Kind: captions
Language: en
cannabis
a multi-billion dollar industry is
moving from the illicit market into our
daily lives
creating a stark divide
in a country where people are talking
about its medical use someone gets
arrested for cannabis every 58 seconds
a plant demonized to arrest millions now
marketed as a medicine my son had a
devastating form of epilepsy and a
cannabis compound
gave him a life
how does the vast array of chemicals in
cannabis engage a mysterious system in
our bodies
the cannabinoid receptor is the most
abundant receptor in the brain
how a single system can influence so
many biological processes
is surprising
will regular even daily use cure us
or hurt us
if someone were to tell me that i was
dependent on marijuana i would have said
no way absolutely not
smoked dabbed vaped and eaten today's
cannabis is hyperpotent and far from
understood these products are coming
online much faster than we can actually
research them
as federal law blocks science an
unintended public health experiment is
underway
really the questions are for what
conditions is it beneficial and for what
conditions is it harmful it's not black
and white and it's complicated
what's the right dose
who should use cannabis
who shouldn't
it is a highly contentious subject but
it's not about your personal thoughts or
feelings
what does the data tell us what is the
science tells truth through science we
should know the answers
the cannabis question
right now on nova
[Music]
more than 80 years after america ended
one type of prohibition
it's ending another
the majority of people now live in a
state where cannabis is legal
as a multi-billion dollar industry rises
our country is at a crossroads
cannabis is
genuinely one of the most fascinating
discussion topics i've ever seen
because of how emotionally polarizing it
is amongst people and it's very strange
because the entire field of cannabis
science is very poorly developed there's
not been a lot of research and there's a
lot of things that we don't understand
and yet what we have in society is
groups of people that very fervently
believe it is this panacea that can cure
any disease that exists or it's the
devil's grass and it's going to cause
the downfall of society
not recognizing that the reality of
cannabis is somewhere in the middle
[Music]
americans everywhere are turning to
cannabis
seeking relief from a wide range of
ailments
including veterans like sean worsley who
uses cannabis to treat his
post-traumatic stress disorder
caused by combat in iraq
[Music]
our
sole purpose was to
clear the routes for supply convoys that
came through looking for roadside bombs
that were on the route
i was on a mission and we rode over a
hole that was in the center of the road
and
unfortunately it was a ied that went off
knocking me unconscious
um and when i woke up medic was in my
face asking me was i okay could i hear
him
after his tour shawn struggled with a
traumatic brain injury
and disturbing symptoms caused by ptsd
for me it's
paranoia insomnia
seeing things that aren't necessarily
there
shadow people as they call them
night terrors dreams
but these nightmares were
very realistic
if i was shot in the dream i would wake
up grabbing my chest because
i felt the pain
shawn's medications for ptsd had
troubling side effects
so he got a medical cannabis card
cannabis at a low dose can help reduce
anxiety relax someone and individuals
who have ptsd that newly initiate
cannabis use
report it being life-changing
so i can sleep for the first time in two
years and i can go to the grocery store
without being so intense and on edge
that's why individuals with ptsd heavily
gravitate towards cannabis use
[Music]
for thousands of years humans have
cultivated cannabis for its fiber
seeds and medicinal properties
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ancient hindu texts claim it was brought
by the god shiva for the pleasure of
humanity
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the plant contains over 400 chemicals
including cannabinoids which are most
abundant in the resin glands of budding
female plants
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in the 1960s israeli scientist rafael
mushulum isolated thc
the psychoactive cannabinoid that makes
users feel high
[Music]
the discovery launched a new chapter in
neuroscience
[Music]
cannabis
opened the window
into the functioning of our body
completely unexpected window because
what was discovered was that thc binds
to receptors in the brain and outside
the brain and when it does so when it
binds to these receptors the cells now
behave differently
cannabinoid receptors named after
cannabis are found on nearly every organ
in the body
they bind with our own cannabis-like
molecules called endocannabinoids which
regulate functions like sleep cognition
memory and mood
unlike other brain chemicals they travel
backwards across the synapse where they
control the release of most
neurotransmitters
[Music]
one of the most amazing things that
happened was the discovery of the
endocannabinoid system
every mammal has one and this is a
system of chemicals and receptors
throughout the brain and body and really
the primary goal of the endocannabinoid
system is homeostasis keeping things in
balance
at mount sinai hospital neuroscientist
yasmin hurd remembers the first time she
looked for cannabinoid receptors in the
human brain
seen here in vivid red orange and yellow
colors
the cannabinoid receptor is the most
abundant receptor in the brain when we
looked at where these receptors were
expressed they're expressed in brain
regions relevant for motor coordination
cognition memory
emotional regulation reward all of these
brain areas are key to so many
normal behaviors obviously but also
psychiatric disorders as well
a key role of the endocannabinoid system
is to manage stress
in fact the first endocannabinoid found
in our body was given a sanskrit name
anandamide
meaning bliss
in response to stress our body mobilizes
an endocannabinoid signal and so if
something aversive happens to us and we
suddenly see a threat in front of us our
body kind of goes into high alert mode
and we shoot up once we've been removed
from that threat though our body needs
to turn that stress response back off
and what we have learned is that this
burst of endocannabinoids that occurs in
response to stress is really critical
for that recovery phase
scientists suspect this signal goes awry
in people with ptsd
and that's why thc
which mimics our own endocannabinoids
might help
[Music]
and so
when you look at individuals that have
ptsd and use cannabis
in short-term trials you see very
beneficial outcomes
but if all they do is use cannabis and
they don't engage in other behavior
therapies to help work through their
trauma
they're not treating the root cause of
the disorder and it's important to
recognize that thc at higher doses
increases anxiety
cannabis is not a miracle nothing is a
miracle and so really the questions are
for what conditions is it beneficial and
for what conditions is it harmful and
for whom is it beneficial and for whom
is it harmful
so it's shades of gray it's not black
and white and it's complicated
in 1996
cannabis was legalized in california for
medical use
but federally it remains a schedule one
drug
like heroin making research difficult
and leaving patients like elizabeth
pinkham on their own
to cope with her cancer treatments
elizabeth has turned to cannabis
[Music]
when you go through chemotherapy there
are side effects that can be like
nauseousness you may have lots of
appetite you may have difficulty
sleeping
so i was looking for something that
wasn't another big heavy-duty
pharmaceutical
on display one can find cannabis-infused
teas
sodas
candies
bath salts
psychoactive body washes
and flour with thc
that can ease nausea when smoked
the effects are pretty immediate i've
definitely gotten my appetite back a
little bit more it also helps with
neuropathy which is like the numbness
in your fingers and your toes
this is super medicinal you see how like
dark and dense that is that's indicating
more of the indica family good for the
body good for pain
my staff needs to do the best that they
can to try and guide people to the
products that are going to serve them
the best but my staff they're not
trained doctors and really we should
have cannabis medicine
being taught in every single medical
school across the united states and
that's not happening now because of
federal law
it's really a voter approved quote
unquote medicine so people say oh
there's medical cannabis that's approved
it has not been it has not gone through
fda
rigorous research process and that's
what's critical for medicine i think it
would be great if there was a bit more
science behind us but i think in the
meantime you have to do what works for
you and you have to figure this out as
you go
[Music]
but it's challenging
scientists aren't sure whether cannabis
sativa indica and rudoralis are distinct
species
most cultivars grown today are hybrids
they have distinct chemicals called
terpenes which create flavors and smells
and in addition to thc the plant
contains over 100 other cannabinoids
one called cbd
is flooding the market
one in seven adults in the united states
are using cbd you see cbd everywhere you
see it in the pet stores you see it at
beth and beyond at whole foods and so
there's a
multi-billion dollar industry that's
built on this plant and they're all
these different hypotheses of what these
different chemicals can do to help us
but
these products are coming online much
faster than we can actually research
them
despite cbd's availability today it took
a group of determined parents to bring
it to market
one quest began in palo alto california
where stanford neuroscientist catherine
jacobson set out to treat her son ben's
epilepsy
[Music]
watching your child have a seizure is
really really scary it's awful right
it's awful because you know that brain
damage is happening
the kids get scared they get confused
and
with uncontrolled epilepsy we all live
with this fear that they're gonna die
about a third of epilepsy patients don't
respond to medications
catherine knew the longer been seizures
continued
the less likely they'd be controlled
could you just give it a medicine
[Music]
and she was not alone
berkeley california her friends fred
vogelstein and evelyn nusenbaum
also felt powerless to control their son
sam's epilepsy
i mean the thing about seizures that
most people don't realize is is that
there are dozens of different kinds so
the the kind of seizure that most people
know about are the grand mal seizures
where you just lie on the ground and
like start flopping
the other seizure that a lot of people
know about are staring spells sam had a
version of those seizures because he
would go unconscious for like 15 seconds
when anyone has a seizure you could
compare it to an electrical storm or an
overtaxed electrical grid we all have
electricity in our brains
and when someone has a seizure the
electricity becomes irregular
[Music]
every single drug we tried didn't
control the seizures and some of them
had pretty nasty side effects
one time he had hallucinations and
thought he had holes in his skin and
there were bugs crawling out of them i
thought we were going to have to take
him to the psych ward
and then they were all the medicines
that made him a zombie
then they stumbled across research
suggesting cannabis might quell seizures
i knew nothing about cannabis but i did
some research and i found out that
obviously there are many different
chemicals in cannabis the two most
prominent are cbd and thc
we know that thc makes people high
cbd doesn't do that ready and so
my preference was of course to try cbd
first
cbd doesn't bind to cannabinoid
receptors directly but its presence
seems to reduce the impact of
thc it also increases levels of
anandamide our bliss molecule
and interacts with receptors like
serotonin which affect our mood
yet in 2011 it was hard to find extracts
high in cbd
and so we would get these vials and
sometimes they would work a little bit
and then the next vial wouldn't work so
after probably six to eight months of
doing this and seeing no benefit to ben
i just said look i'm gonna make my own
[Music]
when sam first took
katherine jacobson's cbd tincture
it was clear as day his seizures were
going down immediately
unfortunately
catherine only had enough for five days
and so we had this incredible five-day
stretch
and then we ran out
[Music]
cbd also helped katherine's son ben
but her next batch of tinctures were too
weak to use
drug companies get a lot of abuse for
their marketing tactics
but the one thing that they do really
really well is they make every
hill
exactly the same
it's sanitized it's quality controlled
and i wanted that for my son
[Music]
then they heard about an english company
called gw pharmaceuticals
with greenhouses full of cannabis and
labs that could make chemically pure
drugs
since cbd was illegal in the u.s
sam's family flew to london for
treatment while ben's family waited
[Music]
after four days of taking gw cbd
sam's seizures dropped from 68 to six
per day
[Music]
the eighth day of treatment
he only had three
[Music]
it worked and it worked fast but the
other thing about him improving was that
i saw this child
that i hadn't seen since he was four
years old and started having seizures
except now
he was 11 and he was clever and funny
and wanted to ride a zipline over london
[Music]
sam is now seizure-free
his story led to clinical trials and in
fda approval of the first cbd drug
called epidilex
in certain types of epilepsy it can
reduce seizures by some 40 percent
sam is now in college
but since seizures cause brain damage
is that a seizure for ben
help came too late
okay okay hey i have no idea whether
epidialex given at six months
would have
changed the course of his disease
i feel like it has reduced the severity
of the most severe kinds of seizures he
has
so i feel like it helps but epidialex is
not a miracle drug it's a tool in the
toolbox just like every other
anti-seizure drug
you try it if it doesn't work you stop
it if it works then you know it changes
your life
[Music]
one of the things that's like super
important about a drug like epidiolex is
that for the first time
you've got a drug that's derived from
cannabis that is completely legitimate
for mainstream medicine to study and
we're only beginning to see where that
can lead
scores of clinical trials are now
underway
including at uc san diego's center for
medicinal cannabis research
look at each dot until it explodes
fourteen-year-old braelyn has severe
autism okay look with your eyes look
right here
his parents are hoping cbd might help
good job
is a very sweet boy who has a great
personality
he gets extremely anxious if he doesn't
know
what's going to happen
and if something happens that he didn't
expect he can be very difficult to
manage
i want you to get up please
no thank you
we wanted to see what can be done to try
to
curb that behavior
he was hitting being kind of violent
and i'd never forget one therapist told
me you want to get a handle on it
because it affects his learning if you
can't control the behavior
it's going to be hard for him to focus
in class
children who have autism have different
brain wave patterns than children who
don't
there is something different about the
way the brain develops it causes
children to have tremendous difficulty
with social interactions with social
communication and it appears that one of
the problems may be a type of sensory
overload there you go
touch my finger and then touch your nose
to find out if epidialex might treat
severe autism trauner is running a
double-blind clinical trial
keep him out and close your eyes
good
over two eight-week sessions children
will take either cbd or a placebo and
researchers will use a battery of tests
to see if the drug helps
to study cbd's impact on the brain in
another part of the trial
allison muatri will work with human skin
cells
that's because skin cells can be
converted back into master builder cells
and then coaxed to develop as brain
cells do
forming networks of
[Music]
neurons these brain cells they will
actually self-arrange and form what we
call a brain organoid
and as they mature over time they start
to become more and more electrically
active
that activity is captured by electrodes
placed beneath the cluster of brain
cells
when their neurons fire they create
electrical signaling comparable to a
developing brain
next
the brain cells are treated with
different doses of cbd
to see if the drug has any impact
one of the biggest surprise that we see
is that by adding cbd
in the culture we actually silence or
quiet the activity of these brain cells
over time
this is not permanent we can wash it out
cbd from the system and we see that the
brain is able to restore the electrical
activity
[Music]
so what are you going to do in the
morning wake up wake up wash up wash up
but will cbd
calm excess neuronal activity in the
brains of children with autism
[Music]
yes
the study is still blinded
but braelyn's parents are certain
cbd helped him in phase one of the trial
it was dramatic it was like like day
so
i could be wrong but you know i we both
saw the difference
having eight weeks of really no hitting
no perseveration and things like that
was wonderful
and then when we went on the second half
of the trial he was back to his normal
self
so
i'm hopeful
first brown with the cbd
here i need to take this take your
medicine
what we are hearing from the parents is
pretty remarkable and we don't know
whether they were on placebo or cbd
but it's really important to get good
data that demonstrates whether cbd is
effective and whether it's safe because
we're talking about long-term treatment
[Music]
treatment that uses hundreds of
milligrams of epidiolex
[Music]
not the small amounts of cbd you can buy
in a dispensary
as little as four percent and maybe as
great as 20 of the cbd that you consume
orally actually gets into your body
and so it seems like you need to take
around about 100 milligrams of cbd oil
orally for there to even really be a
signal in your bloodstream that you have
cbd on board
most of the products being sold are like
10 and 20 milligrams and some people say
that they benefit from that
and even if it's a placebo effect i'm
actually fine with it but what i'm
worried about
is that the cbd that they're taking has
other chemicals
generally
only products in legal states that
contain thc not cbd
are regulated
before they can be sold they must be
tested in licensed labs for potency and
contaminants like pesticides molds and
heavy metals
using untested cannabis
is dangerous
but when it comes to assessing risk a
key factor is your age
because the endocannabinoid system which
cannabis targets
changes over our lifespan
as we grow from being a fetus into
becoming an adolescent eventually an
adult and an elderly person the
endocannabinoid system follows us
and at each of these stages of our life
serves a slightly different purpose
during adolescence
our natural endocannabinoids reach their
highest levels as the brain rapidly
changes
it's also a time when many first try
cannabis
[Music]
so when one consumes thc
you're basically indiscriminately
activating all your cannabinoid
receptors in your entire body and the
entire brain so thc it's like a hammer
on all of these receptors our natural
endogenous cannabinoids are never these
hammers
to understand the impact of cannabis
clinical psychologist joanna jacovas has
scanned over 1 000 teenage brains
to search for differences
between those who use the drug and those
who don't
today she's evaluating angel who has
smoked cannabis at least once a week for
the past year and is curious to learn
about its impact
[Music]
all i needed to really hear is like hey
oh you do you want an mri of your brain
yes like that to me that's like really
cool i know it's nerdy but like the
substance you're doing you don't get to
see what it does to your brain
using functional magnetic resonance
imaging
jacobis can study brain structures that
are critical for healthy development in
young adults
the brain is rapidly changing from
infancy through childhood adolescence
into young adulthood
two types of tissue are rapidly changing
that support cognitive development
so gray matter contains the cell bodies
and makes up the cerebral cortex so the
outermost lining of the brain
and white matter allows gray matter
regions to communicate quickly and
efficiently
[Music]
during the teenage years white matter
increases and gray matter diminishes
as weaker neural connections are
eliminated and new ones form to make the
brain more efficient
jacobus has found that teen cannabis
users have a thicker cerebral cortex
suggesting that this pruning of synapses
has been disrupted
now i'm going to read the same list
again and it's not just physical brain
changes i want you to tell me as many
thousands of cognitive tests reveal that
teens who use cannabis regularly
struggle more on learning and memory
tasks than those who don't
bowl
dinner mug
it made me realize that memory is
probably the biggest thing that impacts
me with cannabis
but definitely if i stop for a little
bit
i have a feeling that like it would be
easy to remember those things
research shows after a period of
abstinence cognitive performance can
bounce back
and the brain changes
other studies link them to alcohol or
genetic and environmental influences
it is possible that cannabis itself is
not the culprit that these differences
that we see in the brain are
pre-existing and that they come before
a child ever picks up their first joint
you're going to release your breath
to unravel the role of drugs genes and
the environment
over 11 000 children are being tracked
through their teenage years in the
adolescent brain cognitive development
study
and would you say that's definitely a no
kind of no nih researchers will evaluate
the children's physical and mental
health
academic achievement
and drug use with tests of saliva and
hair
so far few of the children have tried
cannabis but there is data from surveys
about their parents use
one of the things that we were most
interested in was prenatal exposures and
we saw that there were a fair number of
mothers in this study just like what
we're seeing in the general population
that used cannabis during their
pregnancy and we were able to look and
see
among those children whose moms used
cannabis during pregnancy did we see any
difference in their developmental
outcomes and one questionnaire that
really stood out to us was the
psychosis-like experiences assessment
and although you couldn't see anything
or anyone did you suddenly start to feel
that an invisible energy creature or
some person was around you
oh yeah
yeah okay and did that bother you oh no
not so much and this dataset gave us an
opportunity
to roll back the tape to a period of
time in an individual's life where
they're being exposed at a time when
their brain is exquisitely vulnerable
did you start to worry at times that
your mind was trying to trick you or
wasn't working right
oh yeah
okay
so among kids who were exposed to
cannabis following their mother's
knowledge of their pregnancy they
experience more psychotic-like
experiences they experience more
depression and anxiety-like behavior
they're breaking more rules they have
more attentional thought problems
experiences are associated with an
increased risk for mental illnesses like
schizophrenia and depression
we know that the use of cannabis during
pregnancy is increasing we've seen
advertisements online social media
targeting women saying this is something
that's safe for you to use during
pregnancy for things like nausea or
insomnia
and these women are not trying to harm
their babies they're just trying to get
through what can be a challenging time
as you know we're interested in looking
at rogers and agrawal are now scanning
250 babies to see if brains exposed to
cannabis during pregnancy
are different from brains that were not
thc crosses the placenta so we know the
baby's brain is exposed to it
we also know that the receptors in the
brain that thc
binds to develop very early during
pregnancy
the endocannabinoid system is critical
for hard wiring of the brain during
development
so if cannabis comes on board while the
endocannabinoid system is regulating
neural circuits that are laid down how
the cells communicate as they're being
developed obviously can have an impact
on that
and that is the thing that is critical
for people to understand cannabis is not
a benign drug
[Music]
while scientists worry about the risks
most agree that far greater harm has
come from criminalizing cannabis
starting in 1937.
treasury department intends to pursue
the despicable
culture
harry anslinger head of the bureau of
narcotics stoked racism towards mexican
immigrants
by demonizing their word for cannabis
marijuana
and claiming the evil we corrupted users
[Music]
if you look at
the way that they
talked about marijuana
part of the strategy was to make
cannabis something that wasn't
acceptable make it foreign and create
the hysteria to put laws in place that
control a group of people
that were not white and
push forward a narrative that the
government is keeping us safe
in the 1970s richard nixon ignored an
expert panel recommending
decriminalization
and declared a war on drugs
soon drugs would become the key reason
for being arrested in the u.s
[Music]
since 2000 over 14 million people have
been arrested and some 40 000 americans
are now behind bars for cannabis
mainly for possession charges
someone gets arrested for cannabis every
58 seconds
in a country where we are now legalizing
cannabis people are talking about its
medical use in the midst of covet 19 it
is an essential service
cannabis is one of the driving forces
fueling
mass incarceration in this country and
it is disproportionately targeting poor
people and communities of color
in every single state in the united
states whether cannabis is legal or not
black people are arrested for cannabis
related offenses more than white people
despite the fact that all government
data shows that usage is equal
across races
although many americans believe the war
on cannabis is over
for black people especially like sean
and ebony worsley
it's a war that's still going on
to manage his post-traumatic stress
shawn had gotten a medical cannabis card
in arizona
but as he and ebony began a
cross-country trip to see family they
would drive through states where
cannabis is illegal
and racial profiling
common
[Music]
needed gas
you have no idea especially in a place
you're not familiar with when is the
next place you're going to be able to
stop for gas
i
get out of the car
as i'm walking away
a
vehicle pulls in front of my wife's car
and it is a
police vehicle
and all of a sudden i'm approached by an
officer
it startled me when i looked up and he's
like you know where are you heading and
i'm like
we're heading to north carolina
and then he begins to speak into my
husband who's outside of the vehicle
he asked me about
any weed being in the vehicle and i
just was honest and i told him sir you
know i'm a medical cannabis patient from
arizona and i
do have my cannabis but it's zipped up
and it's in the trunk
at that point he puts me in handcuffs
and proceeds to search the vehicle
i give him my ids and he said
well you won't need these where you're
going
the officer found a third of an ounce of
medical cannabis
he charged them as severely as he could
with possession for other than personal
use and that was because sean had with
him a grinder
and he had rolling papers and he had a
scale um all of those things were
recommended by his doctor
if you smoke marijuana medically it's
not uncommon for a doctor to tell you to
use a scale so you know
how much you're smoking
ebony and sean spent six days in jail
before getting a hearing
at the pickens county courthouse
they were charged with multiple felonies
after struggling to pay a bondsman and
in pound fees for the car
the couple returned to arizona
the fines and the fees became
astronomical by the time we made it back
to arizona we literally couldn't afford
to pay our rent our bills and we ended
up evicted we were homeless
under stress
shawn had a stroke
eventually ebony's charges were dropped
but due to prior minor convictions
shawn was sentenced to five years and
put on probation
probation requires a stable address it
requires you to pay money and one of the
conditions of sean's probation
is that he needed to get drug treatment
and the va looks at him and says you
have a medical marijuana card man we're
not going to treat you you don't qualify
because you don't have a drug
problem probation and parole
they're just traps to send you right
back to keep you in their grasp
you want to lock me up for not having a
job
you want to lock me up for not having a
place to stay
how am i supposed to get these things if
i can't get a job because you
have me labeled as a felon
[Music]
in march 2020
sean was extradited to alabama to serve
the remainder of his sentence behind
bars
i see the harms of the war on drugs
every single day in all of my patients
lives it is so
clear there's not a single family that i
know that doesn't have some member who's
been arrested or incarcerated
and what i see
is that what happens in society the
arrests the incarceration the poverty
dramatically affects people's health
their lives their quality of life
[Music]
as criminalization destroys lives
[Music]
at the same time
the cannabis wellness industry is
thriving
one entrepreneur is eugene monroe
a former football player who believes
cannabis can help address chronic pain
playing in the nfl was a lifelong dream
i love the sport
that explosive power
to propel my body and essentially
flatten people
each time that happens each time your
brain rattles in your skull
you pay a
price the job creates a need for pain
relief inherently so i was given
a lot of opioid drugs which would let
you go into a game with acute injuries
and perform because you don't feel that
i was taking my oxycodone just as
prescribed and
saw my daughter walking down the hallway
and didn't recognize her and i realized
that they were causing a serious issue
and i stopped taking them
and that's the point where i decided
that
cannabis is a better option
cannabis didn't just allow me to cut
back on opioids to allow me to eliminate
all pharmaceutical drugs
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it hasn't cured my injuries but what it
did for me
was alleviate my pain so i felt
motivated to go in the gym and work out
and take care of my body
we know that cannabis leads to less pain
and it alters people's ability to
tolerate the pain
it affects the immune system and reduces
inflammation
it's certainly safer
than other medications that we've been
using for decades
monroe is now a partner and consultant
for one of the nation's largest cannabis
companies
yet
while many praise the benefits of
cannabis
some scientists warn there are risks
especially for those who use it
daily about nine percent of users will
develop a cannabis addiction
one is paul
i was in my junior year of high school
and it was a 400 freestyle relay the
last leg of the race always you go
just as hard as humanly possible and as
it came up from the flip turn and i
snapped my head up
i just felt this twinge just right in
between my shoulder blades and it just
killed me
but it wasn't until i went into college
that it became a recurring detrimental
thing
and i started using cannabis to
alleviate a lot of the pain and to help
me sleep at night because i could never
get a full night's rest
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cannabis seemed to cure paul's insomnia
i loved how calming it was i'd have the
best night of sleep that i've ever had
in my life
and i said this is amazing
it would be fantastic if we have a drug
that could actually calm you when you
need it that it makes you feel groovy
more social
and there's no negative consequences
it'll be extraordinary but that's not
the case biology basically adapts to
stimuli that you give
cannabis is less addictive and safer
than tobacco
heroin cocaine and alcohol which kill
hundreds of thousands each year
but you can take too much
we're seeing an increase in the number
of people that end up in emergency
departments with a full-blown psychosis
because of the high content dhc
dependence can impair memory mood and
motivation
paul didn't know he had a problem until
he needed a drug test for a job
and so i quit cold turkey and
almost immediately i noticed a big
change in my mood
they get irritable they get aggressive
and they can feel depressed
there were stretches of weeks that i
slept for maybe two to three hours a
night every night and that was all i
could get
we looked at sleep architecture and what
we found was
that when people quit using marijuana
slow wave sleep which is the kind of
sleep that makes you feel rested the
next morning was significantly disrupted
okay hi paul
how are you good morning
in a new clinical trial
deepak d'souza hopes to harness the
endocannabinoid system to prevent
cannabis withdrawal
uh
when the brain is repeatedly flooded
with thc
it reduces the number of cannabinoid
receptors
once a person is dependent on cannabis
abruptly quitting triggers withdrawal
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to replace thc d'souza is testing a drug
that increases our own cannabis-like
molecule anandamide
there was a two-week period where i was
taking either the placebo or the study
medication and still smoking at the same
time
and then i had to quit cold turkey and
the day that i quit i thought that there
was no way i was going to sleep that
night
i had no issues it was
very
very easy
i'll never forget that first night that
i was able to
sleep after after not smoking i woke up
the next day in absolute shock and awe
paul doesn't know if he got the study
drug
but an earlier trial showed that it
helped people quit
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and pet scans revealed that after
cannabis is stopped the brain's own
cannabinoid receptors come back
our endocannabinoid system is really
powerful
and that's why we shouldn't really
play with it that much
a drug may be fine for one person but it
isn't for everyone
dose matters
when you take it during development
matters
we need to really understand what these
drugs do in the brain
even if they will and i do believe have
some medicinal benefits
so what does the future hold for
cannabis as a medicine
moving on to the skywalker og
to find out
stacy gruber is following adults who buy
cannabis from dispensaries to treat a
range of ailments this is fantastic for
the afternoon chronic pain is the number
one condition anxiety is probably number
two ptsd difficulties with sleep and we
have patients who come to us and say you
know i use these types of products for
this problem and then we go we should
look at that
how's the anxiety in all honesty how is
it things are going really good gruber's
study has yet to be peer reviewed but
two years of clinical and psychological
tests show patients improving wow so
that's a decided change yes
reduced symptoms of pain reduced anxiety
improved sleep and improvements across
the board on a number of different
cognitive tasks that require executive
function the question is why
it may very well be that the restorative
sleep that people are starting to get
once they find something that works for
them is the key to the improvement
i think this was the most important
document
back in alabama
leah nelson is working with ebony
worsley to get her husband sean parold
alabama's war on cannabis has failed
people like sean and particularly black
men are paying this horrific price for
doing something that is already legal in
states where half of americans live
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[Laughter]
in november 2020 sean was released from
prison
and placed on parole
it's time to go
you ready
it was scary being inside
it rocked me to the core
it was probably one of the most
difficult things i've had to do
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i would pick going back to war
before going back to prison
most definitely
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it's set us back
so far
it's supposed to help and rehabilitate
individuals
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instead it's putting us in positions
where we need so much more mental help
we need much more financial help we need
so much more than we needed before
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it is past time for us to end the war on
drugs
we need to legalize cannabis
we need to be pumping money into
research to actually learn more about
this substance
this moment is about building new
responses to drugs that are based in
science and that are based in the rights
of people
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there are still many questions to answer
should cannabis be marketed as candy
should the thc potency of products have
limits
from reducing harms
to expunging convictions and ensuring
equity
getting legalization right
is as complicated as the plant itself
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cannabis is not one thing
our recreational consumers have a
different goal
for using cannabis than our medical
patients
our medical patients say i'm not looking
necessarily to change how i feel i just
want to address this set of symptoms
but we have frighteningly little data on
the long-term effects of medical
cannabis use
the plant is comprised of over 400
compounds 400
if people turn to it we should know the
answers
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discover the science behind the news
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you