Kind: captions
Language: en
from the outside cafe canal looks like
just another trendy cafe it's surrounded
by well-known new york city
neighborhoods like soho tribeca and
chinatown the pastries look delicious
tourists might not notice the double n
in canal and the iconic leaf next to the
name they claim the title new york's
first cbd cafe and lounge cbd as in
cannabidiol is one of the active
ingredients of
cannabis the staff's really friendly and
happy to entertain questions my name is
anna
i'm a shift manager here and i love
working with cbd and cannabis i love it
so you get a lot of
variety of people people who've already
smoked people who've never smoked before
people want to try it for the first time
who are like baby nude to cbd our baking
section consists of brownies and then we
also have
a blueberry dream crumble cake which is
fresh blueberries inside um sugar
crumble on top it's very it's not that
sweet but it's super annually obedient
is the chef behind the cafe's inviting
menu we wanted it to be kind of like a
judgment-free safe space for people that
i'm curious about cbd or interested in
the video or even use it we want people
to be able to benefit from it without
any stigma attached to it now not
everyone comes here for the weed some
just want coffee for real like tony from
toronto who steers clear of cannabis
these days the psychoactive effects
started to kind of
be a bit too much for me
it's almost like
inside of you your brain is a positive
voice and a negative voice anytime i
consume any type of thc or cbd or
cannabis it seems to just bring out the
neck give us the negative voice of
microphone
[Music]
cannabis many know it as marijuana used
to be associated with the counterculture
movement of the 1960s
but when did it become so mainstream
well with more states legalizing it and
a federal proposal to make it legal
nationwide
more people are using it but do they
know what they're taking and what about
the claims about all its benefits or its
risks isn't it harmful addictive
how about instead of getting your
information from your local barista we
find out what science has to say about
cannabis
this is nova now and to be blunt this is
your joint for rolling through the
science behind the headlines i'm alok
patel
[Music]
and if this episode gets you fired up
you should check out nova's hour-long
film the cannabis question streaming on
the pbs video app and nova's youtube
channel
to set us straight on what exactly
cannabis does to your brain and body and
what people are using cannabis for now
we have bi-coastal experts i am yasmin
hurd i am the director of the addiction
institute at mount sinai in new york i
am a neuroscientist my name is ziva
cooper and i am the director of the ucla
cannabis research initiative and i'm
also an associate professor in
psychiatry and anesthesiology at ucla so
let's start with some definitions
cannabis came to be called marijuana
partly to stir up anti-mexican sentiment
and the name stuck
we're using its scientific name which is
now favored by many cannabis is the
plant there are many different cannabis
strains of plants the main strains you
might have heard of are indica sativa
and rutoralis
cannabis comprises hundreds of different
chemicals that can have various effects
on the brain and the body it has over
140 cannabinoids and other chemicals
including terpenes
terpenes are what give a plant flavor
and scent and unique combinations of
terpenes give each cannabis strain a
different aroma
cannabinoids the name comes from
cannabis are little molecules that
interact with an important system in our
body the endocannabinoid system we have
a natural
cannabinoid receptors and they're found
in the brain of the body what people may
not know is that our bodies naturally
produce their own cannabinoids that bind
the receptors throughout our bodies and
do a variety of things
so they mediate for example
immune function they mediate pain
they mediate anxiety they're critical
for regulating how the neurons speak to
each other they regulate the synapse
over which transmitters cross from one
cell to the next and so
they regulate practically every
neurotransmitter system in the brain so
they have a very profound broad effect
on cognition in terms of memory
emotional regulation
um
motor activity they are you know really
critical for all of these fundamental
functions in our brain and in our bodies
this system is integral to the
functioning of our bodies so it's easy
to understand why cannabis can affect us
in so many different ways and so when we
hear about how cannabis might be
therapeutic maybe medicinal might be
helpful for one of 700 indications
what is it that people are talking about
so we can't just refer to cannabis as
one plant we have to think about the
different chemical constituents that act
very differently in the brain and body
to potentially exert
both the potential medicinal effects as
well as having potential adverse effects
that we should be very mindful of but we
don't know much about these effects
there's actually not as much research as
people would like to think about
cannabis
of the over 140 cannabinoids we really
have only studied two and one of them
more predominantly right now
we have the most information
about the chemical constituent called
delta 9 tetrahydrocannabinol
better known as thc
thc is the cannabinoid that
induces the high
more recently we've been hearing a lot
about another cannabinoid cbd or
cannabidiol is another cannabinoid
and that is a non-intoxicating
cannabinoid there's also a lot of
variability to consider like in the
concentration of the cbd or thc in the
cannabis you're studying and it turns
out that obviously dose matters we don't
see the same effects at these at higher
doses and also the ratio of the of thc
to cbd makes an impact so when people
say we understand cannabis we understand
aspects of thc in a particular dose
range
and we understand certain aspects of cbd
there are about 140 cannabinoids and
they're over like 400 other chemicals
and that interaction to study them one
by one and to study the interaction we
still don't know so much
many people in our society think oh you
know cannabis has been studied for
decades we know it's safe we know it's
good we actually have not studied
cannabis for decades
um not in the level at least that we can
make
you know concrete
evidence-based
um decisions that guide medicine
ziva cooper was a member of the national
academies of sciences committee on the
health effects of cannabis in 2017 the
committee published an almost 500-page
consensus report on the health effects
of cannabis and cannabinoids only about
50 pages of it was
related to the therapeutic effects of
cannabis and these chemical constituents
in the cannabis plant called
cannabinoids the rest focused on
negative aspects of cannabis especially
addiction and that's the focus of yasmin
herds research
we know that
about 30 percent of people who use
cannabis will develop a cannabis use
disorder meaning a clinically diagnosed
disorder that's about the same
percentage as for other drugs like
cocaine for example or heroin over the
years advances in production have made
the cannabis that's consumed more potent
we now have a higher concentration of
thc and we know that the higher the
concentration of thc the greater the
possibility of developing an addiction
but it's difficult to predict who will
develop a disorder
the person sitting next to you could
consume the same amount of drug but they
have certain differences whether it's in
their genetics their environmental
upbringing or just what might be in the
cannabis that they consumed versus what
you consumed and that's enough to make
them
have a cannabis use disorder and you not
but it is russian roulette you don't
know whether or not you're going to be
that person to develop not only an
addiction some people develop psychosis
or anxiety disorders or depression so
that's a challenge for us in in science
and medicine is being able to identify
those people who would be at greater
risk versus those who will be resilient
what happens when someone develops
cannabis use disorder well one of the
initial effects of cannabis use is an
increase in dopamine a neurotransmitter
associated with pleasure and reward
chronic cannabis use can alter our
endogenous opioid system
the use of the cannabinoids over time
their receptors actually become tolerant
so the cannabinoid receptors need more
and more of thc so people start taking
more of the drug and the more they take
cannabinoid receptors actually
are inhibitory receptors so they shut
down certain circuits so over time they
start to shut down circuits that may be
critical for cortical functioning in
terms of decision-making cognitive
effects
and
memory and they increase stress
responsibility so initially many people
think oh
cannabis decreases my anxiety but that's
when they're taking low amounts and in
the beginning and over time it increases
their anxiety stress response so it is
changing of the cannabinoid receptors
and i was wondering if you could talk to
us about the effects of cannabis on the
developing brain and the endocannabinoid
system i mean the brain doesn't fully
develop until our mid-20s so what should
we be worried about here we look at
prenatal thc
and we see both in children who are
exposed prenatally to cannabis that they
show
early signs of
co-morbid psychiatric vulnerability
early in life you can see months after
in childhood
and
this anxiety propensity
you know aggression propensity adhd
propensity so
this is one thing that we really must be
clear
that the developing brain is very
vulnerable the endocannabinoid system is
critical for hard wiring of the
developing brain during development it
lays out the foundation for the pathways
that are created so if our children are
being exposed during that developmental
period to cannabis
that has profound impact leading to
vulnerabilities to psychiatric problems
that emerge when they're adults says
yasmin heard from animal studies she and
her team have made a couple findings
it's thc that's inducing these long
lasting effects into adulthood but we
still don't know about cbd and the
developing brain
and you know we'll we'll know that in a
couple of years so there's good reason
for caution but also
there's optimism in terms of cannabinoid
related products for medicine then we
have to start off with the only fda
approved cannabis medicine today cbd
for the treatment of two
pediatric rare forms of epilepsy
some children suffer from severe
seizures that don't respond to
conventional treatments
a cbd-based drug called epidialex is now
available to help tame the irregular
brain activity that causes these
seizures epilepsy it's this imbalance
between our inhibitory
cells and the excitatory cells and so
you have such hyper excitability and cbd
epidialex
um reduces the excitation of these cells
but we still don't know what's the
mechanism by which cbd actually does
this yasmin heard in her lab have been
studying how chemicals in cannabis can
be used to treat opioid addiction to
better understand the effects of
prenatal thc exposure herd's team gave
pregnant animals thc and followed their
offspring into adulthood animals that
were exposed to thc during prenatal life
they would self-administer more heroin
especially during stressful conditions
and we would see similar thing with
adolescent thc exposure heard wondered
if these effects extended to other
cannabinoids like cbd we were surprised
to find actually some of the opposite
effects that we were seeing that cbd
actually reduced heroin seeking behavior
at least in our animal models
importantly the thing that was
fascinating is that in substance use
disorders many addiction
it's the environmental cues that trigger
the craving and why people relapse it's
the stress that triggers the anxiety and
that's why they relapse and what we saw
in the animal model was that it was
decreasing this environmental cue
triggers
they're now extending this research to
humans who suffer from opioid addiction
yasmin herd's lab has been able to
replicate these effects in small
placebo-controlled clinical studies we
could see that it was those people who
had gotten the cbd where their craving
was reduced but importantly we also saw
that their anxiety was reduced
that's what it works on and that's what
we need in addiction treatment you know
we have a lot of substitution therapy
such as um opioid agonists such as
methadone and buprenorphine which are
really important but we don't really
have medications that are targeting the
thing that that's why many people will
relapse namely the craving and the
anxiety i did know how cbd works still
don't we're now back to looking at the
mechanisms in this regard
i could google any medical symptom
literally i've tried this
and there is someone out there on the
internet who says that this cbd thc
product will fix that specific
treatment how does that make you feel as
a neuroscientist who is evidence-based
i'm scared they're taking it lightly
that something that can have potential
medicinal value it's disturbing because
there are a lot of bad actors out there
now that are selling
cbd products thc products but i
understand that when people are
desperate because they're suffering or
their loved one is suffering they want
to try anything and everything but it's
going to come back to
you know
rigorous clinical studies where we can
understand what dose will be effective
for certain disorders
but there's no medicine on this planet
even those that are considered like you
know these gold standards
that
treats and cures everything that doesn't
have side effects so unless clinicians
are guided with that kind of information
they're not going to be able to help
their patients can cbd or can cannabis
help some people
absolutely is there clinical trials to
prove that it does for the majority of
things out there no
not yet at least not yet
if we're going to call this medicine and
we want to make it medicine let it go
through the process as all other
medicines
at the end of the day i want people to
be safe
[Music]
i decided to check out the cannabis
dispensary close to my apartment in san
francisco they have their cannabis
retailer license for adult and medicinal
use displayed right where you'll see it
when you come in and i gotta say i am
impressed
the
employees are like really nice and
helpful and and you know it they almost
seem like bartenders but they go by the
term bud tenders
as
expected they have a lot of thc and cbd
products but they have products that
have cbn
cbg uh thc v
delta eight
some of these cannabinoids most people
haven't heard of
and they have so many products
the kind you smoke of course and baked
goods and candies but also
drinks cooking oils seasonings i even
saw shrimp chips
with so much out there i asked some
experienced consumers how they select
their products and figure out what dose
is right for them
to be honest i have enough friends that
consume cannabinoid products that i
mostly um
pick my products based on word of mouth
and if something is highly recommended
by a friend everyone's needs wants
experience levels are different i would
consult a bud tender i actually went to
a dispensary and spoke to a nurse
practitioner about like anxiety and i
have hyperthyroid so
she spoke to me about which types of
thc i should look for and the dosages
and how much cbd i should have
when you talk to people about the
potential therapeutic effects of this
plant you'll frequently hear
that cannabis has been used for
thousands of years we're back with ziva
cooper to talk through the science
behind therapeutic claims for cannabis
and how consumers can use it safely but
while i was doing research about the
evidence supporting
the medicinal effects of the plant i
noticed that there actually really
wasn't much research that had been done
in relation to the indications that
people were using the plant for
but she says that body of research is
growing thc has been studied rigorously
for many decades
and so we've learned a lot about thc's
effects in people under these rigorous
trials where you're comparing placebo to
thc
but there's also a lot of information in
studies that have employed cell models
or animal models
for instance can thc be helpful for pain
can it be helpful to increase appetite
what happens when people use thc
to help them sleep or to decrease
anxiety but we're also learning a lot
about its effects in the brain and how
different doses have different outcomes
how different effects can happen based
off of how people use it whether people
are inhaling it or using it orally as a
capsule as a pill or as a beverage
i think where science is kind of lagging
behind right now is with all the
different ways
that people are starting to use this
plant
and products that are coming from the
plant
for a lot of these different chemical
constituents that people are using we
have very limited data
to pull from to be able to understand
what their effects are
when given to people for different
conditions or even when used for
non-medical reasons
many people turn to cannabis to treat
pain
ziva cooper and her team investigated
whether cannabis might help decrease
dependence on opioids which are used for
pain relief
work that was inspired by studies and
animals
the work that i do
is very preliminary work in humans and
we were curious to see
based off of what we know in animals
if thc in cannabis might be helpful in
amplifying
the pain relieving effects of a very low
dose of an opioid that isn't normally
pain relieving and so we did this type
of study in humans and we found
that cannabis with thc in it did in fact
help to
increase the pain relieving effects of
the opioids
in theory
you can have somebody who's on a very
low dose of an opioid a dose of an
opioid that doesn't have adverse effects
and if you were to add thc to it you'd
get
significant pain relief what we're
working on now is understanding how
other components of the cannabis plant
might also be pain relieving in place of
opioids she says that anxiety is one of
the top three reasons why people report
using cannabis and there is evidence
suggesting that cbd cannabidiol the
non-intoxicating component of the
cannabis plant might be helpful for some
types of anxiety
and there's conflicting evidence for thc
as i'm sure you hear from anecdotal
reports
some people who use cannabis with thc in
it get really anxious
whereas other people find that it's
actually quite helpful for their anxiety
so this is also a very promising area of
research
it should be clear by now when it comes
to effects on the human body and brain
cannabis is really complicated
so where does that leave us in terms of
regulation over all the cannabis
products that are being offered in
dispensaries and online
every state
has different regulations related to
how cannabis and these products are
handled
so in california
we have the legal cannabis market which
means that
there are regulated dispensaries that
are
providing products according to la
counties or california states
regulations but we also have the
unregulated market as well a big aspect
of this is
labeling how products have to be tested
for heavy metals and mold and pesticides
and
how accurate is that label with respect
to reporting how much thc is in that
product how much cbd is in that product
and so when somebody goes into a
dispensary they have to a understand if
it's a regulated dispensary if it's
adhering to these testing protocols
and b they have to be knowledgeable
enough to understand what those labels
actually mean
and that's a really big issue right now
with consumer cannabis literacy and so
as scientists we're trying to figure out
all these effects whether you use it as
a topical or
an
or smoking or vaping
and in many states
people can just walk into dispensaries
and not necessarily get guidance on
which products to use we're kind of
leaving the responsibility up to the
patient or up to the consumer you know
some of these products are tricky
i'm sure you of all people have seen
some of the candy bars that look like
legit
candy bars you can get over the counter
but they're like the marijuana
counterpart
but it's difficult for people to tease
this out the cannabis products that are
available for people to consume
how close those relate to the one
studied in labs and i guess my question
is is going into the difference between
synthetic and plant-derived cannabis
products like what are we testing in
labs in comparison to what people out
there are actually getting it really
comes down to what are the chemicals in
that natural product
so if somebody's using a candy bar or
gets a gummy that has cbd in it what are
some of the other chemicals in there how
much thc is there in there how much of
other cannabinoids are in there that
might be contributing to cbd's effects
and so that's different when we're
talking about a synthetic or a isolate
where you're just looking at cbd by
itself
so
although we can't because of federal
restrictions necessarily go to the
dispensary that's right down the block
from my office and get the products
bring them into lab and test people with
those products
we can kind of mimic what people are
using
by
getting products that are
federally available
and you know sanctioned and be able to
start looking at these in the laboratory
so we can look at natural cbd we can
look at natural thc
we can compare them to synthetic however
the industry is quickly evolving so it
is hard for the science to keep up
and be able to test all the new and
novel ways that people are using it and
there's this hot new product delta 8 thc
that's different from the delta 9 that
we're familiar with this is over the
last 6 to 8 months this has become very
popular
people are asking questions about it but
being able to study it in the lab is
difficult in part because we have to be
able to get access to some source of
delta 8 thc
so while people are self-experimenting
the scientists who can actually do the
studies in the laboratory and compare
delta 8 thc to delta 9 thc or compared
to placebo we're trying to work hard to
be able to
get the funding to do that type of
research to be able to get the products
so that we can actually feasibly do that
research in the laboratory and that
leads to a lot of questions and the
scientist has to say well it depends or
well we don't know or well let me get
back to you in five years which is
frustrating for the community there's
also the question of the doses people
use
versus the doses that are actually
studied in the lab
the cannabis that used to be available
that has been rigorously studied in the
lab was very low in thc concentrations
so let's say
three percent thc six percent thc when
you compare that
to the 20 thc 30 thc cannabis that you
can get in the dispensary down the
street the effects you would expect are
going to be quite different
when you ask people about their patterns
of use and how much thc they're actually
getting a lot of people aren't
necessarily aware
or they're not necessarily thinking
about the thc percent in the cannabis
that they're buying so from a scientific
perspective when i'm trying to figure
out the impact of cannabis on
behavior and physiology
i'm trying to get a sense of what people
are using in los angeles how much thc
exposure they're getting on a day-to-day
basis but it's actually difficult
because people don't necessarily even
know themselves what they're using since
1970 cannabis has been prohibited under
federal law as a schedule 1 substance
the dea defines schedule 1 substances as
drugs with no currently accepted medical
use and a high potential for abuse
over the years local policy makers have
started to see it differently and the
recreational use of cannabis is now
legal in 19 states washington dc and
guam
you know people are looking for all
different alternative sources to help
their lives and so this is a brand new
booming industry that is interesting it
was stigmatized for a long time it was
illegal for
decades and now it's kind of like the
gates have opened so a lot of people are
very much intrigued by it now there's a
push in congress to change its legal
status at a federal level here's senator
chuck schumer who introduced the bill
this is monumental because at long last
we are taking steps in the senate to
right the wrongs of the failed war on
drugs the war on drugs has really been a
war on people
particularly people of color
yasmin hurt supports undoing decades of
damage to communities that have been
disproportionately harmed by this
criminalization absolutely no cannabis
should be criminalized but she does have
some issues with how cannabis policy has
been implemented
she cites the 2018 farm bill which
legalized hemp a variety of cannabis
with no more than a 0.3 percent
concentration of thc as well as any part
of that plant that includes cannabinoids
like cbd but only cbd derived from hemp
but it's a little ridiculous because cbd
from the regular cannabis plant is also
cbd so it should also not be scheduled
so it's crazy that
cannabis derived cbd
is still scheduled but not hemp derived
cbd
and we do need one federal policy and
they should let science dictate it so
the fact that epidiolex has been now
approved as a medicine
already tells you that cbd should not be
listed as you know
addictive
and so what's your biggest concern
as we legalize it my major concern is
the aspect of dose because there was no
dose limit when they legalize
cannabis in certain states in the
majority of states now
that does become a problem because now
it's unlimited these high potency
extracts that people sometimes refer to
as dabs wax shatter
so when you go into dispensaries in many
states
you can get these products that are
almost a hundred percent thc
we've come a far away from the plant
itself
they have not been studied in the
laboratory under rigorous procedures and
so people are using these very high
potency products
so this is blowing out your cannabis
receptors in your body and brain yasmin
herd believes we can offer appropriate
guidance on dosage without criminalizing
those who use it so i think that there
are certain things that the federal
government can still do
to
regulate aspects of dose within a frame
that you know people want to do for
recreational use but limits the
psychiatric vulnerability
and the health risks that we see that
comes with the higher doses of thc
chemistry is chemistry come on federal
government
[Music]
nova now is a production of gbh and prx
it's produced by terence bernardo ari
daniel jocelyn gonzalez isabel hibbard
sandra lopez monsalve and rosslyn
tordesillas
julia court and chris schmidt are the
co-executive producers of nova suki
bennett is senior digital editor
christina monan is associate researcher
robin kasmer is science editor robert
boyd is digital associate producer and
devin robbins is managing producer of
podcasts at gbh
our theme music is by the dj who keeps
the energy high and smokes all
competition that's dj kid koala
i'm eloque patel we'll be back in two
weeks which is more than enough time for
you to look up all the different
cannabinoids out there yeah they're cbd
and thc but there's also cbc va cbla
cbdc1 cbn c4 delta 8 thca delta 9 thc
delta 9 th cva othc
there's even three four five six
tetrahydro7 hydroxy alpha alpha two
trimethyl nine and propyl two six
methanol two h1 benz oxacin five
methanol
say that three times fast
if you wanna learn even more about the
science behind cannabis which i know you
do watch nova's the cannabis question
the film streaming now on the pbs video
app and nova's youtube channel
gbh