Christine Carr discusses HB445

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Joining us now Christine Carr, who was a friend and
I've known for quite some time now. She's also a
board certified nurse anesthesiologist who has cared for patients for
thirty years and well versed in advanced life saving techniques
and trauma. She's also been a highly respected medical expert
and advisor for various groups and legislative policy makers, with

(00:20):
cannabis being one of the main subjects she talks about. Christine,
welcome in, Thanks so much for being back with me.

Speaker 2 (00:26):
Hey JT. You good to be back.

Speaker 1 (00:28):
Well, we've had you on before about this issue, and
it's been an issue in our state for quite some time,
I mean years, and now this last session down in
Montgomery things have changed a little bit. So one of
the why don't we start at the beginning here and
where we are and what took place in the legislative session.
Then I've got some questions that I want to bring
up to. Obviously there's some people on the other side

(00:49):
of this going, well, yeah, where's the research that says
this is any worse than you know, a bottle of
wine or something. But anyway, where are we now?

Speaker 2 (00:58):
So we have many different iterations of how cannabis has
spread across the country and into Alabama. So this has
nothing to do with the medical cannabinoids. They're a FDA
approved that you can get already for cancer patients, AIDS patients,
epilepsy patients. Those are the medicines that can be prescribed
by a doctor. You can get it through insurance. You know,

(01:19):
that's that's the that's the kind of the perfect level,
you know, that's well managed. And then in twenty one, unfortunately,
we had that medical marijuana bill that was passed, and
that industry it really hasn't opened up yet because you know,
of those lawsuits. But that's where you get the marijuana
that's allowed to be grown only for you know, certain

(01:40):
medical conditions. And so the situation we're dealing with now
has nothing to do with Alabama legislation. It's really just
an accident and a really bad harm that came to
us through the federal Farm Bill of twenty eighteen, when
you know, thanks to Mitch McConnell, they said, yeah, sure,
we're going to take hemp out of the Schedule one designation.

(02:03):
And the whole intention of that Farm bill was just
to use hemp for industrial purposes of fibers for clothing,
you know, all different things, and even the seeds you
know that don't have all that well, they as good
and well intentioned legislation ends up having really bad, unintended consequences.

(02:25):
This is what we're living with. And so they designated
the THHC levels of hemp at zero point three percent
total THHC at drywaight at harvest, but they did not
explicitly talk about forbidding any consumables or any consumable products,
and they did not put a THHC limit at the

(02:48):
end product level. And so this is what is known
as the farm bill loophole, and people have been trying
to get that closed. We got really close last year
when the farm Bill was re upped, and it's going
to be an issue this year at the federal level.
But in the meantime, in the last seven to eight years,
the cannabis industry, which is well known for being very
deceptive and predatory in its practices, like big tobacco and

(03:12):
other types of industries, they have flooded our markets. And
what we have right now in existence is essentially synthetic
marijuana everywhere everywhere, and it is flooding our school. It
has been flooding our schools. We have kids vaping THHC
HYH potency THCHC products that are synthetic, because what happens

(03:34):
is is they grow the hemp in Alabama and it's
considered legal at harvest, and then they send it off
to some lab and we call it basically Frankenstein hemp.
They take the natural components of CBD because it's very
high in CBD, which is non psychoactive, and they do
a lot of chemical alterations and then turn it into

(03:57):
what they say is legal Delta nine, eight, Delta ten
and all the different variations because they say, hey, it
started with him, so technically, you know, maybe by the
letter of the law they could get away with that
because we don't have any laws right now. And that's
what is this session we're.

Speaker 1 (04:14):
Trying to Okay, Christine, question for you, real quick out
of the gate. It's kind of a twofold question. One,
what are the dangers of these products that we're talking about?
And secondly, some people say that they take them just
to deal with, you know, an anxiety disorder for instance.
I know my sister has a medical marijuana card in
Pennsylvania because she has severe anxiety can't cross bridges, get

(04:36):
on interstates and things like that. It climbs all over.
So that the doctor said, yeah, let's deal with this,
and here you can legally use this product instead of
opioids to deal with it or you know, antidepressants. What
about somebody that says, like, for instance, look, I don't
have any health insurance, I can't get a doctor to
write me a script for legal marijuana products in the
state of Alabama. And delta eight, you know, I've been

(04:57):
using it. It kind of takes the edge off of
my anxiety. What are the real dangers of this?

Speaker 2 (05:03):
Well, basically, THHC is THHC is THHC, So whether you
had it from an actual plant or it was synthesized,
it is a psychoactive chemical that is what produces the high.
But it also causes significant damage to the brain and
the nervous system. It increases cancer risks, And so with

(05:24):
the delta eight, nine, ten, it doesn't really matter that number.
Delta just means the placement of a molecule around the THHC.
So if you were at Thanksgiving and you were sitting
at this table, and you were seated in you seat
number nine and you moved over to seat number ten,
You're still JT. You're still at the same table. It's
all still the same thing. Maybe intensity, potency or whatever

(05:46):
might change, But what we're having is basically these psychoactive
components out there in the retail space which we have
never voted in and we have never approved, and we
have increasingly high levels of psychos schizophrenia. Children are damaging
their brains and it's to a point, to a permanent level,

(06:07):
needing to live their life on antipsychotics. There is absolutely
no medical evidence or approval for using marijuana for anxiety
or PTSD or depression. That is, the science has continued
to show that that is not okay, and especially with
younger people exposing their brains to this, we are increasing

(06:30):
suicides and our roads are much much less safe. We
have now significantly far more motor vehicle deaths and accidents
due to THHC than to alcohol. That trends started to
flip in twenty one and now according to the latest
Alabama forensics data, it is it's exceeded it by forty percent.

(06:51):
So yeah, the science is just continuing to show that
anybody wanting to make a medical claim as sending on
really shaking ground.

Speaker 1 (07:00):
Okay, Now, this past Tuesday, legislation passed HB four forty five,
where the ABC Board will now be the governing board
that administers licensed to sell these edibles and beverages. And
it's still not going away if it hasn't been passed.
I guess this means that it is legal for these products.
We're just going to take it over now and decide

(07:21):
who gets to sell this as opposed to going to
a gas station with neon purple lights around their windows.
They're going to take it away from those folks. Let
grocery stores and other places sell them. But if we
haven't approved the legality of these things, how do we
get away with this?

Speaker 2 (07:37):
Yeah, it's a really it's a very imperfect bill, and
I was against it most of the time. They made
some changes to it in the Senate which gives me
a slight a slight approval with reservations. They have said basically,
if there's going to be some THHC component, there's a

(08:00):
maximum dose, which is an improvement. One of the best
parts about four four five is that they are requiring
that these manufacturers when they take hemp a hemp plant
that they only process it according to more natural means.
They are now no longer allowed to frankenstein it. They

(08:22):
cannot use these chemical processes to take natural cbd and
churn it into the synthetic thhcs. And that's really really
important because the hemp cannabis industry is so corrupt, in predatory,
and deceptive. We're now forcing hey, if you actually want
to be a business that is going to respect public

(08:45):
safety and public health, then these are the parameters that
you have to go by. I support a complete and
full THHC ban, and we really pushed for that with
April Weavers Bill Senate Bill two seventy three. It was
the perfect bill. It would have gotten rid of THH
but kept CBD and CBG to be sold in pharmacies. Unfortunately,

(09:07):
leadership did not support it as much and they went
with four four five, But they did make some key
changes to severely restrict its access so that children are
not on this all the time. We have way too
many kids frying their brains with the way the situation
is right now, and to try our very best to

(09:29):
regulate and restrict access, I feel like as a good
stop gap as we continue to fight for a full
THHC ban in the retail space. There should be no
recreational retail THHC at all. I feel like this is
a good move in the right direction to protect our public.

Speaker 1 (09:49):
So moving in the right direction, but still a lot
of work to be done as far as you're concerned.

Speaker 2 (09:54):
Absolutely, right now, we're living in the wild wild West,
and so basically what four four five is is the
sheriff has come to town and they've lassoed up all
the all the bad guys. But we can't we can't
live with a lasso. We've we've got to actually deal
with it completely.

Speaker 1 (10:10):
So you mentioned the wild wild West, Christine, Well, you
know when people go into the gas stations to look
for this stuff, or any retail shop that's not going
to be allowed to sell this stuff, are you really
rolling the dice? Meaning is this like walking in buying
a product that's not been regulated, FDA has not approved it.
You're really not sure what's going to be in this thing?
Is is it that dangerous that you know you just

(10:31):
don't know what you're getting.

Speaker 2 (10:32):
Absolutely, it's absolutely that dangerous and probably worse. Yes, it's
it's absolutely terrible. It's it's making a lot of people sick.
It's breaking a lot of people's brains. It's a large
cause of the uptick in our our accidents and their
vehicle deaths and psychoses. So and then the poisoning because
you can't trust the labels. Every time law enforcement will

(10:56):
randomly buy these products from a gas station, a CBDC
or a vape shop whatever, and they say, oh, this
is our certificate of analysis or this is what we have,
and you take it to a real lab it's it's false.
Every time there's zero CBD and so much THHC. It's
like you're you're smoking twenty joints. That's it. One lollipop

(11:17):
will get you as high as a kite right now.
And so that's that we have to We have to
end it today. And that's what we're and that's what
four or five will do. Largely, it is not complete,
and I think people who are who are medically sound,
scientifically sound child advocates, we know we have to keep

(11:37):
going for a full THHC band. No, yeah, and that's
that is just the clear facts.

Speaker 1 (11:44):
Well, Christine, let's stay in touch with each other and
as your work continues in the effort to really clamp
down on this and if we're going to use the product,
make it safe, use it for medical purposes. And I
get the uh, you know, like walking in buying gas
Dan gas station, Soshi, I'm not sure I'm doing that.
I'm not sure I do this either, not knowing what
you're getting, even if you want to dabble in that arena. Christine,

(12:06):
thank you so much. I appreciate you.

Speaker 2 (12:08):
You're welcome. JT. You have a great day.