Cannabis as a Game Changer
If we want real and sustainable solutions applied to some of the problems facing our burdened health systems, we need a paradigm shift in our thinking. We need
game changing ideas brought to the table for discussion. Game changer such as self-scheduling for provincial health employees or how about you access your primary care provider through a neighbourhood nursing station. Those would be game changing ideas. On the therapeutics, what if cannabis was seen as a medicine throughout the entire health care system. Game changing Idea. That would require us to reassess and rethink how people access their medications and how we distribute medications. Especially those substances that are mis-used. We need to apply evidence applied to our thinking and people are going to say we don't have enough studies for Cannabis to be seen as a medicine. But we have evidence on Cannabis benefiting people with pain. It has evidence of people benefiting from cannabis in seizure control and we have evidence of cannabis helping people with nausea. These are just some of the benefits that people use cannabis for. As a health care provider I have been told to prepare for cannabis to be a mis-used substance. So let's look at cannabis as a mis-used substance and let's look at it through a lens of risk management and compare it with other substances the health care system deals with. Alcohol. A man my size consuming 1.5 litres of Scotland's best single malt, definitely mis-used the substance but if left alone will likely die of aspiration, or respiratory system impairment. Tylenol. A man my size consuming a half bottle of extra strength Tylenol, a readily available Over The Counter analgesic, has definitely mis-used that substance and if not given the right antidote in the right time period will likely die a slow and painful death. It has been calculate, that a man my size would need to inhale 650 kgs of cannabis in a 15 minute period of time, to be seen as overdosing and dying from a cannabinoid poisoning. That is a fantastical number because more than likely I would have died of smoke inhalation, but it is a ridiculous number. So let's use some numbers we are more comfortable with understanding. Such as the Canadian government says that 76% of us consume Alcohol. 20% will mis-use it, 47000 deaths a year are attributed to alcohol mis-use in Canada. Tylenol, its the leading cause of liver failure in Canada and it attributed to 4500 hospitalization due to Tylenol mis-use. Cannabis. Canadian government tells us 27% us have consumed it and 9% will mis-use it. And the Public Health Agency of Canada says that between 2010 and 2020 cannabis represented 1% of hospitalization seen due to substance mis-use. So when we look at cannabis as risk management, we have enough evidence to know that as we practice and do the studies that we need to do people are not going to die from cannabis mis-use. You want a ridiculous number, The American Drug Enforcement Agency stated that one kilogram of fentanyl has the potential of killing a half a million people. If you want a fantastical paradigm shift in Pop Culture. Consider this, what if fentanyl was the drug of choice, rather than cannabis, at Woodstock 69? Now that would have been a game changer. I am Kirk Nyquist. I am a Registered Nurse in the Dauphin Manitoba Canada. And I think Cannabis is mis-understood. If you want to learn more about Cannabis tune into our webpage Reefer Medness - The Podcast, found at reefermed.ca. That is reefermed.ca. You should check us out.