Medical Marijuana: Which Type Is Right for You?

Hello. I'm Dr. David Jayne, and I'd like to give you some information today about medical marijuana. So, when you get your medical marijuana card, it's actually a license, it's not a prescription, and you have the ability to go to whatever dispensary you would like to visit. There are, I think, over 2,000 dispensaries that have been approved. I don't think all of those are open yet, but there's quite a few. So once you get your license, you're wondering, what do I do next. Well, the next step is to go to the dispensaries. Now, when you walk in a dispensary, you're going to be somewhat overwhelmed because there's going to be 30 or 40 different strains of marijuana. The strains of marijuana all differ basically in the amount of the Indica strain versus Sativa strain and the ratio in between. And a lot of them are hybrid plants, where they've taken certain Sativa plants and crossbred them with the Indica plants to get a blending and different percentages of each. Indica has the general effects of making you feel sleepy and tired. And so that really does work best for someone who's having problems sleeping, or a painful condition that's preventing them from getting to sleep. Sativa, on the other hand, is more activating and less sedating, probably going to be useful also in different classes of people. And sometimes each individual is going to react a little differently. So you don't know going in whether you think you're going to need to Sativa or Indica but sometimes a blend of both. But you have to figure all this out. That's the good and the bad of the medical marijuana licenses. You have the ability to figure out what works for you, which may not work for anyone else and that's okay. But if you do trial and error, but you start at a very low dose, and gradually work the dose up. And generally, if you're going to be using it to help sleep at night, start more with the Indica weighted and then gradually move towards to Sativa if you need to. That's probably the best way to start. But there's multiple ways that you can use and consume the marijuana. You can smoke the flower, which is, you know, the connotation of smoking pot like used to happen in the old days and there's multiple ways to do that. Or you can use a vape pen and use the vape device. And that is less likely to cause trauma to your lungs. But both smoking the flower and using the vape pens have the potential to cause long-term problems with your lungs. And so the jury's still out on the long-term potential detriment of doing that. But those are viable options and those work very quickly. Drops on your tongue eliminates the exposure to your lungs and enables you to actually adjust your dose drop by drop by drop. So you're going to be less likely to overshoot and consume too much and suffer the side effects, nausea, vomiting, agitation, racing heart. Some of those symptoms are really not too much fun. So start low and gradually work your dosing up as you tolerate it and trying to get the desired effect that you want. THC is, you know, the altering substance very high in marijuana. CBD oil, in contrast, has less than 0.3%. So the CBD oil is perfectly acceptable to use two or three times during the day and still maintain your normal activities. In the evening or your off time, if you work a different shift, when you use the CBD oil with the THC, you get what's called an entourage effect. An entourage effect magnifies the effect of the CBD and THC over either one by itself. And that can be very useful for in the evenings, particularly if you have a painful condition that's preventing you from sleeping. Or if you're having problems with insomnia and problems getting to sleep and staying asleep, it can be very helpful. The resource that you may want to look at before you make a trip to the dispensary is a website called Weedmaps. And when you look at the website, they have lots of information over different strains of marijuana and marijuana in general, as well as dispensaries and where they are. And you can contact the dispensaries if you're looking for a particular strain of marijuana and find out if they have it available before you go make the trip. I recommend visiting several dispensaries and talking with the people at each one before you make a purchase just to make sure that you're getting the best price that you can, and potentially starting with something that's going to get you closer to achieving your goals. And the people in most of these dispensaries that I've been in are generally pretty good sources of information and can help kind of guide you somewhat through the process of what route to take for consuming the marijuana and what strains and or what percentage of Indica and Sativa might work best for you. If you're interested in learning more about medical marijuana, or you would like to go ahead and schedule a time for your medical marijuana evaluation, please give us a call at 405-348-8850 . I look forward to meeting you. Thank you.