Cannabis Voices

Dr Mike Platt, honorary senior clinical lecturer and senior consultant in pain medicines and anesthetics at Imperial College Healthcare, NHS Trust has been in the 'business of pain' since 1990.

However, his well established career as a pain consultant took an unexpected turn when he became clinical director at the Sapphire Clinics catering to patients wishing to access medical cannabis in the UK privately.

With very little training on offer to the medical profession in the UK, Dr Platt's knowledge has been gained largely from doctors in Canada, where medical cannabis has been legal since 2001.

Since joining Sapphire, he's found prescribing cannabis to be tremendously helpful in alleviating the symptoms of a number of patients, some of which he discusses in this podcast. 

“What we're finding is in patients that have really complex pain problems, many benefit from cannabis medication,” says Platt. “We don't really understand why, but they do seem to have an extraordinary effect on them. I had one lady with severe Ehlers-Danlos syndrome who within two days just texted the pain clinic and said I've had the first good night sleep in fifteen years. So it's clearly having an effect on these patients, particularly the more complex ones.” 

Useful Resources:
Mike's website
Sapphire Clinics
Sapphire Medical Foundation

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The life of Carola Pérez changed forever when at the age of 11 she broke her coccyx while skating. Her coccyx was eventually removed and her life since then has been a series of surgeries and procedures, none of which have successfully lessened the intense pain she experiences on a daily basis.

Carola struggles to remember a large portion of her life in her twenties, due to the heavy opioids, antidepressants and even lithium she was prescribed and openly describes herself as being an addict during this time.

At her lowest ebb, Carola pleaded with her parents to end her suffering. Thankfully, a friend introduced her to cannabis.

"That was when was when cannabis came into my life and it was relief. It if we took one more year. I don't think I would be here. It just came in the perfect moment by the perfect person who prepared me a milk infusion. And suddenly I feel this calm and my pain was not so high. The volcano was like quiet. I could sleep, I could eat."

Not satisfied with the situation experienced by Spanish patients who are forced to turn to the black market in order to access cannabis as medicine, she started the patient support organisation, Dos Emociones (Two Emotions). She also founded the Spanish Observatory for Medical Cannabis alongside leading cannabinoid researchers, Cristina Sanchez and Manuel Guzmán, which as well as organising symposiums and educational events, also lobbies political parties to back the regulation of medical cannabis in Spain.

Carola is extremely forthright about the tendency within the cannabis industry to forget the plight of patients, using their suffering to sell their products.

"I'm a bit tired of the speech by the industry that we do everything for patients. If you do everything for patients, try to help the patients who are pushing hard to get cannabis regulated in their countries."

Useful links:
Dos Emociones
Spanish Medical Cannabis Observatory
International Association for Cannabis Medicine

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This interview with Sharon McEvoy for my upcoming book 'The CBD Book: The Essential Guide to CBD Oil' is one of the reasons I started Cannabis Voices.

It wasn't until I spoke to Sharon about her son Niall and heard how he went from extreme anxiety and self-injurious behaviour to the healthy, cheeky, chatty little boy he is today after taking CBD oil, that I really felt the book come alive.

But merely including Niall's story in the book still didn't seem enough. I felt somehow that Sharon needed a platform for her story to be heard in her own words.

And boy, does she have a story to tell.

"“We started giving Niall CBD oil in July 2016’” says Sharon, ”and by August, we had a different child in front of us. "First of all, the self injurious behaviour and headbanging stopped. Then the hyperactivity stopped and the child could sit for five minutes. You could see his system calming down. We saw all of these senses that were in total overload come down to a normal rate.”

Like many parents in similar situations, Sharon has had to become an expert in how to manage Niall's autism - and has dedicated many hours educating parents about CBD oil through the Facebook Community 'CBDs of Autism' which has thousands of members worldwide.

This podcast is a must for parents who are considering giving CBD oil to their child with autism as Sharon gives some great, practical advice on how to make those first often scary steps.

“I’ve been very wary of putting Niall out there as this posterboy for CBD and autism because it doesn’t work for everyone," says Sharon. "It’s been a very long journey to get where we are and we’ve made a lot of mistakes along the way. You’re not going to cure their autism. But what you’re looking at is to stop ‘existing’ within the four walls of your home and start living a life.” 

Resources:
CBD's of Autism (private Group)

Cannabidiol Based Medical Cannabis in Children with Autism- a Retrospective Feasibility Study (Adi Aran)

Lower circulating endocannabinoid levels in children with autism spectrum disorder (Adi Aran) 

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Professor Manuel Guzman is Professor of Molecular Biology at the Complutense University in Madrid where he has been a leading light in discovering the anticancer properties of cannabinoids such as THC and CBD. He led the team behind the first ever clinical trial for THC as an antitumoral agent in the rare type of brain cancer, glioblastoma.

I recorded this interview for an article for Project CBD examining just how close we are to the approval of a cannabis-based anticancer drug, but managed to draw Manuel into a whole host of fascinating topics, on which he talked openly and frankly.

Highlights include:

A summary of how near or far we are away from a cannabis-based cancer drug.

How the bar is set higher for cannabinoids compared to other areas of research.

What other types of cancer are likely to move onto the clinical studies stage in cannabinoid research.

Manuel's view on GW Pharma's 'mining' of the cannabis field with patents for different types of cannabinoid combinations and diseases.

Why a cannabis-based cancer drug will always be trialled alongside standard treatments such as chemo or radiotherapy.

Practical advice from Manuel for patients with cancer about how to safely use cannabis oil.

The biphasic effect of THC and how this may influence its antitumoral activity.

An explanation of the difference between tolerability and tolerance.

A call to action to patients to play their part in the normalisation of cannabis by telling their doctors about their cannabis use.

Transcript:
For space reasons, I cannot include the full transcript here, but feel free to contact me via my website marybiles.com and I will happily send it. 

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A few months ago, I interviewed Dr Claude Cyr, a Canadian family doctor and author of a number of peer reviewed papers about the use of cannabis in palliative care for an article I was writing for Project CBD.

Dr Cyr describes palliative care as the best 'port of entry' for integrating cannabis into medicine because it is one of the only disciplines where physicians actually have the time needed to spend with patients.

He says: "Palliative care is a specific situation where we can actually put into question the core philosophy of medicine which is the evidence based paradigm. I think physicians need to stop obsessing over the evidence when their patients are dying and clearly telling them, ‘I’m really enjoying this, I’m getting huge benefits from this, I’m sleeping better, I’m eating better.’ But the physicians are nodding their heads and saying, ‘I hear you, but I can’t accept this because I’m still lacking evidence.’

“But I think there is enough data out there to convince physicians that it’s safe for palliative care patients, and it’s predictable.” 

I particularly enjoyed discussing with Dr Cyr how the psychoactive nature of the cannabis plant can actually have a therapeutic place in end-of-life care, potentially helping a patient to accept their death. 

“When you look at the studies of psychedelics in depression and existential anxiety in cancer patients, some of these results have been dramatic,” says Dr Cyr. “Although cannabis isn’t a true psychedelic, there are some similar experiences that patients tell us about.

"At smaller doses patients experience a psycholytic effect, a lowering of the defences allowing people to explore other aspects of their psyche, and that’s when they start making connections between different aspects of their reality.”

A great, informative interview to be enjoyed.

Useful links:

Doctors for Responsible Access.

Dr Cyr's published papers on palliative care:

Cannabis in palliative care: current challenges and practical recommendations

Paediatric palliative care in Canada: A national survey of paediatricians

Quality indicators for paediatric palliative care

Another great article by Dr Cyr:

Moving Beyond Old Prejudices for the Sake of Patient Care: Incorporating Cannabis in Cancer Symptom Management

My article for Project CBDon cannabis and palliative care featuring Dr Cyr's interview
https://www.projectcbd.org/medicine/cannabis-palliative-care

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Who better to be the first guest on Cannabis Voices than Carly Barton, the first adult patient to get a prescription for medical cannabis in the UK since its legalisation in 2018?

Carly had a stroke at the age of 24, leaving her with debilitating chronic pain, which even the strongest opiates couldn't manage. After six years of existing with very little quality of life, she tried some homegrown cannabis given to her by a friend.

"I felt like something was missing... like I'd lost something. And that's the only feeling I equate it to is when, you know, when you've had your phone and then you've lost your phone or whatever and you sort of lost looking for it frantically. And then I realised that the lack of whatever it was, was pain."

In this episode, Carly shares her views on the current UK two tier system for accessing medical cannabis and explains why she has set up her own initiative, Carly's Amnesty, to protect patients from prosecution who choose to grown their own medicine.

She reveals how in her view, decriminalisation of cannabis is the only way patients will have full access to the plant in the manner they desire and the launch of her new project PlantEd Collective.

Carly's Amnesty: https://www.carlysamnesty.org/

PlantEd Collective: https://plantedcollective.co.uk/

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Welcome to the first ever episode of Cannabis Voices - which is a short one as it happens. It's just a chance for me to say hi, explain why the heck I've decided to create this podcast and what you can expect along the way.

Cannabis Voices is a chance for patients' to tell their own stories in their words about how cannabis has transformed their lives, plus some illuminating interviews with cannabinoids scientists and doctors. 

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