CBD, cannabidiol, has been making the rounds lately in the natural medicine world. Almost overnight it seems this botanical has popped onto the scene and there are lot of claims as to it health benefits. 

As Chinese medicine practitioners we are already familiar with some of the benefits of hemp seed, and as practitioners in the modern world we might like to incorporate something as useful as CBD. But how does this botanical fit into our thinking and practice? And where is the research, that is so readily touted, come from given that cannabis is still a Schedule 1 drug at the federal level?

Listen in to explore not only the modern research on CBD along with the differences between hemp and cannabis, but more importantly how to consider this medicinal from a Chinese medicine point of view. 

Head on over to the show notes page for more information about this episode and for links to the resources discussed in the interview. 

The medicine of east Asia is based on a science that does not hold itself

separate from the phenomenon that it seeks to understand our medicine

did not grow out of Petri dish experimentation, or double-blind studies.

It arose from observing nature and our part in it.

Chinese medicine evolves, not from the examination of debt structures, but

rather from living systems with their complex mutually entangled interactions.

Welcome to chia logical.

I'm Michael max, the host of this podcast that goes in depth on

issues, pertinent to practitioners and students of Chinese medicine.

Dialogue and discussion have always been elemental to Chinese medicine.

Listen into these conversations with experienced practitioners that go deep

into how this ancient medicine is alive and unfolding in the modern clinic

Welcome back to chill.

Logical.

I'm your host, Michael Maxx.

Today.

I've got Chad Connor with me.

Chad is a co-founder at pure ratios.

It's a company that does CBD oil.

And the interesting thing about this is Chad has a deep, deep

background in Chinese medicine.

You learned it here in the states, had a clinic for a time in San Diego, and then

spent 13 years in Morocco where he had a wellness center practice acupuncture.

And more than that was.

And opened up the Institute way, which is a school that taught Chinese

medicine along with some of the more traditional hands-on healing of Morocco.

So he's got a really interesting background here.

He's back in the states.

Now he's deep into the CBD scene.

We're going to get it from a TCM Chinese medicine point of view.

Chad welcome to qiological.

Well, thank you for having me.

I'm excited to be here.

I'm totally psyched to have you too.

You know, CBD has kind of popped into our attention here over the past

few years, seemingly out of nowhere.

So, can you give us a little bit of background here?

Number one, how did you get interested in working with the CBT and, and

why is it that all of the sudden we're starting to hear about this?

You know, I think what's happened is there's been a really big

mainstream educational process has happened through that.

The idea of CBD CBD is a cannabinoid.

It's part of the cannabis plant.

It's one of the cannabinoids there's about around a hundred cannabinoids in the.

And to in particular, you find in higher dosage, you find

the CBD molecule and the THC.

What happened is actually cannabis.

Medicine is births.

In-between the ratios of using these two molecules.

And of course there's the pure CBD side.

The, the pure CBD side is a side.

Uh, got a lot of traction.

One reason is it's non-psychoactive so you don't have any fear of having

side effects of psychoactivity, which you can get with the THC molecule.

And also if it comes from the hemp plant, you can actually ship it over state lines,

where if it comes from the cannabis plant.

You can't so it's, it's actually opened it up.

Yeah, it's a, it's a big, no, no.

And it's opened it up to having CBD more accepted by the mainstream

because of the fact that it's non-psychoactive and the fact that

you can get it now in health, food stores, you know, online and different.

Okay.

How did you get interested in this stuff?

And I've been interested, you know, in actually cannabis

medicine for about 10 years.

It's really a unique medicine that I cut me from Africa, north

Africa, Morocco, actually a Hashi.

It's one of the capitals of how she's production in the world.

You have to capitalism, Morocco, and you have Afghans.

So I saw a lot of my patients using it in that strain and Morocco, it's mostly

purely THC strain, but seeing the effect of that, I started to actually study

the cannabis medicine and seeing its relationship to TCM or Chinese medicine.

It really got me into.

So I started to study it, um, you know, more in the kind of the chemical

sense, what's the endocannabinoid system and how it works, and then to

connect it to Chinese medicine, which is actually the oldest recorded use of

we'll say CBD or the cannabis plant.

Yeah.

We're going to get into more of that in just a moment.

I'm curious to hear about.

The ways that your patients were using hashies or cannabis for their

own medical purposes and Morocco.

I know that that where I live, it's not legal.

And yet confidentiality, I will hear from patients saying when, when I asked

them, what's the thing that's helped this chronic pain of yours the best.

And they go confidentially.

I'm like, yeah, confidentially.

They go, I smoked.

Yeah.

You know, I got that again and again, it's, it's interesting.

I, as we know, as acupuncturist, a lot of the unbalanced in the body

comes from some sort of, uh, stress, some sort of pain, what cannabis

does or what CBD does with, we'll say cannabis medicine to use that term.

It really actually helps with several different factors.

One of the main ones I see is people that have a lot of post-traumatic stress.

Canvas is one of the best herbs I've ever seen.

It really balances the system.

And we're talking about cannabis here.

You don't, we're not talking about just the THC side.

We don't have to take THC to balance the endocannabinoid system or

help with post-traumatic stress.

For example, as you mentioned, pain is a huge one in our company, pure ratios,

the products we developed is all over.

Pain relief.

So it's a really exciting replacement for the opioid and it's part of our

Pharmacopia in Chinese medicine.

So one of the things that I'm really struck with and passionate about

talking about is the fact that.

Acupuncturists Chinese medical doctors really need to understand

this plant and bring it in there.

Pharmacopia I think it would be an incredible adjunct

to all the herbal formulas.

So it's really something.

I think that acupuncturist are the grandfather of this medicine

and not taking advantage of it.

So for me, this has got to where my heart wets, I want to get into the

molecular side of it for a moment.

You know, there's the CBD.

We know that's not psychoactive, there's the THC, it can be variously,

psychoactive, depending on the strain and you know, all kinds of other things.

And then there's the sort of interplay between the two.

And you mentioned.

That in many ways when we're looking to work with this medicine, we're

looking for balancing or somehow working with the ratios of CBD to

THC, is that, do I have that right?

You do.

Actually the cannabis medicine is really the ratios and the interesting thing, the

genetics of the plant produce the ratios.

So kind of how it works is you have a, a pure, we'll say a hemp CBD

strain, which has less than 0.3% THC.

That's the classification to consider it.

It's CBD molecule, CBD molecule, but the hemp side, for example, in our

products we have in detectable THC, this is the biggest, you know, CBD side.

And then you start going up towards a higher THC side.

So the ratios you see in the marketer or the common one is an

18 to one or a 20 to one strain.

When I say 20 to one it's 20 parts CBD, one part THC.

So you have very, very, very little THC and there's the whole theory in

cannabis, medicine of microdosing, THC.

You don't need a lot of it to create balance when you're getting higher.

Psychoactivity that's not the goal for a lot of symptoms you're using it for,

so you have this 18 to one, and then the next strain you see popular is an

eight to one or a 10 to one strain.

So you have 10 or eight parts CBD to one part THC, and then you have a four to one.

So.

Then you have a two to one and you have a one-to-one.

So the one-to-one is the highest psychoactivity.

Then you can go towards the more higher THC strains just used to pure THC.

So the sweet spot for a patient it's somewhere in between these ratios.

When you have access to the THC molecule, it doesn't mean

you need THC for therapeutics.

You can use.

Hemp CBD strain.

We have all of our product categories, for example, for the last three years

in our company, which is CBD hemp.

And we have testimony after testimony of patient after patient that is getting

relief for a variety of conditions.

But cannabis medicine is really the ratio between vital chemicals.

Is there a difference between the CBD out of hemp and the CBD out of cannabis.

There is not biochemistry in the, in the actual molecule, but where

it starts to get interesting.

And this is something that, that cannabis medicine is bringing out to the

scientific field, which acupuncturist and herbalist have known for thousands

of years, that in the plant, there's more than just a single molecule.

So you have just CBD, right?

What they found in the cannabis plants.

You have two.

Categories of therapeutic molecules.

You have the turpines turpines are just what you find in essential oils.

They're molecules that are pharmacologically active.

Like for example, the tumeric essential oil is extremely anti-inflammatory.

So, you know, you have the that you have the that's actually the terpene,

same things in the actual cannabis plant.

You have all these turpines they found about 120.

And the turpines actually is what makes the strain different towards the

cannabinoids cannabinoids or cannabinoids?

THC CBD is, is the molecule.

But when you add the turpines and the blend of turpines within that genetic

or that strain, you get the different therapeutics also of cannabis medicine.

So you have turpines like myrcene is a popular one.

Myrcene is pharmacologically active in the fact that it, it comes to.

So, if you look at it, Endeca strain is part of the cannabis plant.

They're high in myrcene.

They put you to sleep.

So if you want to sleep with a cannabis medicine, you want to make sure

you have one that's high in mercy.

So you have all these turpines and there's, there's a, quite a few of

them all mapped out of what they do.

And then you have the flagging.

So the flavonoids are what gives the color of the plant.

So if you have some strains that are purple, it's the flavonoids

that give that color change and they're high antioxidants,

they help with free radicals.

Um, and they actually help in the balance of the plants.

So those are really the three parts of, uh, of the hemp plant or the

cannabis plant that you're looking at to really see what are the third.

Got it.

There's a lot of chemistry in here.

Isn't it are, there is, there is.

We haven't gotten into the endocannabinoid system is what's actually the

system it works on, which is a very interesting system to look at.

Let's jump into that right now.

So the endocannabinoid system, the thing that really struck me is

it's a system based on home usage.

It's a system based on the core of the fundamental of Chinese

medicine, it's based on yin and yang.

So here biochemically, they found this system in the eighties, it was found,

um, in Israel, actually Israel's the most baddest research in cannabis.

The grandfathers of the cannabis medicine come from Israel and they

found the system, what they found.

It's like.

For example, the lymphatic system or the nervous system, they found a whole system

in the body that's based on balance.

It's all about homeostasis.

And what they realize is we make our own endocarditis.

There's about four big ones that we make.

We make them all mammals make them any, any mammal that has a spine

actually creates cannabinoids.

They all the mammals do, and it's balancing the systems.

So how does it balance there?

There's two different receptors here.

There's a receptor called a CB one receptor and there's a CB two receptor.

So the CB one receptors, you find it in the central nervous system, CB two,

you find in the peripheral and in.

Immune sales, the lymphatic cells actually there's endocannabinoid receptors

in almost every cell of the body.

So it's very a perfect system.

It's everywhere.

And it's all about balancing the nervous system.

This is where you see, you've seen like the, the Charlotte's web CNN interview,

where they talked about epilepsy.

You see things with autism, with multiple sclerosis because the CB

one receptors they're in the central nervous system and they have to do.

Actually turning down the synaptic collect, most of the nervous system

impulses go from central to peripheral.

The endocannabinoid system actually goes back on the synaptic cleft.

So it turns it down.

So people that have things like seizures, where you have a hyperstimulation of

your, your, you know, nerve impulses, the cannabinoids turn it down.

So it helps reduce seizures.

Same thing with multiple sclerosis, we have, you know, the, my myelin.

It turns it down.

So here you see this big central nervous system and peripheral nervous system

balancing effect with the system.

But the interesting thing is we have phytocannabinoids.

So this is where the cannabis plant or the hemp plant comes in.

It produces vital cannabinoids that we can take, like herbs, that balance the system.

And you have two different ways.

The system works.

You either got to have an excess and the endocannabinoid system or a deficiency.

And so here you get in again to yin and yang.

So we've got these receptors in our body and of course we do otherwise,

uh, cannabis wouldn't have the effects, you know, especially

psychoactively that it has.

Right.

I mean, clearly, you know, we're built to somehow interact with this stuff.

How is it?

Especially with the CBD.

That this has this sort of harmonizing effect.

I mean, would you call this a harmonizing earth?

Is that, how does it fit in our Pharmacopia I guess

is what the question is.

You know, if you look at the history, this kind of goes into the

history of the use, in my opinion.

And you kind of have to look at the grandfathers who brought this along.

And the thing that's a little bit interesting, and this is where I think

there's a lot of research to be done as acupunctures is what's happening here.

Obviously, if you look at the seed in Chinese medicine, the whole Maren, which

is actually now really the only part of the plant used because of the prohibition.

And worldwide of cannabis.

So this one is a, is a yin nourishing herbs it's cooling.

It helps, you know, move the intestines.

It's, it's more of a cooling kind of yin tonic herbs.

I look at CBD to fit pretty good on that.

It's it's, it's very cooling.

It has a yin tonic function.

For example, it's an incredible anti-inflammatory.

We, if you have any heat inflammation in the body, CBD is going to cool it down.

It's one of the.

Anti-pain herbs that I've used in the last 17 years being a practitioner, it really

turns down the inflammation in this way.

It's cooling, it's cooling, it's moving blockages, moving stagnation from pain.

Um, some of the older practitioners, they use it this way for a painful

obstruction for like B syndromes, things like this, what I've found in my practice.

Cannabis tends to work for chronic pain, better than acute pain.

It's more of a kind of taking away B syndromes.

I've found.

Not, not necessarily you, you, you, you know, you fall down and

you have this acute inflammation.

I've seen it work.

Um, but it tends to work better on chronic in my opinion.

And then you have the THC molecule, the THC is going to be more the young part.

So if you want to look at just yin and yang of the plant

CBD is going to be more yin.

You know, THC is going to be more young.

And if you just look at how it affects.

Physiologically.

It affects us in these different ways.

Once you know, THC is more psychoactive.

You have, you see spirits, you have this whole kind of young aspect

that happens in the nervous system.

No, I've heard that for CBD to be most effective.

A little pinch of THC is helpful.

Yeah.

And why is that?

So actually CBD is a very interesting cannabinoid is the

fact it does not connect to any of these CB one or CB two receptors.

THC does.

Oh, that really, it doesn't connect to the receptors.

It does not what it does.

It's very interesting.

Is it actually, it controls enzymes that break down our endocannabinoid.

So our proper cannabinoids that we make in our body.

So it turns on an enzyme called spa F a H, which is an enzyme that helps in

the breaking down of endocannabinoids.

So by you taking CBD you're, you're slowing down this function.

So our, our natural endocannabinoids in the body.

So we get more of them.

And so you get the effect on the CB one and CB two receptors through

our own internal endocannabinoids where THC and some other of these

cannabinoids they're like keys and locks.

They go right into the receptor and they turn it.

They turn it.

The stuff is so interesting.

Yeah, it is.

It's a whole medicine, you know, the thing about it is whole medicine just

developing and there's so much to do here and there is no practitioners

involved in this space that I know of.

I know just some osteopaths, very few, a lot of.

Which I don't understand necessarily why they're more

than acupuncturist and herbalist.

I don't get it.

So there's a lot to do here.

The CBD that you would ingest endogenously that comes from either.

Or cannabis that is not going in as a supplementation, so

to speak and connecting with our endocannabinoid system.

It is going through an enzymatic function that allows us to better utilize the

endogenous cannabinoids in our system.

The THC on the other hand will fit those connectors.

Now, does that mean that the THC.

Guide our, uh, our indogenous cannabinoids into this system oral, or will it

actually take the endogenous cannabinoids and somehow plug them in as well?

Yeah, yeah, no, actually it's, it's adding cannabinoids.

So meaning that it's like having more endocannabinoids, so we just have

more flooded in our system and then the CBD, the fact that it actually.

You know, helps these enzymes not break down our endo.

So it heightens the THC function.

So by using them both together, and I agree with the fact that you need,

if you have a little bit, it works better, but you don't need a lot.

That's the thing.

Even if you have the 0.3%, you're still going to have some, you don't need it.

For therapeutics.

And this is the really, the interesting thing we're finding with

the research is you need one or two milligrams of THC to get effect.

And they've also have this, this model that shows by taking more,

you actually get less effect.

So there's a really a sweet spot here, right?

Because you would be filling up those receptors with the THC

molecule, then you actually, you're gonna get the opposite effect.

You're trying.

If you have too much.

So this, there is a sweet spot and this is where I tell everyone that.

Medicine is a personalized medicine that nobody's personalizing.

They're doing it all over the counter shotgun approach.

Most people are overdosing on THC and they're not getting the effect.

And this is where we get the negative side that we hear.

I've seen a lot of acupuncturist, right.

And talk about the negative effect of cannabis.

And we need to be careful about it, but they don't realize that

most people are overdosing.

If you're using microdose.

Uh, particularly THC, you're going to find the sweet side of that patient.

And they're not, they're going to be able to function throughout

the day with our products.

It's not about psychoactivity.

For example, a peer ratio is it's a.

You know, really long lasting balancing the system.

So this is where education is necessary.

There's such a stigma with cannabis.

Yeah.

There's a huge stigma.

So you were saying that the research really where the research

came from initially was Israel?

Yes.

And still it's the leading research, is it not a schedule, one drug there?

What's the situation in Israel that's allowed for all

this, uh, scientific inquiry.

Back in the eighties, there was some chemists, one called mochila.

He was the, really the grandfather of GHD.

He's the one that figured that found out, found the molecule,

found the endocannabinoid system and they, they had federal grants

that kind of opened it up in Israel.

And since then, they're the most cutting edge.

I would say one of the most cutting edge countries, they are allowed.

They've been growing and selling cannabis in pharmacy.

There for, for many, many years, particularly to this

one person, he just opened it.

And then it became this kind of huge researchers.

There's over 25,000 research articles on cannabis.

So there's quite a few.

And at the same time, a lot of them or more anecdotical, there's

not a lot of federal money.

So the research is still very much like.

Uh, but he really opened it.

And it's a great question.

I'm not quite sure exactly how it happened.

I think he just had the idea and you just developed it in Israel, but basically the

gist, if I'm hearing this correctly is cannabis has been allowable in Israel as

a medicinal substance for a long time.

So they've had a lot of opportunity to look at this.

With studies have had a lot of opportunity to look at this

from a clinical perspective.

Absolutely.

And in California it's been legal for in one way or another for over 20 years.

So in California, also you have quite a bit that's happened.

Let's jump more into the Chinese medicine side of it.

You talked earlier that there was a bit like a yin tonic.

It has a harmonizing effect.

It's a bit of a spirit calmer.

And you know, when you were talking too about how many people are

overdosed, because they're not doing this as a personal medicine

and of course, Chinese herbal.

We're all about personal medicine.

How can we begin to think about this?

You know, from our perspective is Chinese medicine practitioners and use it

properly in our clinics to help people.

So there's kind of two parts to your question.

One is kind of how it's been used in Chinese medicine,

kind of the therapeutics.

And I like to go back to the.

For that, that answer and kind of go a little bit over the history of its use.

And so the first time we've sought use was in the divine farmers

classic of the material Medica.

This was in the first to second century Ady um, it was a book

that was written by one of the, the mythical emperors of China.

He's the first one that talked about this.

Uh, you know, about those that about 2,500 years ago, what he said it

was it's, the flavor is accurate.

It's balanced, it governs the five taxations and the seven damages.

It benefits to five viscera and this sends blood and cold cheat,

excessive consumption caused one to see ghosts and run about for France.

So this was the first time it was used.

And the interesting thing, when you look at the history of cannabis use

in Chinese medicine, as the history goes, you see that the strains have

switched and the psychoactivity part of the plant slowly got bred out.

Which is very interesting to see.

And you also see the CBD qualities slowly kind of bred out.

And that has to do with a lot of factors, but in the very beginning

of the grandfather, particularly in the divine farmers classic, this is

really a classic, we'll say cannabis reaction today when I look at the plant.

So that was the first one.

He also said, it's toxic is you gotta be careful it's toxic and

you also, it can break accumulate.

Relieve impediments and disperse pus.

So here we're seeing really pain-relieving is part of it.

Right.

And anti-inflammatory correct.

And then it's interesting, then you can kind of go into the third

century Ady and you have Watteau Watteau was an interesting character.

He's the one, the first ones that did operate.

Um, and part of the way he did operations, when he did his anesthesia

that cut open, the body is a used cannabis as the anesthesia.

So you see that back then it was also used for this pain-relieving, um, you

know, he would make an elixir out of it.

You know, I think through alcohol and cannabis to do a real, what you say

today is tinctures of cannabis medicine.

So he did that back in the third century, ABD.

So this is another part, and then you keeps going and you see again, and

again, how it was used throughout the centuries, starting in around the sixth

century, then it started to slowly go towards the nine psychoactivity part.

So, um, but you see a lot of that.

We see these it's clearing impediments, uh, you know, it's

helping with obstruction, it's, you know, helping seeing go.

So here you have this kind of central nervous system part, epilepsy, autism.

So you're kind of seeing actually how our grandfathers talk about.

With what they're finding today and the scientific research, you know, when you

say over the years they've gone toward the non-psychoactive aspect, right?

What does that mean?

It means, for example, today, obviously in China, they grow a lot

of hemp, but there's no THC in any of this habit, it's all bred out.

They don't even talk about the flour often.

You know, there's three different parts of the plant that they talked back

back in the classic, there was muffled.

There was MF law and Mo bow.

And one of them was the seed.

You had the flower and you had the leaves and the roots.

So here today, we don't even see this differentiation.

You can't even get the flower because it's, you know, a schedule

one narcotic here in the states and in China also, it's, it's illegal.

So you cannot use it.

So it's really got taken out.

But now here in the.

It's coming back in with the CBD, which we can sell as a practitioner in our clinics.

And then knowing cannabis medicine, a lot of our patients today are going to

be coming, using it, hearing about it.

We need to be able to help them guide through, uh, the products

and, you know, the medicine itself.

Okay.

So as herbalists.

Uh, two questions.

One, is this something that we can add into a formulation that

we're already giving somebody?

And then the other piece is how do we know that we're dosing it correctly?

That sounds like such a big piece.

And yeah.

So why don't we start with, with, how do you know you're dosing it correctly

and then let's talk about how you might add it in as, as something to go

with with another formula that your.

Sure.

So, first of all, when we've looked at all, I looked at all the research,

talked to a lot of cannabis practitioner people they're using them, the medicine.

And what I find is it's all about titration.

Meaning we start with a low dose and we go up until we find the sweet spot.

Like we would do for, with an herbal formula, with vitamins, with any kind of

product we're asking patients to take.

The standard thing we look for CBD is I usually say.

Patients with 10 milligrams, three times.

So, this is really the starting point if you're looking at CBD.

So if you're adding it into your herbal formula, you want to make

sure that there's at least 10 milligrams starting three times a day.

So 30 milligrams per day is the starting point.

And then you go up, you can go all the way up to four to 500 milligrams a day.

I've seen for people with really strong.

Conditions, neurological conditions like epilepsy, for example, or autism.

So it can go up.

The good thing about CBD is, and actually THC, there's never been

an overdose ever of any cannabis medicine know THC or CBD product.

It's impossible to overdose.

You're not going to kill somebody with it.

You cannot kill it, but CBD, you know, there's not a lot of

side effects, so it hurt people.

Get some drowsiness, things like this, but there's very little

meaning you can go pretty high.

Um, but I like to start people low.

For one reason.

CVDs is still extremely expensive.

It's a, it's a more pricey herb to buy.

So, um, I find people the 10 milligram dose three times a day,

it does balance a lot of people.

So I would start there to add it in the only problem is an herbalist.

If you're using raw herbs, it's very difficult to find raw CBD floods.

Unless you're in the dispensary state.

Um, there, you can have your patient go get it and mix it in themselves,

but you can't just go online and find bulk hemp flour for the most part.

It's difficult to find.

So the best way to do it is through tinctures.

Um, and then add it into a tincture formula or they have their herbal

decoction and they just add that in, in a t-shirt or a pill form just to supplement.

Well, I suspect with the tinctures, you're getting a very.

Clear dose.

Whereas if you're throwing us some flowers who know, who knows what

you're actually cutting, it makes sense to dose it as a tincture.

What are some of the side effects of overdosing?

I mean, I know you're not going to kill somebody.

I know it's, it's, you know, not dangerous, but you were talking

about how, you know, there's conversations on chat groups.

There's people saying there's there's issues and, and overdosing is an issue.

What do we need to look for to know if we're dosing?

Well, it, that kind of goes into the question of THC to CBD.

Obviously, THC is a very different animal than CBD.

Um, if we just start with CBD the, the overdosing, you're going to see some

drowsiness, possibly some loose stool.

Um, but I've rarely, rarely seen somebody have any side effects for CBD.

It's a CBD is a very calming herbs.

When you look at the therapeutics of CBD, I look at it in

actually three, four different.

One of the ways that I use it is for an anti-inflammatory anti-pain.

So it's a really amazing pain relieving nerve.

The second thing is it's an immune tonic.

One thing that's really interesting is if you add CBD with Ekin Neisha,

for example, one interesting thing is produces phytocannabinoids, which not

a lot of people know much smaller than the cannabis plant, but it produces it.

It's part of the reason.

Explanation works for immune boosting.

So if you add herbs like that, you can heighten this, you

know, the immune boosting side.

It's also very good for any for nervous system conditions.

So things like epilepsy.

Um, you know, you have, you know, autism, multiple sclerosis

and the list goes on and on.

And the fourth real big therapeutics that we find is it's incredible.

Anti-anxiety or it's a Caminor meaning that people take

it before public speaking.

Um, you know, that you can take it instead of taking different, you

know, pharmaceuticals, you know, anti-anxiety pharmaceuticals,

it just works great for calming.

So those other four big categories, you can look at symptom.

Well, Um, how are you going to use it when you get the THC?

It's a whole different animal here.

This is where I was talking about.

It's more of a young herb.

The worst thing can happen to psychosis.

Um, this is not a nice thing to happen.

This is people that have taken edible.

You know, in, dispensary's not knowing what they're doing, because

the problem with the edible rat with THC is when you put it through your

gut, you have what they call liver metabolism and liver metabolism.

You change THC molecule to a different th CMR molecule.

And it creates a half-life meaning it doubles the potency.

So when you.

THC.

You gotta be careful because you're going to get the doubling effect.

And this is where the psychosis can happen.

If you smoking people, don't usually get it.

It's when you eat it.

And the problem with the inevitable is there's this delay of liver metabolism.

It could be between one and two hours of onset.

So people could they go, I don't feel anything and take another piece

of candy and then they're gone.

Yep.

We've all heard stories about that.

Hey, these brownies are pretty good, but I'm not feeling anything.

Yeah, exactly.

So also with THC, you have, you know, sweating, you're going to

have, you know, um, dry mouth.

You're going to have red eyes, dry eyes.

Um, you can have, like they say, in Chinese medicine seen

spirits, this is the psychosis.

Um, so you have to be careful with THC.

And I really recommend to practitioners.

If they're getting into it, start reading.

With small amounts, let's say two milligrams.

Um, and then you go up, you don't need a lot.

So it's really the THC side of the equation that we need to use caution

with the CBD is, is there's more bandwidth there's, it's gentler.

You've got, it's hard to hurt people with it.

Very hard.

Yeah.

Personally, I haven't had that, so many people with adverse side

effects, but this is what I've talked to practitioners they've seen.

And in the research they talk about, but overall it's an extremely safe place.

We're thinking about this plant.

Now I'm a Chinese medicine point of view.

There's a young aspect to it.

That's the THC, there's the inner aspect.

That's the CBD.

And of course our whole goal with treating people most of the time is

finding that balance of yin and yang.

So we can really take that perspective and apply that to how

we're using these, these particular molecules and plants, substance.

Correct.

You know what?

And one thing that's very interesting to kind of continue on that thread is

something called endocannabinoid pathway.

So this is, um, a lot of the scientists that are looking into this and showing

it and proving it and the biochemical routes, but in Chinese medicine, with

the Chinese medical theory and language, we can see this all day long, way better

and more subtly than, than doctors.

So there's two different theories.

There's one called an endocannabinoid deficiency.

This is the one you see the most, and these conditions they're associated with.

Neuro-transmitter deficient.

So you have things like, um, Alzheimer's disease is a, is what happens

from endocannabinoid deficiency.

You have Parkinson's syndromes, you have serotonin, uh, you

know, problems in depression.

You have migraines, you have fibromyalgia and you have

irritable bowel syndrome and PSTD.

Those are the main ones you see under the, we'll say medical conditions

under endocannabinoid deficiency.

Um, and then you have endocannabinoid excess here.

You see things like OB.

There's a big one.

People that can not lose weight can be an excess and endocannabinoid system.

And also different types of diabetes is also a big one you see around this, but

this is just the beginning of research.

And here, this is where we have lines that fill in as herbalist in Chinese medicine

to really up this and create a whole.

In my opinion, we can create a whole aspect of Chinese medicine, a whole

we'll say a treatment theory or a whole, how are we going to treat

through the cannabis plant, adding it, using it, diagnosing with it and have

a very successful practice because there's a lot of patients, a lot of

people looking at how to do this.

Yeah.

You know, this is one of the things that is so.

Great about Chinese medicine.

As we have this first screen that we often will apply to something which is,

is that excess or deficient, because if you can answer that question correctly,

you're more likely to go down the route.

That's going to help somebody.

If you're looking at an excess condition, we know we don't

want to treat it as defense.

And so being able to apply that to the cannabinoid world sounds really helpful.

Are there any articles written or more information that our listeners

could get their hands on that?

Talk about this from the Chinese medicine point of view, there is one of the

best ones I've seen, um, is an article.

It's actually a research article that came out in 2017.

And it's an article in the fronters and pharmacology it's called cannabis in

Chinese medicine are some traditional indications of references in ancient

literature related to cannabinoids.

This is one of the best it's 11 page article.

And it goes through every single text and all the ancient texts showing

how it was used, and it shows how the grandfathers used it because today

there is really no information in any of the Chinese medical texts that got.

So, if you look back at this article in particular, they're really explaining,

you know, these really th these are the, these are our masters that, that, you

know, these are, this is our lineage.

This is where it came from.

And they used it as one of the Supreme herbs, meaning that, you know,

there's, you know what, over 400 5500 herbs in our Pharmacopia and about

15 of their Supreme herbs, the most powerful, for example, gin sings.

One of them will, cannabis is one of them also, meaning it's a

Royal, you know, Supreme herbs.

We got.

You know, carefully in what we got to do is we've got to put other herbs

around it to harmonize the body so we can, you know, soften the side effects.

For example, if THC, but also give more of a direction, add more pain

inflammation, you know, relieving more central nervous system, more immune.

So here we have this ability to add to it like we do in Chinese medicine, which

for me is such a beautiful aspect of it.

Why are we not doing it?

We got it.

Just got.

Because of the prohibition and that's a whole nother talk about the prohibition.

That's a whole interesting talk to have, but, but, so this is,

this is bringing it back in.

I think his acupuncture is, this is the best article to start with

because they really show what are are the grandfathers talked about?

And then we need to fill in the blanks with our own, you

know, practice today, right?

Is this article in the public domain?

It is.

Yes.

It's, uh, you know, it absolutely.

As you can get, get it online on Google, then, then I'll make sure that we've got

a link to it over on the show notes page.

So if you're listening to this, you want to get a, get your own

copy of that and read through it, just pop over to qiological.com

and it'll be waiting for you.

I'm going to talk for a little bit about manufacturing and I guess

quality manufacturing practices.

One really important question.

Well, yeah, I mean, you know, one of the big concerns we have cause

we do Chinese herbs, you know, we're often thinking about, well,

where do these herbs come from?

And are they pesticide free and are there heavy metals and how do we.

That we're actually getting what we think we're getting, you know, there's

so much CBD out on the market right now.

It's like a gold rush.

So how do we know.

That we're getting a good, pure product to answer that question.

We need to go and look at actually the plant itself.

And as you might not know, cannabis is one of the best or hemp hemp in cannabis.

This is a whole nother question, but it's the same, same plant, but what it does.

Is the cannabis plant.

It goes in and it cleans the earth.

It's one of the plants they use.

For example, in Chernobyl there's hemp grows all around it, cleaning the soil.

It's one of the best plants that actually leaches all the toxins and

heavy metals out of the soil to clean.

It's a cleaner plant, meaning that you have to be very careful in what you buy,

because it has this quality it's even more susceptible to heavy metals and pesticides

than a lot of, lot of other plants.

It's one of the best cleaning plants that's mother nature has made.

So you really need to look at the quality of this plant, please, guys.

And the way to do it is every viable company should have.

Uh, COA or a certificate of analysis with a cannabinoid profile.

So telling you how many cannabinoids, I'm a terpene profile to know the

turpines and once you get into terpene medicine, it's incredible.

You need to have a heavy metal, a residual solvent test and a pesticide test.

So those are really the five you look for.

So you have to make sure that that.

Has the lab test matched to the batch number on the product you bought?

Most of the companies that all the legit companies I find they have it on their

website, or they have a little code.

You can look up and get the lab result.

For example, in our company, everything's linked with a code part of the packaging

because it's extremely, extremely important because it's such a, you know,

obviously people like to use pesticides.

So you really have to be careful.

Um, the regulation here in California, which is interesting, is it pretty

much has to be organic in cannabis plant has this most strictest ones,

but you want to make sure it has the certificate of analysis on the product.

If it doesn't don't buy it.

Okay.

So every batch.

That is manufactured is tested and will have a certificate of analysis.

And if it doesn't, then it's not a legit company, there is a quite

a few companies that don't provide it to be quite honest with you.

So you just need to make sure that it does.

Yeah.

So that's the key.

So when you, when you get the product go online, see with them and

yeah, that would be the way to go.

That's.

Helpful information to have.

Yes.

And also the extraction method is an interesting question too.

How is it extracted?

Tell us about that.

So there there's three different, main ways extraction happens

of, um, for CBD or THC.

The cleanest one is sealed.

Um, this is what we do in our company.

We have a CO2 machine, so this is a new CO2 to extracted.

Cannabinoids are oil based.

They're not water-based, they're not water soluble.

They're oil soluble molecules.

So CO2 is a great extraction method.

It's the cleanest.

The next one you see, that's it, it can be a little bit less clean.

You got to be a little more careful, but usually they get it out as an ethanol.

So ethanol tends to be a good one for people.

Because as a manufacturer, you get more throughput, you get more volume

out of the plant with ethanol, so you can get more money for it.

Um, but it's a little bit, they have to make sure that you

get the residual solvents off.

That's why it's important to look at the residual solvent test is part of,

you know, the COA, um, the third way, which is probably the least clean, but.

Some of the best product is butane.

It butanes done right.

It could be extremely clean because butane boils off in a pretty low temperature.

So if you, if you're doing your secondary refinement of your, of your

plant, you usually can burn it off.

The good thing about butane is it keeps, it keeps the turpines in and the.

In the best way, compared to CO2 and ethanol, meaning butane, you're

going to get a lot more of those.

Turpines out in a lot more of those flavonoids, those other parts of the plant

that you want to use for the therapeutics.

So that's beauty, but there's also people that do butane in their

garage had exploded their garage.

We've seen a lot of stories of that.

So in a reputable company, butane could work, but the cleanest method is CO2.

In, in my opinion, if a company is using butane, what is the thing that you'd

want to check for on that certificate of.

So you'd want to check for any residual solvents.

So they would, they look for ethanol.

They look for butane as residuals and other ones also, I think there's

about 12 of them they look for.

So you've got to do your homework on this.

You gotta do your research.

You do.

Okay.

Great.

Chad, is there anything else that our listeners should know about

using CBD in their practice?

Yeah, I think it's one of the most frequently asked questions from

practitioners is the legality, the issues of legality for CBD and THC.

So we'll start with CBD.

So kind of what happened with CBD is they made this differentiation between

the cannabis plant and the hemp plant.

So there's two different differentiations.

Legally.

The first one is.

There was a, there was a lawsuit that happened, um, several years ago.

And it was actually Dr.

Bronner's soap that really pushed this lawsuit to the foreign market.

If people know of that company, famous doctor.

Yes.

And he was very controversial.

Um, what he did is he used CBD in his soap, see from the hemp.

And this became a whole controversy.

And what happened through that case, uh, in the federal courts is they

said that you can use CBD if it comes from a European source that has less

than 0.3% THC, and it's extracted from the stems, seeds and stocks.

So.

So, this is what they came up with.

And so what happened is you'd have to use a ton of seeds and stocks

and, you know, cause there's very low in CBD to make any viable CBD oil.

And so this is kind of the loss.

So you see a lot of people importing the CBD from a foreign source under this law.

Um, this is where CBD came from originally, you know, for the last

five, five years, it came in massive.

And then what happened in the Obama administration?

They passed something called the farmer.

And so what is the farm bill?

The farm bill of 2013?

What it does is, is the, the crazy thing is, is hemp has been illegal to grow

in the states for many, many years.

So all of our hemp, which is a huge industrial use it for industrial uses

all comes from foreign sources and they just said, we cannot grow it in

the United States because they were worried this is going, gonna have

too much THC, the prohibition of THC.

So they threw out hemp with it also.

So in 2013 in the farm.

They, um, that helped with Obama administration, they passed federal legal

grows of hemp kind of on the research side, but they also allowed you to grow

it for the CBD side and to extract it.

So this is where you see the, you know, the U S grown CBD and hemp come from.

So you have states like Kentucky have a big federal program.

So the state kind of allotted it.

And through the farm bill, then you were allowed to ship it over state.

Colorado is a big one where you can grow it and extract it.

Um, you're seeing grows pop up.

Now in California, you have Oregon Washington grows.

So now, um, hemp for the medical purposes is becoming a huge,

you know, kind of industry.

It's actually the last numbers I saw as it's growing 50% per year, um,

where the THC cannabis dispensary side is growing about 33% per year.

And this is where you hear this kind of green rush model.

Um, but because of these two laws, you're allowed.

To, you know, produce products and ship them in the 50 states.

For example, in our product line, we have online store, you can buy our products.

We ship them to all 50 states.

We even have clients overseas and most, all of the European

countries CBD is legal in Japan.

It's legal.

Um, so for example, we sell in the UK.

We sell in Switzerland, we sell in France, our products, so we can

also ship it to other countries.

The CBD hemp side for these two laws are legal.

Yep.

It can go pretty much go anywhere.

Yeah, you can pretty much go anywhere.

There's there's still some controversy.

Um, the da back last December decided to say that CBD is a schedule one

narcotic, which created a whole apparel industry because they

don't have the right to reclassify.

A plant or a molecule without going to the Senate or the Congress, they didn't do it.

They just put it on their website.

So, so there's still this whole federal prohibition thing going on.

That's a whole nother conversation, um, that you can find a lot information

on internet, but it's incredible to look at what the federal government

has done with this poor plant.

That's incredibly powerful.

So THC there's about 42 states now, which is quite a.

That have some sort of medical cannabis law about over 30,

about 32 of those have THC laws.

The other ones have some CBD laws from the, you know, the cannabis plant.

So it's, it's depends on the state, but it's, it's everywhere now.

Uh, it depends on your state for THC.

Obviously there states for example, here in California, it's going for adult use

or the recreational side January 1st.

You know, there's obviously Colorado been three years on that, on that

track, Washington, Oregon, Alaska, and in Nevada, or all recreationally

legal and more states every, every year are coming online.

So it's, it's a fast moving target, obviously with the administration.

We have, that's a whole another conversation.

Yeah.

Um, yeah, open that one up, but that's, that's kind of where we're at with.

You and probably other suppliers as well.

You've got to the CBD from hemp line.

Do you all, I suspect you also have like a CBD from cannabis along

with various ratios of the THC.

Yes.

Yes.

Yes.

And we sell that.

We sell the THC ratios here in Califia.

Um, also, we sell them in Arizona.

We have a company selling them there also Colorado, the beginning of next year.

Um, we're also in Puerto Rico and in Oregon.

Okay.

So for those who are in a state where THC is not, not a problem, then you can

start dialing in these other components.

Great.

Yeah.

And, and can I add one more thing on going off on that spin of pure ratios?

I just wanted to put a little bit, yeah.

Idea of, of one of the products we have that I think would be

very interesting for accuracy.

And the actually it's a patch.

Um, and what we're finding it and made as an acupuncturist.

This is extremely interesting.

There was a research study that came out a couple of years ago that showed that

by putting an acupuncture needle into the body, what you're stimulating actually

is our proper endocannabinoid system.

And they're putting a link of this is why acupuncture can create homeostasis

is because it's stimulating the very system in the body that creates all this.

So it's, you know, it's a theory coming online.

That's extremely interesting is acupuncture.

So one of our products is a, is a patch.

And the interesting thing about this patch is topically canabinoids are

extremely, extremely good for pain.

They, they just, they help with pain and inflammation, arthritis,

things that are just incredible.

We have so many testimonials, but this patch we have is a patch.

That's interesting in the fact that how long ago.

It actually lasts up to 96 hours and it's really a pain relieving patch.

So you put it on your low back pain and you have about four days relief.

But the interesting thing is looking at this, this research showing how cannabis

stimulates the endocannabinoid system by putting the patch on an acupuncture.

You're gaining stimulation of that point for up to four days.

And let me give you an example.

I did a little kind of pilot study in my clinic where we treated, um, got

treated six women with menstrual cramps.

They have to take the opioids every month at terrible some

have to go to the emergency room.

So I, I got six women involved in this study.

Um, and what we did is three days before their cycle, I put a patch on a liver.

You know, to stimulate to liver.

So I put it on right there on that point for three days before the cycle, when

the cycle started, I added a patch to the uterus down around, you know, ran

three, um, and out of the six women, five of them had tremendous relief and

only one of them didn't have much relief.

I was very.

Uh, happily surprised that by using acupuncture knowledge in

placements of products like patches, we can get heightened relief

and really help our patients.

And then they can go home with it.

It's like leaving a press pack, but here we have the cannabinoid stimulating.

The endocannabinoid system went through the acupuncture point.

So it's a very interesting model to start to look into that.

Then I'm excited to do more research around.

That sounds really great.

You mentioned something about acupuncture.

Actually activating the endocannabinoid system.

Is this something in the public domain?

Is there research or there's a research article on it?

We can, we can put that as part of this taco.

We'd love for people to read it.

There's a research article done a couple of years ago where they showed

that the acupuncture needle actually stimulates the endocannabinoid system and

academies are part of the runner's high.

You know, you're talking about.

Um, but actually endocannabinoids are part of that runners, how you have this

effect is kind of, uh, you know, this, uh, you're working with the nervous system.

So it's very, pain-relieving that way I suspect we're going to hear a whole lot

more about this, uh, as the research.

Clinical experience in years unfold.

Chad, thank you so much for your time today.

Yeah, so I was happy to be here.

I hope, hope it was helpful and there's so much more to go over.

So if anybody has any questions, feel free to reach out.

Yeah.

I'll have all your contact information on the show notes page and you can also,

you know, if you've got comments about this, you can pop over to the Facebook

page for qiological leave a comment there.

Yeah.

Hopefully keep this conversation.

Yeah, well, great.

Thank you everyone.