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Medical Cannabis for Insomnia with Dr. Joseph Rosado
34 Plays8 months ago
It's hard to think of an insomnia remedy with more misconceptions about it than medical cannabis. Get the facts from an expert in the field. Learn about the body's endocannabinoid system and how medical cannabis may help with a variety of chronic conditions. Discover the emerging research and the treatment options available.
Dr. Joseph Rosado is a global advocate of plant-based medicine and a medicinal cannabis pioneer. Connect with Dr. Rosado online at @thedrrosadoshow on YouTube and at https://josephrosadomd.com/. His book, "Hope & Healing: The Case for Cannabis" is available on Amazon.
In this episode:
- Understanding the body's endocannabinoid system
- A round-up of CBD, THC, and CBN
- Conditions commonly treated with medical cannabis
- The most common underlying cause of insomnia
- How to administer medicinal cannabis
- Navigating state laws for medical marijuana programs
- Resources and research for further study
- Making the case for cannabis
Connect with us at SuenoLabs.com. We're currently looking for contributors and podcast guests!
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Transcript
Introduction to Medical Cannabis and Misconceptions
00:00:00
Speaker
Of all the remedies for insomnia, it's hard to think of one that has more misconceptions and more confusion than medical cannabis.
Meet Dr. Rosado: Background and Expertise
00:00:12
Speaker
Tonight, we get the facts. My guest this evening is a humble man, so he may not say this about himself. I'll say it for him. This guy is brilliant.
00:00:21
Speaker
Dr. Rosado has such a passion for research and science and understanding the human body all with the goal of truly helping the patients that he works with every day.
Exploring Cannabis for Insomnia and Transitioning from Medications
00:00:32
Speaker
Not only is he a practicing physician, but he has a background in communicable disease, epidemiology, immunization. He's an author. He's an advocate.
00:00:40
Speaker
So I am excited to hear what Dr. Rosado has to say on this topic, not only about the scientific case for medical cannabis, but about the day to day practice of what it actually looks like to transition from other medications that maybe someone previously had been taking for insomnia to a natural based remedy.
00:01:06
Speaker
Tonight, I talk with Dr. Joseph Rosado, a global advocate of plant-based medicine and a medicinal cannabis pioneer.
00:01:24
Speaker
I'm Jimmy Leonard. This is Swenio Labs.
00:01:33
Speaker
Dr. Rosado, thank you so much for joining us on Swenio Labs. How are you today? I am excellent. Thanks for asking. How are you? I am doing really well too. I'm excited to talk about today's topic because I think it's something that a lot of people have questions about, but they don't always want to ask their questions. is like I feel like sometimes even though a lot has changed in the last 10 or 15 years, this sometimes feels like one of those topics where you aren't really sure what your friends and family are going to think about you when you start asking these questions. And so you almost have to vet people like, are you a safe person to ask this
Cannabis Education and the Endocannabinoid System
00:02:08
Speaker
question to? you
00:02:09
Speaker
Will it number one it's a taboo topic first and foremost number two less than ten percent of the medical schools in the united states and i would venture to say in the world. Talk about this topic now that we can stimulate your audiences ah curiosity and we spark some intrigue let's forge forward.
00:02:31
Speaker
I probably gave it away a little bit earlier, but of course, some we're talking about medical cannabis. And as you mentioned, you know this is I don't even know if controversial is the right word. It's just like it isn't talked about. It's taboo was the word you used. So I thought maybe we could start by by giving some definitions. you know When we're talking about medical cannabis, what are we talking about? What are we not talking about? Just so there's a common understanding here.
00:02:56
Speaker
Absolutely. The two terminologies that are thrown out there a lot are medical marijuana, medical cannabis, and recreational and proper terminology. in First is medical cannabis and adult use. The idea of it being re of recreational use is not really accurate. And I'll explain. Most people don't know that we all, all vertebrates. So not only humans, animals that have a spinal cord, spinal column,
00:03:26
Speaker
We all have what's called an endocannabinoid system. Now what does that mean? If you've studied anatomy, physiology, you've learned about the cardiovascular system, the respiratory, the gastrointestinal, the reproductive, all these systems, but no one has ever really taught us or or told us about the endocannabinoid system, which is a system where we all produce cannabis. We all produce cannabinoids.
00:03:52
Speaker
These are substances that work on these specific receptors and have actions and activities upon all of the organ systems in the body. So it's really the link that connects all of the organ systems because every organ system in the human body has an endocannabinoid receptor. The first endocannabinoid that was named and discovered was in 1992.
00:04:18
Speaker
So pretty recent. Yeah, very, very recent. Before, cannabis became legal in the United States. ah The first state that became medically legal in the USA was California in 1996, the year that my twin daughters were born. So we're looking at 29 years ago was when we had a program in the US for medical cannabis. Four years prior to that was when they discovered the first endocannabinoid called anandamide from the Sanskrit word ananda which means bliss. you know From that point forward they've you know named four additional endocannabinoids but we all do produce this cannabis and so what occurs is as we age or as we develop this ease, lack of ease,
00:05:05
Speaker
we have a decreased production of this and are these endocannabinoids and for that reason we need to utilize cannabis from the outside exogenously from the outside in and so we use what are called phyto cannabinoids phyto meaning plant cannabinoid meaning that it works on the cannabis receptor. Now understand that marijuana or cannabis which is the correct term, is not the only cannabinoid in the plant world. There are other plants that also work on these specific receptors. But since the today's topic is cannabis, we'll address specifically the cannabinoids that are found in the cannabis plant and how each one of them
00:05:54
Speaker
in some way, shape, or form addresses the issue of insomnia and lack of sleep, which is a huge problem in the United States. I for the past three years have been the medical director for a mental behavioral health clinic of the 1200 active patients that I see, I would venture to say two thirds of them have and insomnia as a
Legal and Medicinal Challenges of Cannabis
00:06:20
Speaker
diagnosis. Okay, great. So there's so much that I think we could unpack there. So our bodies produce this, but and it's not a ah perfect analogy. But if you think about all of these other things that we need, that is very common to be deficient in, you know, someone could have iron deficiency, for example, where, where we talk about, you know, this is something that
00:06:38
Speaker
your body actually needs more than it has. So there is this very common practice of needing to supplement that and needing to find natural sources that have it. You can't always take a capsule or or something like that. We're trying to look for natural sources. So I wonder, and we might get into this a little bit too, but When you talk about endocannabinoids in the body, what are some of the functions that they're part of or what are they doing? As I mentioned earlier, they are linked and connected with different organ systems. So each one
00:07:12
Speaker
deals with and controls a specific function, but the most important thing is it maintains balance or homeostasis. That's the the key. By having a strong and well-supported endocannabinoid system, it maintains a level of balance and ease in our bodies.
00:07:34
Speaker
So I have a question, Dr. Rosado says, you mentioned that this was kind of coming on to the scene around the time your daughters were born and relatively recently. At what point in your career did you start taking a notice of of what we were uncovering in the scientific studies in this area? or Or how did that fit with some of the integrative medicine you may have already been doing at that point in your career?
00:07:58
Speaker
Well, it's interesting because I mentioned that less than 9% of medical schools in the US s and I would venture to say the world teach about the endocannabinoid system. I am a unicorn. I learned the endocannabinoid system while in medical school in the Dominican Republic of all places. Granted, it was during the toxicology section of pharmacology and They talked about ah cannabis, they spoke about the endocannabinoid system, they spoke about the cannabinoid receptors, the two more more commonly known ones which are CB1 and CB2. But immediately after discussing that they went on to say but it is a gateway drug and it's bad and it is highly addictive and there's no medicinal value or or purpose for it. But as I learned further and went home and studied and
00:08:51
Speaker
read more information, I discovered that there is a federal patent here in the United States for the use of cannabis for chronically debilitating neurological conditions. I'm like, wait a minute, no medicinal value because it is a Schedule I and Schedule I drugs, quote unquote are defined as no medicinal value, highly addictive. Other drugs in that category are MDMA, ecstasy, heroin, um PCP, peyote, etc. So these are all considered Schedule 1 drugs but yet many of those medications, drugs that I just mentioned,
00:09:34
Speaker
have been used for many years but then all of a sudden were taken off the market because of the substance use disorders or the misutilization of a lot of them i.e. LSD, MDMA, etc. But yet you know they say it's a Schedule 1 drug but there's a federal patent. So back to how I discovered While I was in medical school and in pharmacology class, I learned about the endocannabinoid system that evening I went home, studied ah you know from my textbook, which is the Goodman and Gilman, which was considered the Pharmacology Bible. And once I got there, I was reading and I discovered that cannabis causes a psychological dependence. You can develop a psychological dependence, but not a physiological dependence.
00:10:22
Speaker
unlike alcohol, unlike cocaine, unlike opiates, that when you stop using those medications or those substances, your body craves the need for those medications. With cannabis, you don't go through those types of withdrawals. For that reason, you know there's an uptake and downtake regulation and all these other upregulation, downregulation that we utilize and so A lot of my patients, when they, quote unquote, develop a tolerance, I just have them do what's called a cannabis holiday. And that doesn't mean going to Colorado for the weekend. It's taking 24 hours off, you know, within a seven day span of time. So take your medicine six days and
00:11:08
Speaker
for one full 24 hour day, don't use it and it's as if you've never been on the medication.
Insomnia, Anxiety, and Cannabis as a Remedy
00:11:15
Speaker
And so the possibility of dependence or addiction is minimal to none.
00:11:19
Speaker
at risk of oversimplifying this because that's absolutely not my intention but if you think about just how many things in life have the possibility of us developing some kind of unhealthy relationship? Like, even just think about food. I mean, no one would say eating food is bad, but how many people in America around the world have some kind of disordered relationship with food? And and of of course, there's a lot of complexity there, but it's maybe the wrong conclusion to say, well, how about no one eats? You know, that's that's not the correct takeaway from looking at where maybe some people have a struggle with a particular substance. So again, not
00:11:54
Speaker
not to completely oversimplify what we're talking about, but I think that there is a lot of nuance that we just don't always consider. Exactly. But when you look at the commonly prescribed medications for insomnia, for sleep, that I've prescribed or my nurse practitioner has prescribed, when you look at the side effects of these medications, many of them are highly addictive.
00:12:20
Speaker
and Once patients get to a specific age, many insurance companies refuse to fill those medications because of the high fall risk that they all have and the other issues that can you know occur as a result of being on these medications.
00:12:38
Speaker
I'm curious about insomnia, of course. That was part of the reason I was ah excited to have you on the show. We talk about sleep so much. So if if we think about cannabis or endocannabinoids, like this is helping us regulate, it's helping us have homeostasis in the body. What's the connection to sleep disorders in particular?
00:12:58
Speaker
The connection is that it started out with a theory but that theory has been proven by ah Dr. Ethan Rousseau in a paper where he discusses clinical endocannabinoid deficiency where they began to measure the endocannabinoids and linking those that situation with named diseases and the three most commonly named conditions that are found with clinical endocannabinoid deficiency are migraine headaches
00:13:30
Speaker
fibromyalgia and irritable bowel syndrome. But as they evaluated and researched further, they discovered that many chronically debilitating conditions also are linked with that. For example, not only IBS but ulcerative colitis, post-traumatic stress disorder, failure to thrive, many autoimmune diseases. And so because of that deficiency,
00:13:59
Speaker
it It's reflected in many ways. The most common cause based on the years of experience I have and the number of patients I've managed, but the most common reason for people to have insomnia is because of anxiety. They can't sleep because they're anxious. And something I've learned is when someone deals or suffers with or from anxiety is because they are fearful of the future. And so they're constantly focusing and thinking about what if in the future individuals that deal or suffer with depression are individuals that are living in the past and are focusing on issues that have happened to them previously and so they're bringing their past into the present and then the others are bringing the future into the present neither of which makes any sense because you know not to sound cliche but um
00:14:55
Speaker
I heard one time Deepak Chopra say this I don't know if he was the one that coined this but past is history the future is mystery the present is a gift that's why it's called the present and so if you know and working patients through that is a challenge so addressing their anxiety is really the key to addressing a lot of the insomnia and sleep issues that that
Cannabinoids and Their Effects on Sleep
00:15:21
Speaker
we manage. Now, are there receptors that can certain phytocannabinoids work on in the body that cause sleep or somnolence? Absolutely. you know the The number one phytocannabinoid that everyone is afraid of is THC, simply because everybody wants to make THC out to be the villain. If cannabis were a cowboy movie in the United States,
00:15:46
Speaker
The THC would be the cowboy dressed in black and CBD would be the cowboy dressed in white because everybody loves and talks about CBD. and you know It's over the counter. It's legal. It's accepted. It doesn't make you high. Whereas THC is the demon. It makes you high. It makes you euphoric. And that's the one that you can get addicted to.
00:16:09
Speaker
but there's another phytocannabinoid that not too many people discuss or address and that's CBN, cannabinol, which when you take THZ for example, when you take the plant and you heat it beyond a certain temperature,
00:16:24
Speaker
because it's all chemistry. Each phytocannabinoid has a different vaporization point. So when you go beyond the 220 degrees where THCA or the acid form of THC becomes the active form of THC by decarboxylating, losing the carboxyl group or COOH, once that group is lost, you convert THCA to THC. But if the cannabis is older,
00:16:51
Speaker
and you and or you heat it beyond that 220 degrees Fahrenheit now you get CBN which is another phytocannabinoid that causes somnolence and is great for sleep but more importantly not so much the THC or the CBN but more the metabolites once you ingest these substances and they are metabolized in the liver, they are then converted to 11-hydroxy-THC and 11-hydroxy-CBN respectively. And those are really the ones that tend to cause that somnolence because 11-hydroxy-THC has been shown to be four times stronger than delta-9-THC which is
00:17:40
Speaker
the active form of cannabis. Okay. but I know. I threw a lot of stuff at you. I'm sorry. Yeah. I was just, I was just thinking, you know, if someone listening to this right now is is kind of having their own post-traumatic episode from taking Orgo and in college or something like that, thinking, you know, i i are you about to make us diagram this or something?
00:18:00
Speaker
Yeah, you know, maybe it's it's kind of helpful to put this in in an everyday context. So a lot of times, you know, we talk about taking a multivitamin, for example, and and one of the the critiques of of certain brands of multivitamins is, sure, it might have stuff in there, but it's not in a form that it becomes readily available for your body because we have to think about there are some different steps. You know, once you swallow it, it's got to go in the stomach and digested and all all these things. And so a lot of times when we're having conversations about vitamins, it's, well, what form should you take it in? you know is it Does it matter if you take it in ah a food form or should you actually take it in a liquid form or certain things are better if you rub it on your skin versus... And so we're really just applying this to other things from the natural world where we're saying it's it's not just about this plant, good or bad, you know like cowboy movie, is it on a good side or a bad side? But we're really kind of thinking about how how does this interplay with the biochemistry of the human body? What form do we need to take it in? What's helpful for the body? What's helpful when it goes into the liver? And and what's really the end product that the body is going to then synthesize and use and put into these processes? And so if it's helpful to kind of think about it in that way, this is actually the conversations that
00:19:12
Speaker
we're always having, even just at a basic level of when someone says don't eat raw meat, but it's okay if you eat it if it's cooked.
Methods of Cannabis Administration and Their Impacts
00:19:19
Speaker
like It's kind of the same idea that there is a chemical change that happens where something can go from not that great for your stomach to all of a sudden exactly what your stomach needs. Exactly. And so an example I use in my private practice when I'm explaining to patients how to use the medical cannabis is the example from when I used to work in the emergency department. Somebody comes in with what's called cellulitis, which is an infection of soft tissue. It can affect you know their arm or their leg, their thigh, whatever. So let's imagine that somebody's got a really aggressive infection where it's you know the lesion is open and there's pus oozing out and it's just really nasty.
00:20:02
Speaker
And I've got, I know I may be like, let's let's go ahead and imagine this vividly continue to continue. That there's one antibiotic that I can use and that antibiotic. like is available in four ways and four different modes of administration. One is in the vein, an IV, an intravenous injection where I started the IV line and pushed the antibiotic through the vein. It goes directly into the bloodstream, goes right to the source of the infection and begins to kill the bacteria. yeah That's one. The second is I give somebody a shot in the butt or the arm of the same antibiotic.
00:20:43
Speaker
it's gonna get into the muscle. From the muscle, it'll make its way into the bloodstream, and from the bloodstream, it'll make its way to the site of the infection. The third is a pill. I'll give somebody a pill, but as you just mentioned, it has to be digested, broken down, and then goes to the liver to be metabolized. Then it gets into the circulation. Then it makes its way into the area that's affected, which is why when you give an antibiotic orally, the instructions are either take every six hours, every eight hours or every 12 hours. And then lastly, a topical cream with the antibiotic where they could put it directly locally on that area. So how does that come into play with cannabis? When you inhale cannabis, you get the effect within three to 10 minutes.
00:21:37
Speaker
but it only lasts two to four hours. okay So if you're having issues with sleep, you can do an inhalation, whether it's a meter dose inhaler, like it and like an albuterol inhaler, which one of our dispensaries here in the state of Florida has. You can do an e-cigarette, an electronic cigarette where you use a vape cartridge.
00:22:01
Speaker
or you can actually smoke an actual cannabis cigarette, whether it's a joint or you take ground flour and you put it in a bong or however, you're gonna get the effect within three to 10 minutes but it's only gonna last two to four hours. okay Secondly, I can give you an oil. You put the oil under your tongue and it takes 30 to 90 minutes for you to get the effect but it's gonna be in your system four to six hours.
00:22:31
Speaker
Okay, and next you have either the gel capsule, an actual capsule with cannabis, or the famous gummies, an edible, whether where it's a gummy, a chocolate bar, a brownie, or a cookie.
00:22:47
Speaker
those take anywhere between two to three hours for you to feel the effect because again you eat it it has to be digested it has to be metabolized in the liver and then from the liver it's broken down and It goes into the bloodstream. So it takes that length of time before you feel the effect, but it stays in your system anywhere between six and 12 hours. So when people say, well, I don't want to inhale. I just want an edible. I just want a gummy. My response to them is, are you willing to wait two hours before you get the effect and you fall asleep? Do you really want to do that? And then I went, no, I want to fall asleep right now. I'm like, exactly.
00:23:31
Speaker
but I don't want to inhale. Okay. You don't have to smoke it. I just gave you another option. You can use a meter dose inhaler by inhaling it within three to four minutes or sort of three to 10 minutes. It's going to get you to sleep.
00:23:45
Speaker
if you eat an edible at the same time when the effect of the vape is wearing off the effect of the edible is kicking in. So one gets you to sleep the other one is going to keep you asleep because some people have trouble falling asleep other people have trouble staying asleep others have trouble both. They'll fall asleep, you know, they have a hard time falling asleep but then when they fall asleep they can't stay asleep. And so that's where we mix and match different modes of administration so that they are able to fall asleep and stay asleep. And it's combining not only the modes of administration but combining the phytocannabinoids that I just mentioned.
00:24:28
Speaker
the CBD which works on the CB2 receptor primarily, THC which works primarily on the CB1 receptor, and CBN which also works on the CB2 receptor. So now you've got three phytocannabinoids working together symbiotically for what's called the entourage effect, where they work together in conjunction working on different receptors for the same end result in different modes of administration. So now the patient is covered better and longer.
Cannabis Dosing, Drug Interactions, and Legal Considerations
00:25:01
Speaker
So there's some stacking here that the benefits all kind of build on each other. And we've got a nice rodeo roundup of of the good guys here coming into your body.
00:25:19
Speaker
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00:25:37
Speaker
I think you just gave a really interesting picture of the kinds of conversations that you have with patients. and And that makes me curious, what are some of the other things that are beneficial for someone to talk to you, their doctor about specifically with cannabis? So you just mentioned kind of like a dosing regimen of like what to take and when, what are some other common topics of conversation that you have with patients?
00:26:01
Speaker
drug-drug interactions. That's a big one because when patients come to the office, the you know especially one of my practices is in an area in Florida called the Villages, which is the largest retirement community supposedly in the United States. When they come into the office, they are on blood pressure medication, heart medication, diabetes medication, you know medications for their chronic pain, for their arthritis, ah for their autoimmune diseases, if they have cancer, you know there the chemotherapy. so So all these medications, we have to be mindful because many of them will come in and say, I'm tired of taking all these medicines. I don't like the way they make me feel. I want something natural.
00:26:51
Speaker
But if you're taking, you know, 42 to 58 pills a day, which is not unheard of because I've seen it in the first paper I published in, uh, uh, on the topic of medical cannabis in January of 2019 was a 45 year old female that was taking literally 42 to 58 pills per day. And she was like, I am a slave to my cell phone alarm because I've got the alarm set up to remind me when I need to take which medicine.
00:27:21
Speaker
because there's so many that I have to take I forget when um and then I have adverse reactions because of that. So understanding how these medications are metabolized and how the cannabis is metabolized, we have to have conversations on which modes of administration are the safest to prevent any drug drug or adverse reactions with their conventional medications.
00:27:49
Speaker
Anything else? Any other common? I mean, that's a really good one. i I think that's something that's obviously not something that most people could figure out on their own. Yeah. no yeah That's not something that an adult youth state or recreational can can explain to them because somebody that's working behind the counter or as we lovingly call them a bud tender They don't understand you know first-past metabolism that that goes on in the liver. They don't know the patient's in medical history. They don't have access to their medical records. They don't know all the medications that they're on. And, truth be told, many patients don't know what medications they're on either.
00:28:28
Speaker
It's not uncommon for somebody to come into the office and say, yeah, I'm i'm taking a yellow oval pill, a triangular white pill, a pink, and I'm like, whoa, stop. And so what pharmacy do you go to? And then we'll contact the pharmacy, we'll get a print out of all their medications, which is why we always have them bring you know all their medications in, in a shopping bag or a plastic you know bag.
00:28:54
Speaker
for us to be able to go through and make sure that all the medications that they're on. So you know how to use it, when to use it is number one. Number two, how to use it so that it doesn't affect what they are presently using and then how to wean them off conventional medications so they do not have an adverse reaction because certain medications if they get off of them too quickly can cause them to have seizures, can affect their respiratory system, can affect other areas of their lives that we need to be mindful of. So those are topics and conversations that we have, but most importantly is how and when to use the medication so they can get the best benefit
00:29:38
Speaker
from it. So if someone's listening to this and they're thinking, okay, maybe I want to give this a try. You know, I've got some of the conditions mentioned, you know, maybe it's insomnia, maybe it's something else. What is the pathway look like for someone who's interested in exploring medical cannabis to get to a spot where they're talking to a doctor about this? First question is what state of the United States do you live in or what country in the world do you live in?
00:30:06
Speaker
Oh, case in point. You live in Tennessee. I do, yes. I live in Florida. Tennessee has no medical marijuana laws. You do not have a medical marijuana program in the state of Tennessee. So you would not be able to access medical cannabis in the state of Tennessee legally. But you can buy CBD over the counter.
00:30:28
Speaker
You could buy CBN over the counter because those you can access from the hemp plant. And under Farm Bill 2018, you can purchase anything that is extracted from the hemp plant. But anything that comes from the cannabis plant, definitely not. Also, what comes from the hemp plant must have no higher than 0.3% THC for it to be considered legal. Now that's not a botanical definition, that's a governmental
00:31:03
Speaker
Definitely. That's what the federal government decided to say. Okay. 0.3% or lower of THC is legal. If you go south of the border, it's one, it's 2%. If you go to Europe, it's 0.2%.
00:31:20
Speaker
if you go to other countries it's 1% so it varies so that's the difference. Now if they were in my state the state of Florida and there's a medical cannabis program then the first step is finding a physician that is certified with the Florida Department of Health to be able to recommend medical cannabis. So the first step is finding a provider that is certified with the state to be able to make the recommendation. Once they find that physician then they make an appointment they have a consultation and it's no different than any other medical
00:31:56
Speaker
office visit. They bring their medications in, they bring medical records, we review their medical records, we discuss their medications, we discuss all their conditions, and then we determine whether they meet the criteria or don't meet the criteria. Now granted, the state of Florida has diagnoses that are named that automatically qualify people and These conditions are post-traumatic stress disorder, HIV, AIDS, cancer, epilepsy or seizures, multiple sclerosis, Lou Gehrig's disease or ALS, Crohn's disease, glaucoma, and then there's a little caveat that reads any chronically debilitating condition that's equal to or greater in severity than the ones named.
00:32:44
Speaker
snow you notice that I didn't mention anxiety, you notice I did not mention depression, you notice I did not mention ah insomnia. Those I can put under the umbrella of PTSD, post-traumatic stress disorder, because the majority of individuals that suffer with or from PTSD have anxiety, have depression, have insomnia, suffer from or with night terrors, nightmares. And so I can include those individuals under that umbrella or that diagnosis. If somebody has irritable bowel syndrome or ulcerative colitis then I could put them in under the Crohn's disease umbrella and so forth. So being that I'm in a medically legal state that's how a patient or someone can
Recreational Use, Terpenes, and Historical Context
00:33:33
Speaker
find that. First and foremost is determining what state you live in and then once you know what state you live in
00:33:38
Speaker
then you need to know what the laws are for that specific state and then proceed now as far as what we started the conversation about medical vs adult use for recreational i And that concept of recreational use is really a misnomer because we all have an endocannabinoid system. And the reason why the majority of the people use cannabis is because they're self-medicating. They are using it because they know that by using it they are able to address conditions, symptoms, diseases that they are living with.
00:34:12
Speaker
and the conventional medications that they've been given are in working for them. And so they're getting relief from this other product. Yeah, so that makes a lot of sense. I'm wondering if you have, I know every state has different regulations. Do you have any websites that are are reliable on this, like looking up information about your state specifically? There are some independent companies out there. um One is called Leafly, L-E-A-F-L-Y dot com, Leafly dot com.
00:34:43
Speaker
They can give you an idea of which states have medical cannabis laws versus others that do not. um Another one is Weed Maps, W-E-E-D-M-A-P-S dot com, Weed Maps. Another um is a company where that I used to be their chief medical officer, marijuana doctors dot com. So marijuana doctors with an S at the end, marijuana doctors dot com.
00:35:09
Speaker
and also So these are sources that you can go to that will show you which states are legal, what the laws are for each one of these states, but also there's a lot of education at every everyone at each one of these websites where you can discover which chemo-vars, what most people call strains, work best for these specific ailments and conditions. But not only are we talking about phytocannabinoids, there's other substances in the plant called terpenes.
00:35:49
Speaker
Terpenes, which are not specific only to the cannabis plant but the all plants, are what give plants the smell and taste. So for example, alpha-pinene is found in pine needles. Beta-cariophilin is found in black pepper. Linolul is found in lavender. Limonene or limonene depending what side of the pond you're from is found in citrus. And so each one of them not only brings something else to the table, they also have medicinal values. And so linalool, products that contain linalool, I always recommend individuals with anxiety, but also people that have so trouble sleeping because it comes from lavender. And when my daughters were young,
00:36:42
Speaker
I would bathe them practically with lavender oil. I would put lavender oil on their feet, on the soles of their feet, on the palms of their hands. And from Ayurvedic medicine, I would put a couple of drops of the oil in their belly button using what's called the pakoti method or pachoti method, ah P-E-C-H-O-T-I, which is putting oil into the belly button and massaging the belly button and you know up to one centimeter around the belly button.
00:37:12
Speaker
because there's absorption that way and it's part of Ayurvedic or Indian medicine. So doing that and they would sleep, you know they would fall asleep nicely and they would sleep calmly throughout the night which would allow me to study because my daughters were a year and a half old when I started medical school.
00:37:30
Speaker
medical school was my sixth career. And so, you know, I was in my mid thirties. My daughters were a year and a half old, so daddy needed to study. So sha dad would put them to bed and we bathe them with the, you know, with almond oil or lavender oil or different types of oils to help them calm them and relax them so that I could, you know, hit the books.
00:37:53
Speaker
Yeah, that no, that's fantastic. And i I'm familiar with some of those websites you mentioned. And so I'll just reiterate that the the educational resources are are really fantastic just in in terms of the the depth of the articles and what you can learn about some of these different things to really make an informed decision if you are in a state where some of your options are a little bit more limited, as we mentioned. um So since you mentioned books, I'm going to use that as a transition here. You also have a book, A Man of Many Talents.
00:38:22
Speaker
So your book is called Hope and Healing the Case for Cannabis. Who is this book for? Is this a book for physicians? Is it a book for patients? Is it all of the above?
00:38:34
Speaker
All of the above. And that was the first of seven books that I've written. Yes, I'm an overachiever too. Uh, yeah, that, that book was published on April 20th of 2019. No accident. I made sure that it came out on four 20, but on four 19 April 19th, there was already a number one best seller on Amazon. Under, uh, the topics of multiple sclerosis, epilepsy, and alternative medicine. And it is available on Amazon.
00:39:03
Speaker
in english in spanish paperback hardcover and kindle and and so it is directed at anyone that wants to learn and know about medical cannabis, uh, physicians, lay people, healthcare professionals, other than physicians, because it, the first half of the book, a lot of the things that we discussed, the entourage effect, the different phytocannabinoids, the terpenes, the, what, what in medicine we call pharmacokinetics, pharmacodynamics, which is how medications work in your body.
00:39:39
Speaker
different modes of administration, how to use them, how long they last in your body. That's all in the first half of the book together with a lot of the history. The the drugs are from the 30s, the taxation that occurred on anything that was cannabis related, ah the Substance ah Use Act ah from the 70s, the just say no propaganda from the 80s. We bring the person from the from the onset understanding that this plant was discovered in Asia 5,000 years ago yeah and there are writings and descriptions of its uses throughout history and in as well as in biblical times and in the Old Testament as well as in the New Testament
00:40:29
Speaker
There are references to the use of cannabis ah so that it's been referenced and found in multiple religious and spiritual writings.
Dr. Rosado's Publications and Further Resources
00:40:40
Speaker
ah that being said yeah know that's the first half of the book. The second half of the book is very disease oriented and it's specific to the qualifying conditions in the state of Florida. So there's a chapter on epilepsy, seizures, and cannabis. There's a chapter on cancer and cannabis. There's a chap parkinson's disease in cannabis the chapter on chapter on chronic pain and cannabis. Even though chronic pain isn't a qualifying condition,
00:41:08
Speaker
That's the number one reason why people come into the office for medical cannabis, because they're hired of being on opiates that are highly addictive and cause greater side effects than they're helping. So it's really just ah an opportunity to learn about some of the cultural history as well as the actual physiology, chemistry that goes into all of the interactions in the body that we've talked about.
00:41:35
Speaker
Without getting too deep like i did earlier i had i start talking science and my brain just goes and then i gotta wind it back it's like okay wait a minute lay people the yeah audience of this when your labs podcast is absolutely an above average intelligence so we can't we can keep up with you here.
00:41:54
Speaker
hip So where can listeners go to learn more about you and some of the the work and the research that you're part of? The first and easiest place to find me is my website, which is my name, JosephRosadoMD.com. That would be the first place. And there you would find the links to all of my um social media platforms. Another place to go to is YouTube. I have a YouTube channel called The Dr. Rosado Show.
00:42:25
Speaker
but also on YouTube ah there are interviews that I've done. Two interviews that I'm very proud of. ah One was an interview that was done with Montel Williams. He interviewed me yeah and another interview that was done with ah Jordan Belfort, the Wolf of Wall Street. um He also interviewed me. ah Both of those interviews touch on some of the topics we address today. We always talk about the endocannabinoid system, we always talk about THC, CBD, but we talked about different topics, different subjects. So those are available. Also, lectures that I've done.
00:43:03
Speaker
um all over the United States, as well as the world. I'm pretty much all over social media, but the fastest and easiest way is to go to my website, josephrosadomd.com. And as I mentioned earlier, all of my books are available on Amazon. So just type in Joseph Rosado MD and medical cannabis and they will all populate for you.
00:43:24
Speaker
Dr. Asado, thank you so much for your time. I greatly appreciate it. Oh, my pleasure. And I'll end this interview as I end all my interviews. Hashtag cannabis is medicine.
00:43:38
Speaker
Swenio Labs is a show about sleep, memory, and dreams. For more content, visit our blog at sweniolabs.com and connect with us to learn more about how you can share your story related to brain health and the daily habits that help us to rest and live better.
00:43:56
Speaker
Thanks for joining, we'll be back soon.