HEALTH
ing inhalation for issues that range from migraines
to mental health. It’s really helpful for someone
who has a sudden acute exacerbation due to the
situation they’re in, like with PTSD. It’s not meant
to be used for everything, so my advice to patients
predominately is that the best way is to ingest it,
because it’s more like a medication. You’ll have a
slow rise in the effects, and it’ll plateau for a good
six to eight hours, so you have good relief. Unlike
for migraines and mental health, with chronic
pain you don’t want to have like a yo-yo effect,
because if you inhale, you’ll have sudden relief of
your symptoms, usually in a matter of minutes,
but the peak effects are at about 20 to 30 minutes,
and most of the effects are gone by an hour and
a half. For people that are chronic pain sufferers,
they really need much better and long lasting
relief.
Can cannabis help chronic pain without get-
ting you high?
Yes. My company has actually created organic CBD
products from hemp that do just that. Cannabidi-
ol, or CBD, is a great anti-inflammatory agent and
great for pain. It is legal in all 50 states, unlike THC
or cannabis, which is allowed in only 29 states. You
may even find CBD oil in convenience stores that
people can use in a vaporizer.
Your body actually has its own endogenous can-
nabinoid system. There are two specific recep-
tors that researchers have found that create the
differences in terms of therapy between THC and
CBD. THC has a greater affinity for the CB-1 recep-
9 | HAPI Guide
tor, which is present throughout the central and
peripheral nervous system. If THC binds to the
CB-1 receptor, it actually increases the likelihood
of neurotransmission between neurons, whereas
CBD or cannabidiol has a greater affinity for CB-2
receptors. CB-2 receptors are throughout your im-
mune system, both in B cells and T cells. CBD works
through multiple pathways; for example, if there
are cells that are growing at a much faster rate than
needed, it will actually tell them to shut themselves
down and lead to cell death, or apoptosis. CBD also
will decrease the production of agents that lead to
inflammation, like cytokines, as well as decrease
the production of growth factors.
There are a lot of endogenous growth factors that
are increased if someone has cancer, so THC and
CBD have really very different effects on the body,
but CBD is a great way to deal with chronic pain.
I was interested in creating CBD products from
hemp, and we started that about a year and a half
ago. We actually went to multiple processors in
Colorado, Oregon, visited their sites, wanted to
make sure that they did best practices. We work
with two processors in Colorado and one in Ore-
gon, everything is done organically, all the culti-
vators and processors are certified. We actually
get testing of the oil that we get twice, once with