Decades of propaganda in the U.S. have convinced many people that marijuana is unsafe to use. The TRUTH, according to 20,000+ medical studies is quite the opposite. Here’s just a few myths we’ll bust open in this course:

 

• Cannabis is a dangerous drug!

  • When Scientific Reports asked a group of scientists and medical professionals to rank all the known recreational drugs by degree of danger, alcohol was ranked number 1, while cannabis was listed at the very bottom, as the least toxic. In fact, alcohol is 114x more toxic than cannabis, and people use it every day!  In addition, because there are no cannabinoid receptors in the heart or lungs, it’s impossible to overdose on cannabis. This explains why, over decades of use, there have been ZERO deaths associated with cannabis. Compare that to over 44,000 deaths per year in the U.S. alone from prescribed opioid use, and you begin to get a picture of the relative safety of cannabis.

 

• I don’t want to become an addict!

  • Decades of research have shown NO evidence that cannabis is addictive, or that is leads to other drug use. In fact, since cannabis has become increasingly legal, findings indicate a 15-20% drop in opioid use. This is why cannabis is now being called an “exit drug,” or “terminus drug,” rather than a gateway drug, as it has become evident that cannabis is helping people reduce or eliminate the need for dangerous opioids that take tens of thousands of lives each year.

 

• But I can’t work while using pot.

  • CBD, one of the therapeutic constituents of cannabis, causes no alteration of consciousness and has many of the same medicinal properties of THC, the compound in cannabis that gets you "high." In addition, clinical trials have shown that an amount of THC as low as 2.5% provides the necessary therapeutic effect for most symptoms/conditions. While using CBD, with or without a small amount of THC, you can work, study, and even drive!

 

• Won’t cannabis interfere with chemo or other treatment?

  • NO. Cannabis has not been found to interfere with cancer treatment and is recommended by many Integrative Oncologists. In fact, in Canada and Europe, medications derived from THC, such as dronabinol and nabilone, are now authorized for cancer patients for treatment-related symptoms.

 

• But it’s illegal!!  

  • Not much! As of the 2020 elections, medical cannabis is now legal in 36 states, with CBD being legal in 7 more. That means 43 states allow some kind of medical use of cannabis! There are only seven states remaining who have not legalized cannabis in any form and, with surveys showing 90% of Americans in favor of medical cannabis, those states won’t be able to hold out much longer.