1) Tincture (THC/CBD) ,
2) RAW “AMBER” OIL ,
3) Ointment CBD + THC,
4) Spray (THC/CBD) ,
5) Sweet Almond oil (THC/CBD)
OUR Smokeless Medicine: One of the major criticisms of cannabis as medicine is the idea that it must be smoked.
While smoked cannabis is not nearly as harmful as smoked tobacco it is important to recognize that there are both benefits and risks to smoking as a route of administration.
The primary risk is respiratory inflammation including bronchitis. Much of the cannabis currently available is rather crude and produces a hot smoke that can irritate delicate lung tissues and aggravate existing respiratory problems. These problems alone are enough for the majority of physicians to refrain from recommending cannabis as medicine. Arguments detailing the expectorant, anti respiratory pathogen effect, and anti neoplasm effects of cannabis are insufficient for physicians and many patients to feel comfortable with smoking medicine.
The benefit from smoking as a route of administration is instant action and the ability of the patient to self titrate the dose needed for relief.
Here we describe how patients can achieve similar quick acting relief and the ability to control dose without smoking. It is important that the medical community understand that whole cannabis products are available today that provide significant relief without smoking.
There are two major and one minor method of achieving the aims of quick action and dose control.1) The first is the use of cannabis tinctures or alcohol-based spray.
Tinctures are essentially alcohol extractions of whole cannabis (usually the flowers and trim leaves).
Our unique technology of extraction allows us to make tinctures that contain all of the essential cannabinoids instead of only few.
Some of the cannabinoids such as cannibidiol (CBD) actually reduce the psychoactive effects of THC while increasing the overall efficacy of the preparation.
The best way to use tinctures or spray is sublingually (under the tongue). Titration or dose control is easily achieved by the number of drops a patient places under the tongue where the medicine is rapidly absorbed into the arterial system and is quickly transported to the brain and body. All a patient need do with tincture is use a few drops, wait for the desired medical effects, and either use more or stop as the situation indicates. They are best stored in dark bottles in the refrigerator.
Since our tinctures preparation involves use of 198-proof alcohol, meaning 99% by volume grain alcohol, there is little worry of bacterial or other biological contamination.
Absorption by the arterial blood supply under the tongue is completed in seconds. One trick is to not swallow (!) the dose as, if swallowed, absorption will be in the GI tract.
Our raw cannabis “oil” tinctures or sprays are an excellent way to maintain consistent cannabinoid levels. These levels can be therapeutic without being psychotropic!2) The second (and newer) major method of non smoking cannabis delivery are vaporizers pens. All vaporizers pens essentially use a controlled heating element that raises the temperature of whole cannabis oil, just to the point where the cannabinoids vaporize. There is no combustion with vaporization and no chemical conversion from heat. There is no hot smoke to irritate the lungs and no annoying combustion byproducts.
Vaporizing is far more efficient in delivering medicine than smoking so in the long run “vaping” is far cheaper than smoking as well as much healthier. Just as with smoking, a patient inhales a dose of vapor and waits one or two minutes to evaluate the effect. Patients can use only that amount that is necessary for the relief of symptoms.
An added benefit of vaporizing is that there is little cannabis odor.“The third method of delivering smokeless medicine is through food products. We don’t recommend it; because of the downside of oral delivery is the same as with any pills like. Absorption in the GI tract is slow and variable. It is much more difficult to achieve quick.”
Some patients have never smoked (either cannabis or cigarettes) and don’t have to in order to obtain the full benefit of cannabis medicine. Other patients maintain basic cannabinoid levels with tincture or food products and then only smoke when they experience acute distress from their illness. These patients could just as easily vaporize for these acute episodes.
OUR PRODUCTS:
1) Tincture (THC/CBD)
Applications: sublingually (under the tongue).
ContentsSativa CBD50%Indica THC50%
DetailsMedical Conditions:Back Pain, Cancer, Cramps, Headaches, Inflammation, Joint Pain, Migraine, Multiple Sclerosis, Muscle Pain, Muscle Spasms, Neck Pain, Seizures; A.D.D, A.D.H.D, Anxiety, Appetite, Arthritis, Back Pain, Body Pain, Cramps, Depression, Fibromyalgia, Headaches, Insomnia, Joint Pain, Migraine, Muscle Pain, Nausea, Neck Pain, PMS/PMDD, RLS
2) RAW “AMBER” OIL
Applications: Topical, Vaporization
ContentsSativa CBD50%Indica THC50%
DetailsMedical Conditions:Skin Cancers; Burns; Any skin wounds; Sleep; Back Pain, Cramps, Headaches, Inflammation, Joint Pain, Migraine, Multiple Sclerosis, Muscle Pain, Muscle Spasms, Neck Pain, Seizures; Anxiety /depression
3) Ointment CBD + THC
Applications: Topically
ContentsIndica /Sativa Hybrid50%-50%
DetailsMedical Conditions:All skin conditions: Skin wounds, Back Pain, Cramps, Joint Inflammation, Joint Pain, Muscle Pain, Muscle Spasms, Neck Pain.
4) Spray (THC/CBD)
Applications: sublingually (under the tongue).
ContentsSativa CBD50%Indica THC50%
DetailsMedical Conditions:Back Pain, Cancer, Cramps, Headaches, Inflammation, Joint Pain, Migraine, Multiple Sclerosis, Muscle Pain, Muscle Spasms, Neck Pain, Seizures; A.D.D, A.D.H.D, Anxiety, Appetite, Arthritis, Back Pain, Body Pain, Cramps, Depression, Fibromyalgia, Headaches, Insomnia, Joint Pain, Migraine, Muscle Pain, Nausea, Neck Pain, PMS/PMDD, RLS; Anxiety /depression
5) Sweet Almond oil (THC/CBD)
Applications: Topical
ContentsSativa CBD50%Indica THC50%
DetailsMedical Conditions:All skin conditions.
Between 1840 and 1900, European and American medical journals published more than 100 articles on the therapeutic use of the drug known then as Cannabis indica (or Indian hemp) and now as marihuana. It was recommended as an appetite stimulant, muscle relaxant, analgesic, hypnotic, and anticonvulsant. As late as 1913 Sir William Osler recommended it as the most satisfactory remedy for migraine.
Today the 5000 year medical history of cannabis has been almost forgotten. Its use declined in the early 20th century because the potency of preparations was variable, responses to oral ingestion were erratic, and alternatives became available — injectable opiates and, later, synthetic drugs such as aspirin and barbiturates. In the United States, the final blow was struck by the Marihuana Tax Act of 1937. Designed to prevent nonmedical use, this law made cannabis so difficult to obtain for medical purposes that it was removed from the pharmacopeia. It is now confined to Schedule I under the Controlled Substances Act as a drug that has a high potential for abuse, lacks an accepted medical use, and is unsafe for use under medical supervision.
In 1972 the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws petitioned the Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs, later renamed the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), to transfer marihuana to Schedule II so that it could be legally prescribed. As the proceedings continued, other parties joined, including the Physicians Association for AIDS (Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome) Care. It was only in 1986, after many years of legal maneuvering, that the DEA acceded to the demand for the public hearings required by law. During the hearings, which lasted 2 years, many patients and physicians testified and thousands of pages of documentation were introduced. In 1988 the DEA’s own administrative law judge, Francis L. Young, declared that marihuana in its natural form fulfilled the legal requirement of currently accepted medical use in treatment in the United States. He added that it was “one of the safest therapeutically active substances known to man.”[1] His order that the marihuana plant be transferred to Schedule II was overruled, not by any medical authority, but by the DEA itself, which issued a final rejection of all pleas for reclassification in March 1992.
Meanwhile, a few patients have been able to obtain marihuana legally for therapeutic purposes. Since 1978, legislation permitting patients with certain disorders to use marihuana with a physician’s approval has been enacted in 36 states.
Although federal regulations and procedures made the laws difficult to implement, 10 states eventually established formal marihuana research programs to seek Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approval for Investigational New Drug (IND) applications. These programs were later abandoned, mainly because the bureaucratic burden on physicians and patients became intolerable.
Growing demand also forced the FDA to institute an Individual Treatment IND (commonly referred to as a Compassionate IND) for the use of physicians whose patients needed marihuana because no other drug would produce the same therapeutic effect. The application process was made enormously complicated, and most physicians did not want to become involved, especially since many believed there was some stigma attached to prescribing cannabis. Between 1976 and 1988 the government reluctantly awarded about a half dozen Compassionate INDs for the use of marihuana. In 1989 the FDA was deluged with new applications from people with AIDS, and the number granted rose to 34 within a year. In June 1991, the Public Health Service announced that the program would be suspended because it undercut the administration’s opposition to the use of illegal drugs. After that no new Compassionate INDs were granted, and the program was discontinued in March 1992. Eight patients are still receiving marihuana under the original program; for everyone else it is officially a forbidden medicine.
And yet physicians and patients in increasing numbers continue to relearn through personal experience the lessons of the 19th century. Many people know that marihuana is now being used illegally for the nausea and vomiting induced by chemotherapy. Some know that it lowers intraocular pressure in glaucoma. Patients have found it useful as an anticonvulsant, as a muscle relaxant in spastic disorders, and as an appetite stimulant in the wasting syndrome of human immunodeficiency virus infection. It is also being used to relieve phantom limb pain, menstrual cramps, and other types of chronic pain, including (as Osler might have predicted) migraine.2 Polls and voter referenda have repeatedly indicated that the vast majority of Americans think marihuana should be medically available
Dr. Sean McAllister’s research at the Pacific Medical Center in San Francisco indicates that CBD reduces breast cancer cell proliferation, invasion and metastasis by inhibiting Id-1 gene expression. Best results were obtained when CBD was administered in combination with THC.
Several other studies underscore the therapeutic advantages for combining CBD and THC. CBD has been shown to be a potent anti-oxidant that mitigates the negative effects of oxygen free radicals. These highly reactive free radical chemicals are produced when animals use oxygen to burn food for fuel.
A great deal of data suggests that many problems associated with aging stem from the inability of an organism to protect itself against free-radical-induced inflammation and oxidative stress. This provides a fertile ground for the development of neurodegenerative and other age-related illnesses.
Cardiovascular, autoimmune, neurological disorders, cancers, and the aging process itself are all thought to have free radicals as a causative agent. Further, they are implicated in the formation of protein amyloid plaques — plaques that can attack neural synapses and prevent normal chemical and electrical signaling.
By binding up these free radicals, antioxidants can minimize the plaque formation cycle associated with the progression of Alzheimer’s disease. Accordingly, several studies have shown that CBD blocks Alzheimer’s plaque formation by a cannabinoid-receptor-independent mechanism.
The antioxidant properties of CBD exceed the antioxidant potency of either vitamin C or E. When combined with THC, the antioxidant properties of CBD grow even stronger. Once again, whole-plant Cannabis therapeutics has been shown to be far greater than the sum of the herb’s individual medicinal components.
It was scientifically proven that when both THC and CBD are present and in it’s raw (acid) form, which means it was not “activated” through heat or decarboxylation, it does not become psychoactive! But the therapeutic and healing effect of its “un-activated” components becomes more prolonged and more effective.
ABOUT CANNABIDIOL:
Cannabidiol —CBD— is a compound in Cannabis that has medical effects but does not make people feel “stoned” and actually counters some of the effects of THC. After decades in which only high-THC Cannabis was available, CBD-rich strains are now being grown by and for medical users.
The reduced psychoactivity of CBD-rich Cannabis may make it an appealing treatment option for patients seeking anti-inflammatory, anti-pain, anti-anxiety and/or anti-spasm effects without disconcerting euphoria or lethargy.
Scientific and clinical studies indicate that CBD could be effective in easing symptoms of a wide range of difficult-to-control conditions, including: rheumatoid arthritis, diabetes, alcoholism, PTSD, epilepsy, antibiotic-resistant infections and neurological disorders. CBD has demonstrated neuroprotective effects, and its anti-cancer potential is currently being explored at several academic research centers in the U.S. and other countries.
CBD: How it Works
Martin A. Lee pulls together what medical researchers have learned about how CBD in the following article which will appear, with accompanying graphics, in the Summer 2011 O’Shaughnessy’s.
Cannabidiol (CBD), a non-psychoactive component of the Cannabis plant, has generated significant interest among scientists and physicians in recent years — but how it exerts its therapeutic impact on a molecular level is still being sorted out.
CBD and FAAH CBD has little binding affinity to either the CB1 or CB2 cannabinoid receptors. Instead, CBD indirectly stimulates endogenous cannabinoid signaling by suppressing the enzyme fatty acid amide hydroxylase (“FAAH”) — the enzyme that breaks down anandamide.
Whereas the cannabinoid molecules found in Cannabis are considered “exogenous ligands” to the CB receptor family, anandamide is an “endogenous” cannabinoid ligand –meaning it binds to one or more cannabinoid receptors and is found naturally inside the body. Anandamide favors the CB1 receptor, which — in mammals — is concentrated in the brain and central nervous system. Because FAAH is responsible for breaking down anandamide, less FAAH means more anandamide remains present in the body for a longer duration. More anandamide means greater CB1 activation.
By inhibiting the enzyme that metabolizes and destroys anandamide, CBD enhances the body’s innate protective endocannabinoid response. At the same time, CBD powerfully opposes the action of THC at the CB1 receptor, thereby muting the psychoactive effects of THC. CBD also stimulates the release of 2-AG, another endocannabinoid that activates both CB1 and CB2 receptors — CB2 receptors are predominant in the peripheral nervous system and the immune system.
The Vanilloid Receptor
Whereas CBD does not bind to either of the two known cannabinoid receptors with particular affinity, it has been shown to directly interact with other, so-called “G-protein-coupled,” receptors to confer its medicinal effect. At very least, CBD binds to the TRPV-1 receptor, which is known to mediate pain perception, inflammation and body temperature.
TRPV is the technical abbreviation for “transient receptor potential cation channel subfamily V.” Scientists also refer to it as the “vanilloid receptor,” named after the flavorful vanilla bean. Capsaicin — the pungent compound in hot chili peppers — is a well known activator of the TRVP-1 receptor. Vanilla contains eugenol, an essential oil that has antiseptic and analgesic properties, that also helps to unclog blood vessels. Historically, the vanilla bean has been used as a folk cure for headaches.
CBD is a TRPV-1 “agonist” or stimulant. This is likely one of the reasons why CBD-rich Cannabis may be a particularly effective treatment for neuropathic pain.
The Adenosine Receptor
CBD may exert its anti-anxiety effect by activating adenosine receptors. Adenosine receptors play significant roles in cardiovascular function, regulating myocardial oxygen consumption and coronary blood flow. The adenosine (A2A) receptor has broad anti-inflammatory effects throughout the body.
Adenosine receptors also play a significant role in the brain. They down-regulate the release of other neurotransmitters such as dopamine and glutamate.
The Serotonin Receptor
Jose AlexandreCrippa and his colleagues at the University of San Paulo in Brazil and at the King’s College in London have conducted pioneering research into CBD and the neural correlates of anxiety.
At high concentrations, CBD directly activates the 5-HT1A (hydroxytryptamine) serotonin receptor, thereby conferring an anti-depressant effect. This receptor is implicated in a range of biological and neurological processes, including, but not necessarily limited to, anxiety, addiction, appetite, sleep, pain perception, nausea and vomiting.
5-HT1A is a member of the family of 5-HT receptors, which are activated by the neurotransmitter serotonin. Found in both the central and peripheral nervous systems, 5-HT receptors trigger various intracellular cascades of chemical messages to produce either an excitatory or inhibitory response, depending on the chemical context of the message.
CBD triggers an inhibitory response that slows down 5-HT1A signaling. In comparison, LSD, mescaline, magic mushrooms, and several other hallucinogenic drugs activate a different type of 5-HT receptor that produces an excitatory response.
GPR55 Whereas cannabidiol activates the TRPV-1 vanilloid receptor and 5-HT1A serotonin receptor, is also functions as an antagonist that blocks, or deactivates, another G protein-coupled receptor known as GPR55.
- GPR55 has been dubbed an “orphan receptor” because scientists are still not sure if it belongs to a larger family of receptors. Some researchers postulate that GPR55 may actually be a third cannabinoid receptor type.
- GPR55 is widely expressed in the brain, especially in the cerebellum. It is involved in modulating blood pressure and bone density.
- GPR55 promotes osteoclast cell function, which facilitates bone reabsorption. Overactive GPR55 receptor signaling is associated with osteoporosis.
- GPR55, when activated, also promotes cancer cell proliferation, according to 2010 study by researchers at the Chinese Academy of Sciences in Shanghai. This receptor is expressed in various types of cancer.
CBD is a GPR55 antagonist, as University of Aberdeen scientist Ruth Ross disclosed at the 2010 conference of the International Cannabinoid Research Society in Lund, Sweden. By blocking GPR55 signaling, CBD might act to decrease both bone reabsorption and cancer cell proliferation. This is one of many molecular pathways through which CBD exerts an anti-cancer effect.