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