Patricia C. Frye - The Medical Marijuana Guide: Cannabis and Your Health

The Medical Marijuana Guide

The Medical Marijuana Guide

Cannabis and Your Health

Patricia C. Frye, MD
with Dave Smitherman

ROWMAN & LITTLEFIELD

Lanham Boulder New York London

Published by Rowman & Littlefield

An imprint of The Rowman & Littlefield Publishing Group, Inc.

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Distributed by NATIONAL BOOK NETWORK

Copyright 2018 by Patricia C. Frye, MD

All rights reserved . No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the publisher, except by a reviewer who may quote passages in a review.

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Information Available

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Frye, Patricia C., author. | Smitherman, Dave, author.

Title: The medical marijuana guide : cannabis and your health / by Patricia C. Frye with Dave Smitherman.

Description: Lanham : Rowman & Littlefield, [2018] | Includes bibliographical references.

Identifiers: LCCN 2018027684 (print) | LCCN 2018028117 (ebook) | ISBN 9781538110843 (electronic) | ISBN 9781538110836 (pbk. : alk. paper)

Subjects: | MESH: Medical Marijuanatherapeutic use | Cannabinoidspharmacology

Classification: LCC RM666.C266 (ebook) | LCC RM666.C266 (print) | NLM WB 925 | DDC 615.7/827dc23

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2018027684

The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of American National Standard for Information SciencesPermanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI/NISO Z39.48-1992.

Printed in the United States of America

Contents

I would like to say thank you to:

Mark, Ashleigh, and Chris, for introducing me to the world of medical cannabis;

My agent, Diane, for bringing me this remarkable opportunity;

My husband, Rodney, who has given me the encouragement to stay on the path, the time and space to get it done, and the meals to keep me going;

My son, Andrew, just because you are my shining star;

Tamika and Anne Marie, for everything you do to keep our office running and making our patients feel as important as they are;

Lisa, Taryn, and Heidi, for your help with research, edits, and citations;

Dave, for your guidance and everything you have done to make this work;

Suzanne, my editor, for her constructive criticism and commitment to the subject of medical cannabis;

Adam, Eric, and Franco, for sharing your knowledge and expertise;

Doctors Dustin Sulak, Bonnie Goldstein, Deborah Malka, John McPartland, David Bearman, Jeff Hergenrather, Debra Kimless, and all the cannabis clinicians who have inspired me and define what excellent patient care is all about;

And all of my amazing patients, from whom I have learned so very much about true art of healing.

In 1996, California became the first state in the United States to legalize cannabis for medical use. I was practicing pediatrics at a large health maintenance organization in the southern part of the state. There was probably something about it in the news. I think that was the extent of my awareness. I never gave it another thoughtuntil 2015.

Now back on the East Coast and still holding onto my coveted California medical license, I decided to look for some light, part-time telemedicine work. I took my license out of retirement mode and farmed out my curriculum vitae. The first solicitation I received was regarding a pediatric job in San Diego. I explained to the headhunter that I was licensed in California but physically in the Washington, DC, metropolitan area and was not interested in relocating. I would only consider a telemedicine job, perhaps an urgent-care or after-care position.

A few days later, I received another e-mail. It emphatically reassured me that this was a telemedicine job with a new company based in San Francisco. Great, I am interested and excited! As I am reading, looking for the particulars, it goes on to state that the job is to evaluate patients via telemedicine for medical marijuana evaluations. Skreech! What? Marijuana? I dont know anything about marijuana. I tried it a few times in high school and twice as a freshman in college. It made me either goofy, sleepy, or paranoid, so I never thought much of it. I certainly never understood why my peers liked it so much.

So here I am faced with an opportunity to work a few hours a week from my home office with patients in California, and I knew nothing about the plant, how it worked, what it was good for, the possible side effects, or how it was dosed; I knew nothing.

Not being one to run from a challenge, I decided to investigate. I interviewed with the president and director of operations. They were clean cut, well spoken, friendly, organized, and professionalnot the sleepy-eyed, counterculture stereotypes one might imagine. It was a brand-new company, and except for their chief medical officer, I was their first medical hire.

I spent the next few days reading the California Board of Medicines guidelines on what conditions qualified and their assurances that I would not get into trouble making these recommendationsvia telemedicine, no less. I started to review the illnesses and conditions that were on their list and began a Pubmed search on cannabis and its role in alleviating the symptoms associated with these conditions. (Pubmed is an online database of journal articles from the National Institute of Health Library.) I searched for marijuana , and lo and behold, there were more than 34,000 articles on the subject; cannabinoids yielded more than 10,000; and endocannabinoid turned up more than 11,000!

I started reading and eventually enrolled in an online course on medical cannabis. I attended whatever conferences I could. Armed with a cheat sheet and a strong internet connection, I began my journey into the field of cannabis medicine. Over the course of the year, I evaluated approximately 3,000 patients. My California patients came from all walks of life and all ages. There were college professors, truck drivers, professional chefs, software developers, doctors, computer programmers, housewives, actors, small business owners, attorneys, students, and retired grandparents. They shared with me the reasons they used cannabis, how they used it, when they used it, and how much.

I learned about applying salves topically to ease migraine or arthritis pain and how to steep cannabis tea or milk to sip through the day to improve its pain-relieving effects. Cancer patients with inoperable tumors that had resolved with cannabis use shared their stories. Anxiety patients would carry a vape pen that they could use in case of a panic attack. Patients with sleep problems were getting the best sleep ever by taking a few drops of cannabis oil at bedtime. And one of the most important things I learned from my patients was how they used cannabis without getting stoned. They could treat their symptoms with no mental impairment. I didnt know that was possible. It was an invaluable education.

We know that there may be long-term consequences for recreational users or patients who self-medicate or who use high doses of cannabis over an extended period of time. But these were patients who were using low to moderate doses of cannabis over many years and who were motivated, functioning successfully, and benefiting from its pain-relieving, muscle-relaxing, antianxiety, and mood-stabilizing benefits. There were patients who, much to many peoples surprise, had cancers that were no longer detectable and pain patients who were no longer on opiate medication and were managing their pain with just medical cannabis. At the end of that year, I thought to myself, This plant is pretty amazing. And more people, patients, and health-care providers should know about it. It was then that I decided to call the plant by its scientific name and to drop the term marijuana , which had been used to stimulate fear and racial bigotry in an effort to make it illegal for financial and political reasons.