Reefer MEDness Trevor Shewfelt and Kirk Nyquist

“Be the change you want to see in the world.”Apparently, that isn’t really a Mahatma Gandhi quote. But it is a great sentiment. How we are teaching people about cannabis isn't great or sometimes it isn't happening at all. But, you can be part of the change and help shape the future!Listen to Lisa Bishop PharmD, a Professor and Pharmacist at School of Pharmacy, Memorial University of Newfoundland, and Daniel Bear PhD, is the Director, Humber College Centre for Social Innovation. a Drugs Policy Researcher, and a Cannabis Policy Consultant, discuss a survey their team has developed.Along with their team, they’ve actually developed two surveys. And you really need to take at least one. Are you over 18 and have used or thought of using cannabis? They have a survey for you. Are you a pharmacist? They have a survey for you. Why should you take one of their surveys? Because they are going to use the info from these surveys to help pharmacists do a better job of teaching people about cannabis!THE SURVEY YOU SHOULD TAKE!!! Click here! - websiteOther Info:Weed Out Misinformation - website (https://www.weedoutmisinformation.ca/)Daniel Bear -LinkedIn (https://www.linkedin.com/in/daniel-bear-3810505/)Lisa Bishop - LinkedIn (https://www.linkedin.com/in/lisa-bishop-461aa460/)Music by:* Great Big Sea - Ordinary Day YouTube (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-wcjBU8zbdY)Additional Music:Desiree Dorion desireedorion.com (http://desireedorion.com/)Marc Clement - Facebook (https://www.facebook.com/MarcClementMusic)Transcripts, papers and so much more at: reefermed.ca (https://reefermed.ca/)FYI - the actual quote is:“We but mirror the world. All the tendencies present in the outer world are to be found in the world of our body. If we could change ourselves, the tendencies in the world would also change. As a man changes his own nature, so does the attitude of the world change towards him. This is the divine mystery supreme. A wonderful thing it is and the source of our happiness. We need not wait to see what others do.” – Mahatma Gandhi

When you take a prescription medication, it goes into your body, does what it is supposed to and then leaves. Part of leaving the body often involves the medication getting broken down or metabolized by enzymes in the liver. One of the biggest medication metabolizing enzyme systems in the liver is called the Cytochrome P450 enzymes. Why should you care? Because cannabis can effect the Cytochrome P450 enzymes. That could cause there to be too much or too little of a prescription medication in your body to do its job properly. Dr. Lyndsey Anderson and her colleagues at the Lambert Initiative for Cannabinoid Therapeutics in Sydney, Australia have looked at how cannabis and the Cytochrome P450 enzymes interact. Let’s have a listen!Lambert Initiative for Cannabinoid Therapeutics - web site (https://www.sydney.edu.au/lambert/)Lyndsey Anderson - LinkedIn (https://www.linkedin.com/in/lyndsey-anderson-621a38228/)Music by:Emre Cords-Before We Decided to Fall -YouTube (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=orekXjikSG8)(Yes we got a SOCAN membership to use this song all legal and proper like)Additional Music:Desiree Dorion desireedorion.com (http://desireedorion.com/)Marc Clement - Facebook (https://www.facebook.com/MarcClementMusic)Transcripts, papers and so much more at: reefermed.ca (https://reefermed.ca/)

Akeem Gardner and his team at Canurta are delving deep into the hidden corners of the cannabis plant. They want to know if we extract this cannflavin, this terpene, this cannabinoid, or one of the other thousands of molecules in the cannabis plant, can it treat a disease? Last year at CannMed 23, he talked to us about how cannflavins could be used to treat a particularly nasty brain tumour called glioblastoma. Since then, Akeem has hit the road and brought the gospel of cannabis plant medicine to conferences and other canna-curious folks across North America, Europe, and as far away as the United Arab Emirates.This year Team Canurta is looking at neurodegenerative diseases like ALS and even aging itself. They are using artificial intelligence to help screen where in the cannabis plant to focus their research. They are partnering with Universities to get academic papers turned into potential treatments. Akeem is one of the featured speakers at CannMed 24 again this year. We’d love to see you in Florida at CannMed 24 in person, and here is a preview of Akeem’s presentation!Canurta - canurta.com (https://www.canurta.com/)Akeem Gardner - LinkedIn (https://www.linkedin.com/in/akeemgardner/)Music by:Dead Bob - White Stone Eyes -YouTube (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UMjKqGEkM7c)(Yes we got a SOCAN membership to use this song all legal and proper like)Additional Music:Desiree Dorion desireedorion.com (http://desireedorion.com/)Marc Clement - Facebook (https://www.facebook.com/MarcClementMusic)Transcripts, papers and so much more at: reefermed.ca (https://reefermed.ca/)

More than 200,000 Canadians are registered Medical Cannabis patients. Due to a cumbersome national system, many of these individuals discover the benefits of Cannabis alone, with little therapeutic expertise to guide them. Learning about your medicine or just trying to access your medicine, these tasks are made easier when engaged with a business like Tantus Health; a Medical Cannabis Dispensary. Their consultants design natural wellness plans to educate individuals and provide personal guides to alleviate those frustrating unknowns that come when using Cannabis as medicine. In this episode, Kirk and Trevor discover a Canadian licensed medical cannabis company who: provides quality medicine consistently, forms strong relationships with their patients, and helps west coast first responders suffering from PTSD. With Tantus Health, you are not alone with your prescribed cannabis.Tantus Health Co - tantushealthco.com (https://tantushealthco.com/)Music by:Powder Blues Band - Boppin’ with the Blues -YouTube (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JuGoKe6t2Wc)(Yes we got a SOCAN membership to use this song all legal and proper like)Additional Music:Desiree Dorion desireedorion.com (http://desireedorion.com/)Marc Clement - Facebook (https://www.facebook.com/MarcClementMusic)Transcripts, papers and so much more at: reefermed.ca (https://reefermed.ca/)

We’ve got another amazing group of attendees from CannMed 23!Joe ThompsonOne evening they said dinner was on Lanai Beach. In Manitoba, if you are at a conference and someone says dinner is on Lanai Beach, then Lanai Beach is the name of a room. But in Florida, they actually meant dinner was on a beach. That sounds like a lovely idea, unless it is over 30 C and there is no shade. Thankfully, I brought a ball cap for my bald head and I met Dr. Joe Thompson also looking for some shade beside a pole.Dr. Thompson trained is a pediatrician, but now is the President & CEO of the Arkansas Center for Health Improvement. They have a program where they are going to analyze the data of people who got medical cannabis in Arkansas and see what happened to Health Outcomes. You want to hear about how that study will be done.Leah JohnsonDr. Leah Johnson Pharm D is a pharmacist and we met her in the Poster Hallway. Her Poster was about palliative care patients in California. Her group believes that if patients have access to cannabinoid medicine during palliative care, that will promote a better quality of life for the patients. Dr. Leah helps patients with their cannabis therapy and is a Cannabis Speaker and Educator across the US. She is on the Executive of the Pharmacist Cannabis Coalition of California (PCCC).Akeem GardnerI met Akeem during the opening reception of CannMed 23. I didn’t know anyone at the conference yet, so thankfully, he came up to me, read my name tag and introduced himself. Soon we discovered we were both from Canada, and we laughed over the fact the sliders were taken away too quickly. He told me he was nervous about a main stage talk he was giving. Now I understand why. He was giving a very technical, science heavy talk to a room full of cannabis doctors and researchers. But he killed it during his talk. He even handled challenges from the audience. I got to collect some audio from Akeem right after his talk. He’s from Mississauga. He’s a huge basketball fan. He has a nephew who Uncle Akeem really wants to become the next Lebron James. But for our story, Akeem is a Canadian lawyer turned hemp farmer turned CEO of the BioTech company Canurta Inc.His talk was about cannaflavins and their potential to treat glioblastoma, a common and aggressive form of brain cancer.Bruce MacklerWas involved with Prairie Plant Systems in Flin Flon when all “legal” Canadian Government Cannabis was grown in a mine in 2000. That became Cannimed in Saskatoon. And that got bought out by Aurora. Former lawyer that fought cases against the FDA. Former immunologist. His company, Ethicann, is developing a sublingual tablet for Multiple Sclerosis as a competitor to Stativex.Joe Thompson -LinkedIn (https://www.linkedin.com/in/joethompsonmd/)Leah Johnson - LinkedIn (https://www.linkedin.com/in/drleah/)Akeem Gardener LinkedIn (https://www.linkedin.com/in/akeemgardner/)Akeem’s CannMed23 Talk (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ztZQnIp2ILQ)Bruce Mackler - LinkedIn (https://www.linkedin.com/in/bruce-mackler-867a719/)Music by: The Tragically Hip - So Hard Done By (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n7pAgGu9L0k)Additional Music:Desiree Dorion desireedorion.com (http://desireedorion.com/)Marc Clement - Facebook (https://www.facebook.com/MarcClementMusic)Transcripts, papers and so much more at: 

Philippe Lucas, formerly of Tilray, comes on the discuss the TOPS study. It looked at around 2000 medical cannabis patients across Canada prospectively and gather tons of data. Some of the most interesting findings include medicating with cannabis seems to reduce opioid use and the use of prescription medications in general. Plus, there was no signal that the study participants wanted more and more cannabis which implies limited drug seeking and addition behaviors from medical cannabis. Numbers, data, cannabis, a great chat with Philippe, are you as excited as Trevor about this one? Have a listen.Philippe Lucas,PhD - LinkedIn (https://www.linkedin.com/in/philippe-lucas-phd-59351354/?originalSubdomain=ca)SABI Mind - sabimind.com (https://www.sabimind.com/)Tilray Observational Patient Study (TOPS) - article (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8320176/)Music by:Emma Peterson - Hurt Like Hell -YouTube (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N1eyLX7Mjys)FYI - Emma is also a nurse. Kirk just wants to point out nurses really do rule the world!(Yes we got a SOCAN membership to use this song all legal and proper like)Additional Music:Desiree Dorion desireedorion.com (http://desireedorion.com/)Marc Clement - Facebook (https://www.facebook.com/MarcClementMusic)Transcripts, papers and so much more at: reefermed.ca (https://reefermed.ca/)