Sawbones: A Marital Tour of Misguided Medicine - Sawbones: Medical Marijuana

Episode Date: March 25, 2014

Welcome to Sawbones, where Dr. Sydnee McElroy and her husband Justin McElroy take you on a whimsical tour of the dumb ways in which we've tried to fix people. This week: We make Sawbones ... on weed. Music: "Medicines" by The Taxpayers (http://thetaxpayers.net)

Saw bones is a show about medical history, and nothing the hosts say should be taken as medical advice or opinion. It's for fun. Can't you just have fun for an hour and not try to diagnose your mystery boil? We think you've earned it. Just sit back, relax, and enjoy a moment of distraction from that weird growth. You're worth it. that weird growth. You're worth it. Alright, Tommy is about to books. One, two, one, two, three, four. We came across a pharmacy with a toy and that's lost it out. We were shot through the broken glass and had ourselves a look around.

The medicines, the medicines, the escalant macaque for the mouth Hello, we're ready and welcome to solbona Hey, Mirroleto, this guy, medicine, I am your co-host Justin McAroy I'm Sydney McAroy I'm Sydney Malini, um, a little bum right now I'm sorry to hear that Justin, what's up? Well, we got a kid on the way, that's not You're bummed about Okay, no, I really don't think this is the place to bring that up

I just- on a podcast. I just finished. You should have thought about this like five months ago. Can I just finish? No, I'm a little bum because we're, I don't feel like we have enough material for our like, your parents were so wild stories. Like I don't feel like we've been particularly wild.

Well, maybe you don't. Okay, listen, pump the brakes there, TJ Hooker. I'm just saying. Okay, listen, all I'm saying is I'm like, you didn't catch me until I was like a junior in college. Okay, listen, no, the half of it. Okay, now listen, now, come on now. Come on.

My worry, here's my thought. What I haven't done enough of is, I was drinking plenty. What, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what,. What I haven't done enough of is, I was drinking plenty. What I haven't done enough is- Just don't, yeah, let's just throw that out. I haven't done enough drugs, I feel like. And I'm worried because like now we're getting to a point where if we did it now, it'd be like so lame. Like boy.

It probably wouldn't be a good idea for me to do a lot of drugs right now. Like, yeah, because of the kid stuff. Because of the child growing inside me. The human and stuff, yeah. It's generally frowned upon. Yeah. But for me, time is running out.

And I feel like now with this medical marijuana thing, I could kind of like, there's kind of like a back door. I don't know if that's as cool for me. If like this story. You could just go to Colorado or I guess like Amsterdam. I mean, they've been on that, you know, train for a while. If John Law is like, good looking out. Keep Dubin, I don't know if that's the thing cops in Colorado say.

I guess that's still. Keep Dubin, that's what they say. If they pull you over, they're like, hey, are you smoking, are you smoking pot? Yes, sir, off there. Good. You better be. Keep dubbing, man.

It's actually against the little knot. Is that right? I think I read that right. It's against the little knot to the smoke marijuana. I guess before I make this commitment, I would like to know a little bit more about medical marijuana. And then I can make a rational, educated decision about weather. I'm going to spend the next few months

Dubin it up. Right. Well, I'll go ahead and say I'm gonna tell you all about it I'll burst your bubble ahead of time and tell you that it is not legal in West Virginia, so Son of a gun. So there that's gonna go out the window and I would definitely not prescribe marijuana to my husband if it was Yeah, because that it seems like a bad plan. Yeah, it's an ethical understanding not a lot of prescribed drugs to me. That's fine. Yeah, but I'll tell you about it anyway. Please, I'm ready. First of all, before we talk about marijuana, I want to say thanks to Rob. Who recommended this great topic? And if you, if the thing is, there's lots to read and learn and check out about medical

marijuana out there. We are going, don't, don't make this one of those wherever he sends his messages on Twitter like, Hey, if we're going to talk about bubble-bop, we know we're not going to get to everything. Absolutely. There is so much to say, marijuana has been used both medicinally and recreationally for thousands and thousands of years. There is, honestly, there seems to be a pretty sizable section of overlap on the Venn diagram between people that have time to write stuff on the internet and people have time to smoke a lot of weed. And there are lots of opinions.

This is a big, this is a hot button issue. And it has been for a long time, interestingly. It's been controversial for quite a while. This is a big, this is a hot button issue. And it has been for a long time, interestingly, it's been controversial for quite a while. So I know I'm gonna leave some stuff out. I'm trying to hit the high points and maybe offer some medical perspective on it. But as I said, the use of marijuana is medicine.

Probably dates back to like 2,900 BC. So like I said, a really long time ago. Wow, that is very long. That's one of the older treatments. So we go back to the Chinese Emperor Fu Xi, who referenced its medical use, and he noted also, and this is a theme that we'll see a lot in kind of the ancient use of marijuana, that it is as much for medicinal purposes as like for religious purposes, that it's good for the spirit and the mind and the body all in one. So it was said to contain both Yen and Yang. That's nice.

So this convenient too, you save a lot of time. This continued in Chinese medicine, the investigation of marijuana and what it could do continued and the Emperor Shin Nung did a lot of research on it, investigating its medicinal properties, which I think is probably just a euphemism. Yeah, for smoking weed. That's what I hope our kid is clever enough to say if we ever catch them smoking weed. No, what are you doing? No, no, no, this research Mom's dad mom. I'm just investigating its medicinal properties. It's science. Look at these test tubes

That's a bomb. I'm not an idiot much like the Emperor Shen Nung in 2,700 BC. I'm investigating its medicinal properties You're seven years old and I'm gonna get arrested Where did you even get that? Where did you find it that? Why did I give you my drugs? It was also advocated for gout, constipation, and absent-mindedness. Now I'm thinking... Not a good job there all time. I'm thinking that maybe didn't work. That one didn be an answer. That one, that one I don't know so much about. In 1500 BC, it was out of the Chinese pharma copia, and then the use of it from there just expanded. They actually had a use for pretty much every part

of the plant, so much like the buffalo. There is a use for every part. Just to give you some examples, and there were many uses for each part. This is not you some examples, and there were many uses for each part. This is not the only use, but the seeds were said to be a laxative, again, among many other things. You could use the oil for hair loss.

You could use the juice from leaves. Now, you wouldn't want to eat the leaves. It was said that they were poisonous, but the juice fresh juice from leaves could be used as an anti-helmetic or for warming, for de-warming someone. And the flowers were from menstrual disorders. Now when you say they were for, or you mean not like effectively, right, just?

Well, I mean, they were used for who knows if they were effective. I mean, at this point, we're talking about, you know, thousands and thousands of years ago, people were definitely using them in droves. They wrote about it. It was studied, and I mean, I don't have controlled trials from that era. That's what it was said to be helpful for. No, that stuff was GMOed.

Maybe it was like super whoop tushy pot that we came again. It was the best stuff. It's like the best ever that we can't get. Is that making you sad? No more sad, I don't like that much. All that ancient Chinese herbal, never get your hands off.

I'm an agent Chinese gaunch. I'll never be able to puff it. I guess that's what people say, right? Do it up and puff it. You can tell that we've used a lot of drugs. We're showing our letters. We're very cool. There is some evidence.

I found this mentioned a couple places. And I think people just like to throw it out there because it sounds like this is some evidence. I found this mentioned a couple places and I think people just like to throw it out there because it sounds like this is really legit. There is a holy anointing oil that is mentioned in Exodus in the Bible. You may be familiar with this. Having read the Bible probably and I haven't. Are you assuming because I was raised Baptist and I read the Bible? Yes. Okay. As I am assuming. I learned many verses. I was raised Baptist and I read the Bible. Yes. Okay. As I am assuming, I learned many verses.

I was in a wana after all. I'm assuming you know much more than me. The proof of your inner knowledge shamed is what that stands for. In case you're curious. No, I'm not ashamed. Sydney, I've read a Bible verse or two in my day. Nothing weeds specific. We tend to gloss over those chapters.

Right. I assume. And the sexy stuff, right? Sexy stuff. You guys didn't cover that. And that's Son of Solomon. That's what I said there during Mass and tried to just flip through and see if there's any sexy stuff, but they just seen the missile.

They don't include that. We didn't have a whole Bible there, like in church. I remember a youth pastor saying to me, like he was doing his sermon. It's like, pop up's got everything. You want even want some sexy stuff? Song of Salmon's got the sexiest chapters you'll ever read. And I can't, I don't remember thinking like, what else are you reading that you're like,

yes, this is the stuff, this is the best stuff that is. Is it really sexy? Oh, there's like, it's like shit. It's like, it's, it's stuff like your breasts are like galloping buffalo or like your breasts are like galloping buffalo, like your breasts are like galloping zebra's or something. It's like, it's basically like Shakira lyrics. It's not like a level of sex when I cut out our heart.

Did Shakira write the song of Solomon? The song of Shakira was the original title. Okay, I'm sorry. I didn't mean to defer you here. I'm sorry, that was a blast. That was the time I'm gonna hand me a lot to cover. So the thought is that maybe this holy anointing oil that was mentioned in Exodus contained cannabis. I don't know, I'm sure that there are people

who've dug up evidence for this, and it's the time period, maybe, maybe it did. I have no idea. I don't know that that would, if that's your excuse so your parents or the cops as to why you're smoking weed, I don't know that that's a great one. Yeah, it's holy.

The ancient Egyptians had a ton of uses for it. Glacoma, which is something that persists today. Enemas, which is something I don't think persists today. I bet it does somewhere, Sydney. It's American, it's 2014, somewhere it's happening. Somebody's doing a marijuana in them right now. A marijuana. Good luck with that.

And then generalized inflammation which I that's a great use because that's anywhere. And if you don't have inflammation somewhere just stub your toe then you do. Oh, I need pot. Inflamed toes inflamed. Oh, hang now. The Indian medicine got way into marijuana. Again, and a lot of this was linked with the spiritual effects as well, because obviously

it was a mind-altering substance, but it was also used for prolonged life, lowering feverish, inducing sleep, maybe curing dysentery, quickening the mind. Again, with some of these... I just don't know about your acuity. Maybe afterwards, like by comparison, like when you go back to normal, I'm like, no, I do feel like, yeah, compared to an hour ago, certainly. So maybe if you do it for like a few weeks on it and like just stay high for a while and stop. Yeah, you lose your calibration. And all of a sudden, you're like, I am a sparkling conversationalist and I didn't know. No, you're just not staring at your hand. It also was said to improve judgment.

I don't know. I've seen some pretty tragic bahaaws in my day that would test otherwise. I think I'd believe curing dysentery first. And this just continued. The Greeks used it again for... This was cannabis very much, was a cure all. Anything you could name, somebody used marijuana to fix it. So ear aches, edema, any kind of inflammation.

The Romans hit on something that you could use cannabis for, which actually is very honest. I don't know why it's considered useful in this regard, but it could kill your sex drive. Yeah, I don't know why you would need to do that. But I guess if you just, I don't know, you're headed off to war. Maybe wives could dose their husbands if they were like worn out or something.

Maybe, I guess. I mean, it's an option. I don't know. My husband won't let me get any sleep. I'm gonna give him some marijuana. I know we're gonna get some. I'm an old Roman lady. I know where to get drugs and Justin doesn't.

Feared out. I don't know. These were much. I don't have Twitter, so I guess that's fine. These were much cooler times. Everybody had drugs back then. That's ridiculous. I know.

If you haven't noticed, Justin can't find drugs. He doesn't. This is like a scheme in his life. He doesn't know where to find drugs. A people keep finding it. I watch TV. It's, they still make them. My 13 year old sister Riley was telling us about a girl who showed her that she had drugs

at school. She showed her like, look, this is my marijuana. I keep in my altoids tin or whatever. Yeah. And Justin was so jealous. Like, there's a 13 year old who has marijuana. Keep in mind, I'm not like, I'm not name. I'm not like, I'm not like, I'm not like, I'm not like,

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if you'd been high. Yeah, that's a fair point. You know who else had something to say about marijuana? Plenty. That's right. I guess. Or plenty to those who are correct. Plenty.

Sorry, plenty. If you want to be right about it. If you want to be right, it's plenty. If you want to be right, it's plenty. If you want to be us, it's plenty. He recommended it for cramped joints, gout, generalized pain, which again is a theme that we will see over and over again. He also mentioned the use of hemp rope. This is something that you'll see all through the intertwined

with the history of the medicinal use of cannabis is the use of the hemp plant for rope and cloth and, you know, sales on boats and that kind of thing. And there's a whole history to be done about that, but that's not medicine, so we're not going to talk about it. The Arabic world was the first to really hit on the fact, and certainly people had mentioned this before, but to really talk about the fact that it's not entirely benign. They talked about it as possibly being a poison, and I don't think in the sense that people are dying from it, but that the behaviors or the kind of the effects of it were not always good.

Right. You wouldn't always want to end up the way that it made you, so to speak. But despite that, it persisted all through the middle ages. Cannabis was used in a variety of forms for a variety of problems. It, like I said, I mean, it was a cure-all. Yeah. And I made you feel good. You think that was it, though?

I've found a theme with not all cure-alls, but a lot of them seem to be more like justifications. You know, like, you like the way it feels and it's hard to just accept, like, hey, I just like doing this. I think that's part of it. And that was certainly something that, you know, as we're going to move forward and we see it, in some cases, be replaced by other drugs that may be worked better for certain things. It was the reason that it was still, you know, kind of a player in the industry was that it made you feel better than maybe drugs that worked better, depending on what the problem

is. But, you know, the other thing is a lot of people pull up, or would like to suggest that was it so popular because it was addictive. Like we, you know, as we've talked about before for things like opium, that's a hotly debated topic. I would say from what I've read, and we'll talk about it a little more,

that probably isn't the reason why it was so Popular It was more like what you hit on it made you feel good Sure, and if you don't have something for a problem and this thing at least makes you feel good. Well, why not? So let's move to the new world Let's We're here. Oh, that was easy. We already live here. I thought we'd lose some of the girl on the way. It was fairly not a bit full. No, that was, I mean, it's

2014. It's much easier to get here now. Oh, thanks for engineering. The, as I mentioned, the big way that marijuana factored into, you know, early into early America was in the form of hemp for rope and cloth and the Jamestown settlers used it for a variety of reasons. George Washington and Thomas Jefferson both grew hemp. Nice. So if you want to throw that out there, that might get you a little further than possibly being in the Bible. This is a known fact, we can prove it.

They both grew it. Also, it's a lie. I mean, not like great. Like they don't have like a great track record. Not like a 100% great track record. Well, that's a fair point. Maybe you don't want to use them as an example. Yeah.

Maybe you want to go back to the Holy anointing oil. Yeah. Or probably sure. You seem very together. No, that's a worse example. That's a much worse example. Oh, well now. Is Paulie short worse than slavers? Is bio-dome worse than slavery? Discuss it on the maximum fun forms. Let us know. Don't tell anybody that we told you to. It was also in this time period it was used for depression that was when that used became popular as well as a menstrual cramps

Queen Victoria popular popular as that. That's a cool visual. Queen Victoria is smoking pot. Queen Victoria are like these cr Weed. That's what you say when you exhale. I don't know. I don't know. When you exhale, you say weed. I don't think that's what you do. I'm not sure. It's been a while. And then, you know, throughout the early U.S. it was used a lot in in patent medicines, which we've talked about before. They contained a lot of different things to make you feel something because they didn't always work for whatever they were advertised to work for. So they would contain things like alcohol or opiates or cannabis so that you would have

some effect from them. And cannabis was a very popular ingredient. It actually, people who realized that they were getting hooked on some of the opiate containing things, such as lardium, which we've talked about before, started to use cannabis containing products to get themselves off of opium. You could use it for some of the withdrawal symptoms. It wouldn't completely make you go away, but it would help Said I want to hear so much more about the history of marijuana and its medical uses here in the good old us away and Throughout the world of course, but first I want to talk real quick

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forming. They're John Law. Okay, well fair enough. Buzz Killington. Okay, so one more time maximumfund.org for it's I should donate. If you can go there and help us out with a donation, gosh, that would just mean the world to us. And thank you in advance. If you're able to do that, it would just be the best. Thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you. And thank you. More weed. So things are going pretty well in the US. People were, you know, taking in cannabis in various forms and loving it, until 1906. So in 1906, the pure food and drug act of 1906. That's the name.

It's so convenient that that lined up that way. I know. That was luck, though. Changed a lot of the way patent medicines were sold in this country. It insisted that certain substances be mentioned on the labels so that you would know what you were getting. And this included, as I've already mentioned, things like opiates and alcohol, but it also included cannabis. Which was kind of our first recognition that this is something that isn't benign.

You know, this is something people need to know about. It's not. It is an herb unlike other herbs. And we should inform people if we're going to give them a bottle of some sort of liquid that contains it. After this, this was kind of like the first nail in the coffin. And after this state started one by one banning it that you couldn't have cannabis,

containing medications, you couldn't sell them, you couldn't market them, and this started to spell the end slowly, slowly, slowly, many, many years until we get there, but the end of the free reign of cannabis in the US. Prohibition gave it a little bit of one last breath of life. Why is that? Because you couldn't drink.

So... So... Weed. Weed. That actually started to popularize the recreational use. You got to understand, up to this point, it was largely a... It was a medicine. You know, I mean, yes, people understood,

much like they did with lard, andard numb that it made you feel good. But it was largely used, you know, for medicinal reasons. This is when people started saying, well, hey, you know, I can't drink anymore. That cannabis stuff really makes me feel good. So if you were in a state where you could still get it, there you go. We were growing actually in the US from like 1918 to 1925. So we're talking some prohibition years here, about 60,000 pounds of cannabis annually in the US. So I mean, people were definitely using it. Now, the United States government

was not thrilled with this. Actually, because they hate fun. Right. Anything that's fun, they took away alcohol, they were gonna take away weed. And there's a lot of reasons that go into this, there's a lot of political reasons. And again, I already mentioned that I'm not gonna go into the whole history of hemp, but there are a lot of people who have, you know, a lot written and a lot that I don't know

about the battle between the people who are making cloth and paper specifically out of hemp pulp as opposed to wood pulp. And there was a lot of financial interests that were disrupted by hemp. And so there are a lot of theories that part of the reason that cannabis was rebranded as marijuana and became criminalized was an order to suppress hemp as well. So again, another story for another podcast, but that's part of this kind of complex political financial picture.

So as I mentioned, part of that was starting to use over and over again the term marijuana. This is when this became really popular. Hash and cannabis were words associated with medicine up into that point was something that was natural from the earth and used to make you better. So they started using the word marijuana because they thought it sounded scarier. And it called it something new.

So you didn't associate marijuana with anything until the government told you marijuana was something bad. Sort of like when the auto manufacturer has wanted us to get rid of J-walking, they started calling it J-walking and turning it into a thing that they could easily sort of like brand and slander people for. That's a good comparison.

So then we can start, I mean cannabis, so that's just cannabis, but no marijuana marijuana. That sounds scary. And then of course Thank you, Ellen Mars by the way for a 99% of it's bull for informing me of that that occurrence I'm just I'm just regurgitating what I heard there, but you sounded really smart Thank you so much. I have my moments And those moments are specifically what I'm regurgitating that I'm present in And then of course in 1936, Refer Madness, the movie, are you familiar? I've heard of it. I have propaganda film many with it. I've seen it myself. That dramatized the effects of marijuana

and what it could do to you and how it was spreading across the nation and scared a lot of parents and probably some kids and started, you know, again, as we kind of look at the downfall of the use of marijuana. In 1942, it was officially removed from the US pharmacopia, meaning that it was not listed as a medicine that we should be, you know, and that's nothing official. It's just it kind of falls out of common medical use. Right. But what really is important for marijuana is in 1970? What happened then, is it? That is when it's listed as a schedule one drug. What's that mean? So the the DEA classifies

medications in this country according to schedules and these schedules kind of dictate how it can be prescribed and This is based on its medical usage, its addictive potential, how safe it is. So it's the reason why there are some prescriptions that your doctor can just send to the pharmacy and then there are other prescriptions that maybe they have to give you a copy of on paper and some prescriptions they can give you refills and others that they can't, that kind of thing. Now, I didn't think marijuana was addictive.

Well, that's the thing. So it was put in the category of schedule one drugs. And schedule one drugs are things that are supposed to be highly addictive, have no medical use whatsoever, and that there is a lack of data in terms of safety, so we don't, you know, we can't use them in any way. This is the same class as, well, heroin, for instance, or PCP or LSD. These are not medicines that are prescribed. You know, nobody's prescribing schedule one drugs for the, well, they are when it comes to marijuana, but that's why it's a special case. It's kind of a trumped up charge to me.

And that's what many would argue ever since then, basically ever since it was called a schedule one drug, proponents of marijuana for medical use have been trying to remove it from that because it greatly limits our ability to study it. Why is that? Well, think about it. So let's say that you want to do a study on heroin. So you propose that you're going to give 25 people heroin and not give 25 other people a placebo and see what happens compared to some variable.

I can't imagine I'd be allowed to do that. No, of course. Well, of course you wouldn't be allowed to do it because you'd have to have heroin and then you would have to intentionally give people heroin. Right. Which would be bad. Because I need to keep the heroin for myself

to enjoy my own leisure time. Okay, no, you can't enjoy heroin. Heroin is, we're just gonna say heroin is bad and we're not gonna do a podcast on it because heroin is bad. Don't do heroin. Don't do heroin, guys. Don't do, the jury's still out of bad. Don't do heroin. Don't do heroin, guys. Don't do the jury's still out of marijuana,

but don't do heroin. So that kind of gives you an example of why it's so hard to do any really good studies on marijuana because it's schedule one. So how am I even going to write some sort of proposal and get approved to do a study on marijuana? Because then I have to give it to patients and it's a schedule one drug,

which theoretically has no medical use and isn't safe. But we can't test that because because of the schedule on drug. So a lot of the stuff that we end up having to use for study is stuff that we've seized illegally. Well not seized illegally. It was seized from illegal transactions. So the DEA bus somebody gets a bunch of marijuana and then it's used, it's studied, you know, by the government, but a lot of those studies are again done in rats.

Rat smoking weed. Yes, rat smoking weed. At least something came of this episode. I get to imagine a rat smoking weed. So before we get into the research, because I do want to tell you about some of this research, real briefly just to kind of round out the history. Since it was called a Schedule One Drug, we have had some advances in, as far as there's a synthetic THC, the active ingredient in marijuana that we theorize is responsible for all of

these great effects. Marinal, which is used for cancer and HIV patients for appetite and nausea and that kind of thing. Marijuana, as you probably know, has been legalized for medical use in 20 different states. In some of these states, this is actually used because they're dispensaries. Some of these states it's not even practical. So it's legal to prescribe medical marijuana, but there's nobody who dispenses it. So... Right. Not a lot. You can do it that. No. So I mean, it's just on the books and,

you know, if that's it. This is still in violation of federal law, though. Sort of like the one of those here and now we will see no evil type deals, though, right? Well, every once in a while, the DEA gets all upset and talks about prosecuting physicians who prescribe it or people who grow it or whatever, but then they're not doing it. And I think it's because of all this controversy we're talking about. And because people like Sanjay Gupta are in favor of it for medical use. And I trust Sanjay. And multiple other countries have done this.

Now, here would be my question. Hit me. Does it work? Oh. For anything. Here's a doctor. Well, this is a hard question to answer. And I mean, I guess my final answer is I don't know,

but let me give you some reasons why. Again, like I said, a lot of studies on the effects on our brain are done in rats. We know that now we do know enough about the human brain and cannabinoids to know that we do have receptors for it. And we know that it can do a variety of things. But when we do studies on like dependence and withdrawal, a lot of those are done in rats,

which is really funny because they actually get the little rats to like smoke a joint. Oh. I mean, they can give it to them in other ways, but there are ways where they can get them to like puff on a little fake like vaporizer. It's not a joint, I should say. It's like a little vaporizer, you know, so they can smoke it. I know.

So that's kind of cute. And they found that like once the rat gets high, it doesn't go back for more until it's not high again. Oh, that's good. Cool. I'm good now. No problem. But both withdrawal and dependence while we have observed this in rats, to some extent,

is not nearly as severe as it is in benzodiazepines, which are medicines like Xanax and Adavane, and valentines that are legal, or opiates. So if we're worried about dependence and what draw, well, we're already prescribing medicines that are way, you know, way worse than marijuana. As far as human studies, a lot of what we do is anecdotal. So we interview people who smoke pot because we can't give it to them. So we take a bunch of people who have pain and say, do you smoke marijuana? And if they say, yes, we put them in one group, but if they say, no, we put them in another. And then we ask them a bunch of questions.

Seems like a way to get a sample. Well, it's not a very good sample, right? Because these people are already, you know, risking incarceration, depending on where you are, to use the marijuana. And so that may say other things about them. And they may actually already be sold on marijuana for its recreational use. So then how much is it helping with their chronic pain?

I don't know, that's, I mean, and maybe it is, but the thing is it's not a great way to do a study. Okay, that makes sense. Now there are some recent studies that we've done that have shown some limited benefits. So, if we look at Parkinson's patients, we think maybe it can improve their symptoms, decrease some pain, improve some sleep. NHIV patients, there've been some small studies done where it's improved pain, depression,

nausea, weight loss, all kinds of different things. In general, our thought is that it may be helpful with chronic pain, it may be helpful with nausea with appetite. Of course, glaucoma because there were some old studies that showed that it lowered interocular pressure. But none of this is really that heavily supported. If you want to find a good controlled trial, you know, placebo controlled trial out there, it just isn't. And the bigger problem is that a lot of it we're just asking patients to tell us how they feel. And they perceive it as better because it's marijuana. Exactly. So that's the big limitation with marijuana research. It makes you feel good.

So you'll perceive more benefits. But then some people would mention, well, isn't that enough then? Isn't that perception reality? Yeah. If your perception is that your pain is less, does it matter? And they do functionally MRIs to say, well, but look, the pain areas of the brain are just as strong in this versus this. But if your perception of the pain is less, does it matter? It's a minute, you're right. I don't know.

And then the other thing is, you know, is the question of a gateway drug, you know, is marijuana truly, you know, a way that our, you know, our kids are gonna start using marijuana because it's legal and then all of a sudden they're gonna be using heroin. That's a dumb reason not to do something though. It is and there's not, there's not consistent evidence to support that either. Right. But there's not consistent evidence to say the other way. And that's the problem with a lot of this. And then you throw in there that a lot of the people were asking about smoking in marijuana, they're not getting it from one, you know, it's not like everybody's getting popped from the same place. So we're talking about different strains that are grown in different parts of the world,

different amounts of different cannabinoids, different potencies. So it's very kind, some it's less kind. It's hard to keep track. Well, and different things may work better for nausea versus pain, versus depression, whatever. We have no way of knowing unless we're actually manufacturing it. So I don't know, the big question for me would be this.

Do the risks of marijuana really outweigh the risks of opiates, which we already use for chronic pain? Because that's a big question with marijuana. We want to use it for things like cancer pain. And if it works for cancer pain, I'm all for it. I don't know. I think it would probably, a lot of the evidence says is in an adjunct.

You would want to use it with another pain medicine. But I certainly think it's less addictive than oxycodone. I think many people in the state of West Virginia would have tested that. Well, I hope that we can get some more research on it, Sid, because I'd like some answers to our net. There are just to let, you know, there are two medicines on the market that are derivatives of cannabinoids that are legal everywhere, everywhere. Well, Marinal, which I've already mentioned, which is a synthetic THC, which is legal in the US.

And then there's Sativacs, which isn't legal in the US, but is in many other countries. And it's actually an oral, oral mucosal spray. Meaning? That you just sprayed in your mouth. Okay. And it's absorbed and it's used for MS patients for the kind of nerve pain they get. Oh, well, those sound boring. I would like to have an actual weed. Please. So let's get

this research done together. America, please, before my child is here, I don't have to stop anyway. There's nothing lamer than like me smoking, dupping it out with my baby upstairs. It's a chance to have a look. Well, I think you hit on the big, this would be my last take on point. I'm ready. Which would be that if marijuana really can

improve pain, improve depression, and help with things like loss of appetite and nausea and cancer patients, I think I'm off for it. I certainly think that anecdotally on my end that people do a lot less harm when they're high on marijuana than they do when they are high on opiates when they're high on benzos or when they're drunk. For instance. And I don't know that we can make a convincing argument that marijuana is any more dangerous than cigarettes.

There it is. So, if the evidence is there, I'm off for it, but we've got to reschedule marijuana so that we can prove it. Because as a doctor, I'm gonna need some hard evidence before I'm willing to write that prescription. Reschedule marijuana. And I can suggest a time, maybe for Tony.

Really? It's a reschedule. You made it the whole episode. Okay, the whole episode. Listen, thank you so much for listening to our program. One to give you one last pitch on this before we let you go. Maximumfund.org for its last donate. Max Fund Drive.

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