definitely a workhorse. Um, similar to thc,
CBD has benefits now and benefits later, uh,
for certain THC is more of a, help me today,
cannabinoid and CBD is a bit more of a help me tomorrow cannabinoid,
because for most of its applications,
it takes time to strengthen the endocannabinoid system.
But it's true that CBD two has some today benefits. So, so let's,
let's talk about short term and long term benefits just like we did with thc.
So, uh, shorter term benefits of cbd. Number one,
the most low hanging fruit, uh, brain chemistry, mood, anxiety,
and stress. Um, this is of, of all the things that I tell people, you know,
you need to give CBD some time to do its job when it comes to mood,
anxiety and stress. This is something that it can help you, um, you know,
like within an hour depending on dose and your receptibility to it. Um,
then the reason is,
is because cannabidiol stimulates the five h t one a
serotonin receptor.
And so you take it and it goes and it activates it and, um,
your mood, your brain chemistry will start to even out. Um,
as we talked at the top of the show in the first set, the,
the main goal of the endocannabinoid system is to balance,
um, the body's other systems.
And that is what's what's happening in this effect if,
if your chemistry has swung one way or another, causing you to be either be,
you know, depressed or anxious, um,
CBD will help bring you back to the balance place where you can be your best.
Um, it is also an antiemetic and an anti nausea like THC is.
And when you use them together, they work together to be even more effective.
And then C b D binds to, uh, they're called Trip V one receptors, uh,
T R P V one receptors, which also function as ion channels.
And so these trip V one s are known to mediate pain, um,
and inflammation and body temperature.
But the main thing that people are looking to it for is to mediate pain.
So, um, CBD of course,
is handling the experience of pain very differently than THC does.
And so when people put cannabis all in one bucket on how it helps with pain,
um, you know that they don't really understand the medicine very well because,
uh, thc, as we've already learned,
it helps by being a natural analgesic and decreasing the, um,
the muscle contraction as well as, uh, being a distraction, right?
Well, C B D in its own way, um, it, uh,
activates the trip V one, which mediates the pain perception.
So it kind of just like turns down the volume of your experience of it.
So when, again, when you have CBD and THC together, um,
they work really well at decreasing pain today.
So the longer term pen of benefits of CBD are usually what people are going for.
Very often the short term benefits, people are looking to, uh,
THC for help, and, and they may have heard CBD helps, but,
but realistically, c's, um,
most effective role is to strengthen the endocannabinoid system so
it can do its job, right?
And so the longer term benefits of CBD would be number one,
first and foremost to strengthen the endocannabinoid system so it
can do its job in rebalancing, uh, the various body's systems.
And the body can heal itself.
It just needs some more signaling molecules and cbd,
because it targets these, um, 65, uh,
different receptors. Um,
it has a little bit of help for all the different systems.
And so it is a great thing to supplement yourself with every day to strengthen
your body's ability to take care of itself.
CBD also exerts an anti-cancer effect as well,
and I won't get too much into the mechanics of it, but,
but what it does is it, it, it has an anti-proliferative effect, which means,
um, it slows down cancer's ability to replicate itself.
And, uh, again, if you're taking it every day over time, uh,
you would have, uh, the CBD slowing the, uh,
increase in number of cancer cells,
and then you'd also have THC coming in and bursting those cells.
So they're a very good team in this regard. Um,
also another great thing is that, um,
CBD tends to kick off the body's housekeeping mechanisms.
And so it is helping take care of, of things that if,
if allowed to go neglected over a long term, um,
can get especially worse. So for example, um, uh,
when you take C B D, um,
it activates the P P R gamma,
which degrades the amyloid beta plaque in the brain.
And when this plaque builds up,
it is linked to the development of Alzheimer's disease.
And so when you are taking C B D as a
prophylactic, like daily, just so things don't get bad or worse for you,
you are actually sting off a,
a certain amount of potential of Alzheimer's in the future.
We've also seen patients that have, like,
they're starting to have dementia and then they start with a pretty heavy daily
use of C B D and their dementia tends to calm down.
Um, both probably because of this, uh,
p P ar gamma activation. Um,
but also because C B D causes neurogenesis the creation of
new brain cells, new neurons, especially the ones that are,
uh,
dopamine excreting and these dopamine excreting neurons,
um, help stave off, um, things like Parkinson's.
And so it really is helpful to use C B D on a daily basis.
Um, you know, probably for everybody,
since we know that just about everybody is suffering from endocannabinoid
deficiency, but especially as you're getting older and
your body isn't working as well as it used to,
and you're starting to forget things and you're starting to be more aware of a
potential dementia or Parkinson's in your future, like,
like you don't wanna go too long without supplementing your
endocannabinoid system so it can do the business of keeping you healthy.
Now, if you really wanna dive into understanding cbd,
the only place I recommend is project c b.org that I mentioned at the top
of this show. Um, founder Martin Lee has put together a,
an exceptional cannabis resource for patients,
and it's the only online source that I fully trust.
So the articles are written in layman's terms,
and then they also provi provide direct links to the original scientific papers.
So, so don't forget project c d, it is a, it is a great,
and as far as I'm concerned, the only place to go online.
So there's a great deal of confusion and debate about the proper dosing
of C B D. So when using whole plant,
we can offer c b milligram suggestions,
but the other cannabinoids in the resin will always play an uncontrolled
role because we don't know how C B D might interact with the canna
flavin that is also in the resin and what they might be doing synergistically
together. So CBD in a whole resin goes further than just a CBD
isolate because it's got its partners in the resin,
all the other components of the resin, they're with it.
And so because of that CBD whole resin will almost, nearly always give you a,
um, a better
efficacious experience than just isolate alone. But again,
if you don't have access to CBD resin or you can't afford it
at the amount that you need, uh, by all means give a high quality cbd,
isolate a try and see if that will help you. All right.
So with that, let's talk to, let's talk some specific numbers.
So looking back to 2015, when I was first recommending CBD to patients,
you know,
doctors willing to take a position at all said that about 10 milligrams
per day of whole plant cbd, um,
was good for,
as a supplement that would support a healthy person to stay healthy.
And I think that the actuality for healthy people is probably
twice that. So 10 milligrams twice a day,
once in the morning and once again after lunch, um, not in the evening.
Cuz about 20% of people find CBD stimulating and, um,
not stimulating in a way of like coffee or caffeine or anything like that.
It more stimulating where, um, when people take this cbd,
suddenly their body wants to do that housekeeping stuff like removing the plaque
on the synapses in the brain and, uh, cleaning up the mucus off the,
the, the, um, Celia in the gut.
And so you don't really want to kick all that stuff off,
um, as you are, um, you know, trying to, trying to go to sleep. And so,
but you know, that's only about 20% of patients.
But I don't recommend that people take, uh, C B d uh,
in the evening unless they've already had a trial, right?
And you don't wanna do your trial like on a work night or a school night or
something like that. Try it on a, try it on a Saturday. So,
so that you make sure that you're not reactive to C B D and, uh,
making it more difficult to sleep. So as soon as you have something wrong,
that number of 10 milligrams twice a day will jump up.
And if you're actively working on an issue like arthritic inflammation,
migraines, IBS, or something like that, um,
you immediately are gonna wanna jump up to more like 20 to 40 milligrams twice a
day. Um, and,
and that will work on your endocannabinoid system at a rate that you're likely
to see something even maybe within a week.
But I always recommend a full month of daily C B D as a trial
because it,
it does take your body some time to rebuild the endocannabinoid system enough to
probably meet your goals. And we don't know how many, uh, uh,
c b receptors that you have in your body. You might have more or less.
So it may take longer for your body to get the reaction to the daily
supplementation of CBD that you're looking for. And, you know, a month is,
it's not too long, but it is enough, right? If, if,
if you've taken it for a month and you're taking enough every day and you're not
really seeing results at the end of the month, well,
you might as well put your money elsewhere. Now,
if you're dealing with something big and chronic like rheumatoid arthritis or
lupus, or multiple sclerosis or just wicked joint pain,
the right answer for most people is probably to take as much as you can
afford. And this is so frustrating to patients when I'm talking to them because,
um, you know,
if they've got something serious and whole plant is expensive and sometimes
hard to find, um, they're just all like, well, how much do I need?
And, and I'm all like, well, you know, it's expensive. How much can you afford?
And which is a very frustrating answer, and I, and I understand that.
So I try to give them an idea of how many milligrams of CBD they want,
and then they start doing the math and they're like, oh man, you know, that's,
that's half of a cbd, uh, syringe,
and I need that, you know, twice a day. So you're going through like one a day.
And depending where you are in the country,
those CBD syringes can be anywhere between 30 and 80 bucks each. And,
um, it's not like the old days where, um, you know, in,
in many states medical systems when you were buying from, from the grower,
um, there was always a discount to people who had, uh, chronic illnesses,
especially people who, um, were fighting cancer.
Because by the time you're fighting cancer, most people are broke when they,
when they find their way to cannabis. And so, um,
it's very challenging to recommend CBD for people who
who need a lot of it. And, you know, perhaps for some of those people,
a good solution will be to purchase C B D, um,
whole plant oil in a syringe, and then maybe even spike it with,
with isolate to get more bang for your buck. Now, um,
I have a chronic disease and I take 80 milligrams twice a day,
but I grow my own and I make my own oil.
So my costs are much lower than at a licensed store. And this, again,
is why I'm a big proponent of cannabis patient self-sufficiency.
And I really hope that our society continues to increase our support of that.
So before I go on to the Black Swan patients around
cbd,
I wanna kind of like wrap up the numbers of dosing that I was suggesting into
a little nicer package because, um, I can imagine that it,
it might feel a little, a little vague at this point,
especially when I've all like, take as much as you can afford, right? So,
so we essentially have got three different levels of,
of dosing and,
and to find out where your dosing may need to be for your particular
ailment, again, I send you back to, um, the, uh,
project CBD site because on project cbd.org,
you can find the actual studies and you can find out how much CBD they're giving
the patients, what their results were like,
and if they were using a whole plant or an isolate, uh, preparation.
And because at this point you understand that, um,
the whole plant tends to be more, more effective and then isolate, you can,
you can start to kind of gauge where your particular needs are,
uh, for where you wanna start your, your dosing,
and then you can start making your changes after,
after you see or don't see, um, effects. So those,
those three levels are, um, if you're,
if you're generally healthy and you wanna stay that way, um,
shoot for 10 milligrams of CBD twice a day as a minimum,
if you can afford or get your hands on more, well, that's,
that's all the better. But, um, but the,
the doctors that I have talked to and interviewed say that, you know,
if you're not actually actively trying to fix something,
taking 10 milligrams twice a day for 20 milligrams a day is a,
is a great place to go. Um, the next level up are,
if there is something actively you're trying to work on, like you're, um,
like migraines, like ibs,
like arthritic inflammation in the arms or, or in, or,
or in your knees or whatever, and that, that you're really talking about, um,
like 40 milligrams twice a day at that middle, middle place.
And then of course, there's this high end where, you know, if,
if they're using 200 milligram doses in trials, um,
not a lot of people can afford 200 milligrams of whole plant CBD
or maybe even isolate cbd. And so you just, you know,
you take as much as you can and,
and perhaps you can find yourself a syringe of c whole plant
and then spike it with some isolate and get creative. And so, um,
while that seems a bit on the vague side, there's a lot of different things.
There's dozens of different ailments that CBD can help with. And,
um, you know, this isn't a show just about dosing cbd.
I wanna teach you how to think about how to dose cbd,
and then you can continue with a little bit more of your own research.
And this will provide a,
a context for you to put that new information in as you are, um,
designing your own protocol. All right, so OneNote on, uh,
black swan patients around cbd.
So I have worked with one immune compromised patient who also had
rheumatoid arthritis,
and we become delirious and experience missing time after simply
ingesting 10 milligrams of C in a whole plant cannabis
oil. And, you know,
and it was really hard to believe it unless I had seen it.
And I saw it a few times.
And we know that it wasn't very high in THC in the
oil because it was hemp extracted and lab tested.
And so we're certain that the THC component was under one milligram,
and yet something in this patient was definitely activated.
And on more than one occasion,
because the patient had a long history of using this same oil,
suddenly when they took the oil at this low amount
of just 10 milligrams, they were,
they were losing entire afternoons and,
and were kind of delirious and tired and had to sleep the rest of the day.
We still don't know what that is. And when I talked to, you know,
canna apathic scientists, um, they,
they're skeptical and they don't wanna believe me,
but I've been doing this a long time now and I know this stuff to rule out and
so I see it. So, um,
I don't really tell you this to caution you against CBD cuz CBD is so safe.
Um, but you know,
this is an extraordinarily rare thing and I bring it up in case you are a
caregiver and you come across a patient like this. Um, know,
just know that it's possible humans are incredibly varied and knowing that
something is possible,
even if rare can help us guide patients should they have this sort of
rare reaction. So before we close this CBD section,
it's worthwhile to mention that C B D A, um,
which is the acid and raw form unheated form of CBD that is
present in the cannabis plant,
also has a strong affinity for the five HT one A receptor,
even more so than cbd.
And preclinical studies indicate that CBD A is also a potent
antiemetic nausea stronger than CBD or thc,
which also have the antinausea properties.
And the reason why I dropped this in here is just to kind of, uh,
ignite the idea in you that while most of the
preparations of medicine that we have are not the acid forms,
so most of the time what is available to us is C B D,
not C B C B D A. And by the time we take thc,
it's THC and not thc A we need to remember that the acid forms that have
not be been decarboxylated or heated, um,
they have their own, uh,
sets of ways that they help the endocannabinoid system. And,
and don't be shy about taking your cannabinoids raw right from the plant.
Um, say for example, by making hash and just eating it instead of, uh,
using some kind of preparation that, uh, you have to heat it either by,
uh, making an extracted cannabis oil, which you have to heat to remove the,
um, the ethanol, um, or, or, you know,
traditionally smoking thc where the burning of it is the
decarboxylation process. So it's just in,
it's just valuable to understand that these acid forms of these cannabinoids
often have entirely different useful properties than their non-acid forms.
Okay, so the third one we're gonna cover, um, in this set is,
is cbg. And, and we're gonna cover this, um,
in a shorter amount of time than THC and C B D cuz I would say that the vast
majority of people who are here are looking for dosing recommendations for THC
and cbd,
cuz those are the ones that have been studied the most and the ones that we can
get our hands on the most. But CBG is now becoming increasingly available,
uh, ever since some C B G dominant, um,
cannabis plants, um, found their way into the market, you know,
about five years ago now. So, so now there are, uh,
many hemp farms that are growing cbg, CBG dominant plants.
And so CBG is now available in isolate form and, um,
and as a whole plant resin too. Uh, I must admit,
I don't see CBG resin available just anywhere. And,
um, you know,
I have to grow my own plants and make it myself if I want it because, um,
it's not, it's not available in the licensed recreational, um,
system where I live.
So one of the newest cannabinoids to get attention and one with
very specific NU uses is CBG cannabigerol.
So I'm going to delineate two specific uses for CBG and then,
and then give you the dosing regimen for it.
So we found when we did our research here on Vaon Island
three years ago when we gave CBG to a round of patients and then did a
questionnaire afterwards that, um, the number one, um,
uh, the number one thing that people responded to was that it helped neuropathic
pain.
So that's pain from some kind of nervous system damage or dysregulation
like,
like a stabbing pain that seems without cause or cold or numb
fingers or limbs, that, that feeling of pins and needles, for example. Um,
um, and, and especially on your, um, um, periphery, right?
The external parts of your body. And so when people, uh,
take cbg, um, it decreases that experience.
And, um, it is true. We don't, we don't know exactly know why yet, but, uh,
we do know that it happens and it, and it happens, um,
pretty consistently across the board. Some of the,
some of the things that cannabis help with, we have to very much say, oh,
your mileage may vary. But, um,
these two attributes in CBG seems to be pretty reliable across the board.
And one of the great things about CBG is that, um, it doesn't have intoxication.
So it, it, it, unless you are,
are taking a CBG from a plant that it's married to
THC in the preparation, like,
like you don't grow a CBG hemp plant. Instead, you,
you grow a one to one plant that's one part CBG and one part
thc. So long as you're, you're not intentionally adding the THC component,
CBG on its own won't get you high,
which makes it very reliable for lots of people who have
pain, but they don't want to feel any level of intoxication.
And CBG is incredibly reliable for this.
The second great use for CBG is, uh, actually anxiety. Um,
I was really surprised when we got back the questionnaires and, and there were,
there were multiple different flavors of anxiety that people found great help
with. So, um, the first one was social anxiety.
People said that it kind of like calmed them down and it allowed them to be
social and interact with other people. Uh, we also heard from people that, um,
it, uh, softened performance anxiety, so public speaking or,
um, at the beginning of covid when everyone was getting on Zoom meetings for the
first time, you know, zoom meetings are very socially awkward situations,
and a lot of people found it very uncomfortable to be doing these Zoom meetings.
And CBG helped people like cool out so that they could, um, tolerate the,
the awkwardness stay calm and engaged and, and be productive, uh,
in their Zoom meetings. And then the third one was a real surprise.
Many patients would explain it to me by, by putting their,
their hands on their hips and,
and thrusting their chest out like a superhero would. And, and they'd say like,
it gives me the confidence of a superhero. And after I heard that enough times,
I, I really had to start like listening and thinking about it because people
really seem to get an increase of confidence from it. Like,
and how they described it is, I feel like, um,
I feel like I have the resources to get what I need to get done today
versus, you know, if you wake up with rumination and you're like, oh my gosh,
I just don't, I just don't have what it takes to get through the day,
that can really just like hold you back your entire day.
But if you start your day with a little CBG and suddenly you're all like, okay,
I can handle this, let's go. And, um,
it showed up very significantly in the questionnaires that we got back.
But then also in the three years since then, um, uh, I just,
I just see it in patience all the time when they,
when they tell me that they have sourced it and they're using it and they're
loving it and they never wanna not have it again. And so, um,
CBG cannabigerol can be relied on for, um,
as a really reliable anti-anxiety with no intoxication. Okay,
so now the specific numbers and milligrams that,
that we're seeing people have success with, um, uh,
10 milligrams of CBG every three hours does a great job for
both. So if you want to use it as a pain reliever,
10 milligrams of CBG every three hours does,
does usually has fantastic results. Um,
if you have got a very high background anxiety,
you might need to take CBG multiple times throughout the day,
but really for most folks,
they'll take it in the morning and it kind of sets them on the,
on an anti-anxiety path for the day,
and they just seem to be like okay with that one dose. Now,
if they have like a stress event in the afternoon, um,
many people will take it again. But really, um,
unless you already have chronic anxiety,
if you just like have a bit of anxiety or if you have like morning rumination
that you need to get rid of,
you may get away with just taking 10 milligrams of whole plant CBG just once in
the morning and good for the rest of the day. But, you know,
if your anxiety continues throughout the day, you can certainly take it, um,
as needed because taking more, um, has got no negative impact. Now,
20 milligrams makes it happen even faster and with a bit more, um, spun.
So, uh, let's say that, um, you know,
generally you take 10 milligrams just because you've got a high background
anxiety, but, um, today you need to give a presentation, right?
And so your, your, your anxiety is going to be especially peaked.
Well then go ahead and take 20 milligrams and, and don't monkey around with it,
right? Um, and those are, those are great low numbers, right? You know, if you,
if you think back to the thc we were talking, you know, um, you know, 10,
you know, five or 10, but then the c we were talking 80 and 200, well,
this is back down to, uh,
THC levels more like 10 or 20 milligrams and, uh,
makes it much more affordable if you can find it,
because the CBG that is available to you, um, just lasts a whole lot longer.
Okay? So, uh, to wrap up this second set, we looked at, um,
the, the, you know,
how to think about dosing for THC and for C B D and for
cbg. And granted there are a lot of other cannabinoids out there, but,
um,
between the lack of availability in most places and
the lack of the research about what is an effective dose, um,
I don't wanna give you information that is not solidified yet. And,
and so since these are the three cannabinoids that most people, um,
have easier access to, this is, this is what we are going to talk about today.
And as new cannabinoids become more available in the future,
like for example, cbn, we're gonna be seeing a lot more of CBN soon. Um,
you know, when that comes, you will have, um,
you will have the proper understanding and context to look at the studies that
are coming out and being published on project cbd.org and learning
how to add that to your own particular health protocol with cannabis medicine.
All right, so, um, uh,
we're gonna take our short break and when we come back with set three,
we're gonna talk about, um, some use cases, um, uh,
like arthritis and leg and joint pain and neuropathy. And, and,
and we'll just talk about, um, thinking through some of these use cases, um,
to make sure that you really understand how to think through doing your dosing.
Because like I've said, everybody's dosing in the end is unique. We,
we can give you these guides to get you started, but in the end,
you will be divide,
devising your own protocol as you get to understand how cannabis medicine works
and how it works with your own body. So, uh,
we're going to take a short break and be right back.
You are listening to the hundredth episode of Shaping Fire. And I am Shago Lo.
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Welcome back, you are listening to Shaping Fire, episode 100,
and I am your host, Shang. Go Lo. So here we are in the third set,
the big wrap up. So during the first set,
we learned about how our endocannabinoid system functions and considered some of
the different ways to take cannabis medicine into your body based on what, uh,
is gonna be best to suit, uh, the ailment that you are working with.
During the second set, we talked about very specific, um,
dosing strategies and how to consider dosing protocols, um,
for the most popular three cannabinoids that people, um,
look to supplement with thc, C, B, D and cbg.
And here in set three, which hopefully will be, uh, shorter than the first two,
um, we're gonna talk about, um, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 specific,
um, um,
issues that people come to me asking for dosing strategies for.
And we'll go over those kind of swiftly since,
since you've heard most of the analysis already earlier in the show. Um,
I'm just gonna tie them together, um, which should, you know,
kind of give you a roadmap to how you can think about them yourself. So,
alright, let's get right to it.
So the first one we're gonna talk about is kind of this bucket of issues,
which is arthritis, leg and joint pain and neuropathy.
Um, the thing that these all have in common is that, uh,
it is an ongoing chronic discomfort or pain, um,
most likely caused by inflammation.
And so even though it, it manifests differently in these different issues, um,
they, they really do have, uh,
a lot of similarity in how we're gonna treat them.
And so if somebody came to me with one of three these, this is what I would say,
um, first of all, I would recommend, uh,
2.5 to five milligrams of THC if they are intolerant of thc
or are especially concerned about, you know,
feeling out of control or high in any way. Um, and then if they,
I would also tell them that once they built up a comfort with, uh,
taking thc, or if they already take thc, perhaps they are a, you know,
a recreational toker or something,
then go ahead and start with five to 10 milligrams. You know,
if they are THC tolerance, um, you know,
if you build up a tolerance from daily use,
this number can go as high as a hundred milligrams or more.
As we've already talked about,
these patients could probably benefit from a tolerance break from the thc.
And I understand that some patients cannot live a day without thc,
so I'm not being cocky about it or ableist. What I'm trying to say is,
if you can work it out for a day or two or more to not take THC to
bring your tolerance down from needing to take a hundred milligrams a day,
it would probably be both physically and financially of benefit to you.
And the last thing I would say here is to consider a topical, um,
with arthritis and leg and joint pain and often neuropathy, um,
you can actually use a THC based topical localized and targeted to where
the discomfort's coming from.
And then that way you are taking cannabinoids orally,
which will help with, uh, systemic anti-inflammation.
But also when you place the topical locally, you're getting, you know,
you're doubling down on making sure that you're applying cannabinoids in the
proper area.
If you are making your own tinctures and you are aware that topicals are
expensive,
I encourage you to just take some of your tincture and, you know,
a ramn like they serve you ketchup in at the restaurant.
Go ahead and put some kind of a hand lotion or a massage lotion or like
luberderm or something in one of those little, uh, ketchup rams.
And then put just a little bit of your tincture in it and swirled around with,
with your finger. And now you have made instant topical. Um,
it's what I used in the early days, um, before I learned how to make topicals.
And it works absolutely fantastic.
So you can consider that and save a lot of money on the kind of prices that they
charge for topicals at the licensed stores. All right,
so that's a quick run through of arthritis leg and joint pain and neuropathy.
Let's talk about cancer symptom relief.
So we're not talking about the full fight cancer protocol here and,
and hopefully we'll do this again sometime and,
and I'll talk about the cancer fighting protocol in detail.
What we're talking about here is, um,
for patients who have got cancer and are, um,
either simply just suffering from the cancer and they, they're,
that's all they're doing. Um,
so they're looking for comfort or more commonly they've chosen to go the route
of, uh, some variety of, uh, chemotherapy.
And so they are dealing with the symptoms from the chemo, um,
stacked on top of the discomfort and, um, from the cancer,
uh, experience itself. So for these people,
the first thing I would recommend is, um, uh, thc.
And that's gonna help them in so many ways.
The first thing it's gonna do is just make them them a little more comfortable
in their body. By the time cancer has gotten advanced,
and especially if you are, um, taking any kind of chemo, your,
your human meat suit is just not feeling like your ally anymore. Um,
you've got aches and pains and things aren't working properly and fluids aren't
moving properly, and it's just all around lack of comfort. But, um,
taking five to 10 milligrams of THC based tincture is going to
put you in a place where you feel a little more comfortable in your body.
Your muscles are a little more relent relaxed instead of just being clenched.
And, um, and you're a little distracted from the THC too.
And you know, you haven't really changed the status of your body.
Your body is still incredibly uncomfortable and sick. However,
you can get a little bit of respite just from the THC and the relaxation and
the, and the easing of your human.
Also that THC is very likely to give you an appetite as well.
And as we know, um, cancer patients, especially in chemo,
tend to lose their appetite. And we really don't want you thinning down.
At the same time, we wanna try to help you keep weight on so that, um,
you know, you don't slip into some kind of a, a wasting, um, cycle. Uh,
cuz that's, that's not usually a good sign. Um,
if you have access to thc, a that's the, um,
that's THC that has not been heated or decar vaccinated THC
is actually really effective in, um,
cancer patients for helping rebuild appetite as well. Um,
just in case for you,
THC is not appetite forming, uh, try the acid form.
Um, we get a lot of good results with that here on the island, um,
ever since we started talking about it. So that's been, uh, real positive.
And so,
and the last thing for cancer symptom relief is to just simply take as much
whole plant C b D oil as as you can afford, as we discussed earlier,
because your body's endocannabinoid system is probably a
wreck from all of the pharmaceuticals and especially if you are taking chemo
and your body's natural balancing system is,
has been totally traumatized.
And so you're not properly making signaling molecules and,
and endocannabinoids and you could really benefit from dumping as much c b D
into your body as you can likely afford. So, um, you know,
I I guess I should put a a top on it. I wouldn't put, you know,
more than 400 milligrams of whole plant into, um, you know,
a day. You, you probably, your body probably couldn't process more than that.
And I actually don't have an opinion on, uh, how much isolate is a maximum. Um,
and, and especially for cancer,
I would really recommend that you use a whole plant preparation so
that you're getting all the secondary, uh, novel cannabinoids and, um,
the other synergistic components that we're not entirely certain how they help
out yet, like canif, flavin and the others. For example,
let's talk about migraines. So migraines, um, they're kind of low hanging fruit,
um, either works or it doesn't,
but what the dosage is is pretty basic and it's 20 milligrams of whole
plant CBD two times a day minimum.
So you can take more if you'd like, of course. Um, but, uh,
20 milligrams two times a day, uh, seems to work pretty well for folks.
Once people realize whether or not they are of the 20% of people who
are kept awake at night by CBD because of it activating the
body's housekeeping, if you're not one of those 20%,
go ahead and take it in the evening too, which, uh,
hopefully will act as a prophylactic so you don't wake up in the morning with a
migraine. But be aware that if you are one of the 20% of people that CBD
keeps up at night, um,
you wanna avoid that cuz that probably will increase your likelihood of actually
waking up with a migraine. I also would have you consider, uh,
a small amount of THC for muscle relaxation because we know that
not only does a relaxation of the muscle sets help
decrease the likelihood of migraines, but if you are, uh,
pretty severe migraine patient,
your body's fear of having another migraine and going through that,
that cycle of pain and discomfort itself can cause the body
to, um, constrict,
which in and of itself can cause migraines and, and it just feels bad.
So if you're not resistant to, uh, trying thc, um,
taking five milligrams of a THC tincture along with
the 20 milligrams of C B D, um, uh,
will likely help you either move out of a migraine or even
better, uh, be a preventative. I would also consider, uh, have you consider, um,
microdosing psilocybin mushrooms at uh,
one milligrams, um, taken 20 days a month. Um,
if you'd like to learn more about working with your migraine using psilocybin
mushrooms, I encourage you to listen to shaping fire episodes 67 with Dr. Russo,
where we talk all about treating migraines with cannabis and, um,
soy mushrooms. It's a good one. The next one we're gonna talk about is insomnia.
Insomnia is incredibly common, um,
for me to hear about because so many people have got it for different reasons
and it is actually pretty easy to treat with, um, with cannabis.
The first question I always ask people though,
when they tell me that they have insomnia is not one that they generally like,
and that question is always, um,
do you drink coffee in the morning because that is the first thing to go.
The halflife of the drug we call caffeine is 14 hours.
So by the time you are drinking tomorrow morning's coffee,
you are still on yesterday's caffeine that you took in the morning.
And if this is continuing every day,
you're never not on caffeine,
which means that when you're trying to go to sleep at night,
you are always fighting against a stimulant that you took not only that
morning, but yesterday morning as well.
And so that would be the first place is to stop drinking caffeine.
Um, second,
I would ask them what they think their source of their insomnia or what,
what's the flavor? Um, insomnia tends to fall into two categories.
One being some sort of discomfort or pain,
and then the other sort being some sort of anxiety or rumination.
And then I would suggest for them solutions for the pain
or the anxiety rumination. Um,
but oddly they do tend to be both the same cannabis prescription,
which is five to 10 milligrams of an indica tincture
made using purple flowering cannabis plants.
Now I know that the terms sativa and indica are antiquated,
but people are still using them and they can be helpful when going to,
you know, a licensed store and talking with a bud tenderer.
But what we're looking for are, uh, a tinctures,
preferably made from plants from the, you know, Afghanistan,
Pakistan region, um, that are purple because these plants, um, are,
uh, heavily narcotic and lethargic and that's what we wanna do, right?
We want to cause drowsiness and we want to cause muscle relaxation
and we want to slow you down and make you feel a little dreamy and then put you
to sleep. Also, these plants, these purple flowering cannabis plants, um,
they're usually packed with the turpen,
the terpenes mirroring and lulu,
which also help you feel drowsy and have you go to sleep. Um,
specifically if the insomnia is caused by anxiety and rumination, um,
it would be really great, uh, to add some CBG tincture to that as well.
And if the person that you're working with or yourself, um,
is THC intolerant either on principle or, or they're sensitive to it, um,
you can just give them cbg um,
CBG helps with both pain and anxiety rumination. Um,
so taking between 10 milligrams and 20 milligrams of CBG
for insomnia is very effective for folks, especially if, um,
they are very much not interested in taking THC
depression.
Depression would be 20 milligrams two times a day of CBD
where you're taking that because your goal is to build up the endocannabinoid
system and to help regulate the brain chemistry. Um,
this is something that you wanna do long term, right?
CBD is not something that you're just gonna take Monday and then Thursday and
then Sunday. No, no, no, you want to take CBD every day because the benefits,
the primary benefits come from building up your endocannabinoid system and
making it burley so it can do its job regulating your body's systems.
So that would be, um, 20 milligrams two times a day,
three times if you can take it in the evening, uh, of C B D.
And also to put yourself in a good mood and make things a little more tolerable
while you're trying to change yourself systemically.
Go ahead and try to get your hands on some CBG tincture or oil as well,
and take 10 milligrams of that twice a day in the morning and then after lunch.
Um, that cbg my goodness,
is it an effective anti-anxiety and it just makes things feel a little better
and the confidence that it brings really helps even out the
depression vibes of hopelessness.
And then I would also recommend microdosing, psilocybin, microdosing psilocybin,
um,
really helps improve your neural network and pull you out of a funk.
Um, there's lots of research on it to support it,
and I encourage you to check out the, um,
the microdose psilocybin episodes on Shaping Fire.
And the last one we're gonna talk about here is neuro divergent support. Um,
more and more people,
especially during quarantine when our lives got less
thrilling and we were creating less dopamine from having relatively
boring quarantined lives. Um,
a lot of people realized that they have some flavor of neuro divergence.
And while you figure that out, um,
by doing your reading and checking out the, uh, neuro,
neuro divergent community on TikTok, I also recommend, um, these, um,
as potential things to help you get through as you figure out the best
combination for you. Uh, 40 milligrams of cbd,
whole plant oil two times a day. Um,
this is of course because we wanna build up that endocannabinoid system and we
wanna give our brain as many signaling molecules as it can to do its
job because neuro divergent brains,
they are running hotter and faster than other people's brains and they need
intentional support. Um, you're not driving a, you know,
a regular car like everybody else.
You're driving a Formula One and Formula One cars. They need specialty tires,
specialty oils, specialty fluids, and so do you, my friend.
Um, and I was also helpful to, you know, keep things in a good perspective by,
um, supplementing with CBG 10 milligrams two times a day. Um, and,
and the reason is just simply, it's hard out there for neuro divergent folks.
This world was not designed for the neuro divergent brain,
and that can get incredibly frustrating. And so taking some cbg giving you that,
that confidence and a feeling that you've got the resources to make it work,
it can really make your days more tolerable. Um, I'd also recommend, uh,
200 milligrams of L theanine. Now, this is not a cannabis, uh, product,
that's for sure. Um,
but I know that neuro divergent folks who run hot and anxious, um,
find that L theanine, 200 milligrams of it, um,
really evens out the spiky parts of the day,
the days that where you get overstimulated and or harshed out
from, uh, from, you know, feeling over sensory inputted.
Um, altheine does a really great job taking out this,
the scratchiness of your day. And if you happen to be a person that's into thc,
well, you know,
having some THC tincture just to make you too feel more comfortable in your
body, that can o often feel strange to you. Um, feel free to add, you know,
five to 10 milligrams of thc, um, as you wish.
And good luck. So these, these, uh,
these six areas that I just, you know,
swiftly went through how I would think through dosing
suggestions, I, I did this not because, you know,
I can't go through everyth all the issues that everybody has, but the idea is,
I I wanted to give you a couple pictures,
a couple examples of how you can stack different, uh, cannabis,
different cannabinoids along with different antigens like
psilocybin mushrooms, um, along with occasional, you know,
herbal supplements like Altheine and some common sense like perhaps don't drink
coffee if you're having somnia. Um, so that you can,
you know, figure out a stack for yourself that meets your needs. Um,
you don't have to do it the way other people do. Individualized medicine is,
is a thing and your body is unique. And so, um, keep a journal,
figure out what works for you and,
and don't let your family or doctors push you around. Um,
I am a strong advocate of patients rights as, as everybody knows, especially,
um, uh, cannabis patient self-sufficiency. So, um,
it's your body take notes and, and learn what's best for you.
And I guess that's a wrap. Um, if you are still with us, uh,
thank you so much for listening to this entire episode. Um,
it is the longest shaping fire episode that, um,
I have published and I wanted to get this all in one document, right?
I have been thinking about this show and,
and working on notes for it for a long time now.
And if you know you have found the time to listen to it for yourself, um,
I congratulate you.
And if you are listening to this because you were a caregiver or someone you
love uses cannabis medicine, well I really appreciate you too because, um,
cannabis patients need all the help and support and love that we can get.
So, um, if you would like to learn more, uh,
please peruse the first hundred episodes of the Shaping Fire podcast and
subscribe to the show in your favorite podcast app.
There are so many great episodes for, uh,
patients about patient health and for how to cultivate your own cannabis in a
healthy and organic regenerative way. Um, who knows if you're a patient,
maybe growing will be your new hobby.
I also recommend that you check out the Shaping Fire YouTube channel,
where there are nearly 200 videos of speakers, um,
from all sorts of different conventions and such that I have attended over the
years. And, um, I've just always posted the videos there. Um,
so you can find those, um, uh, topics ranging from cannabis to,
uh, mushrooms to IBO gain, all sorts of different videos there on YouTube,
just, uh, search YouTube Shaping Fire.
So thanks for being here for episode 100 of Shaping Fire and I am
your host SHEO Lo.
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