Ep. 353: Cannabis as medicine: How it works

Guest: John Tse, medical cannabis practitioner

The idea of lighting up a doobie for medicinal purposes sounds fantastic. I’m stressed; I’ll take a toke, right on! I’m in pain; I’ll toke a little more, fantastic! I can’t sleep; yeah you got– you’re just a few tokes away for a night of bliss.

The problem, according to pharmacists and medical cannabis practitioner John Tse, is “cannabis as a medication doesn’t work that way – medical cannabis is not inhaled and the prescribing of it is complicated.”

Medical cannabis has many potentials and potential pitfalls. Tse says, “The study of cannabis and health is so new that it’s early days in our understanding of the chemical properties and the way our bodies respond. And just like any other drug, how those chemicals act and react in your body is different from how they will react in others.”

The science of pharmacogenomics adds insights into how cannabis interacts with your body. However, the data is still limited, and then add in the fact the study of cannabis is even newer because up until Canada made it legal, research was illegal. In other words, we know a sliver of the scientific information we need.

And what about drug interactions? How does cannabis react with a statin you’re taking for your heart or your diabetes medication? And should you use CBD, CBG or CBN? Or should you consume cannabis with THC? Then how do you dose and how often?

Stuart McNish invited John Tse to join him for a Conversation That Matters about how and when to use cannabis as medicine.