In this video, Mara Gordon, cofounder of Aunt Zelda’s Inc., speaks on one of the biggest questions medicinal cannabis must answer before being accepted by the medical community as a legitimate option- “can cannabis be accurately and consistently dosed?”
First off, cannabis is not a panacea- it is NOT a miracle cure-all!
While it is fantastic and works synergistically with many things, don’t believe all the hype and hyperbole.
That hype might be one of the reasons why doctors are so hesitant to recommend medicinal cannabis in the first place- they often cite a lack of research and information, but that ignores the fact that cannabis is one of the most studied substances in the history of scientific research with 10’s of thousands of studies in the medical literature!
Project CBD is an excellent online resource to keep you up-to-date on the latest studies if you’re interested.
Mara outlines 4 main components that you need in order for cannabis to be accurately and consistently dosed:
- Lab tested medicine– to put it bluntly (no pun intended), without a lab test, it’s not medicine. It’s just a guessing game. That’s why everything she does starts with a lab test
- In-depth patient intake process– includes taking complete family and patient histories, comorbidities (the presence of two or more chronic conditions in a patient), all of the patient’s medications and supplements, and their lifestyle
- Understanding the effects of terpenes and cannabinoids– 144 cannabinoids have been identified to date, and they often work together in what is known as the entourage effect, where the whole is greater than the sum of its parts
- Vigorous patient feedback– not just anecdotal information on how the patient feels, you need to see it from the clinical perspective, which means scans and bloodwork
Long story short- YES, you can dose cannabis consistently and accurately, but it must be lab tested, regulated, and standardized because the body’s natural endocannabinoid system works on many diseases, but it’s not one-size-fits-all.
Other fascinating facts you’ll learn in the video are:
- all cannabinoids begin as a mother compound called CBGa (cannabigerolic acid) and then, based upon the plant’s genetics, it will develop into CBDa, THCa, CBDVa, THCVa, CBCa, and so on. CBC (cannabichromene), which is the third most common cannabinoid overall after THC and CBD, certainly takes the crown for the most Canadian sounding cannabinoid!
- Have you ever heard of the old hippy trick of eating a mango about 30 min before smoking to make the high even stronger? Mara theorizes on how that could work.
For all that and so much more, check out the video!