Is Cannabis really safe for Children ~ Update November 2023

I have always been a huge fan of Dr Dustin Sulak and I often use his teachings to inspire my medical students. He has been working with the Endocannabinoid System (ECS) and Cannabis Medicine in the clinical setting since 2009 and he runs a very busy practice in America.

In my opinion, besides Dr Sharon Price of Carol’s Oils, he is the world’s leading authority when it comes to practicing experts on the clinical applications of Cannabis Medicine and especially in respect of children. Dr Dustin is also a huge fan of herbal whole-plant medicine as opposed to synthetic versions. He also appreciates the immense benefits of raw plant healing using the cannabinoid acids to achieve healing in children and adults.

His unique comprehension of the diversity of the human ECS and of how Cannabis Medicine works in a clinical setting has always impressed me. I am even more impressed that he supports and cites the works of the Late Prof Ester Fride.

The purpose of this post is to bring in younger doctors who are successfully treating children with Cannabis Medicine today based on the same science that I am teaching and in this way to freshen up the research and to give added peace of mind to parents, doctors and caregivers who are wondering if Cannabis Medicine might help their children or patients.

In his October 2022 paper Dr Dustin confirms my research and understanding of child safety with Cannabis Medicine as presented in my last paper where I shared my talk at the Cape Town Cannabis Expo in March this year.

You can find the paper and links to my rumble account to see the video presentation.

https://xhosastyles.blogspot.com/2023/03/cannabis-expo-2023-cape-town-sista-vee.html

https://rumble.com/v2zfrny-is-cannabis-medicine-safe-for-children.html

Dr Dustin published his “Cannabis for Children with Cancer” paper in the Cannabis Patient Care Journal Volume 3 Issue 3 on pages 11 to 13 in October 2022.

In this paper he addresses the efficiency and safety of THC in children.

He says that

“On the basis of my clinical experience, nearly anyone with cancer can benefit from appropriately-dosed cannabis, regardless of their age. It’s invaluable in treating cancer-related symptoms like pain, mitigating the adverse effects of conventional treatments, supporting emotional and spiritual adjustment to the challenging diagnosis, prognosis, and clinical course, and, when needed, as a tool in end-of-life care.”

These days I have found that a lot of oncologists are quite comfortable to recommend Cannabis for cancer patients and this is mostly because they have observed the benefits in clinical trials. And many doctors are starting to accept the fact that CBD can help a lot of children, but when it comes to THC many doctors still consider this taboo. The biggest problem for these doctors is dosing so it is very important to work with someone who understands how the ECS works.

Dr Dustin says that it is important that as doctors and health care practitioners we should put our fears of medical myths aside and rather consider the therapeutic and palliative potential of Cannabis Medicine without unfair judgment.

Do children get high from THC? 

According to Dr Sulak, in his clinical experience and that of many of his fellow doctors, they have found that children are less prone than adults to experience any adverse psychoactive effects from THC.

And here he references the work of my forever main- mentor in Pediatric Cannabis Medicine, the late Professor Ester Fride to whom I dedicated chapters 5 and 6 of my book for her outstanding works.

In his October 2022 paper Dr Sulak states:

“The late Ester Fride, PhD, who pioneered exploration of the endocannabinoid system (ECS) in early development, reported that the gradual postnatal increase of CB1 receptors and anandamide is accompanied by a gradual maturing response to the psychoactive potential of THC in postnatal mice between birth and weaning [1].

This observation in rodent studies is supported by frequent mentions in the 19th-century literature that children often tolerated heroic doses of cannabis medicines that would produce incapacitation in an adult [2].

Examples are also found in the modern literature: in a pediatric clinical trial with sublingual Δ⁸-THC for chemotherapy-induced nausea or vomiting, up to 0.64 mg/kg/dose was virtually totally effective and free of side effects. This is a dose that would produce pronounced impairment in most non-cannabis tolerant adults.[3]

In my practice, the most common and often only adverse effects of THC-dominant cannabis in children are giggling, bloodshot eyes, and sleepiness; when these occur, a minor dosage reduction usually resolves them all.”

What about the risks in the developing brain?

In my book I explain the science that I learnt from Professor Fride, that proves that ECS receptors are present in the white matter regions of the pre and post natal brain. The white matter regions of the human brain are the very deep tissues of the brain and this proves that there is a specific role for the ECS in early human brain development.

This is what Doctor Dustin has to say:

“A recent review and meta-analysis of longitudinal studies that evaluated frequent or dependent cannabis use in young people did indeed find a decrease in intelligence quotient (IQ) over time, but that decrease was just under 2 points (5).

The authors thought this decrease was not clinically significant and “alone is unlikely to completely explain a range of psychosocial problems linked to cannabis use in this cohort.” In other words, even under the worst circumstances (heavy adolescent use, not medically-supervised), the negative impact on cognition is minimal.

In controlled pediatric trials, THC most commonly led to side effects of drowsiness and dizziness, with severity associated with higher doses; no major side effects were reported after dose reduction. The most common side effects with high-dose CBD are somnolence, diarrhea, and decreased appetite (6).

In comparison with the adverse effect profiles of most treatments being considered for pediatric patients with cancer, cannabis is almost always the safest.

Most pediatric patients with cancer will not remain on cannabis indefinitely, but some may require ongoing treatment for cancers that don’t resolve or for symptoms that persist after treatment, such as chemotherapy-induced peripheral neuropathy (CIPN)."

In my own practice my experience is that a medicine made with just a tiny amount of THC is much more effective in the treatment of nausea, cancer-pain, neuropathic pain and appetite stimulation than just CBD alone. In American studies 2 “randomized, double blind trials including child cancer patients proved that THC was far more effective in treating nausea and vomiting than the placebo they tested against. [7.8]

Dr Dustin Sulak gives some more insight into his clinical practice:

“In my pediatric patients with cancer, I typically observe pain relief, appetite increase, nausea reduction, improvements in sleep, and excellent palliative effects at the end of life.

Low oral doses of THC are often the most effective for these purposes, often starting around 0.05 mg THC per kg body weight per dose and gradually working up from there.

My patients usually use the lowest effective dose of THC, to prevent building tolerance and losing the therapeutic benefits, and liberal doses of the other cannabinoids.

CIPN is an adverse effect experienced by 40–80% of patients with cancer 3–6 months into their chemotherapeutic treatment. It usually presents as a loss of sensation, increased sensitivity to pain, or allodynia (pain that’s caused by a stimulus that does not normally elicit pain).

Symptoms of CIPN may not stop after discontinuing chemotherapy, with 30–40% of patients experiencing symptoms 6 months or longer after treatment, sometimes leading to debilitating chronic pain. In all patients with cancer, but especially in children, I want to do anything I can to prevent the survivors from having to live with debilitating nerve pain.

Several animal studies have shown that targeting the ECS can do just that—prevent CIPN" [10]

Dr Sulak also tells us about a recent retrospective analysis of 513 cancer patients. The study revealed that Cannabis users were half as likely to develop CPIN than non-users (15.3% versus 27.9%). This study also proved that the best healing results occurred in patients who started Cannabis treatment before the “neuro-toxic” chemotherapy. [11]

When it comes to ‘chemo-care’ this is where I always see the plant shining. It is no secret now that the compounds found within the Cannabis plant can activate apoptosis, autophagy and prevent tumors from spreading. The plant can also cut off the blood vessels that supply tumors. [12]

There is no doubt that there is a synergistic and protective effect against dangerous conventional treatments when Cannabis is added to the healing program because of the low toxicity of Cannabis Medicine. [13]

In his conclusion Dr Dustin offers parents reassurance in using Cannabis Medicine to treat children for cancer:

“Children with cancer can safely use cannabis with a low risk of adverse effects and high likelihood of benefit.

This medicine can drastically improve resilience to stress, emotional and spiritual well-being, and quality of life, while also improving prognosis by increasing the likelihood of completing a full course of conventional therapy and preventing some of the devastating long-term adverse effects of cancer treatment, such as neuropathy.

Furthermore, cannabis may also help directly fight the cancer on its own or in combination with conventional treatments such as chemotherapy and radiation”

If anyone out there needs assistance to help heal their child please do not hesitate to contact me on my email: vee.bush@gmail.com 

CITATIONS:

1. E. Fride, Neuroendocrinology Letters 25(1/2), 24–30 (2004).

2. E.B. Russo, in Handbook of Cannabis, R. Pertwee, Ed. (Oxford University Press, 2014) pp. 23–43.

3. A. Abrahamov, A. Abrahamov, and R. Mechoulam, Life Sciences, 56(23–24), 2097–2102 (1995).

5.  E. Power, et al., Psychological Medicine 51.2, 194-200 (2021).

6.. S.S. Wong and T.E. Wilens, Pediatrics 140(5), Article e20171818 (2017).

7. A.E. Chang, et al., Annals of Internal Medicine 91.6, 819-824 (1979).

8. . S.E. Sallan, N.E. Zinberg, and E. Frei III, New England Journal of Medicine 293(16), 795-797 (1975).

11. B. Waissengrin, et al., Therapeutic Advances in Medical Oncology 13, 1758835921990203 (2021).

12. D.A. Ladin, E. Soliman, L. Griffin, and R. Van Dross, Frontiers in Pharmacology 7, 361 (2016).

13. J. Kander, Cannabis for the Treatment of Cancer: The Anticancer Activity of Phytocannabinoids and Endocannabinoids (6th ed, 2020).