WeedLife News Network

CBD is a pharmacological treasure trove for pet wellness, with claims that it can help cure seizures, appetite loss, nausea, pain relief, inflammation, skin allergies, osteoarthritis, and anxiety. And the evidence isn't just anecdotal. There are over 100 research papers published to support a promising future for CBD as a treatment for dogs and other animals. 

Unfortunately, while CBD holds excellent opportunities to make our dogs lives better, the laws are impeding research and forbidding practicing veterinarians to prescribe CBD or even recommend it. 

The big obstacles

The crux of the problem lies in the Schedule 1 classification of marijuana in the federal Controlled Substances Act ("CSA") as a drug "with no currently accepted medical use." Until marijuana legalizes, clinical trials remain scarce, and the American Veterinarian Medical Association (AVMA) won't approve the use of CBD. 

Marijuana's illegal status is holding back the cannabis industry from significant growth and breakthrough medical discoveries.

Another obstacle in product safety is the lack of FDA guidelines, even though it has been two years since the 2018 Farm Bill passed, allowing the cultivation of hemp.

Athletes, this one is for you.

The CBD marketplace is robust with topicals that aid in recovery. From muscle tension post-exercise to pain in your hands and wrists caused by carpal tunnel, the power of cannabinoids to both reduce inflammation and pain is a game-changer. CBD is not the only cannabinoid coming to the rescue. Mounting research shows that its cousin cannabigerol or CBG holds efficacy when it comes to reducing pain, inflammation, and bringing relief. 

Topicals are one of the most popular methods of utilizing CBD in your daily routine. Here are 5 topicals great for whatever type of recovery your body may need.

Boost Nano Hydrogel from Beam

Boost, the Nano Hydrogel from Beam, is praised by athletes across the country, including their team's powerful influencer network members Danica Patrick, PGA golfer Billy Horschel, Matthew Fraser, and more. The water-based CBD is made with orange and citrus organic essential oils, so its scent is a light and pleasant one. Beam's proprietary nano CBD technology makes it one of the faster-absorbing topicals for consumers to date. 600 milligrams of CBD can be found in each bottle.

CBG Topical from Goodekind

Goodekind is a new CBD offering on the market that is a dream for post-workout recovery. The special part about this one? It is made with 300 milligrams of CBG, CBD's cannabinoid counterpart that offers loads of benefits from anti-inflammatory to pain relief. Goodekind's topical is also made using organic shea butter, beeswax, coconut oil, and essential oils. The company offers additional trust to consumers by including the complete lab reports for each batch, so you know what you're getting. Goodekind is also kicking back a portion of its profits, one-eighth to be exact, to human rights coalition initiatives across the U.S.

The first resort-based medicinal cannabis dispensary in Jamaica, HedoWeedo, has opened in Negril with high-end cannabis making its way to the island's west coast.

HedoWeedo, which is independently owned and operated, is located within the Hedonism II resort, but not part of the all-inclusive experience. Hedonism II, a pioneer in Jamaica's hospitality industry, says it is thrilled to welcome HedoWeedo within its locale.

Curated by the longest-running dispensary on Denver's famous Green Mile, HedoWeedo specialises in high-end craft cannabis with products ranging from joints to flowers to oils, all locally cultivated by licensed farmers.

HedoWeedo says its mission is to promote the well-being of its customers by providing expert, personalised service, while offering a safe and comfortable environment to enjoy top-quality Jamaican cannabis.

HedoWeedo clients, who may include but are not limited to Hedonism II resort guests, will enjoy a unique, world-class dispensary, which the company promises “will far exceed the expectations of novice and experienced medicinal cannabis users alike”.

Amid the COVID-19 pandemic the New Mexico Department of Health approved rules that put into practice a state law allowing medical cannabis patients from other states to buy, possess and use medical cannabis in New Mexico. 

The law was passed in 2019 as part of a massive statutory change for medical cannabis. That law also included a separate provision that many have argued would have allowed non-residents of New Mexico to become a New Mexico medical cannabis patient. 

But in 2020 lawmakers, backed by Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham and the DOH, passed a law that made sure that only those who were medical cannabis patients in other states already could qualify for New Mexico’s program. 

They argued that allowing people from nearby states without a medical cannabis program to enroll in the New Mexico Medical Cannabis Program could invite unwanted federal scrutiny. Through legislative debate and public testimony, legislators and public health officials argued that the reciprocity provision in the 2019 law would be adequate enough to provide medicine to non-resident, medical cannabis patients spending time in New Mexico and would provide enough legitimacy to keep the federal government from intervening. 

But even now that the law reverted to only allow New Mexico residents and those already enrolled in a medical cannabis program to buy, possess and use it in the state, there seems to be a loophole of sorts that may allow exactly what the governor and state officials warned against.

Though science hasn’t gotten far when it comes to using CBD for sciatica, results from existing studies show CBD can help diminish neuropathic pain and inflammation caused by this condition. 

The studies primarily include research performed with Sativex, a drug that contains both CBD (non-psychoactive) and THC (the psychoactive component of cannabis). 

Clinical research found that Sativex is very effective for treating neuropathic pain in multiple sclerosis (MS) patients, and this medication is available for MS patients in Canada. 

Studies That Confirm The Effectiveness of a CBD-Containing Drug

During this study from 2006, patients with multiple sclerosis were given Sativex in the form of a spray, and researchers found that 8-12 sprays per day significantly diminished symptoms of MS, most notably neuropathic pain and muscle spasticity. 

Each spray of Sativex delivered 2.5 mg of CBD and 2.7 mg of THC, which in total comes to around 20~30 mg of CBD per day, and 22~32 mg of THC. 

Since Arkansas voters passed the Arkansas Medical Marijuana Amendment in 2016, more than 72,500 Arkansans have obtained Medical Marijuana Prescription Cards in order to obtain products to treat the 18 qualifying conditions.

These Arkansans include a sleepless cancer survivor, a 10-year-old epileptic child with seizures and a combat veteran with post-traumatic stress disorder. Here are the stories of the conditions that led them to pursue medical marijuana as a treatment and their experiences using the drug.

Like many seniors, Pat Edwards likes to stay in shape by exercising at the local community center. Every Tuesday, she and others would gather at the Bishop Park Senior Activity Center in Benton for line dancing class. One day in 2017, she noticed something a little different about herself.

Brian Chilson

A REMEDY FOR SLEEPLESSNESS: Cancer survivor Pat Edwards no longer needs her marijuana cookies every night.

It’s been four years since Florida voters signed off on a law legalizing medical marijuana, but cannabis patients in the Sunshine State have been unable to receive treatment in the form of edibles—until now.

The Florida Department of Health published new emergency rules on Wednesday evening that clear the way for the state’s medical marijuana industry to sell edible cannabis products. According to local television station WESH, the new rules allow licensed marijuana dispensaries in the state to “produce and sell THC-infused edible products like brownies and candy.” The edibles must be “lozenges, baked goods, gelatins, chocolates or drink powders,” the outlet reported.

Florida’s medical marijuana law was approved overwhelmingly by the state’s voters in 2016, with more than 70 percent supporting the proposal. But the law was beset with limitations. It wasn’t until last year that smokable medical marijuana was made available to Florida patients. That came after the state’s governor, Republican Ron DeSantis, signed a bill making smokeables legal.

“Over 70 percent of Florida voters approved medical marijuana in 2016,” DeSantis said in a tweet at the time. “I thank my colleagues in the Legislature for working with me to ensure the will of the voters is upheld.”

With The Change Comes Restrictions

The rule changes unveiled by the Florida Department of Health, which go into effect immediately, represent another expansion to the four-year-old law.

Health Minister Yuli Edelstein and his deputy Yoav Kisch published on Wednesday regulations that will allow for lower prices for medicinal cannabis. The regulations are also expected to simplify the process required to go through for receiving a prescription.

Three weeks ago, the Knesset's Labor, Welfare and Health Committee raised various issues relating to the medicinal cannabis reform that were brought to light since it came into effect. The committee guaranteed that a row of steps will be taken in order to address said issues.

The Health Ministry went to work and on Wednesday morning announced that the required legal corrections that will fix the issues were completed and made public.

One major legal change refers to CBD, the second most prevalent of the active ingredients of cannabis which does not have the same psycho-activity traits as THC.

The new regulations exclude for the first time CBD-based products from the Dangerous Drugs Ordinance from 1973, a step that will dramatically reduce prices for patients who consume CBD-based products. This step will also allow for a new market with a huge economic potential, as is popular in many European countries today. 

On November 6, 2018, Missouri voters passed Article XIV of the Missouri Constitution, establishing a medical marijuana program in Missouri. Article XIV requires the Department of Health and Senior Services (DHSS) to protect the trade secrets of medical marijuana businesses as well as patients’ information by keeping that information confidential.

Article XIV Section 1.3.(5) of the Missouri Constitution states, “The Department shall maintain the confidentiality of reports or other information obtained from an applicant or license containing any individualized data, information, or records related to the licensee or its operation, including sales information, financial records, tax returns, credit reports, cultivation information, testing results, and security information and plans, or revealing any patient information, or any other records that are exempt from public inspection pursuant to state or federal law…”

The Administrative Hearing Commission, the administrative agency charged with hearing the medical marijuana licensing appeals, recently ruled that the confidentiality provision in Article XIV did not prevent litigants from compelling DHSS to disclose trade secrets or other proprietary information submitted by other businesses.

“As most people know, there were many more applicants than there were medical marijuana facility licenses,” said Lyndall Fraker, Director of the Section for Medical Marijuana Regulation. “Some of those applicants are now pursuing their competitors’ business and proprietary secrets through the appeal process. It’s our responsibility to implement the Constitution, and we want to be sure we’re doing exactly that."

DHSS initiated an action in Cole County Circuit Court seeking a judicial order regarding whether it should continue protecting the confidentiality of business and trade secrets.

Earlier this year, the Arkansas Department of Health suspended expiration dates on medical marijuana registry cards due to the COVID-19 public health emergency. This allowed individuals to temporarily use their cards past the expiration date written on their card.

This temporary extension will end on September 30, 2020. Cards with an expiration date on or before September 30, 2020, will expire on September 30, 2020.

Cardholders need to submit a renewal application by September 11, 2020, to allow time for processing. Cards with an expiration date after September 30, 2020, will expire on the date written on the card.

To renew, cardholders will need to submit an updated physician written certification, patient application, copy of their Arkansas driver’s license or ID, and the $50 processing fee. Applications can be submitted here.

Sometimes, emotions are like fireworks, suddenly exploding into colourful arrays, spilling down into every facet of life. Talk to any woman who has fluctuating hormone levels and she’ll tell you that feeling unbalanced or “out-of-whack” is something that she wishes never occurred.

Scientists have long been looking into the link between hormone imbalance, early menstruation and quality-of-life. While not solely caused by environmental factors (some of these are genetic or induced by thyroid problems or stress) hormone imbalances can affect mood, weight gain, hair loss and pain levels.

While both men and women are susceptible to hormone fluctuations, according to the Between the Bridges Healing Center, “Women experience hormonal imbalances at key transitions in their lives, for example, puberty, childbirth, perimenopause and menopause.”

Amanda Holmberg-Sasek, a therapist at Radiant Living Therapy in Plymouth, Minn., says she often sees clients who are experiencing the effects of hormone imbalance and its direct connection to a healthy sex life.

“Working with the psychological effects of hormone imbalance can really help make big changes in and out of the bedroom,” Holmberg-Sasek explained. Often a cause of dysfunction in relationships, she believes having a conversation is the first step to feeling and communicating more effectively with your partner.

There’s a lot of misinformation and exaggeration regarding the benefits of CBD. Here are some conditions that the compound can help alleviate.

Despite the incredible popularity that CBD has amassed over the past couple of years, there’s a lot that scientists and experts still don’t know about the compound. While it’d be great if CBD could do all of the things many companies promise it does, it’s a compound like any other, with its fair share of limitations. It’s also one that stands on rocky legal ground, meaning that it needs much more research in order for us to get a clearer picture of what it does and how it functions with our bodies.

While there’s a lot of misleading marketing regarding a large percentage of CBD products, there are a few benefits that have been associated with CBD and that have some scientific support. Here are three conditions that CBD can actually treat and provide relief from:

Epilepsy 

Photo by KATERYNA KON/SCIENCE PHOTO LIBRARY/Getty Images

The most significant results that support medicinal CBD oil show that the compound is effective at treating seizures and rare forms of epilepsy. In 2018, Epidiolex, an oral CBD medicine, was approved by the FDA. The drug can be used to treat two kinds of epilepsy: Dravet syndrome and Lennox-Gestault syndrome. According to the research, it’s believed that CBD helps suppress seizures by decreasing inflammation in the brain and thus slowing down the messages that it’s receiving.

Do you wonder if medical marijuana can help you feel better? You aren’t alone! Many people with lung cancer consider whether or not medical marijuana can make them feel better as a complementary therapy, alongside a prescribed treatment course. The answer is it certainly could… but like all diagnoses, it’s an individual matter and there’s no one-size-fits-all approach that works for everyone.

From a medical standpoint, “there’s very little clinical data” on the topic, Dr. Edward Garon, a medical oncology and hematology specialist at Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center, told SurvivorNet. “It is an area where there is some preclinical data, such as animal data, but not a lot of data on humans, that would be sufficient for clinical evidence for us to recommend it to people.”

So let’s break down how medical marijuana works, explore why it works, and what doctors say about it based on what they do know at this time.

It is important to understand why marijuana can be so helpful for symptoms of cancer and its treatments. First, it’s both an anti-inflammatory and a pain reliever. “When you take plant-based cannabis, marijuana, you’re decreasing inflammation, and you’re relieving pain at the same time,” Dr. Junella Chin, an integrative cannabis physician in New York, told SurvivorNet.

Dr. Garon says, “In general, we have always advised patients diagnosed with lung cancer, not to smoke anything.”

Have you ever wondered why you have butterflies in your stomach when you are stressed? Or why you run to the bathroom before speaking in front of an audience? These are clear examples of how your gut responds to stress. There is a gut-brain connection that links the nervous system to the digestive system.

There are two competing components to your nervous system: the sympathetic and parasympathetic systems. The sympathetic system is the “fight or flight” response. This system kicks into gear when you have to speak publically, meet a deadline, or exercise. The sympathetic system causes your pupils to dilate, heart rate to increase, blood pressure to rise, and body to sweat. 

The parasympathetic system helps you digest your food, sleep, dream, and relax. Especially during these stressful times, many of us are living in a perpetual state of “fight or flight.” We are overworked, exhausted, and anxious about what the future holds. This constant state of “fight or flight”  results in digestive ailments such as bloating, irregular bowel movements, acid reflux, and rapid weight gain/loss. Overexertion on the sympathetic system may also cause a decrease in blood flow and oxygen to the stomach, which can lead to cramping, inflammation, or an imbalance of gut bacteria.

The ever-increasing importance of the ECS system

The endocannabinoid system, or ECS, is a vast and essential system that modulates and interfaces with all of the other systems throughout your body. It regulates physical functions, such as movement, pain sensation, and immune responses, as well as cognitive or mental capacities, like perception, mood, and memory. The ECS naturally produces cannabinoid-like molecules that stimulate the body's cannabinoid receptors. These receptors are in many areas of the body, such as the brain, muscles, and gastrointestinal (GI) tract. 

Why and how does CBD affect the nervous system? 

Did you know that our brains make their own internal cannabis molecules (endogenous cannabinoids)? Anandamide (named after the Sanskrit word for bliss, ananda), helps temper stress and balance the nervous system, so we are not spiraling out of control on high sympathetic overdrive. Sympathetic overdrive takes a toll on the body that can eventually lead to a state of adrenal fatigue if left untreated. Adrenal fatigue causes everything from a compromised immune system to a decreased ability to handle stress to and memory problems. 

University College London researchers have found a single dose of cannabidiol boosts blood flow to an important part of the brain.

The hippocampus is part of the brain’s medial temporal lobe (MTL). It plays important roles in shifting information from short-term memory to long-term memory, and in spatial memory that enables navigation. If the hippocampus is damaged, it can impact a person’s existing memories and their ability to form new memories.

The progressive shrinking of the hippocampus is responsible for the short-term memory loss that accompanies Alzheimer’s Disease, the most common form of dementia affecting up to 70% of all people with dementia.

The non-intoxicating cannabinoid CBD is increasingly being investigated for its potential therapeutic benefits, including improving memory function and how the brain processes emotional memories – but the mechanisms have been unclear. New research from UCL may provide an important hint.

The researchers set out to investigate how CBD influences cerebral blood flow in different regions on the brain involved in memory processing. As part of the investigation, 600mg of oral cannabidiol or a placebo was administered to 15 healthy young adult participants who had little or no history of cannabis use. Using a magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) brain scanning technique called ‘arterial spin labelling’ that measures changes in the blood oxygen levels, the researchers determined CBD significantly increased blood flow in the hippocampus.

Consuming cannabis can provide numerous wellness benefits to consumers and patients as a growing body of peer-reviewed research demonstrates.

Countless people around the world use cannabis for medical or recreational purposes, as people have done for many centuries.

Cannabis has been found by at least one peer-reviewed study to be 114 times safer than alcohol, and many people prefer to make the safer choice and consume cannabis rather than alcohol.

In some instances a consumer or patient may need to refrain from consuming cannabis, either for tolerance-break purposes, or for an upcoming drug test.

It could also just be due to personal preference.

When hormone issues are caused by environmental factors like toxins, growth hormones or waste byproducts, it affects not only the body’s ability to reproduce, but the aging process as well.

Sometimes, emotions are like fireworks, suddenly exploding into colorful arrays, spilling down into every facet of life. Talk to any woman who has fluctuating hormone levels and she’ll tell you that feeling unbalanced or “out-of-whack” is something that she wishes never occurred. 

Scientists have been looking into the link between hormone imbalance, early menstruation, and quality-of-life for decades. While not always caused by environmental factors, (some are genetic or induced by thyroid problems or stress,) hormone imbalances can affect mood, weight gain, hair loss and pain levels. While both men and women are susceptible to hormone fluctuations, Between the Bridges Healing Center explains that, “Women experience hormonal imbalances at key transitions in their lives, for example, puberty, childbirth, perimenopause and menopause. “

Amanda Holmberg-Sasek, a therapist at Radiant Living Therapy  out of Plymouth, Minnesota, says she often sees clients who are experiencing the effects of hormone imbalance and its direct connection to a healthy sex life. “Working with the psychological effects of hormone imbalance can really help make big changes In and out of the bedroom,” she explained. Often a cause of dysfunction in relationships, she believes having a conversation is the first step to feeling and communicating more effectively with your partner.

When hormone issues are caused by environmental factors such as toxins, growth hormones or waste byproducts, it affects not only the body’s ability to reproduce, but the aging process as well. According to the Dr. Shel wellness center in Sugarland, Texas, an imbalance can overwhelm the liver, which helps “to filter out excessive hormones.” When the liver can’t keep up with the disruptors in the food we’re eating, the air we’re breathing and the water we’re drinking, we experience symptoms, like, “weight gain, brain fog, sleepless nights, headaches” and more. 

When talking about whether CBD oil can alleviate the symptoms of Crohn’s disease, there are two important scientific studies to consider. 

This recent research allows us to make more accurate conclusions about the type of CBD that should be used for this particular condition. 

The first study is from 2017, and 19 patients with Crohn’s disease participated in it. 

They were given 10 mg of pure CBD (also known as CBD isolate), twice a day for 8 weeks.

Researchers found that even though CBD treatment was well tolerated, this type of therapy didn’t result in any beneficial effects.