My interest in cannabis began when I was a teenager, and it never ended. I was that passionate about it that people even turned away from me; all had their reasons. Many of them thought cannabis use was wrong basing their beliefs on moral or political ideas. Even today there are people who do not accept that cannabis has medicinal use. Such thinking underestimates the true benefits of this ancient medicine. Making Cannabis Personal is meant to educate people on how cannabis is helping the human especies find wellness and remove the ridiculous stigma still associated such as "but people who use cannabis are just criminals or addicts". People use cannabis therapeutically and benefit from the medicinal properties of cannabis in unexpected ways. That's what this book is about. You will discover amazing stories and miraculous events from experiences of random clients I have helped. Each person from these stories who uses cannabis for wellness has a different experience. Starting from their genetics. Your DNA is personal to you. Cannabis responses are based on each person's genetics, so the responses are personal. I devote several chapters to explain how genetics interacts with cannabinoids to create truly unique experiences. I chronicle how many different people found treatments to recover from illnesses and alleviate conditions that afflict them. In this book I convey stories that may relate to your life, finding out if you're one of these people like Jim, a vet suffering PTSD who found pain relief that helped him get off opioids. Or like Grandma Mary, a woman suffering from side effects of chemo, who found comfort without feeling side effects from cannabis use. Both found comfort in specific CBD formulations that were tailored specifically to match their individual DNA profiles. Writing this book is also a way for me to inspire readers by telling the stories of how everyday people found solutions. My own story is included. How I went from being broke and homeless to being a popular presenter at international conferences. This book chronicles how I turned my passion into a career. I talk about my early entrepreneurial days on the street, the laboratory hours spent testing and classifying cannabis strains, opening and running dispensaries in SoCal, and then building a biotechnology company committed to helping consumers find cannabinoid products that enhance their health and wellness. I'll share what I learned in my journey. As CEO of EndoCanna Health, I help others discover how to use cannabis to better their lives. Cannabis is therapeutic. It affects everyone differently, that's why cannabis is personal. Would you like to join in this story?

Significant changes have taken place in the policy landscape surrounding cannabis legalization, production, and use. During the past 20 years, 25 states and the District of Columbia have legalized cannabis and/or cannabidiol (a component of cannabis) for medical conditions or retail sales at the state level and 4 states have legalized both the medical and recreational use of cannabis. These landmark changes in policy have impacted cannabis use patterns and perceived levels of risk. However, despite this changing landscape, evidence regarding the short- and long-term health effects of cannabis use remains elusive. While a myriad of studies have examined cannabis use in all its various forms, often these research conclusions are not appropriately synthesized, translated for, or communicated to policy makers, health care providers, state health officials, or other stakeholders who have been charged with influencing and enacting policies, procedures, and laws related to cannabis use. Unlike other controlled substances such as alcohol or tobacco, no accepted standards for safe use or appropriate dose are available to help guide individuals as they make choices regarding the issues of if, when, where, and how to use cannabis safely and, in regard to therapeutic uses, effectively. Shifting public sentiment, conflicting and impeded scientific research, and legislative battles have fueled the debate about what, if any, harms or benefits can be attributed to the use of cannabis or its derivatives, and this lack of aggregated knowledge has broad public health implications. The Health Effects of Cannabis and Cannabinoids provides a comprehensive review of scientific evidence related to the health effects and potential therapeutic benefits of cannabis. This report provides a research agendaâ€"outlining gaps in current knowledge and opportunities for providing additional insight into these issuesâ€"that summarizes and prioritizes pressing research needs.

Some people suffer from chronic, debilitating disorders for which no conventional treatment brings relief. Can marijuana ease their symptoms? Would it be breaking the law to turn to marijuana as a medication? There are few sources of objective, scientifically sound advice for people in this situation. Most books about marijuana and medicine attempt to promote the views of advocates or opponents. To fill the gap between these extremes, authors Alison Mack and Janet Joy have extracted critical findings from a recent Institute of Medicine study on this important issue, interpreting them for a general audience. Marijuana As Medicine? provides patientsâ€"as well as the people who care for themâ€"with a foundation for making decisions about their own health care. This empowering volume examines several key points, including: Whether marijuana can relieve a variety of symptoms, including pain, muscle spasticity, nausea, and appetite loss. The dangers of smoking marijuana, as well as the effects of its active chemical components on the immune system and on psychological health. The potential use of marijuana-based medications on symptoms of AIDS, cancer, multiple sclerosis, and several other specific disorders, in comparison with existing treatments. Marijuana As Medicine? introduces readers to the active compounds in marijuana. These include the principal ingredient in Marinol, a legal medication. The authors also discuss the prospects for developing other drugs derived from marijuana's active ingredients. In addition to providing an up-to-date review of the science behind the medical marijuana debate, Mack and Joy also answer common questions about the legal status of marijuana, explaining the conflict between state and federal law regarding its medical use. Intended primarily as an aid to patients and caregivers, this book objectively presents critical information so that it can be used to make responsible health care decisions. Marijuana As Medicine? will also be a valuable resource for policymakers, health care providers, patient counselors, medical faculty and studentsâ€"in short, anyone who wants to learn more about this important issue.

At the last Annual Representative Meeting of the British Medical Association a motion was passed that `certain additional cannabinoids should be legalized for wider medicinal use.'' This report supports this landmark statement by reviewing the scientific evidence for the therapeutic use of cannabinoids and sets the agenda for change. It will be welcomed by those who believe that cannabinoids can be used in medical treatment. The report discusses in a clear and readable form the use and adverse effects of the drug for nausea, multiple sclerosis, pain, epilepsy, glaucoma, and asthma.

Great experiences with cannabis start with knowledge, moderation, and mindfulness. In this book, you’ll learn the foundation to create a great cannabis experience for yourself and your guests Most people have learned how to use alcohol and prescription drugs appropriately, but very few of us have been educated about using cannabis appropriately. Cannabis education has been practically nonexistent due to the influences of legal prohibition and the stigma around this plant. Your Cannabis Experience changes that. This manual introduces the reader to cannabis history and botany basics and helps them prep for their first experience with cannabis, making it enjoyable and safe. It discusses how to shop at a legal cannabis dispensary, as well as how to grow a cannabis plant. With easy recipes for tinctures, beverages, and edibles, as well as instructions for lotions, potions, and spa items, this book guarantees a comfortable and respectable experience with cannabis for every novice entering this wonderful world. This book is for every beginner—young adults, senior citizens, and everyone in‑between—and for anyone who hasn’t touched cannabis since college and now finds themselves living in a state or country that has recently legalized cannabis, or even for regular users desiring a refresher course in all-things basic cannabis. This colorful guide is also for people who have had less than satisfying or uncomfortable experiences with cannabis and are interested in learning more about this fabulous flower and trying again.

Winner of the Donald W. Light Award for the Applied or Public Practice of Medical Sociology Medical marijuana laws have spread across the U.S. to all but a handful of states. Yet, eighty years of social stigma and federal prohibition creates dilemmas for patients who participate in state programs. The Medicalization of Marijuana takes the first comprehensive look at how patients negotiate incomplete medicalization and what their experiences reveal about our relationship with this controversial plant as it is incorporated into biomedicine. Is cannabis used similarly to other medicines? Drawing on interviews with midlife patients in Colorado, a state at the forefront of medical cannabis implementation, this book explores the practical decisions individuals confront about medical use, including whether cannabis will work for them; the risks of registering in a state program; and how to handle questions of supply, dosage, and routines of use. Individual stories capture how patients redefine and reclaim cannabis use as legitimate—individually and collectively—and grapple with an inherently political identity. These experiences help illustrate how stigma, prejudice, and social change operate. By positioning cannabis use within sociological models of medical behavior, Newhart and Dolphin provide a wide-reaching, theoretically informed analysis of the issue that expands established concepts and provides new insight on medical cannabis and how state programs work.

Marijuana is the most widely used illegal drug in the world. Over the past couple of decades, several Western jurisdictions have seen reforms in, or changes to, the way cannabis use is being controlled, departing from traditional approaches of criminal prohibition that have dominated cannabis use control regimes for most of the twentieth century. While reform is stalled at the international level, the last decade has seen an acceleration of legislative and regulatory reforms at the local and national levels, with countries no longer willing to bear the human and financial costs of prohibitive policies. Furthermore, legalization models have been implemented in US states, Canada and Uruguay, and are being debated in a number of other countries. These models are providing the world with unique pilot programs from which to study and learn. This book assembles an international who’s who of cannabis scholars who bring together the best available evidence and expertise to address questions such as: How should we evaluate the models of cannabis legalization as they have been implemented in several jurisdictions in the past few years? Which scenarios for future cannabis legalization have been developed elsewhere, and how similar/different are they from the models already implemented? What lessons from the successes and failures experienced with the regulation of other psychoactive substances (such as alcohol, tobacco, pharmaceuticals and “legal highs”) can be translated to the effective regulation of cannabis markets? Legalizing Cannabis will appeal to anyone interested in public health policies and drug policy reform and offers relevant insights for stakeholders in any other country where academic, societal or political evaluations of current cannabis policies (and even broader: current drug policies) are a subject of debate.