May 5, 2016 • 33 mins
It's easy to misjudge "medical marijuana" as an attempt by cannabis advocates to legitimize their favorite herb, but medicinal use of cannabis dates back to ancient times. In this episode of Stuff to Blow Your Mind, Robert and Christian explore both historical and modern uses of "the green medicine."
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind from how Stop
Work dot com. Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind.
My name is Robert Lamb and I'm Christian Seger, and
this is the second part of our Cannabis Files. Episode.
(00:22):
We're taking a deep look at the science behind marijuana,
and in particular in this episode, we're going to focus
on its medical applications. Uh. And the thing about medical
applications with marijuana that's interesting is we've known about them
for a very long time. This isn't something new, right, Like,
(00:42):
you've only heard the term medical marijuana and maybe what
like the last twenty or thirty years here in the
United States, But this goes back thousands of years. Yeah.
I feel like it's easy to to sort of to
hear about medical marijuana. So we're certainly to have heard
about it earlier on and think to yourself, Oh, this
is just marijuana users trying to legitimize their recreational use
(01:04):
by saying, oh, it's actually good for you. But but
but really, our our relationship with the medicinal marijuana goes
back for a long time. Yeah, So we're gonna give
you a little bit more than Doug Benson's super high
med documentary here. Uh, this is gonna be you know,
a real deep look at the earliest known medical uses
of medical marijuana and then the actual beneficial properties of
(01:27):
cannabis in the ways that we're researching it right now,
because we're you know, as far even though as far
back as it goes, we don't we haven't really nailed
it down right at least in the empirical since Yeah,
so this is there are a lot of open questions here.
As we mentioned in our last episode, you could easily
do an entire podcast series, um just looking at all
(01:48):
the different research um examples out there and all the
different applications. Uh, and all we're trying to do is
given a nice overview with some some detailed discussion where
it makes sense. As always, if there's an area that
you want more clarification on, you have a couple of
different options. You can check out that how medical Marijuana
(02:08):
article works over how stuff works dot com. You can
also let us know, Hey, why don't you do a different,
like an entire episode just on this one little area
consider doing. Yeah, yeah, it would be great if you
let us know what particular you know, subsect of this
uh information that you'd like us to go a little
further down. I mean, when we're doing the research or
(02:29):
something like this, we really have to keep the net wide. Now.
In our last episode, when we were talking about just
humanity's long history with marijuana and how it how cannabis
originated in uh in perhaps India or Central Asia and
it's just spread out from there over the over the
(02:49):
over thousands of years, we mentioned that the earliest written
account goes back to WHATCS something that's twenty eight maybe,
but yeah, it's like, well, very long time. And uh
so you might have been wondering them like who, what's
the details on this? Who? Who wrote what? Well, I
am here to tell you the the writer in this
(03:10):
case is the mythical Emperor shinng Uh, the divine farmer
and founder of Chinese herbal medicine, really the founder of
Chinese medicine in general. And uh he allegedly, and I
say allegedly, because he's a very much a mythological figure,
becomes just sort of lost to history to what extent
(03:31):
this is real person, myth was a combination of people
or something like that exactly, because yeah, he's a very
he's a divine figure in in Chinese history, and it's
like maybe thousands of years from now people will say
that about Alexander Shulgin. They're like, surely this person couldn't
have existed. Shogan the Great, Yeah, the divine architect of M.
D M A M. But according to so so, basically
(03:54):
Shinng wrote the Shinng Bin Kao Jing or the g
eight herbal. He wrote this around BC, and according to myth,
Sheinong either tasted hundreds of herbs or thrash them with
a magic whip in order to learn their properties. I'm
gonna go the tasting, although that would that would be
(04:17):
like like let's say you're in a D and D
campaign and you find an item and they're like it's
a magic whip and you cast your identified spell and
they're like, it can tell you the properties of marijuana. Yeah,
it would be a useful item to having a role
playing campaigns that poison. I don't know, let me there
you go, it's the detect poison whip. Okay. But this
also drives home just sort of the mythical nature of
(04:38):
Shinong real person, uh, divine figure, some you know, convergence
of the two. Uh you know, he's really both. Now,
according to one of the legends that involved in actually
sampling the herbs, he once consumes seventy poisons in a
single day in order to bring our herbal medicine into
the world. Okay, so he you know, that sounds on
(05:01):
one level a little more relatable. But then on the
other seventy poisons in a day would surely be enough
to kill a normal mortal. So yeah, well that whip
he was able to tell exactly how much he could take.
So the book in question says that if taken in excess,
cannabis quote will produce hallucinations you've taken over a long term,
(05:22):
it makes one communicate with spirits and lightens one's body.
And I think that based on the the the different
psychological and physical effects that can occur with marijuana use. Uh,
that sounds like sheong hit the nail round in the head. Yeah.
I never had any of the communicating with spirits applications
(05:43):
or symptoms, but that sounds like it would have been.
That sounds like if there was like a cultural sort
of uh surrounding that, Like communicating with spirits is a
regular thing, right that you would of course, Yeah, it
was already a script for it because based on the
research I was looking at like, there's no there's no
real sign of actual hallucination occurring in and of itself,
(06:08):
unrelated to other symptoms, underlying symptoms or psychological conditions or
other substances with cannabis. Now, might you close your eyes
and see cartoon characters? Very posts depends on you strong
your imagination is yea. So there are a number of
factors involved here. So in Chinese traditional medicine, it's known
as MA. And I want to clarify, I want to
(06:30):
remind everyone here that my Mandarin is horrible. So MA
can depending on how you pronounced pronounced that m A
H in the in English, you can mean horse, you
can mean marijuana, you can mean mother. Um. But this
is the form that refers to cannabis uh and it
was used to treat absences of yin such as female
(06:54):
weakness or menstruation, gout, rheumatism, malaria, berry berry constipation, and
absolute mindedness. That last one is interesting, especially given what
we talked about absolutely minded um. Also you see in
traditional Indian medicine you see marijuana use for its sedative
(07:15):
relaxing uh uh anti anxiety, anti convulsant actions as well
as UH for analgesy appetite stimulation, and also to prevent
and reduce fevers as well as anti bacterial effects as well.
So again, as we've been saying, it has been used
for a very long time for medicinal purposes. Yeah. Well,
(07:38):
like like we've been saying, you know, we've known about
it for such a long time. But here in the US,
we only have one federal farm. Uh it's at the
University of Mississippi. I don't know why they're but uh,
that's where a lot of the testing has done in
this particular you know clinic I guess has received millions
of dollars in grant funding to track at lessons over
(08:00):
ten years and to see what the effects of pot,
alcohol and other drugs are on them. But that's really like,
you know, like I mentioned in the last episode, like
there are other researchers like that that guy, uh who
is like collecting the DNA, But like I said, like
he can't collect the marijuana and bring it back. He
has to get the DNA on site and then bring
(08:21):
the DNA with him back to his lab because transporting
it would be illegal except for at this one place
at the University of Mississippi. And and those properties that
Robert just you know, had mentioned earlier, those are the
medically beneficial properties that we're looking at today. To right,
It's like it's like this thing that we knew and
(08:42):
somehow forgot and are now rediscovering. That's what we're we're
waiving the scientific magical whip at, right and to learn
the properties. Uh. And you know, they're largely the therapeutic
benefits are largely attributed to what are called plant or
thrived turpo phenolic compounds called phyto cannabinoids. Uh. And the
(09:07):
human body, like we talked about last episode, uses the
endocannabinoids to modulate physiological processing like our appetite, pain, sensation, mood, memory, inflammation,
insulin sensitivity, and fat and energy metabolism. Right. So there's
a lot going on there. It's a very complicated system
within our brains. UH. So you know, how can we
(09:28):
use cannabis in order to sort of manipulate speed up
or slow down or expand those processes, uh for our
own benefit when we're sick? Essentially, one way has been
to develop synthetic cannabinoids uh. And by developing those that
helps us understand the biology of what's going on here,
(09:49):
especially when it comes to pain management, inflammation, cancer, and
neuro degenerative diseases. Yeah, and ultimately the creation of synthetic
cannabinoi medications, medications that are based on cannabis. But they're like,
that's a whole then you get additional problems to come in. Right.
They're concerned sometimes about effect the effectiveness of it, as
(10:10):
well as the costs involved because you know, not to
play too much into the whole sort of natural cannabas
versus big pharma thing. But yeah, and this it's hard
to ignore the fact that on the surface of it,
you have a plant that grows in the ground versus
a pill that has manufactured and patented and sold. Yeah,
and it's important that we distinguished that there those there
(10:32):
are two different ways of medical application here. Right. So
there's the quote unquote medical marijuana, and that's just actually
the plant material or an extract from it that's derived
from different strains that are reported to have medicinal properties.
And you have to have a prescription from a state
(10:53):
licensed physician for this. And keep in mind, this is
the important thing. This is the distinction that a lot
of doctor is make there's no human clinical testing on
medical marijuana, right, so you're just kind of trusting the
dispensary that you're getting the particular strain that's going to
address whatever issue you have. Yeah, it is a Schedule
one narcotic in the States. Um So, like cocaine is
(11:15):
more legal than marijuana for anyone not familiar with that,
because cocaine technically has medical benefits that marijuana does not.
The second way though, is what we're talking about, the
synthetic thing. That's the biopharmaceutical companies where they develop a
cannabis derived drug using conventional US FDA regulatory pathways. So
(11:37):
an example of this would be there's a company called
GW Pharma in the UK and they've developed a product
called stivx uh and that's for cancer related pain and
for multiple sclerosis spasticity. But this drug costs reportedly around
sixteen thousand U S. Dollars per patient to use. Uh.
(11:58):
So you know those are the pros and cons there, right.
The physicians approved that because it's been run through human trials,
but super expensive, whereas the medical marijuana hasn't been run
through trials, but it's relatively I mean I don't know
how I wouldn't say that it's inexpensive, but right, like,
it's not sixteen thousand dollars per instance. So okay, regardless
(12:21):
of if if it's synthetic or medical marijuana, here's how
we think it's working. Remember what we talked about in
the last episode about the end of cannabinoid system and
the brain processes. It's thought that the cannabinoids that are
in cannabis interact with two protein receptors through our body,
the CB one and the CB two. Now, the CB
(12:41):
one receptors, these are most prevalent neurotransmitters that are in
our brains and nerve systems. Nervous systems. They're found in
our basil ganglia, in our hippocampus and the cerebellum. We
think they're involved in affecting our appetite, mood, motor function,
and neurocognition. The CB two recepts are almost exclusively in
(13:02):
our immune system. Now that's really interesting, right You don't
think about that when you when you think about like
smoking pot like as as a like being beneficial or
or or even adverse to your immune system. All that
stuff we talked about in the last episode, but yeah,
so that's where the CB two ones are. They mainly
appear in tissue where there is cellular pathology, and these
(13:22):
seem to be responsible for anti inflammatory and analgesic effects,
and so in some of that we're getting into pain management.
We're also even getting into potential cancer fighting properties as well. Yeah. Absolutely,
Uh So we've been using these in clinical settings for
a while now. Uh we use them for pain, for cancer,
(13:46):
for multiple sclerosis. Like we talked about, the problem here
is very similar to the problem that we talked about
with m D m A and those previous episodes. The
psychoactive properties that go along with the th HC, Right,
So it's got a concentration that's based on whatever the
plant variety, the preparation. So pure th h C can
(14:07):
be derived naturally or produced synthetically, like like we talked
about now. On its own. Th HC also has anti
inflammatory and anti emetic properties, but it's development is hindered
by psychotropic effects. Right. You can't have one without the other, right,
And so you're talking about potentially high doses to treat something.
(14:28):
But then the person may just set there string at
the wall thinking about death, and you know it might
be just the psycho tropic properties would just be too hot, right,
And and in some cases th HC drugs have received
FDA approval for instance, like as appetite stimulants for chemotherapy
patients or or or to reduce nausea and vomiting. But yeah,
(14:50):
you've also you've got that side effect there, um and
and you know some people don't want that. Uh. The
other problem is, like I mentioned a previous slee th
HC tolerance develops in people after a certain chronic usage.
So uh, it limits the clinical applications of it being
(15:10):
used as a medicine for those things I mentioned, the
cancer and MS because after a while it stops working. Yeah. Now,
th h c V is one of the particular kinds
of cannabinoids that's an abundant, non psychoactive phyto cannabinoid that's
in cannabis, and the studies show that this particular chemical
(15:32):
has anti convulsive effects in animals, so they thought that
it can be used for epilepsy. And then we have CBD,
which is a non psychotropic cannabinoid in cannabis, and it
can be anti epileptic, anti inflammatory, anti emetic, muscle relaxing,
neuroprotective and antipsychotic. It's been evaluated for treating epilepsy in schizophrenia,
(15:56):
and CBD V is an omalogue of CBD and is
being developed to treat appolute epilepsy as well. Yeah, and
c b D has also shown promise in limiting neurological
damage in Alzheimer's and Parkinson's patients, as well as people
who just have suffered strokes or particular kinds of head trauma.
One of the things that's really interesting about this to
(16:17):
me is, as we discussed last episode, an adverse effect
is if you're genetically predisposed to schizophrenia, chronic marijuana use
has been shown to make it more likely that you
will develop schizophrenia to sort of kick things off, serve
as a precursor. Yeah, but at the same time, here's
a chemical within cannabis that could be potentially used to
(16:39):
treat schizophrenia. So it's all about really just kind of
understanding how these things inter react with one another and
determining like what is the appropriate UH dosage per individual,
per conditions. It kind of comes back to the memory thing,
the idea that it could be used both you know,
it could be used inappropriately and make you focus too
much on a negative memory. Work can be potentially be
(17:01):
used to treat post traumatic stress disorders in which you
have to sort of the associate the negative memories surrounding
you know, particular triggers. Yeah. They're calling it memory extinction. Yeah, yeah,
I mean that's powerful stuff. But right, like, it's two
sides of the same coin. Memory extinction also a good
name for a brand of frustrain of recreational marijuana. I
(17:24):
wouldn't be surprised if somewhere and um and then there's
also a c b G which is also reported to
relieve intraocular pressure and has anti inflammatory properties. There's a
lot of this. Where's the anti inflammatory thing? It's like
it sounds like, you know, instead of taking an ivy
(17:46):
profen or something like that, maybe this would work. But
you know, the ivy prof and has its own adverse effects. Uh,
there's a given take. You know, you've got to sort
of be aware of like what each thing is doing
to you. Um And that CBG one is being evaluated
for multiple sclerosis in inflammatory bowel disease. Now, in clinical usage,
(18:08):
cannabis is largely being used to help chronic non cancer
pain and neurological diseases like MS and epilepsy. But it
is also being used in oncology because it's helpful with
chemotherapy like I mentioned earlier, with the nausea and the
vomiting side effects as that, as well as it's a
(18:28):
pain killer. Yeah, and uh and and also individable chemotherapy.
Undergoing chemotherapy for a number of reasons. They um, they
are suffering from decreased appetite in many situations, and this
can be a way to stimulate the appetite and get
the individual motivated to to eat the food they need
to eat, right, Like where we whereas we joke about
(18:50):
like the mun cheese or something like that, and like
oh whatever, like whatever silly joke about, like when I
have twelve pizzas or something like that after smoke weed,
Like that's something that can really help people who are
having a hard time keeping their food down. Yeah, I
mean I always go back to uh, what was it
it was called? It came from Hollywood. It was a
fabulous film that came out when I was a kid
(19:12):
that had these various comedians like Gilda Radner, Dan Ackroyd,
John Candy, but also Cheach and Chong doing these bits
about old old sci fi and horror movies. And so
there is a segment where Cheech and Chong are going
into the movie theater and I couldn't begin to understand
any of these references at the time. But Cheech just
gets a normal popcorn. But Chong he smoked up before
(19:34):
he went in, so he has the munchies, and he
ends up coming into the theater with a garbage can
full of popcorn because he kept saying, is there bigger size?
Is they're bigger sized? Eventually, just give him a trash
can full of popcorn. Uh, And that's like our comic
version of the Munchies. But this is a very real
effect of cannabis consumption and one that we can utilize
(19:54):
to to help patients who need their their their appetit
and courage. Yeah. Absolutely, I think it's something that we
often forget, is that there are some conditions that make
it hard to eat. So when we're talking about this effect,
when we're talking about the munchies, for for lack of
a better word, um, it's all tying into canniboid receptor
one CD one R and researchers have long recognized that
(20:18):
that that this, uh, this is the receptor you can
contribute to overeating. And there's actually a recent study came
on the past past year from the Yale School of
Medicine and it shed a lot of light on the
particulars of what's going on. So by manipulating the cellular
pathway that mediates marijuana's actions in the brains of transgenic mice,
(20:42):
they observed the key role played by a group of
nerve cells called pro opio melano cortine or p O
mc neurons. Now, normally these are considered key drivers in
reducing eating when we're full. So you smoke a normal
to bo of cigarette and the nicotine makes p O
(21:02):
mc neurons more active, curbing hunger. And yet the th
HC actually reduces hunger hunger by activating these same p
O mc neurons. So that's right, the same mechanism that
normally turns the hot doughnuts sign off in your in
your brain, th HC turns it on. And that's the
fact that actually surprised the Yale researchers. Uh, there's still
(21:25):
a lot of work that needs to be done to
validate these findings and figuring that figure out exactly what
they mean, but scientists hope that increased understanding of th
hd s effect on appetite will enable the development of
better appetite manipulators, both for weight loss as well as
encouraging appetite and individuals undergoing chemotherapy treatment. UH. And so
(21:47):
connecting back to oncology and its used as there, there's
growing evidence that can of benoids on their own have
anti tumor and cancer fighting effects. UH. And the re
and why is it's thought that they suppress proliferative cell
signaling pathways. They also inhibit blood vessel formation and encourage apoptosis,
(22:09):
which is programmed cell death. And you may remember us
talking about that in the m d M A episode
because m d M A does the same thing. So
the idea there is basically that it would encourage killing
these malignant cells in your body. Um. And partly this
is because remember that endo cannabinoid system in our brains,
(22:31):
it plays a role in the life and death of
individual cells in our bodies. So that seems like a
very promising avenue of research to go down. Indeed, I
mean this is this is an area where it definitely
reminds me of running across statements online in the past
where individuals have said marijuana cures cancer, and that is
(22:53):
when it is outlawed because the government and big pharma
do not want you to have the cure for cancer
because they want to sell the treatment for cancer. That
of course, is that is an over the gross simplification.
Simplification that would make sense and maybe an alternate version
of reality, but not in our our real world played
by wicked problems. Um but but still you see shades
(23:17):
of that that scenario in the reality of the situation. Yeah, absolutely,
I mean, like uh so, to drill down a little
further into the science of it, those CB one and
CB two receptors we mentioned earlier, those are found in
higher concentrations in tumor cells, specifically the ones that are
surrounding normal tissue in a whole variety of cancers. So
(23:38):
cannabinoids may also inhibit tumor cell growth while sparing normal tissue.
So this is something you know, along with the m
d M, a research that is well worth pursuing. And
like I mentioned at the top, we've only got one
place in the whole United States where we can do
this kind thing. But you know, mid to late clinical
(23:58):
trials are underway to see if it can be used
therapeutically both in oncology, but also with things like hunting
Vin's disease, ultrative colitis, Crohn's disease, and you know, as
I mentioned, schizophrenia. So some of these same properties that
make cannabis a promising treatment for UM for individuals undergoing chemotherapy,
(24:20):
it also makes it a promising treatment for individuals who
are undergoing treatment for HIV and AIDS. Specifically when you're
getting into things like appetite loss, uh and UH as well,
you know, we we've discussed it, it's an effect on
the immune system, and since certainly, uh, the immune system
is is a is a vital area of consideration when
we're looking at the treatment of of HIV and AIDS. Yeah,
(24:43):
I think like when we're talking about, you know, the
the immune system thing, we've only just now gotten into
and we're halfway through our second episode here, but like, uh,
just just keep in mind, like there's over five hundred
different chemicals in cannabis that can do a whole variety
of things, and we're only now kind of parsing it out. Yeah,
and then of course when we get into it into pain,
(25:03):
which we were talking about here. Um, some types of pain,
such as a peripheral neuropathy, they respond better to marijuana
than to conventional pain relievers. Uh. And then it's also
shown promise in treating chronic pain and muscle spasms. We've
already touched a little bit on post traumatic stress disorder
in this episode and the previous ones, but yees stodad.
(25:24):
Studies have shown that marijuana may be useful in the
treatment of post traumatic stress disorder. Specifically, there's a two
thousand and fourteen study published in the journal Neuropsychopharmacology, and
they experimented on traumatized rats, which they did traumatize themselves
with electrical shock, as it wasn't like they went out
and found traumatize, they made traumatized traps. Uh. They found
(25:47):
that synthetic cannabinoids can prevent behavioral and physiological symptoms of
PTSD by triggering changes in brain centers associated with the
formation and holding of trauma addic memories. So that's that
extinctionory extinction as we mentioned earlier. So yeah, this guts
dounded that the general idea that that that PDSD involves
(26:09):
these these just strong you know, overly stress connections in
in in your memory involving these traumatic events in the past.
And so here we see the potential for marijuana, for
for cannabis to to to lessen those binds. Right, And
it's definitely worth reiterating, especially if you didn't listen to
(26:29):
the first episode of this podcast, that uh, this doesn't
mean that marijuana erases your memories, right, It's just that
in conjunction with therapy, it can be used to help
with post traumatic stress disorder. Right. And there's a lot
of work that needs to be done here specifically as
it as as it applies to human patients. But but
(26:50):
we do see some some some very promising results in
this area. But of course you could say the same
for for basically any medical application we've talked about here. Right,
Every area is still being explored. We're still finding out
exactly how cannabis affects the mind, affects the body, and
how it can be it can be best utilized for treatment. Yeah,
we've got a lot of work to do, not just
(27:12):
in the sense of like, uh, figuring out culturally where
we stand on the legalization and medical usage of marijuana,
whether that's medical marijuana or synthetic marijuana, but also just
I'd like to remind us again from that thing in
the first episode, like the people who are growing the
marijuana don't understand exactly what they're growing, and so that
(27:37):
project to catalog all the different DNA figure out the strains,
it's gonna be hugely helpful for us to sort of
parse it all out and be like, Okay, uh, this
does this particular thing. This one's good for appetite, This
one is particularly good for pain management, this one is
good for anti inflammatory, whatever the situation. Maybe along with
(27:57):
the added benefit of tracing, you know, the basically the
historical movements of these particular strains of marijuana so we
can see like the fascinating history of of of humans
taking pot with them wherever they go. I know. It
always brings me back to Michael Pollen's book and series
The Botany of Desire, where he looks at a few
(28:19):
different substances that like marijuana, apples, potatoes, and uh, and
it forces you to to ask that question like is
it humans who have manipulated and utilize marijuana or is
it the reverse? Has cannabis? Have these strains of cannabis
ultimately been manipulating and controlling humans by providing them with
(28:41):
things that they need and want, be that the you know,
clothing and textiles, or recreational um um you know, psychotropic
um of properties, or medicinal properties, or mind expanding insights
for leaders. Right, And I'm also thinking like this is
maybe just like you know, very basics of this kind
(29:05):
of anthropological look at marijuana. But like, again, is it
the marijuana that's driving us? Is it? Like well, I
can't grow this particular crop here, so I need to
move south so that this will grow so I can
use it for all these varieties of effects. Is that
why we've colonized particular areas over time? Who knows? But
maybe we'll find out. There's a lot. Like I said,
(29:27):
there's a lot of work to be done here. Uh,
and I think that in order to get that work done,
uh we I'm speaking as an American and living in
American culture. I'm sure it's very different in other cultures,
but we need to take a more mature approach to
looking at this as yes, uh, there's issues surrounding our
(29:48):
culture and our adolescence and drug use. All those things
are real. However, we need to approach this as this
is a plant. It isn't a an organic biological thing.
It has all these chemicals in it. Let's figure out
how all those chemicals interact with all the chemicals in
our heads and then catalog those and use them accordingly.
(30:10):
It sounds good, but then, of course we have so
many different layers of human meaning that are applied to
it that marijuana is. It's just a different thing to
different people. To some people that is still there's a
demonic corruptor of youth. To others, it is the it
is the the presence of God. It is the burning bush. Uh.
It just runs the gamut from from like the ultimate
(30:32):
good to the ultimate evil, and none of that does
is very helpful, uh to approaching it from a purely
scientific standpoint. God, Yeah, I guess like the pessimistic way
to look at it is like we'll never get there.
Were like, we've got this thing right in front of
us that holds, you know, the key to solving a
lot of very painful problems and human existence. Uh, And
(30:54):
maybe we won't never figure them out because we can't
get over ourselves and how we are roach our our
relationship with a plant. All right, Well, there you have it. Uh.
We hope you've enjoyed these two episodes on cannabis. As
we mentioned, if there's an area in these discussions that
you would like more information on, uh, certainly check out
(31:17):
the house stuff works articles on marijuana and medical marijuana.
They're two separate ones will have links to those in
the landing page for this episode of Stuff to Blow
your Mind dot Com. But also feel free to reach
out to us, like if you, if you, if you
reach out to us and say, hey, I really want
to know more about the post traumatic stress. Let us
know if enough people were interested, like, we could do
a whole episode on that, and absolutely so. Uh just yeah,
(31:39):
just give us some feedback and that will help decide
our direction and the best way is to get in
touch with us for that. Well, hey, we are all
over social media. We're on Facebook, we're on Twitter, we're
on tumbler, we're on Instagram. Uh, pretty much all those
that's blow the mind, I think, uh, And we respond
or we try to respond to messages direct ats. However,
(32:01):
you want to contact us through those communications systems. And
then there's stuff to Blow your Mind dot com, which
is our mothership that contains all kinds of further information videos, articles,
other podcasts about similar topics to this one, right, and
you can go there find that stuff, dive in a
(32:21):
little deeper. If you didn't find what you're looking for,
like Robert said, and you want to reach out to
us directly, you're not all that comfortable with the rest
of the world seeing your your your your needs and
information regarding marijuana. How can they get in touch with us, Robert,
We can email us at blow the Mind at house
of works dot com. Well more on this and thousands
(32:52):
of other topics. Is that housetop works dot com. The
three point four four support
Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind from how Stop
Work dot com. Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind.
My name is Robert Lamb and I'm Christian Seger, and
this is the second part of our Cannabis Files. Episode.
(00:22):
We're taking a deep look at the science behind marijuana,
and in particular in this episode, we're going to focus
on its medical applications. Uh. And the thing about medical
applications with marijuana that's interesting is we've known about them
for a very long time. This isn't something new, right, Like,
(00:42):
you've only heard the term medical marijuana and maybe what
like the last twenty or thirty years here in the
United States, But this goes back thousands of years. Yeah.
I feel like it's easy to to sort of to
hear about medical marijuana. So we're certainly to have heard
about it earlier on and think to yourself, Oh, this
is just marijuana users trying to legitimize their recreational use
(01:04):
by saying, oh, it's actually good for you. But but
but really, our our relationship with the medicinal marijuana goes
back for a long time. Yeah, So we're gonna give
you a little bit more than Doug Benson's super high
med documentary here. Uh, this is gonna be you know,
a real deep look at the earliest known medical uses
of medical marijuana and then the actual beneficial properties of
(01:27):
cannabis in the ways that we're researching it right now,
because we're you know, as far even though as far
back as it goes, we don't we haven't really nailed
it down right at least in the empirical since Yeah,
so this is there are a lot of open questions here.
As we mentioned in our last episode, you could easily
do an entire podcast series, um just looking at all
(01:48):
the different research um examples out there and all the
different applications. Uh, and all we're trying to do is
given a nice overview with some some detailed discussion where
it makes sense. As always, if there's an area that
you want more clarification on, you have a couple of
different options. You can check out that how medical Marijuana
(02:08):
article works over how stuff works dot com. You can
also let us know, Hey, why don't you do a different,
like an entire episode just on this one little area
consider doing. Yeah, yeah, it would be great if you
let us know what particular you know, subsect of this
uh information that you'd like us to go a little
further down. I mean, when we're doing the research or
(02:29):
something like this, we really have to keep the net wide. Now.
In our last episode, when we were talking about just
humanity's long history with marijuana and how it how cannabis
originated in uh in perhaps India or Central Asia and
it's just spread out from there over the over the
(02:49):
over thousands of years, we mentioned that the earliest written
account goes back to WHATCS something that's twenty eight maybe,
but yeah, it's like, well, very long time. And uh
so you might have been wondering them like who, what's
the details on this? Who? Who wrote what? Well, I
am here to tell you the the writer in this
(03:10):
case is the mythical Emperor shinng Uh, the divine farmer
and founder of Chinese herbal medicine, really the founder of
Chinese medicine in general. And uh he allegedly, and I
say allegedly, because he's a very much a mythological figure,
becomes just sort of lost to history to what extent
(03:31):
this is real person, myth was a combination of people
or something like that exactly, because yeah, he's a very
he's a divine figure in in Chinese history, and it's
like maybe thousands of years from now people will say
that about Alexander Shulgin. They're like, surely this person couldn't
have existed. Shogan the Great, Yeah, the divine architect of M.
D M A M. But according to so so, basically
(03:54):
Shinng wrote the Shinng Bin Kao Jing or the g
eight herbal. He wrote this around BC, and according to myth,
Sheinong either tasted hundreds of herbs or thrash them with
a magic whip in order to learn their properties. I'm
gonna go the tasting, although that would that would be
(04:17):
like like let's say you're in a D and D
campaign and you find an item and they're like it's
a magic whip and you cast your identified spell and
they're like, it can tell you the properties of marijuana. Yeah,
it would be a useful item to having a role
playing campaigns that poison. I don't know, let me there
you go, it's the detect poison whip. Okay. But this
also drives home just sort of the mythical nature of
(04:38):
Shinong real person, uh, divine figure, some you know, convergence
of the two. Uh you know, he's really both. Now,
according to one of the legends that involved in actually
sampling the herbs, he once consumes seventy poisons in a
single day in order to bring our herbal medicine into
the world. Okay, so he you know, that sounds on
(05:01):
one level a little more relatable. But then on the
other seventy poisons in a day would surely be enough
to kill a normal mortal. So yeah, well that whip
he was able to tell exactly how much he could take.
So the book in question says that if taken in excess,
cannabis quote will produce hallucinations you've taken over a long term,
(05:22):
it makes one communicate with spirits and lightens one's body.
And I think that based on the the the different
psychological and physical effects that can occur with marijuana use. Uh,
that sounds like sheong hit the nail round in the head. Yeah.
I never had any of the communicating with spirits applications
(05:43):
or symptoms, but that sounds like it would have been.
That sounds like if there was like a cultural sort
of uh surrounding that, Like communicating with spirits is a
regular thing, right that you would of course, Yeah, it
was already a script for it because based on the
research I was looking at like, there's no there's no
real sign of actual hallucination occurring in and of itself,
(06:08):
unrelated to other symptoms, underlying symptoms or psychological conditions or
other substances with cannabis. Now, might you close your eyes
and see cartoon characters? Very posts depends on you strong
your imagination is yea. So there are a number of
factors involved here. So in Chinese traditional medicine, it's known
as MA. And I want to clarify, I want to
(06:30):
remind everyone here that my Mandarin is horrible. So MA
can depending on how you pronounced pronounced that m A
H in the in English, you can mean horse, you
can mean marijuana, you can mean mother. Um. But this
is the form that refers to cannabis uh and it
was used to treat absences of yin such as female
(06:54):
weakness or menstruation, gout, rheumatism, malaria, berry berry constipation, and
absolute mindedness. That last one is interesting, especially given what
we talked about absolutely minded um. Also you see in
traditional Indian medicine you see marijuana use for its sedative
(07:15):
relaxing uh uh anti anxiety, anti convulsant actions as well
as UH for analgesy appetite stimulation, and also to prevent
and reduce fevers as well as anti bacterial effects as well.
So again, as we've been saying, it has been used
for a very long time for medicinal purposes. Yeah. Well,
(07:38):
like like we've been saying, you know, we've known about
it for such a long time. But here in the US,
we only have one federal farm. Uh it's at the
University of Mississippi. I don't know why they're but uh,
that's where a lot of the testing has done in
this particular you know clinic I guess has received millions
of dollars in grant funding to track at lessons over
(08:00):
ten years and to see what the effects of pot,
alcohol and other drugs are on them. But that's really like,
you know, like I mentioned in the last episode, like
there are other researchers like that that guy, uh who
is like collecting the DNA, But like I said, like
he can't collect the marijuana and bring it back. He
has to get the DNA on site and then bring
(08:21):
the DNA with him back to his lab because transporting
it would be illegal except for at this one place
at the University of Mississippi. And and those properties that
Robert just you know, had mentioned earlier, those are the
medically beneficial properties that we're looking at today. To right,
It's like it's like this thing that we knew and
(08:42):
somehow forgot and are now rediscovering. That's what we're we're
waiving the scientific magical whip at, right and to learn
the properties. Uh. And you know, they're largely the therapeutic
benefits are largely attributed to what are called plant or
thrived turpo phenolic compounds called phyto cannabinoids. Uh. And the
(09:07):
human body, like we talked about last episode, uses the
endocannabinoids to modulate physiological processing like our appetite, pain, sensation, mood, memory, inflammation,
insulin sensitivity, and fat and energy metabolism. Right. So there's
a lot going on there. It's a very complicated system
within our brains. UH. So you know, how can we
(09:28):
use cannabis in order to sort of manipulate speed up
or slow down or expand those processes, uh for our
own benefit when we're sick? Essentially, one way has been
to develop synthetic cannabinoids uh. And by developing those that
helps us understand the biology of what's going on here,
(09:49):
especially when it comes to pain management, inflammation, cancer, and
neuro degenerative diseases. Yeah, and ultimately the creation of synthetic
cannabinoi medications, medications that are based on cannabis. But they're like,
that's a whole then you get additional problems to come in. Right.
They're concerned sometimes about effect the effectiveness of it, as
(10:10):
well as the costs involved because you know, not to
play too much into the whole sort of natural cannabas
versus big pharma thing. But yeah, and this it's hard
to ignore the fact that on the surface of it,
you have a plant that grows in the ground versus
a pill that has manufactured and patented and sold. Yeah,
and it's important that we distinguished that there those there
(10:32):
are two different ways of medical application here. Right. So
there's the quote unquote medical marijuana, and that's just actually
the plant material or an extract from it that's derived
from different strains that are reported to have medicinal properties.
And you have to have a prescription from a state
(10:53):
licensed physician for this. And keep in mind, this is
the important thing. This is the distinction that a lot
of doctor is make there's no human clinical testing on
medical marijuana, right, so you're just kind of trusting the
dispensary that you're getting the particular strain that's going to
address whatever issue you have. Yeah, it is a Schedule
one narcotic in the States. Um So, like cocaine is
(11:15):
more legal than marijuana for anyone not familiar with that,
because cocaine technically has medical benefits that marijuana does not.
The second way though, is what we're talking about, the
synthetic thing. That's the biopharmaceutical companies where they develop a
cannabis derived drug using conventional US FDA regulatory pathways. So
(11:37):
an example of this would be there's a company called
GW Pharma in the UK and they've developed a product
called stivx uh and that's for cancer related pain and
for multiple sclerosis spasticity. But this drug costs reportedly around
sixteen thousand U S. Dollars per patient to use. Uh.
(11:58):
So you know those are the pros and cons there, right.
The physicians approved that because it's been run through human trials,
but super expensive, whereas the medical marijuana hasn't been run
through trials, but it's relatively I mean I don't know
how I wouldn't say that it's inexpensive, but right, like,
it's not sixteen thousand dollars per instance. So okay, regardless
(12:21):
of if if it's synthetic or medical marijuana, here's how
we think it's working. Remember what we talked about in
the last episode about the end of cannabinoid system and
the brain processes. It's thought that the cannabinoids that are
in cannabis interact with two protein receptors through our body,
the CB one and the CB two. Now, the CB
(12:41):
one receptors, these are most prevalent neurotransmitters that are in
our brains and nerve systems. Nervous systems. They're found in
our basil ganglia, in our hippocampus and the cerebellum. We
think they're involved in affecting our appetite, mood, motor function,
and neurocognition. The CB two recepts are almost exclusively in
(13:02):
our immune system. Now that's really interesting, right You don't
think about that when you when you think about like
smoking pot like as as a like being beneficial or
or or even adverse to your immune system. All that
stuff we talked about in the last episode, but yeah,
so that's where the CB two ones are. They mainly
appear in tissue where there is cellular pathology, and these
(13:22):
seem to be responsible for anti inflammatory and analgesic effects,
and so in some of that we're getting into pain management.
We're also even getting into potential cancer fighting properties as well. Yeah. Absolutely,
Uh So we've been using these in clinical settings for
a while now. Uh we use them for pain, for cancer,
(13:46):
for multiple sclerosis. Like we talked about, the problem here
is very similar to the problem that we talked about
with m D m A and those previous episodes. The
psychoactive properties that go along with the th HC, Right,
So it's got a concentration that's based on whatever the
plant variety, the preparation. So pure th h C can
(14:07):
be derived naturally or produced synthetically, like like we talked
about now. On its own. Th HC also has anti
inflammatory and anti emetic properties, but it's development is hindered
by psychotropic effects. Right. You can't have one without the other, right,
And so you're talking about potentially high doses to treat something.
(14:28):
But then the person may just set there string at
the wall thinking about death, and you know it might
be just the psycho tropic properties would just be too hot, right,
And and in some cases th HC drugs have received
FDA approval for instance, like as appetite stimulants for chemotherapy
patients or or or to reduce nausea and vomiting. But yeah,
(14:50):
you've also you've got that side effect there, um and
and you know some people don't want that. Uh. The
other problem is, like I mentioned a previous slee th
HC tolerance develops in people after a certain chronic usage.
So uh, it limits the clinical applications of it being
(15:10):
used as a medicine for those things I mentioned, the
cancer and MS because after a while it stops working. Yeah. Now,
th h c V is one of the particular kinds
of cannabinoids that's an abundant, non psychoactive phyto cannabinoid that's
in cannabis, and the studies show that this particular chemical
(15:32):
has anti convulsive effects in animals, so they thought that
it can be used for epilepsy. And then we have CBD,
which is a non psychotropic cannabinoid in cannabis, and it
can be anti epileptic, anti inflammatory, anti emetic, muscle relaxing,
neuroprotective and antipsychotic. It's been evaluated for treating epilepsy in schizophrenia,
(15:56):
and CBD V is an omalogue of CBD and is
being developed to treat appolute epilepsy as well. Yeah, and
c b D has also shown promise in limiting neurological
damage in Alzheimer's and Parkinson's patients, as well as people
who just have suffered strokes or particular kinds of head trauma.
One of the things that's really interesting about this to
(16:17):
me is, as we discussed last episode, an adverse effect
is if you're genetically predisposed to schizophrenia, chronic marijuana use
has been shown to make it more likely that you
will develop schizophrenia to sort of kick things off, serve
as a precursor. Yeah, but at the same time, here's
a chemical within cannabis that could be potentially used to
(16:39):
treat schizophrenia. So it's all about really just kind of
understanding how these things inter react with one another and
determining like what is the appropriate UH dosage per individual,
per conditions. It kind of comes back to the memory thing,
the idea that it could be used both you know,
it could be used inappropriately and make you focus too
much on a negative memory. Work can be potentially be
(17:01):
used to treat post traumatic stress disorders in which you
have to sort of the associate the negative memories surrounding
you know, particular triggers. Yeah. They're calling it memory extinction. Yeah, yeah,
I mean that's powerful stuff. But right, like, it's two
sides of the same coin. Memory extinction also a good
name for a brand of frustrain of recreational marijuana. I
(17:24):
wouldn't be surprised if somewhere and um and then there's
also a c b G which is also reported to
relieve intraocular pressure and has anti inflammatory properties. There's a
lot of this. Where's the anti inflammatory thing? It's like
it sounds like, you know, instead of taking an ivy
(17:46):
profen or something like that, maybe this would work. But
you know, the ivy prof and has its own adverse effects. Uh,
there's a given take. You know, you've got to sort
of be aware of like what each thing is doing
to you. Um And that CBG one is being evaluated
for multiple sclerosis in inflammatory bowel disease. Now, in clinical usage,
(18:08):
cannabis is largely being used to help chronic non cancer
pain and neurological diseases like MS and epilepsy. But it
is also being used in oncology because it's helpful with
chemotherapy like I mentioned earlier, with the nausea and the
vomiting side effects as that, as well as it's a
(18:28):
pain killer. Yeah, and uh and and also individable chemotherapy.
Undergoing chemotherapy for a number of reasons. They um, they
are suffering from decreased appetite in many situations, and this
can be a way to stimulate the appetite and get
the individual motivated to to eat the food they need
to eat, right, Like where we whereas we joke about
(18:50):
like the mun cheese or something like that, and like
oh whatever, like whatever silly joke about, like when I
have twelve pizzas or something like that after smoke weed,
Like that's something that can really help people who are
having a hard time keeping their food down. Yeah, I
mean I always go back to uh, what was it
it was called? It came from Hollywood. It was a
fabulous film that came out when I was a kid
(19:12):
that had these various comedians like Gilda Radner, Dan Ackroyd,
John Candy, but also Cheach and Chong doing these bits
about old old sci fi and horror movies. And so
there is a segment where Cheech and Chong are going
into the movie theater and I couldn't begin to understand
any of these references at the time. But Cheech just
gets a normal popcorn. But Chong he smoked up before
(19:34):
he went in, so he has the munchies, and he
ends up coming into the theater with a garbage can
full of popcorn because he kept saying, is there bigger size?
Is they're bigger sized? Eventually, just give him a trash
can full of popcorn. Uh, And that's like our comic
version of the Munchies. But this is a very real
effect of cannabis consumption and one that we can utilize
(19:54):
to to help patients who need their their their appetit
and courage. Yeah. Absolutely, I think it's something that we
often forget, is that there are some conditions that make
it hard to eat. So when we're talking about this effect,
when we're talking about the munchies, for for lack of
a better word, um, it's all tying into canniboid receptor
one CD one R and researchers have long recognized that
(20:18):
that that this, uh, this is the receptor you can
contribute to overeating. And there's actually a recent study came
on the past past year from the Yale School of
Medicine and it shed a lot of light on the
particulars of what's going on. So by manipulating the cellular
pathway that mediates marijuana's actions in the brains of transgenic mice,
(20:42):
they observed the key role played by a group of
nerve cells called pro opio melano cortine or p O
mc neurons. Now, normally these are considered key drivers in
reducing eating when we're full. So you smoke a normal
to bo of cigarette and the nicotine makes p O
(21:02):
mc neurons more active, curbing hunger. And yet the th
HC actually reduces hunger hunger by activating these same p
O mc neurons. So that's right, the same mechanism that
normally turns the hot doughnuts sign off in your in
your brain, th HC turns it on. And that's the
fact that actually surprised the Yale researchers. Uh, there's still
(21:25):
a lot of work that needs to be done to
validate these findings and figuring that figure out exactly what
they mean, but scientists hope that increased understanding of th
hd s effect on appetite will enable the development of
better appetite manipulators, both for weight loss as well as
encouraging appetite and individuals undergoing chemotherapy treatment. UH. And so
(21:47):
connecting back to oncology and its used as there, there's
growing evidence that can of benoids on their own have
anti tumor and cancer fighting effects. UH. And the re
and why is it's thought that they suppress proliferative cell
signaling pathways. They also inhibit blood vessel formation and encourage apoptosis,
(22:09):
which is programmed cell death. And you may remember us
talking about that in the m d M A episode
because m d M A does the same thing. So
the idea there is basically that it would encourage killing
these malignant cells in your body. Um. And partly this
is because remember that endo cannabinoid system in our brains,
(22:31):
it plays a role in the life and death of
individual cells in our bodies. So that seems like a
very promising avenue of research to go down. Indeed, I
mean this is this is an area where it definitely
reminds me of running across statements online in the past
where individuals have said marijuana cures cancer, and that is
(22:53):
when it is outlawed because the government and big pharma
do not want you to have the cure for cancer
because they want to sell the treatment for cancer. That
of course, is that is an over the gross simplification.
Simplification that would make sense and maybe an alternate version
of reality, but not in our our real world played
by wicked problems. Um but but still you see shades
(23:17):
of that that scenario in the reality of the situation. Yeah, absolutely,
I mean, like uh so, to drill down a little
further into the science of it, those CB one and
CB two receptors we mentioned earlier, those are found in
higher concentrations in tumor cells, specifically the ones that are
surrounding normal tissue in a whole variety of cancers. So
(23:38):
cannabinoids may also inhibit tumor cell growth while sparing normal tissue.
So this is something you know, along with the m
d M, a research that is well worth pursuing. And
like I mentioned at the top, we've only got one
place in the whole United States where we can do
this kind thing. But you know, mid to late clinical
(23:58):
trials are underway to see if it can be used
therapeutically both in oncology, but also with things like hunting
Vin's disease, ultrative colitis, Crohn's disease, and you know, as
I mentioned, schizophrenia. So some of these same properties that
make cannabis a promising treatment for UM for individuals undergoing chemotherapy,
(24:20):
it also makes it a promising treatment for individuals who
are undergoing treatment for HIV and AIDS. Specifically when you're
getting into things like appetite loss, uh and UH as well,
you know, we we've discussed it, it's an effect on
the immune system, and since certainly, uh, the immune system
is is a is a vital area of consideration when
we're looking at the treatment of of HIV and AIDS. Yeah,
(24:43):
I think like when we're talking about, you know, the
the immune system thing, we've only just now gotten into
and we're halfway through our second episode here, but like, uh,
just just keep in mind, like there's over five hundred
different chemicals in cannabis that can do a whole variety
of things, and we're only now kind of parsing it out. Yeah,
and then of course when we get into it into pain,
(25:03):
which we were talking about here. Um, some types of pain,
such as a peripheral neuropathy, they respond better to marijuana
than to conventional pain relievers. Uh. And then it's also
shown promise in treating chronic pain and muscle spasms. We've
already touched a little bit on post traumatic stress disorder
in this episode and the previous ones, but yees stodad.
(25:24):
Studies have shown that marijuana may be useful in the
treatment of post traumatic stress disorder. Specifically, there's a two
thousand and fourteen study published in the journal Neuropsychopharmacology, and
they experimented on traumatized rats, which they did traumatize themselves
with electrical shock, as it wasn't like they went out
and found traumatize, they made traumatized traps. Uh. They found
(25:47):
that synthetic cannabinoids can prevent behavioral and physiological symptoms of
PTSD by triggering changes in brain centers associated with the
formation and holding of trauma addic memories. So that's that
extinctionory extinction as we mentioned earlier. So yeah, this guts
dounded that the general idea that that that PDSD involves
(26:09):
these these just strong you know, overly stress connections in
in in your memory involving these traumatic events in the past.
And so here we see the potential for marijuana, for
for cannabis to to to lessen those binds. Right, And
it's definitely worth reiterating, especially if you didn't listen to
(26:29):
the first episode of this podcast, that uh, this doesn't
mean that marijuana erases your memories, right, It's just that
in conjunction with therapy, it can be used to help
with post traumatic stress disorder. Right. And there's a lot
of work that needs to be done here specifically as
it as as it applies to human patients. But but
(26:50):
we do see some some some very promising results in
this area. But of course you could say the same
for for basically any medical application we've talked about here. Right,
Every area is still being explored. We're still finding out
exactly how cannabis affects the mind, affects the body, and
how it can be it can be best utilized for treatment. Yeah,
we've got a lot of work to do, not just
(27:12):
in the sense of like, uh, figuring out culturally where
we stand on the legalization and medical usage of marijuana,
whether that's medical marijuana or synthetic marijuana, but also just
I'd like to remind us again from that thing in
the first episode, like the people who are growing the
marijuana don't understand exactly what they're growing, and so that
(27:37):
project to catalog all the different DNA figure out the strains,
it's gonna be hugely helpful for us to sort of
parse it all out and be like, Okay, uh, this
does this particular thing. This one's good for appetite, This
one is particularly good for pain management, this one is
good for anti inflammatory, whatever the situation. Maybe along with
(27:57):
the added benefit of tracing, you know, the basically the
historical movements of these particular strains of marijuana so we
can see like the fascinating history of of of humans
taking pot with them wherever they go. I know. It
always brings me back to Michael Pollen's book and series
The Botany of Desire, where he looks at a few
(28:19):
different substances that like marijuana, apples, potatoes, and uh, and
it forces you to to ask that question like is
it humans who have manipulated and utilize marijuana or is
it the reverse? Has cannabis? Have these strains of cannabis
ultimately been manipulating and controlling humans by providing them with
(28:41):
things that they need and want, be that the you know,
clothing and textiles, or recreational um um you know, psychotropic
um of properties, or medicinal properties, or mind expanding insights
for leaders. Right, And I'm also thinking like this is
maybe just like you know, very basics of this kind
(29:05):
of anthropological look at marijuana. But like, again, is it
the marijuana that's driving us? Is it? Like well, I
can't grow this particular crop here, so I need to
move south so that this will grow so I can
use it for all these varieties of effects. Is that
why we've colonized particular areas over time? Who knows? But
maybe we'll find out. There's a lot. Like I said,
(29:27):
there's a lot of work to be done here. Uh,
and I think that in order to get that work done,
uh we I'm speaking as an American and living in
American culture. I'm sure it's very different in other cultures,
but we need to take a more mature approach to
looking at this as yes, uh, there's issues surrounding our
(29:48):
culture and our adolescence and drug use. All those things
are real. However, we need to approach this as this
is a plant. It isn't a an organic biological thing.
It has all these chemicals in it. Let's figure out
how all those chemicals interact with all the chemicals in
our heads and then catalog those and use them accordingly.
(30:10):
It sounds good, but then, of course we have so
many different layers of human meaning that are applied to
it that marijuana is. It's just a different thing to
different people. To some people that is still there's a
demonic corruptor of youth. To others, it is the it
is the the presence of God. It is the burning bush. Uh.
It just runs the gamut from from like the ultimate
(30:32):
good to the ultimate evil, and none of that does
is very helpful, uh to approaching it from a purely
scientific standpoint. God, Yeah, I guess like the pessimistic way
to look at it is like we'll never get there.
Were like, we've got this thing right in front of
us that holds, you know, the key to solving a
lot of very painful problems and human existence. Uh, And
(30:54):
maybe we won't never figure them out because we can't
get over ourselves and how we are roach our our
relationship with a plant. All right, Well, there you have it. Uh.
We hope you've enjoyed these two episodes on cannabis. As
we mentioned, if there's an area in these discussions that
you would like more information on, uh, certainly check out
(31:17):
the house stuff works articles on marijuana and medical marijuana.
They're two separate ones will have links to those in
the landing page for this episode of Stuff to Blow
your Mind dot Com. But also feel free to reach
out to us, like if you, if you, if you
reach out to us and say, hey, I really want
to know more about the post traumatic stress. Let us
know if enough people were interested, like, we could do
a whole episode on that, and absolutely so. Uh just yeah,
(31:39):
just give us some feedback and that will help decide
our direction and the best way is to get in
touch with us for that. Well, hey, we are all
over social media. We're on Facebook, we're on Twitter, we're
on tumbler, we're on Instagram. Uh, pretty much all those
that's blow the mind, I think, uh, And we respond
or we try to respond to messages direct ats. However,
(32:01):
you want to contact us through those communications systems. And
then there's stuff to Blow your Mind dot com, which
is our mothership that contains all kinds of further information videos, articles,
other podcasts about similar topics to this one, right, and
you can go there find that stuff, dive in a
(32:21):
little deeper. If you didn't find what you're looking for,
like Robert said, and you want to reach out to
us directly, you're not all that comfortable with the rest
of the world seeing your your your your needs and
information regarding marijuana. How can they get in touch with us, Robert,
We can email us at blow the Mind at house
of works dot com. Well more on this and thousands
(32:52):
of other topics. Is that housetop works dot com. The
three point four four support
Stuff To Blow Your Mind News
Hosts And Creators
Robert Lamb
Joe McCormick
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