Displaying episodes by topic: harm reduction

While traveling the Saskatchewan highways, Kirk sees a sign in the ditch directing him to a unique recreational cannabis shop. He takes a hard left to visit a First Nations Reserve looking for a simple short Road Story. Instead, he finds Montana, a caring individual who manages his reserve's recreational cannabis store with a harm reductionists approach.  This simple short Road Story became an entire episode.  Listen to how one individual can help a community with cannabis.

Potheads are too, well, stoned to succeed in tech, right? A medicinal cannabis user couldn’t be a successful serial tech entrepreneur, could they? Well, meet Brian. He is a US Marine Vet who became a successful tech entrepreneur several times over. However, Brian’s military service also left him with PTSD. Brian tried all the standard PTSD treatments and none of them worked for him. Then an ex-military friend of his suggested Brian try cannabis. Now Brian’s PTSD is under control, his tech business is snapping along and the myth that cannabis holds people back is a stigma that needs to be thrown away.  

There are very few, if any, reliable methods of measuring cannabis impairment.  Road-side sobriety tests done by trained Drug Recognition Experts are very subjective and workplaces are limited with how they assess employees with safety sensitive jobs.  Back by video evidence, Gaize offers real-time impairment screening within 6 minutes.  This portable AV device is considered accurate, providing objective eye behaviours when deciding when an individual is impaired on Cannabis.  Considered the first impairment detection platform released to the marketplace, Gaize will search for answers by finding the six ways your eyes give you away.  

Dr. Rob Sealey returns to the podcast. Back in S3E7 he talked about Cannabis For Kids. Today we drive down the road to the other end of the age spectrum, Cannabis and Seniors. Dr. Sealey is super knowledgeable, but also pithy comment machine! Within this episode he says  "you wouldn't go into your local liquor store and say, which bottle of Marlow should I use for my arthritis." He also figures "if we're at all related to mice and some people are more related to rats, then you know, you got a pretty good shot as this could actually potentially help."  When filling your medicine cabinet there is "the great substitution effect of using cannabis because of its multi-modal aspects." Applying his knowledge he shares "I always am a booster of the endocannabinoid system." We can’t entice you any better that these quotes. Go Listen!

Tarris Baptiste was athletically gifted. Tarris was driven. Tarris was on the brink of breaking into the National Football League. And then, it didn’t happen. Ten thousand hours plus spent on becoming an elite football player didn’t matter anymore. Now what? Tarris had a shadow pursuit that paralleled his football career. Sometimes it helped him succeed. Sometimes it got in the way. But now, he shifted his considerable focus to learn more about cannabis. He needed to know the light and the dark of this plant. Tarris sought out experts. He merged their insights with his own lived experience. That was the genesis of his book, Don’t Let it Smoke You. Listen to Tarris talk about how cannabis got in his way, how he overcame his misuse of cannabis, but how he didn’t abandon the plant. Tarris found a way to balance his cannabis use with living a productive life. And now he wants to share that with you.

You've said the word concussion. You might even have had one. But do you really understand them? Did you know a concussion is a minor traumatic brain injury? Dr. Patrick Neary and his team got a grant from the NFL to study if cannabis can help prevent or treat concussions! Dr. Neary explains, you don't have to actually bang your head to get a concussion. We've often said you don't have to like cannabis to enjoy this podcast. But, if you listen to this episode while rhythmically shaking your mullet forwards and back, we think you'll elevate your knowledge about both.

We are in an opioid crisis. Wouldn't it be great if we had another tool to taper people to a lower opioid dose or off their opioids altogether? A group of almost 20 experts got together and drew up consensus guidelines on how to taper opioids with cannabis. We got Aaron Sihota - Pharmacist, Dr. Brennan K. Smith, PhD, and Dr. Colleen O'Connell MD from the consensus guidelines group together virtually to discuss how the guidelines were drawn up and how cannabis can help fight the opioid crisis

One of a series of episodes focusing on cannabis use in opioid harm reduction, Kirk brings a story of one man’s experience. The episode follows a discussion Kirk has with Mr. Mark Heinrich who is “a craft cannabis farmer in Manitoba, Canada and pretty much a lifelong junkie and addict.” The episode follows Heinrich’s years of problematic substance use, leads us into his experiences with Methadone and how he self-medicates with cannabis. This episode is a very personal journey presented as information on how one man uses his medicine in harm reduction. Kirk and Trevor then discuss their personal views of Mark’s story; each approaching it through their individual professional lens.  

Remember when we could sit next to people on a plane?  Imagine sitting next to a guy who said he was a Havard trained doc, who has pictures of himself learning to read on Carl Sagan's lap, who wrote a book on overcoming his own opioid addiction and who happens to think cannabis is a great medicine for treating many conditions.  Wouldn't that be the best plane conversation ever?  Well, buckle in, put up your tray table and return your seat to the upright and locked position.  We are about the take off with Dr. Peter Grinspoon.

Travel with Kirk and Trevor beyond simple harm reduction strategies. Kirk brings us stories from Vancouver Island to Gimli, showing us how the Cannabis Culture helps people be well. In Part 1, we meet Kevin Donnelly from Newleaf Outreach.  This new autonomous peer driven harm reduction group in Nanaimo, British Columbia promotes that drug peoples’ rights are human rights.  They also believe cannabis plays a role for people with substance use disorders. Then Kirk goes south to see Julia Veintrop from the Victoria Cannabis Buyers Club.  The VCBC is an important historic advocacy agency.  They've taken cannabis cases to the Supreme Court, but more importantly they have 23 years of experience assisting people with accessing affordable cannabis as their medicine. From new to established, Vancouver Island shows us the strength of peers helping peers. We have a My Cannabis Story from Char about a not so positive experience at a Guns N Roses concert. Come back for Part 2!  Gimli has more to offer than Crown Royal and the Icelandic Festival.

Are we addicted to taxes?  Trevor and Kirk talk to Dr. Jason Childs.  He is an economist who says whether you want to reduce harm from cannabis or increase government coffers then keep taxes on cannabis low.  In fact, having the government subsidize licensed producers might be a brilliant idea.  In part 2 we have Dr. Jonathon Stea.  He is a psychologist who has studied and treated cannabis addiction.  Surprisingly, cannabis is probably going to be both worse and better than you imagine post legalization.