Change Your Brain Every Day - Medical Marijuana: What's Medically Correct? with Dr. Rebecca Siegel

Episode Date: May 1, 2019

With all the conflicting information out there concerning the use of medical marijuana and CBD, it can be difficult to separate fact from fiction. In this episode, Dr. Daniel Amen and Tana Amen continue their discussion with Dr. Rebecca Siegel on all things CBD. This episode focuses on the health benefits of using CBD, as well as its side effects.

Welcome to the Brain Warriors Way podcast. I'm Dr. Daniel Amen. And I'm Tana Amen. In our podcast, we provide you with the tools you need to become a warrior for the health of your brain and body. The Brain Warriors Way podcast is brought to you by Amen Clinics, where we have been transforming lives for 30 years using tools like brain spec imaging to personalize treatment to your brain. For more information, visit amenclinics.com. The Brain Warriors Way podcast is also brought to you by BrainMD, where we produce the highest quality nutraceuticals to support the health of your brain and body. To learn more, go to brainmd.com. Okay, welcome back. We are having this robust discussion about THC and CBD and use it, don't use it. It's innocuous and should be legal everywhere.

Actually, we've had that fight on this podcast where I actually think it should be legal. Yeah, but you said we. You said we think it should be legal. And I'm like, do you have a mouse in your pocket? Let's not put people who are smoking pot in jail. That just sounds insane to me. And then Tana's- We do not think it should be legal. Tana does not agree with me. At all. Which I would say is a rare event, but it's definitely not rare. And Dr. Siegel's licensed in the state of New York to prescribe it. And her preference, which she said in the last episode, was that she prefers it to be something that is prescribed.

So somebody who's working closely with a physician who understands the potential benefits, but also the potential risks. And one of the reasons, which you just told us is because yesterday you had what? I saw a 29 year old woman who came to us after a marijuana-induced psychosis. Very important. Marijuana-induced psychosis. Incredibly sad, incredibly difficult, incredibly anxiety-producing for her, obviously, and for her family. It affected the whole family she was um reportedly

abusing marijuana which we don't know we assume that means thc and maybe some cbd maybe not but multiple times a day and she said in fact at the you know the latest time she was doing it almost all day. And she said the anxiety that she began to feel, she felt that that that marijuana could help that to alleviate that, which was obviously not the case, she ended up hospitalized. And then she, they put her on all kinds of different medications to treat the psychosis, which started her on a whole another cycle of, you know, of complication. She was put on antipsychotic medication. Exactly. It was incredibly devastating. And this was a high functioning woman who, so she was put on a mood stabilizer and an antipsychotic, and that's where I saw her.

And she was improving because she had stopped marijuana smoking entirely. And it was, by the way, it was smoking, which means there's lots of different ways and forms that you can do this. There's, you know, there's smoking, the plant, or we'll call it the flower. There's vaping. There's taking it in capsule form and there's also taking it um liquid under the tongue sure and these new wax pens aren't those like a concentrated form so the kids at school now that's the thing they do because there's no smoke involved in fact at the local high school that my daughter used to go to she now homeschools um there was a big scandal because

they did a random search of all the lockers and the kids' bags. And so the kids ran into the bathrooms and they stopped up all the toilets because they were flushing their wax pens down the toilets. So this is a problem. And vaping is a national epidemic and a problem. In Pueblo, Colorado, so marijuana has now been legal, babies are being born positive with THC. That has actually gone up 1,700%. Okay. And I'm sorry, that should just be criminal. Well, it is a form of child abuse. And the idea that marijuana is innocuous, we really need to stop that because it's not innocuous. Now, is there a place for it? We've already talked about for chronic pain, for ALS, for Huntington's, in specific cases of non-responsive seizures, I think there is a place for it. And I'm like the king of natural medications,

right? I mean, we own BrainMD, which is a supplement company. We use things like rhodiola, shwagandha, saffron, ginseng, and they have research behind them because of the politicalization of marijuana. So it's not just that it was bad. There's a lot of politics, if you understand the history of its banning in the United States, that it's not been able to be appropriately studied. But I know on Facebook, we have some negative comments. We always get them with this. But I just have to tell you, I've seen more brain scans than anybody in the history of the world when it comes to psychiatric issues. And generally, your brain's not healthy. I am talking today, so someone I saw three months ago had been smoking marijuana literally for 50 years and his brain at 70 looks like it's 95.

It's clearly aged and it's not healthy. And he stopped because of the scan. Right. And I'm going to talk to him today because he feels anxious. Right. So what else can you do? Because there's a psychological addiction to it, but there's also a physiological, it physiologically changes your brain in a way that may not help you long term.

Okay. So you know I have to push back. I'm with Dr. Siegel. You just know I have to. So I'm with Dr. Siegel on this, that it should be prescribed because if you look at, since it's been legalized, first of all, these companies are targeting lower income, low socioeconomic demographics. So where are the marijuana dispensaries? Right. Okay. Unemployment in that population is going up. Teenagers have more accessibility. We do see, you already said, we see psychosis related to it.

You both said that. The studies show it. So yeah, I'm not a fan. I think that if we're going to use it for the things that it is appropriate for, and clearly there are things it's appropriate for, it should be prescribed. All right. So we're hitting pretty hard on the negative part, but you've also seen some really positive stories. What comes to mind when I ask you

to think about that? Well, one of my favorite patients of all time has very, very serious Crohn's and colitis. He's missed many, many days of work. Interesting. He's suffered with cramps and with, you know, pain due to his conditions. And he has found that medical marijuana has helped him tremendously. You know, he feels better. He's able to go to work. He doesn't have the cramping. He doesn't have the pain that, you know, that Cro the pain that Crohn's and colitis can be so devastating. So that's been tremendous.

That's a very positive story. I've seen many positive stories, but I've also seen some very negative stories. What is the theme behind the positive stories? Is there one that you can think about? Is there a consistent theme? I mean, I think that as I see it, marijuana is an option. I see it that people are looking for something to alleviate their pain, their emotional pain, their physical pain, their psychological pain. And it's an option. I would much rather people not use opiates or alcohol where, you know, liver damage and all kinds of other medical problems can occur. I do need I do think it needs to be regulated.

I think people need to be followed by physicians who understand cannabis and its effects and the dosing and the ratios of THC to CBD. Most physicians who are certified to prescribe this don't have any idea. And when people go into dispensaries i don't want to knock people in the dispensaries but you know the patients looking for help are asking the pharmacists in the dispensaries who may have little to no knowledge about you know what the effects are what it can do that's you know that what the effects are, what it can do. That's, you know, that I feel like is my

role. And I feel like that should be, that's the most important thing, I think. First, do no harm. And as a physician, you know, I want to be involved in it, you know, to help people to see it as an option, but to be under controlled conditions. That's why I'm trying to learn as much as I can. Yeah, because you can then guide them through. If they are having a negative response, you can help guide them through it. You can give them a way out of it. You can point out that this is related

to the actual marijuana use. It's not something else or it is something else, whatever it is. You can then help them through that event because it's scary for everyone around them. Believe me, I know this. The other thing is that everybody is affected by marijuana in a different way.

Everyone's brain is different. Everyone's body is different. Marijuana helps everyone differently. You can't generalize and say this is going to help you with with everyone with anxiety right so i read a very interesting article in the wall street journal and it was about many people think marijuana is innocuous but increases depression suicide psychosis in the young as you said marijuana companies target low-income people, keeping them low-income. Right. They also target children, like teenagers.

And how I learned that clinically is I would often get 15, 16, 17-year-old patients who their mom and dad would bring them in because they thought they had ADD or ADHD, but they didn't have ADD when they were 10 or 11 or 12. And when you look at their brain, it has this toxic look to it. And I'm like, so when did you start smoking pot? And they go, oh, well, I never have. And I'm like, but let's look at your scan. Your scan, it looks like it's been assaulted. There's a toxic look to it. And then they'll start to cry and they'll go, you won't tell my parents. And they'll talk about their marijuana use, how it calmed their anxiety, but it then clearly decreased their ability to perform in school because it can, not for everybody,

but a significant number of people lower their motivation. And one story just horrifies me. I saw this boy who wouldn't stop. I mean, despite seeing his scans, he would not stop and ended up having psychotic episodes. And then later, I wasn't treating him at the time, but he killed himself and it's heartbreaking. Yes. Sometimes the disease wins, but I worry as people see this as innocuous, it's, it's, you know, as a drug becomes innocuous, its use goes up. And my concern is because of the lack of study, you know, cocaine used to be legal. It was in Coca-Cola. That's how it got its name. That, you know, we unleash things on society without enough study. It can have a negative effect. All right, stay with us. We have one more session with Dr. Siegel on CBD. a review or five-star rating as that helps others find the podcast. If you're interested in coming to Amen Clinics, use the code PODCAST10 to get a 10% discount on a full evaluation

at amenclinics.com. For more information, give us a call at 855-978-1363.