Cannabis Therapeutics Research Articles

Therapeutic use of cannabis in the US.

NPs are likely to encounter patients using cannabis with therapeutic intent, with or without legal authorization. During the clinical history and assessment process, NPs need to engage in frank discussion about cannabis therapeutics, including the risks and benefits, evidence for use, dosing considerations, potential drug interactions, and harm reduction.

(179) Dispensary Personnel’s Training and Knowledge in Cannabis Therapeutics, and Why Clinicians Should Care

(179) Dispensary Personnel’s Training and Knowledge in Cannabis Therapeutics, and Why Clinicians Should Care

Backgrounds and Trainings in Cannabis Therapeutics of Dispensary Personnel.

A growing body of scientific research indicates that oncology teams tend to offer individuals with cancer little clinical advice regarding medicinal cannabis (MC) and that individuals with cancer instead turn to cannabis dispensaries for MC guidance. Our objective was to investigate dispensary personnel's backgrounds and trainings in MC advising. The study design was semistructured interviews across 13 states with cannabis dispensary personnel in managerial or client-facing positions. Of 38 recruited, 26 (68%) completed interview. The primary outcome was training in MC advising. Researchers targeted thematic saturation and adhered to Consolidated Criteria for Reporting Qualitative Research. Of 26 participants, 54% were female, with an average age of 40 (range: 22-64) years. Half worked in client-facing roles; half worked in managerial ones. Study participants endorsed passionate commitment to their profession, often motivated by personal experience with MC therapeutics. Cannabis dispensaries often privileged sales skills over cannabis therapeutics knowledge when hiring, resulting in uneven baseline levels of cannabis therapeutics expertise among staff. Most participants reported workplace cannabis therapeutics training to be unstandardized and weak. They described dispensary personnel as resourceful in pursuing cannabis knowledge, self-financing learning in off-hours, sampling dispensary products, and exchanging knowledge. Nearly half the participants called for quality, standardized cannabis therapeutics training for dispensary personnel. The many oncology teams who defer to dispensary personnel regarding MC advising rely on a workforce who views themselves as unevenly trained. Further research should include a national survey of cannabis dispensary personnel to learn whether these findings hold true in a larger sample. If so, the oncology community must determine the best approach to clinically advising individuals with cancer about MC.

Blunted highs: Pharmacodynamic and behavioral models of cannabis tolerance

Acute exposure to cannabis comes with neurocognitive impairment, leading to increased risk of human error and injury. Evidence however indicates that such acute effects are less prominent in chronic users, suggesting cannabis tolerance. Models of cannabis tolerance stress the importance of neurobiological or behavioral adaptations following repeated cannabis exposure. The pharmacodynamic model relates neuroadaptive changes in the brain to a blunted response to cannabis. Downregulation of CB1 receptors in chronic cannabis users has been associated with a normalization of dopaminergic output from the ventral tegmental area to the mesolimbic circuit, and a reduction of impairment during acute cannabis exposure. Such neuroadaptions are absent in occasional users, who show strong increments of dopamine and glutamate levels in the striatum, a loss of functional connectivity within the mesolimbic circuit and neurocognitive impairments when exposed to cannabis. Evidence for a behavioral model of cannabis tolerance that poses that users can have volitional control to overcome functional impairment during cannabis intoxication is relatively weak, and at best shows limited control over a limited number of behavioral functions. Cannabis tolerance is most likely to occur in users that consume high doses of cannabis continuously, at a high pace, for a prolonged period of time. Knowledge on frequency, dose and duration of cannabis use that is needed to achieve, maintain or lessen tolerance however is very limited, but will be of importance in the context of cannabis therapeutics and in legal settings when evaluating the impact of cannabis exposure on human function.

Mother's Milk and the Muffin Man

In the ongoing debates over medical marijuana, opponents often conflate the alleged risks of cannabis therapeutics with the acknowledged harms associated with smoking. Although smoking is the most widely used method of administering marijuana, it is not the only available means. This paper provides an account of the production, distribution, and administration of non-smokable cannabis products by members of a California health care collective, the Wo/Men's Alliance for Medical Marijuana. WAMM has developed a variety of alternative methods of administering cannabis orally and externally that challenge the rhetorical equivalence between smoking as a delivery method and botanical marijuana as a medicine. Their experience with low-cost and low-tech production techniques has enabled even the poor and uninsured among them to manage the debilitating symptoms of their illnesses and the side-effects of their often onerous courses of treatment, without smoking. The organization provides an informative example of the way grassroots innovation and collective organization can challenge institutionalized assumptions about medicine, health care, and the alleviation of suffering.

Cannabis Therapeutics in HIV/AIDS

Journal Article Cannabis Therapeutics in HIV/AIDS Get access Cannabis Therapeutics in HIV/AIDS Edited by Ethan Russo Published by The Haworth Press, 10 Alice Street, Binghamton, NY 13904-1580, 2001. xiii + 230 p. Price $69.95 (hardcover), $39.95 (paperback). Deena Said, Pharm.D. Deena Said, Pharm.D. Drug Information Consultant Bristol-Myers Squibb Company, Cairo, Egypt Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar American Journal of Health-System Pharmacy, Volume 60, Issue 17, 1 September 2003, Page 1799, https://doi.org/10.1093/ajhp/60.17.1799 Published: 01 September 2003

Cannabis Therapeutics in HIV/AIDS

Cannabis Therapeutics in HIV/AIDS

Personal Account of Medical Use of Cannabis

SUMMARY The author provides a personal account of her sojourn with multiple sclerosis and its treatment with smoked and oral preparations of cannabis. Additional information is provided as to the effects, dosing and delivery of cannabis employed by 250 members of the Alliance for Cannabis Therapeutics.

Cognoscenti of Cannabis I

Portrait of Moreau in 1845, by N.E. Maurin, Library of the Academy of Medi-cine, Paris, France.Ethan Russo, MD, is a neurologist with Montana Neurobehavioral Specialists inMissoula. In addition, Dr. Russo is Clinical Assistant Professor, Department ofMedicine, Univeristy of Washington and Adjunct Associate Professor, Univeristy ofMontana.Journal of Cannabis Therapeutics, Vol. 1(1) 200185 2001 by The Haworth Press, Inc. All rights reserved.