My
greatest wish is to share Cannabis medicine information with as many people as
possible because without doubt Cannabis cures cancer and it is now a well-known
fact that Cannabis has effectively killed all the different types of cancer
cells that science has tested to date. [24] (Weeks,
2018) My traditional healer teachers used to always say that eventually
medical doctors will learn about Cannabis medicine straight from their
patients.
In
my work the most important aspect about Cannabis medicine has always been the
fact that the main target of THC is our brain. There is a potent natural and
somewhat mystical affinity between this fat soluble molecule and the human brain
which is made up of over 60% fat, so there is a biological link for THC to
specifically focus on the human brain.
The second most important
aspect is that the Endocannabinoid system or ECS essentially controls our
Endocrine system which is part of the body’s main control mechanism and
controls our hormone system. The main function of the Endocrine system is also
homeostasis and these two systems work alongside each other in defending the
body from unnatural imbalance from external environmental sources. We now know that in fact the ECS is the body's 'super computer' and modulates every single physiological system in the human body.
Some
other crucial considerations when working with this medicine is understanding
receptor expression, individual treatment plans, the regulatory role of
Cannabis in the Endocrine and Chakra system, micro-dosing as well as the
relationship between Cannabis and the sun. When there is illness or injury in
the body it imperatively calls our EC systems to bring healing. If the EC
system is compromised or deficient for whatever reason for example stress it
should not surprise anyone that plant derived Cannabinoids are the only true
therapy for effective healing.
The Secrets
of Cannabis Medicine
·
The brain is the
main target of THC
·
Dual healing
purpose
·
Retrograde
transmission
·
Receptor
expression
·
Individual
treatment programs
·
Micro dosing
·
Endocrine and
Chakra system regulation
·
Tachion energy
·
The Entourage
Effect
Vitamin D absorption
The challenge of convincing doctors…
No
approved medicine has ever been prescribed through the delivery system of
smoking and we can see from the explosion of studies all over the world, that
cancer patients and even patients with other medical conditions, mostly all
report achieving better results from the smoke inhalation process than through
ingestion.
But let us not forget that as recently as the late 1970's medical doctors were encouraging patients to smoke cigarettes to help with stress and relaxation.
Doctors and patients need to be aware of the protective role
Cannabis plays in the lungs against tobacco damage in the exact same way as it
protects the liver from alcohol damage and this is why I always say that
smoking Cannabis is still safer than not smoking at all and many doctors cringe
when I make this statement. This is how scientists declared the need to develop
non-smoked and fast working delivery systems. To be fair THC and Cannabis is
probably the last thing any doctor would think about when dealing with say for
instance asthma or lung cancer. So a lot of doctors might struggle with the
idea of prescribing medicine to be delivered via smoking. The truth is that we
have known since before the 1970’s that Cannabis has the ability to help open
airways in the lungs.
We
know that Cannabis is a bronchodilator and this is why even smoking Cannabis is
able to help a lot of asthma patients. It
is not likely that the medical world will ever accept a medicine which needs to
be smoked. But eventually doctors will realise that often times this is the
most effective way to consume this medicine for instant relief of so many day
to day problems. In the future patients who are used to smoking Cannabis for
medicinal purposes will most likely find very little benefit in some synthetic versions.
You can see how this uncovers a potential turning point for the way in which
the world thinks about Cannabis medicine. Patients who prefer to puff also
mostly report that it is easier to control the individual dosage through
smoking because the effects are instant. This is because THC directly and
immediately targets the brain and through the smoking of Cannabis THC reaches
the brain as quickly as the plant molecule crosses the blood brain barrier
which in most people is instant.
With ingestion the effects can take hours to ‘kick in’ and for common ailments like
insomnia, nausea, pain, menstrual
problems, blood pressure, stress, anxiety and so on
just a few puffs is usually enough to solve most problems and this is true for
many people everywhere in the world. You don’t need to be a scientist to
realise that if Cannabis was freely available to the ordinary person in the
street that in fact the pharmaceutical industry would stand a very good chance
of shrinking.
We
must stop thinking of Cannabis as a ‘drug’ and the plant needs to be removed from
the legal system and not carry any type of scheduling and there really ought to
be a worldwide moratorium on international Cannabis laws. Right now there is a
tremendous amount of confusion about the Cannabis situation. There are many
different definitions of the word ‘drug’
and Cannabis is not one of them.
Cannabis is also not a gateway drug …there are no gateway drugs there
are just ‘drugs’ and if ever there was a gateway drug it would have to be
cigarettes so it’s hard to believe that not so long ago medical doctors were
used to endorse cigarette smoking as though nicotine itself was a medicine.
As
far as I am concerned the only connection between ‘drugs’ and Cannabis is that through prohibition ordinary people
have been forced to seek out drug dealers to obtain a natural herb which our
bodies need and which we could all simply grow in a pot on the window sill for
free. This is exactly how Cannabis
became a ‘gateway drug’ by keeping it
illegal and forcing young people
straight into the drug dens and this is how they are introduced to the serious
‘drugs’. These days Cannabis medicine can be effectively administered in many
different ways so asthmatics for example can now inhale Cannabis medicine with
a vaping device. Doctors shouldn’t fear because in fact smoking a joint may
soon be the least common method of dosing Cannabis medicine and other routes of
administration include inhalation, oral, topically, sublingual and rectal with
suppositories.
You
are not ill ~ you are Cannabis Deficient…
Right now there is more
medical evidence in favour of the therapeutic potential of Cannabis than there
is for any of the most popular conventional remedies currently on the market. And Cannabis is implicated in 678 medical conditions including corona virus.
There is no shortage of experts who also now
believe that the psychoactive properties of Cannabis are most likely to only be
short lived and in fact do not present any risk of brain damage which in itself
is contradictory in light of all the knowledge we now have of how Cannabis
actually directly targets the brain to generate new brain cells and this is why
we are having so much success in treating brain cancers and other conditions of
the brain with Cannabis medicine.
Scientists
have already labelled this deficiency as Clinical Endocannabinoid
Deficiency (CECD) also
known as Endocannabinoid Deficiency Syndrome. If the medical world sees fit to tag a condition as “Cannabis Deficiency” then surely we must
all realise that we are required to consume Cannabis in order to maintain our
health. A lot of people cannot really understand why millions of people with
life-threatening diseases especially small children suffering from cancer,
epilepsy and HIV are legally denied access to a natural plant medicine which
people could be growing for free.
No one should be denied Cannabis in light of
all the research we can all access in this day and age and it is easy to
understand why so many people feel that they are quite literally being
legislated out of their own health and well- being.
We
have already seen how deficiencies can cause some serious health problems for
example vitamin and iron deficiencies can both cause havoc on the body’s
systems and so too when our body is deprived of Cannabinoids when under attack
from whatever reason, we begin to see deterioration of systems and organs which
often manifests in one or another form of cancer. It has always been my
understanding that cancer is really just Cannabis deficiency and you can see
the results where this plant is able to heal most cancers within 90 days to the
amazement of conventional doctors. This is the power of the human companion
plant.
Is it possible to be allergic and addicted to
Cannabis?
A lot of people have had ‘bad
experiences’ with Cannabis and usually there are other chemicals involved like
alcohol which will send most people into a state of ‘green fever’. In fact alcohol
is the only real antagonist to Cannabis and these two should not be used
together. Cannabis is a medicine and doesn’t deserve to be treated like a party
drug and this is why I have always believed that all recreational use is also
medicinal use whether the person realises it or not because healing is taking
place regardless. People use Cannabis to feel better to eat better, to sleep
better to be pain free, to relax and to be less stressed and these are all genuine
medical conditions which we know Cannabis can cure. People must respect the
human companion plant and the way it works inside our bodies and brains because
we need Cannabis for our health. We must be open and honest when discussing Cannabis allergies because a
person who has a ‘reaction’ is often times the same person who was simply
consumed more THC than they could handle.
This
is not an allergy and maybe we need to look closer at the human condition of
addiction instead…the condition of wanting to get ‘more high’ for whatever reasons. The potential to abuse any
substance be it coffee, sugar, cocaine or Cannabis is directly related to the
severity of the persons pain which they are wanting to escape through their
substance of choice. If you look close you will see
that societies which have higher stress levels also have high addiction
statistics so definitely stress is relative to the increase in addictions we
are seeing today. When we do not
respect Cannabis we ourselves exploit the potential to abuse our most valuable
companion on earth. It is
true that the psychedelic properties of THC can come upon you very suddenly and
strike you full force in mid-sentence. This is why we absolutely have to
respect the dose, the plant and most importantly ourselves when consuming Cannabis medicine.
If we do not respect all of these then we risk abusing Cannabis so my best
advice for doctors and patients is to begin with
less and build up slowly when testing Cannabis medicine.
It is very important to understand that
synthetic cannabinoid products work differently to plant derived medicine and
generally have a much higher THC potency than whole herbal plant material. In
chapter 1 we learnt how the receptors function but what is really
important for doctors to know is that synthetic Cannabis products act as FULL agonists of the Cannabis receptors where the plant chemicals only act
as PARTIAL agonists and this is why synthetics are more
potent because they are engineered to operate differently to the natural
molecules found in the whole plant and this is proving to be a disadvantage. And pretty
soon doctors will have to explain to patients
why synthetics do not work as well as the actual plant and why synthetics have
side effects when the plant does not. So reactions to synthetic Cannabis drugs
cannot constitute allergies but are actually side effects of man-made
pharmaceutical products. We are even hearing stories of people taking synthetic
CBD drops and breaking out in hives but yet when they smoke the plant nothing
happens.
In my work I have had to help patients who had already
taken synthetic cannabis products for example those so called
CBD products available in the UK, to obtain plant based medicine because the synthetics had not
worked. This is a common experience with
people suffering from various auto-immune diseases. Cannabis really is the best
friend of our immune systems and when it comes to treating auto-immune
conditions it seems certain that only whole herbal plant medicine will be truly
effective. The EC system needs Cannabis to ensure a healthy immune system. We really need to differentiate between
genuine Cannabis allergy symptoms and allergic reactions to substances found in
Cannabis which are not actually naturally found in Cannabis for example
pesticides, mould and fungal contamination.
In my opinion there is no such thing as ‘Cannabis hyperemeresis’ which doctors claim is when a person smokes
too much Cannabis. It is a well-known fact that many growers use neem oil for
pest control and just because it is organic does not mean it is safe. The
active ingredient is Azadirachtin and it is very poisoness. It is shocking to learn that over 50% of all Cannabis supplied to dispensaries is contaminated with
azadirachtin. [25] (Karimi, 2018) If you look closely at the symptoms of this
so called syndrome they are exactly the same as neem oil poisoining. Nausea, vomiting, diarrhoea, abdominal pain,
muscle tension, fatigue and deyhdration.
Some people are so sensitive to neem oil that seizures and organ damage
can also occur. Billions
of people worldwide will suffer from some sort of allergic reaction every year
be it food, pollen (hay fever), mould, peanuts, even pets and so on. Some
people are even allergic to water. So it is no
coincidence that as more people consume Cannabis we are beginning to see an
increase in so called ‘allergies’.
There are many studies available indicating that Cannabis is an ‘emerging allergen’ so definitely you can
start to see the trend to ‘introduce’
us to Cannabis allergies. People
working in the synthetic cannabis industry are starting to pick up skin
problems and irritations alledgedly from working with the whole plant. First of
all…these employees should be wearing gloves, hair coverering and protective
clothing to prevent cross contamination to plant material and second we would
need to seriously look at the role of pesticides and other chemicals used in
the growing process. Because even
protective clothing cannot save you from the poisonous chemicals some growers
use relentlessly. Sadly in business ‘time is money’ so for sure there are
chemicals being used to ‘speed up’
the growing process which is the same story as with our commercial food supply.
Can
Cannabis cure stress?
Most
doctors can agree that stress and processed food are the two worst enemies in
our lives and a lot of our physical ills are directly related to life stresses
and toxic food products. We now know that it has been acknowledged by
scientists that chronic stress can block many of our receptors including our
Cannabinoid receptors. The production of Endocannabinoids in our bodies affect our cognition,
emotion and behavior and has been scientifically linked to the real reduction
of pain and anxiety, increase in appetite, and general feelings of well-being
and so in tests carried out on rats researchers found that chronic stress in
fact reduced the production of Endocannabinoids as well as the receptors. In
times of increased stress and anxiety I always tell my patients to “double their dose” of Cannabis medicine
to compensate for this unnatural reduction of our own Endocannabinoids.
So
stress makes you Cannabinoid deficient and by administering Cannabis to these
rats it was found that symptoms of anxiety and depression were alleviated. It’s
the exact same with humans, if you give a depressed person a little bit of
Cannabis and they will definitely start to feel better. Patients who gain
relief of their stress and anxiety symptoms by consuming Cannabis are really
just supplementing a deficiency in their EC system by
using phyto cannabinoids from the Cannabis plant to produce more of our own
Cannabinoids and receptors to restore balance.
When
we are experiencing stress our bodies produce stress hormones, one of these is
“Cortisol” and Cortisol is a very powerful chemical which can alter your immune
system, suppress the digestive tract, even impair the growth process and also
has negative effects on the reproductive system. There is enough scientific evidence to prove that Cortisol causes an upregulation in tumor formation in the human body.
Adrenalin also increases under
stress and can be very toxic to our systems. Stress affects the brain in a
number of ways including memory and learning abilities, cognitive deficits
(brain damage, impaired functioning) as well as mood alterations. Our
Endocannabinoids and the Cannabinoid receptors are intricately linked to the
pathway known as The Cortico-Limbic
Circuit of the stress system which regulates the whole stress response. Stress not only blocks the ECS receptors but also stops the production of endocannabinoids like Anandamide and 2-AG.
The truth is that good health cannot dwell in an unhappy body and this is just one of the reasons why Cannabis is now famous for making humans laugh
We
know that Cannabinoids regulate a variety of stress related behaviors at
distinct locations in the brain because of the expression of Cannabinoid
receptors in these locations. Also we know that the EC system controls the
Endocrine system from where the stress hormones are released.
Cannabis
has been helping people to relax for thousands of years by reducing stress and
relieving tension and anxiety because it protects the brain from the harsh
effects of stress and what more could we possibly want from our companion
plant? And millions of people use Cannabis for mood elevation and this is exactly why our main Endocannabinoid produced in the human brain is named "Anandamide" the Sanskrit meaning "Bliss". Anandamide is the human version of THC and 2-AG is the human version of CBD.
Stress can literally eat a person up and this is because it actually
causes serious biological damage to individual cells affecting how cells
communicate and send and receive messages affecting all of the body’s systems
not only the brain even the heart as we know how many people have stress
related heart attacks. Stress also causes physical pain and we all know that
Cannabis is the best pain killer. Cannabis and especially THC devours stress
because it stops the production of the stress hormones. Something else I have
noticed is that while there is no doubt that Cannabis can alter behaviour in
many people, there is a certain positive regulating role in behaviour during
particularly stressful times or in times of environmental challenges.
Observing
people from all walks of life operating under stress with and without Cannabis
I can say that Cannabis consumers definitely seem to handle stress better than
non- users and this is because of the way plant derived Cannabinoids interact
with our stress hormones. People
who do not consume Cannabis will have a different perspective to stress because
their EC systems are not performing properly having depleted the body of
Anandamide, our natural THC to protect them against the stress. This decline in Anandamide immediately
activates the stress response in the body and brain by releasing toxic stress
hormones into the blood stream.
So when stress levels are high Anandamide
levels will be low and it is this depletion of our natural THC which is what
makes people feel more anxious in times of stress. It is true that the
secretion of glucocorticoids is a natural adaptive response which is necessary
for any organism to respond appropriately to a stressor but it is also true
that ongoing secretion is toxic to our health. Scientists have implicated the
EC system in the adaption of the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal
axis (HPA axis) during repeated exposure to stress because their findings
prove that our Endocannabinoids regulate the HPA axis response to stress and
this is further proof of the controlling role of Cannabis over our hormonal
system. [26]
(Lovallo, 2006) Only through supplementation with plant derived
Cannabinoids will people begin to feel better because it is the THC which makes
people feel better because THC from the Cannabis plant is the only way to
naturally supplement our internal ‘joy
molecule’ proving that Cannabis can give us joy as well as perfect health
and this is how Cannabis can cure stress.
Cannabis dosing
Things would be a lot easier if there were just one
kind of Cannabis plant and doctors would have an easier task of recommending a
certain Cannabis dose. But the truth is that there are thousands of different
strains some very potent and others which don’t have much effect on the body or
mind. Different delivery routes also complicate the matter further because
different routes have different effects. Despite all these mysteries
surrounding Cannabis medicine dosage can be measured in order to achieve the
desired healing effect each patient is looking for.
At the end of the day
dosing is relative to the potency of the THC content of the plant material
which all boils down to plant genetics. Dr Donald Abrams MD Professor of Clinical Medicine at the University of California in San Francisco is
one of the few medical doctors who have written about Cannabis dosing. He
offers final dosing recommendations which I use in my own medicine as a
guideline. Plants which tests result in around 10% THC he suggests a daily dose
of between .15 to 5.55 grams which is a suitable dose for most illnesses but
certain cancers will need a much higher dose. As THC levels increase dosage
should decrease in grams. Cannabis testing at 20% THC for example would reduce
to a daily dosage of around .08 to 2.79 grams while 30% THC would reduce to .01
to 1.86 grams and so on but the important thing to consider is that dosage is
an deeply individual issue and often I will treat two patients with the exact
same medical diagnoses with different dosages and this is largely because of
individual Cannabinoid receptor expression and individual hormonal absorption
rates. It really is true that less is more and I am a huge fan of micro dosing
or miniscule dosing in my healing work and especially with Cannabis medicine.
Research is now starting to prove that just tiny amounts of Cannabinoids can
stimulate the body to make more Endocannabinoids and build more receptors. [27]
(admin, 2004)
More receptors increase a person's sensitivity to Cannabinoids; which
means that smaller doses have larger effects, and the individual has an
improved foundation for optimum EC system activity by consuming just a tiny
dose of Cannabis on a regular basis. Some of my oldest patients in their 90’s
already are literally consuming six raw Cannabis leaves a day as part of a
miniscule maintenance dosing plan. Other patients maintain their health with daily
doses Cannabis seeds while others might have established their personal
tolerance at say 10 ml of coconut infused Cannabis oil per day. But when it
comes to man-made drugs, it can be difficult to control the dose of synthetic
medicines and often the patient doesn’t really have a choice but to commit to
the medicine at the prescribed dose and endure whatever side effects come their
way. It starts becoming obvious that the whole-plant herbal version of Cannabis
can offer many positive effects which are not present in synthetic versions. The important thing to bear in mind is that synthetic man-made Cannabis
medicines are definitely not as effective as when working with whole herbal
plant extracts. Here is a quote by Dr
Ware of Health Canada, he says:
“By virtue of purifying those resins, isolating
them, and putting them into pharmaceutical products, you sort of give rise to a
more standardized and clean product…the challenge is that even though we have
these existing prescription cannabinoids that these prescription medicines
don’t seem to work the same way that the herbal product does.” [28] (Admin
licencetogrow, 2019)
This
is the truth and I really don’t mean to bash the pharmaceutical industry
because they do have a lot of excellent products which are also helping many
patients but it seems obvious that doctors will have to educate themselves
about whole herbal Cannabis healing and not only the synthetics they will be
allowed to sell. A lot of the doctors I have worked with have shown enough
enthusiasm to learn about this complex and highly evolved plant. They realise that
Cannabis medicine doesn’t really fit into any of the conventional medical boxes
and so it needs to be handled in its own right, and with individual treatment
programs to be fully appreciated by doctor and patient. The reason why the
actual plant cures more effectively than synthetics is because of The Entourage Effect.
This
is the understanding that all of the plants chemical components must be present
in the recipe. All of the different Cannabinoids and terpene
profiles, terpenoids and flavinoids together are involved in the healing
process and they all have to work together to achieve the magical healing
properties we are seeing from whole herbal Cannabis. We must
all realize that THC and CBD are only a part of the equation. The concept of the Entourage Effect comes from the Hebrew
University in Israel from the laboratory of Professor Raphael Mechoulam and
describes how all of the chemical compounds of Cannabis must work together in
symphony to create the total of all the plant parts which then transcend to the
magic powers of this plant of renown. [29] (MarzodRaphaelMechoulama, 1998)
The
entourage effect is the natural combination of over 140 known Cannabinoids as
well as hundreds of other chemical components which together produce the
specific natural effects of whole herbal Cannabis. There are even terpenes and
terpenoids of which over 200 have already been identified and which also mimic
the actions of Cannabinoids and also have their own special healing powers so
no-one really knows the true number of chemical components within the Cannabis
plant.
Potency
as with other medical drugs is not only concerned with how strong the effect of
a medicine is but rather at what concentration or dose these effects are
achieved in different individuals. For instance THC and CBD have different
potencies at different targets because of the different ways in which they
interact with our other receptors and of course everyone’s receptors work
completely differently. This is important because at higher doses both THC and
CBD are able to engage more targets and in this way offer more powerful
healings.
Estimating which doses are needed to engage different targets is the
secret to healing with this medicine. The research involving my own recipe The Cannabis Coconut Connection® took 12
years of field study to bring to the public after almost 20 years of growing
and researching the human companion plant and research is ongoing in the field
of development. Over the years the challenge has always been to try to produce
a quasi-standard recipe for the most common ailments like insomnia, nausea,
pain, inflammation, menstrual problems, lack of appetite, obesity,
constipation, headaches, high blood pressure, depression, and anxiety.
In
general when working with a Cannabis strain which records around 6 to 8% THC
and a 1:1 ratio of THC to CBD meaning that the CBD ratio would also be between
6 and 8% an effective formula has proven to be 10 grams of pure and properly cured
Cannabis flowers to 100 ml of virgin organic coconut oil to make small amounts
of medicine. A 5ml daily dose taken at night cures most day to day complaints
but healing will always depend on individual treatment programs.
One
of the biggest differences between Cannabis medicine and pharmaceutical drugs
is that the pharmaceuticals generally only have high potency at one specific
target, meaning a specific receptor which they are engineered to target.
Cannabis targets all of our receptors and this is why this medicine works so
fast and so effectively for such a wide range of health issues. This is also
why Cannabis works so well with other pharmaceutical drugs and this has been a
blessing over the years as many doctors were not even aware that their patients
were self medicating with Cannabis as part of their treatment. The truth is that Cannabis will never be a
medicine which can be standardized and this is because our Cannabis receptor
system is as unique to each of us as our fingerprints so factors like receptor
expression, tolerance, dual purpose,
retrograde transmission and the chakra system also need to be understood.
This is not only because everyone is
different but also because no two Cannabis plants are the same and even on the same
plant no two buds or branches contain the exact same chemical makeup. Nothing
about the EC system is constant or predictable because it is an ever changing
system unlike any other system we have ever studied.
Establishing Cannabinoid tolerance also varies from
person to person especially in respect of the main psychoactive compound THC.
Scientists are actively studying the mechanisms which underlie the development
of this tolerance. And it is interesting to note that the extent to which any
one of these mechanisms is involved in the establishment of this tolerance
seems to be brain-area based and I really believe that this is because the
brain is the main target of THC.
Many
medical practitioners and paediatricians and even veterinarians continue to be
amazed at the virtually miraculous healing abilities of the Cannabis plant and
truly this plant has shown us many miracles which people continue to experience, even long after doctors say there is no hope. A lot of people have seen me at
their death bed and then weeks later we are drinking tea together. But for too
many others when I get to the death bed the patient is often closer to pearly
gates than the door of death. It is never fair to offer false hope and
sometimes it is simply too late and I really urge people not to wait until a
family member is on their death bed before considering Cannabis medicine.
Many doctors are wondering if Cannabis
medicine will work for their patients but they don’t really know anything about
how the medicine works or even if it is a real medicine. Some doctors feel that
once Cannabis is legal for everyone there doesn’t seem to be any point in
doctors prescribing it. Doctors can expect obvious questions from patients such
as “How much to take? When to take it? And what type of effects
will be felt?” These are the type of things you should be able to discuss
with your doctor or health care provider.
And there will always be a need for
whole herbal Cannabis dispensing because not everyone likes gardening and most
people are either too busy or too ill to tend plants. So doctors will still
need to assist in making this medicine available to their patients where they
can be sure that it contains what the label says it contains and hopefully has
been tested for toxins and heavy metals.
There are many people producing various Cannabis medicines and often I
think there are more producers than patients but the fact is that you really do
not know what is in these products and the only way to be totally sure of what
you are consuming is to grow the plants yourself and produce your own
medication otherwise you will need to put your trust in another human being who
really is no more qualified than yourself. Many doctors today are fully aware
of the medicinal healing properties of Cannabis and everyone should be urged to
discuss this very serious matter with their health care practitioners to find
the best solution for their personal medical disorders.
It is quite possible
for conventional and natural medical practitioners to work together for the
overall healing of the people. We can see how more and more doctors are beginning
to realise the truth about Cannabis however they lack the scientific research
to adequately administer this medication in its natural form.
Going
forward more and more people will need information from their doctors about
Cannabis medicine because it is helpful for so many day to day complaints.
Doctors must not feel awkward when discussing Cannabis with their patients even
though the patient might be far more informed.
It is important to rather focus on the evidence of the healing abilities
of the plant and realise that this is a barrier which needs to be broken down
for the benefit of everyone especially sick children and their suffering
parents.
Most doctors are approachable and are accustomed to discussing
alternative treatments. If your doctor is unfamiliar or hesitant to prescribe it
you should take it upon yourself to explain the science and medical support for
your specific experiences. The best way to approach your doctor is from a position
of knowledge and this is exactly how a lot of doctors will learn about Cannabis
medicine from their own patients. My limited medical training was most helpful
because a traditional healer can be very gifted but at times it does become
necessary to confer with doctors on various patients when a medical treatment
becomes the more appropriate intervention. Without this training it is not easy
to communicate with the medical professionals so healers with training and
practice in western medicine automatically bring something extra to their work
and can act as a bridge between the traditional world and the medical world.
The
biggest difference between doctors and traditional healers is that we are shown
through our spiritual connection to the ancestors the exact nature of a
patient’s problem. It is different from listening through a stethoscope to find
clues to form an opinion although to be honest I have had a love affair with my
stethoscope since my early nursing days and many doctors are surprised I even
have one. As
a traditional healer I really value cooperation with medical professionals and I have tried
to cultivate relationships where we each respect one another and many doctors
have said that I have wonderful medicine. They want to know more about it and
they refer patients to me because I specialise in some areas and they
specialise in other areas and we should all refer to each other for our own
specialities as we do amongst ourselves as well.
Some diseases are better treated with
traditional herbs while others respond best to western medicine. For example
western procedures are seen as best for emergency and critical care and most
healers will have an ambulance on standby for such cases. Hospitals are able to
replace patient’s fluids if they become dehydrated and can offer blood
transfusions where necessary. Millions of people especially in Africa have
placed their faith in traditional healing for generations, yet they hear about
the miracles of modern science. As health care providers we must all try to
offer patients the best of both worlds. Not so long ago it was unacceptable for
the medical community to work with traditional healers but now we are reaching
out to the doctors and visiting their busy clinics. Today we can see that this
cooperation will only grow stronger and stronger and have great benefits for
patients and their medical staff in western hospitals.
Medical
professionals should try to understand the myths, the facts, the fears, the
challenges as well as the rewards of working with this medicine in order to
become a dependable doctor who can confidently treat patients with Cannabis
medicine. They need to understand the different delivery routes of this
medicine and why it is so important to choose the appropriate method for each
individual patient. Individual personalised treatment is one of the core
principals of prescribing Cannabis medicine.
It is my hope that doctors might
see this as an opportunity to provide an excellent healing service to their
patients and to actually cure them so we need doctors and patients to have an
open mind about Cannabis medicine. Personally I feel that the doctors who will
benefit the most are the paediatricians especially when treating epilepsy for
instance. No one can say that there is not enough research or evidence to prove
that Cannabis is helping thousands of epileptic children and their families to
live relatively normal lives.
Acknowledging
the sacred relationship between Cannabis and humans is what will determine
whether doctors and healers will comprehend the intricate network of the true
natural healing powers of the Cannabis plant and its receptors in our bodies.
Cannabis healing is so well documented in the ancient texts but in the future I
would like to see Cannabis being the first port of call for preventative and
curative treatment through the focus on receptor expression and that doctors
might begin to accept Cannabis as a very effective medicine rather than a last
resort.