Dr. Benjamin Caplan discusses the benefits of cannabis in medicine and how it can be used as an alternative to traditional medications. He emphasizes the importance of education and empowerment for patients to make informed decisions about their health. Dr. Caplan also highlights the potential of cannabis in treating various health conditions, including mental health issues and women's health concerns. He addresses the challenges of the current legal status of cannabis and advocates for better treatment options for patients. Overall, the conversation aims to provide knowledge and resources for individuals interested in exploring cannabis as a therapeutic option. Go to https://cedclinic.com/ to learn more about Dr. Caplan's work and to purchase a copy of his book, "The doctor-approved Cannabis Handbook"
Dr. Benjamin Caplan discusses the benefits of cannabis in medicine and how it can be used as an alternative to traditional medications. He emphasizes the importance of education and empowerment for patients to make informed decisions about their health. Dr. Caplan also highlights the potential of cannabis in treating various health conditions, including mental health issues and women's health concerns. He addresses the challenges of the current legal status of cannabis and advocates for better treatment options for patients. Overall, the conversation aims to provide knowledge and resources for individuals interested in exploring cannabis as a therapeutic option. Go to https://cedclinic.com/ to learn more about Dr. Caplan's work and to purchase a copy of his book, "The doctor-approved Cannabis Handbook"
Brandy (00:01.064)
Hi, this is Brandy Schantz and you're listening to Living Chronic. Today I'm speaking with Dr. Benjamin Caplan. He recently released the book, the doctor approved cannabis handbook. He's the founder and CEO, uh, or chief medical officer, excuse me, of Seed Foundation, Seed Clinic and EO Care. Um, really excited for today because I'm really enjoying your books. So welcome to Living Chronic, Dr. Caplan.
Dr Caplan (00:26.734)
Thanks for having me. I'm really excited to be here.
Brandy (00:30.036)
So as I said, I've really enjoyed your book quite a bit. I love some of this new way of thinking. I'm like most people, I've lived a life where I go to the doctor, I get prescribed some sort of a prescription drug for whatever ails me. And of course up until my own difficulties with prescription drugs, I've never questioned it or thought maybe we could be doing this in a different way. But of course you say, yes, we can.
and cannabis should be a part of our repertoire. So tell me a little bit about how much you've learned about cannabis and how it can be used in the medical system.
Dr Caplan (01:07.97)
Sure. Yeah, no, thank you. I'm really excited about being able to communicate with more people because this is a source of therapy and management that most people don't know about. I mean, these days, most of us have a friend somewhere connected who's tried cannabis or, you know, know someone else who's tried it. It's becoming very popular, but people don't know what to do with it. You know, what does that mean? Does it mean I have to smoke something? Does it mean I have to be high? The idea of what cannabis is, how you shop for it.
And then how do you make it useful for whatever is bothering you are complicated questions for most people. Um, I think people, um, are tired of treatments that don't work. You know, I think everybody is hungry for a new way of thinking about medicine and about their own bodies. Um, and people want a new way of, of acting. Um, most people I know are tired of the same pill routine. When that doesn't work, they're on a new pill routine or they're seeing another specialist who is going to give more pills.
Brandy (02:07.316)
Yeah.
Dr Caplan (02:07.458)
And that's not a life most people want. It's certainly not satisfying. It doesn't feel good to be part of that system. So it's sort of carrying this baggage from one doctor to another, one system to another. And I was sick of it too. I was seeing patients as a primary care doctor. I'm a board certified family doctor. I was seeing patients in my clinic who didn't feel like the treatments were helping them. That wasn't what worked for them. They wanted something different, something better.
Brandy (02:14.501)
Mm-hmm.
Dr Caplan (02:36.082)
and I didn't know what to offer them. And I did a crazy thing, which was actually listen to some of my other patients who were telling me, doc, cannabis is working for me. You know, my headaches, my back pain, my leg pain, whatever it was, you know, there's a group of patients I saw who found cannabis helpful. So I did what I was taught to do. I learned about cannabis and I was just blown away. I saw so many papers.
Brandy (02:45.738)
Right?
Dr Caplan (03:01.55)
that were published already, but you know, I was always taught there's not enough information about cannabis. There isn't enough publication. It's just not true. You know, the medical establishment is just not carrying on the right torch when it comes to cannabis. Um, so I, I learned a lot. I saw a lot of patients and then I wrote this book, the doctor approved cannabis handbook to share that information with the whole world.
Brandy (03:24.068)
And I really appreciate that because I, like many other people, you know, especially if you're of a certain age, we talked about this earlier. You know, you, you hear cannabis, you think the gateway drug, you think, you know, your brain on drugs from the eighties or, you know, some of us, you just think about that shady guy that would meet you behind the communications building and college. And it's all very shady and illegal and something's wrong here.
So it's very difficult for many of us to get through our heads that maybe this is not the evil that we were told for all these years. So how do you overcome that when you're talking to somebody who's in their, you know, late 40s, 50s and 60s saying, well, cannabis, that's, you know, that's the bad stuff.
Dr Caplan (04:11.466)
Right. Well, education, I think is the cure. Um, because I was ignorant. Most people out there are ignorant. Most medical professionals are ignorant. Um, and that's a, it's not trying to be harsh. That's just a fact. And if I tell people, do you know that the endocannabinoid system is the largest communication system in the body? Most people look at me like, what? I don't even know what that is. Do you mean there's cannabis leaves in my, in my blood? No, we're all born with a system of receptors.
Brandy (04:14.574)
Mm-hmm.
Brandy (04:23.653)
Right.
Dr Caplan (04:41.47)
and binding agents that is and mirrors the endocannabinoid system in plants, which is called phytocannabinoid systems. So we have this synergy in the plant animal kingdom and these compounds in this plant cannabis work in our bodies because we have locks to match those keys. Once you explain to people that we are born with an endocannabinoid system, I think they start listening and start saying, well,
Brandy (04:50.673)
Okay.
Brandy (04:55.857)
Mm-hmm.
Brandy (05:03.273)
Mm-hmm.
Dr Caplan (05:09.63)
Okay, I didn't know that. That's interesting. Maybe that explains why I'm not sleeping well. Maybe that explains why I'm anxious or stressed all the time or I'm in pain all the time. And you know what? If doctors aren't plugged into that system, hey, maybe there's something for me to learn about my body here.
Brandy (05:28.236)
I mean, I'm pretty much sold. I, you know, I'm very skeptical of anything that's come through the FDA at this point. So I've done a lot of reading, you know, nothing even close to, you know, your expertise, but, you know.
This is good stuff. This is helping people. And it's doing so in a manner that doesn't get a black box warning, which is really important. I keep saying, I just want something that'll help me that's not going to give me lupus, please. And that's what this does. But of course, it's very difficult because you're just given what you're supposed to take supposedly in life. You go to the doctor. I have Crohn's disease. The doctor says, you will take Humira. And I said, OK.
And we're just not used to figuring out what is going to be best for us. So how do we decide what's right for us? What product should we be taking? Where do you go? How do I start all these things?
Dr Caplan (06:29.61)
Right. So skepticism is important. I want people to be skeptical. I actually want people to be the masters of their own fate. I mean, how crazy is that? The doctor shouldn't be in charge of your life. You should be in charge of your own decisions and choices and healing. But the only way that happens is if you're knowledgeable. So where do you go for resources? I think you have to go with a skeptical mindset because these days, anybody with a computer can put anything out there. You know, there are YouTube channels that just
Brandy (06:46.877)
Yes.
Dr Caplan (06:56.322)
pass on what someone else published and they don't care if it's true or not. There's no fact checking. Um, so I have, I have a lot of, a lot of good suggestions for where to learn. Um, the first is existing channels of science. So PubMed is a publicly available research database, but it's pretty thick for most readers. Most readers don't like reading scientific jargon. They don't understand it and they don't know how it applies to them. Um, so I took out as many of the cannabis related.
publications as I could find and buy, and I put them into a publicly available Google Drive. So we all basically know how to use Google tools. So if you go over to this Google Drive, which is through my website, cedclinic.com, you can for totally free find whatever interests you about cannabis. If you're curious about cancer, you're curious about headaches or seizures or stress or sleep, you can look up the terms that you are familiar with and surface where those pop up.
Brandy (07:34.793)
Mm-hmm.
Dr Caplan (07:56.006)
in medical journals about cannabis. That's what my library is for. But again, this search is going to surface papers that are pretty thick to read. So what I've done to try to help people who don't want the jargon is I've built an AI chatbot librarian. So this is a chat interface where you can communicate with the entire seed library. Hey, I have a question about my finger pain. It's been going on for a long time. My finger looks a little bit crooked.
Brandy (08:00.275)
Mm-hmm.
Dr Caplan (08:24.258)
My doctors are telling me I might need injections, I might need other medicines. Is there any therapy for cannabis? And my finger. And you'll find that chat bot can translate, oh look, there are 15 papers that talk about this. Would you like me to translate them and what the take home message is?
Brandy (08:39.384)
Mm.
That's very helpful because most of us, you know, we just don't want to take science. We just didn't do it. You know, I don't know. You know, I have a lot of judgment for young people sometimes these days. And I look back and remember myself at 20 and think, no, you know, I didn't want to take that science class. I wanted to go to the football game on Saturday. That was too hard, right? So it's really important, you know, but it helps us to better understand what's happening in our lives instead of just trusting one professional
to take control of our bodies, our decision making, and our outcomes, really.
Dr Caplan (09:15.838)
Yeah, exactly. We live in this age of knowledge expansion and we can't expect our clinicians to know everything and a lot of people I see are frustrated that their doctor or nurse practitioner or PA doesn't know about cannabis. But you know what? They spent a lot of time studying something different and I spent my career now studying cannabis. This is what I do. This is why I want to be in this position of educating people and I still don't tell people to trust me. Actually, this book that I wrote...
Brandy (09:29.769)
Right.
Yes.
Dr Caplan (09:44.606)
Every single claim in the book is backed with a peer-reviewed reference right in the back. It's not trust the doctor. I want people to check my facts. I want people to look it up themselves.
Brandy (09:55.924)
I appreciate that. I've learned a lot over the last, I guess, 10 years really since my Crohn's diagnosis and then a whole lot over the last four years since I started having the reaction. And I found that the best doctors I go see are the ones that say, I'm going to give you some information, go home, read about it, call me, tell me what you want to do. And those are the doctors I always stick with.
Dr Caplan (10:23.03)
You know, there's a research paper from the early 2010s by a doctor named Naftali. And she looked at Crohn's and she did a search and said, what information is there about inflammatory bowel disease, which is where Crohn's falls? What information is there about that in cannabis? And not very much actually, zero at the time. So she started doing some pretty rigorous research. And she found in one of her observational studies.
Brandy (10:33.216)
Thank you.
Dr Caplan (10:53.166)
that after eight weeks, a huge number of the patients that she was looking at that had cannabis were in clinical remission. She compared that against placebo, so this wasn't a willy-nilly study. She looked at what people were doing if they didn't have cannabis therapies, and they were just at baseline. There's something about cannabis that was helping these inflammatory bowel disease patients in a really powerful way. And if you go to gastroenterologists, they don't know this. I mean, just yesterday,
Brandy (11:11.742)
right.
Brandy (11:21.606)
Yeah.
Dr Caplan (11:23.186)
I was communicating with a gastroenterologist in Wisconsin who reached out to me about my book and he's like, wait a minute, I've heard patients say that they like this. I don't know anything about it. Is there any truth to this? And I said, I pointed to chapter nine in my book, the gastro chapter, and I said, look, read, it's all there, but nobody's taught us. We don't have, doctors generally don't have the time to be able to see more than one specialty at a time. So they're not following up patients who are using cannabis.
They're not able to learn. That's what the book is for, to try to help people see another reality.
Brandy (11:55.772)
You're right. And it's really incumbent upon us as patients to do that. Because as you just said, without going down the rabbit hole of, you know, all that's wrong in the medical industry in the United States today, um, you know, doctors, we don't have enough. There's a shortage and they're overworked and it's a for-profit business, which, you know, I'm not, it's not for against, I'm not taking a stand, but.
I can tell you that when I go to the VA and see my doctor there, he'll block off 45 minutes to really just sit down and talk to me and figure out what's happening, what's going on. He's a government employee versus when I go to somebody on the outside, they've got to churn and burn and get me in and out of there in 10 minutes. And by the way, they also have so many procedures they need to complete this month. So they really don't have time for your problem that they haven't heard anything about yet. So it's really good for us to do this.
Dr Caplan (12:43.582)
No, it's... Right, it's a sad reality.
Brandy (12:48.67)
It's a very sad reality.
Dr Caplan (12:51.31)
So I misspoke, actually chapter nine is my chapter on the ailments of aging of neurodegenerative diseases like dementia and Alzheimer's and Parkinson's. It's chapter 12, that's the gastro chapter. I don't even know my own book's chapters.
Brandy (13:04.372)
You know, I didn't catch it either. I've made it up through the GI portion And I'm like sure I'm on chapter 9. Sounds good Must be right
Dr Caplan (13:12.922)
Yeah, I mean, there's a lot out there that people are curious to know about. And how does this cannabis system that we're all born with impact our health and our wellness? You know, a lot of people are exercising, you know, like you used to be a triathlete. What cannabis was never part of your routine, I'm sure of it. But I'm seeing professional athletes who find cannabis helpful for bumps and bruises on the ball field, who help them deal with the emotional stressors from the PTSD.
Brandy (13:26.975)
Yeah.
No, not enough.
Brandy (13:37.256)
Wow.
Dr Caplan (13:40.426)
of challenges on whatever their sport is. It's a major part of athletics and we're starting to see the NCAA open their eyes to cannabis and we're also starting to see the military realizing that if they cancel cannabis, if they eliminate the ability to hire because of cannabis, their recruiting goes way down. This is a silly phenomenon. If it's helping people function, if it's helping people treat themselves to be better people.
Brandy (14:00.668)
Yeah.
Dr Caplan (14:09.777)
Why are we punishing them for it?
Brandy (14:12.388)
No, you're right. I mean, that's an episode in and of itself right there. But not just recruitment, which numbers are already down, and eliminating people who've used cannabis really is not helping the military. But a subject that I think most Americans can agree on, how can we better the lives of our veterans, especially our combat veterans.
and there's been so much research on both cannabis and the you know microdosing those magic mushrooms the stuff that's all the stuff supposed to be very bad for you it does a great job of helping with ptsd with helping with chronic pain anxiety depression all these things that you know we go through after um you know serving in the military you know
serving in a combat zone, being exposed to the burn pits, all these things that we know veterans have experienced. Cannabis can help and better than what they're giving us.
Dr Caplan (15:16.814)
You know, if I may, I'd love to read a little bit about PTSD from the book. Um, if we take PTSD as an example, this is a quote, PTSD is a syndrome where one experiences an onslaught of memory. You're reliving a particular experience. When you're triggered by sensory input, you might think that if you were more present, you would experience more pain, but in essence, it's the reverse. In this case, the desired feature of cannabis is its forgetfulness. You know, a lot of people.
Brandy (15:21.617)
LUL
Brandy (15:44.508)
Right.
Dr Caplan (15:45.686)
Talk about cannabis as, oh, it makes people dumber, it makes people forgetful, it makes people silly. But what if you're someone who's suffering constantly, if you're in pain all the time, if you're depressed all the time, if you're stressed out all the time, being able to take a mini vacation whenever you want to is really healthy, not just for your own sanity, but for the stress levels, the cortisol levels in your blood to take a break, to insert some kind of separation between a life which is in pain constantly and a life which can breathe.
Brandy (16:05.501)
Right.
Brandy (16:19.165)
That's a great benefit. And to anybody who thinks, you know, smoking pot makes you dumb, I don't think so. Look at Snoop Dogg. He's gotta be the best businessman in America. Am I wrong? No. He's everywhere.
Dr Caplan (16:25.974)
Hmm.
Dr Caplan (16:30.29)
Yeah, he's quite smart these days. I mean, I think, yeah, yeah. I'll tell you, I happen to see pediatric patients too at my clinic. We see, I think the most pediatric patients of any doctor in cannabis in Massachusetts. And one of the things that I'm seeing is students, young students, adolescents mostly, do better on their studying. They do better on their exams. They're able to focus. Many students are not dropping out because of their emotional challenges.
that cannabis is much more a savior than it is anything horrible.
Brandy (17:03.608)
Right and I think the first question most people are going to ask are you know what are the side effects? You know we have commercials here in the United States you know you get a fun jingle for the drug and then about two minutes of non-stop side effects and there's you know again for so many of us especially if you're a little bit older you know you just think this must be bad I mean what are the side effects? Again can't be stupid, Snoop Dogg's killed it.
Dr Caplan (17:28.758)
So side effects, side effects in cannabis depend a little bit on the, on the organ we're talking about. Um, you know, if we're talking about your brain, we just mentioned some forgetfulness, but in some cases that's an ad, that's an advantage, not a disadvantage. Um, for some people they feel like, believe it or not, that euphoria, the high that people experience is a, is a bad thing. They don't want to experience alteration. They want to be sober through life. You know, for some people that's a benefit. They're sick of feeling in pain and sad. They want to feel a little bit elevated.
Brandy (17:35.366)
Right.
Dr Caplan (17:58.914)
Other organs, eyes can get dry. That's why we see some people with bloodshot appearance in movies. In the mouth, your salivary glands can dry up. That's why you get cotton mouth or dry mouth. The heart, sometimes people can feel a racing heart. There are receptors in your heart which can bind to THC and elevate the heart rate temporarily when someone's consuming. But the interesting thing about that is, in a long time, a long perspective,
Brandy (18:06.016)
Great.
Dr Caplan (18:25.942)
That elevated heart rate leads to a lower blood pressure that people get used to a heart rate which is elevated in the presence of cannabis and we see blood pressure go down. We see heart rates go down over time. So there's a short term window and a long term window that are sometimes different.
Brandy (18:36.793)
Oh my gosh.
Brandy (18:41.688)
Interesting. It's almost like running but without the work.
Dr Caplan (18:44.966)
Yeah, yeah, not quite a replacement of running, but there are, believe it or not, there are elements of cannabis that bind to our pancreas and help us produce more insulin. Yes, there's a compound called THCV, which is hard to come by because it's been unfortunately bred out over the generations of cannabis breeders in our history in favor of THC, but this THCV binds to
Brandy (18:52.704)
I'm ready. Oh, what a- I'm ready.
Brandy (19:05.468)
Hmm. Right.
Dr Caplan (19:11.07)
receptors on our pancreas that help us produce more insulin and help be more efficient about sugar management.
Brandy (19:18.172)
Well, that's certainly a great benefit to that. And is this something that can be produced at a larger, you know, at a larger scale?
Dr Caplan (19:28.574)
Yeah, yeah, it's there. I mean, I talk about it in the book. And one of the reasons I put this book out there was to say, look, I'm reading about this. Nobody else seems to be talking about it at a big scale. Let's have Penguin Random House distribute this across international waters. Let's get people reading this and learning about it and encouraging local researchers, encouraging their doctors to start reading about it.
Brandy (19:42.727)
Right.
Brandy (19:51.76)
Yeah, I mean, because the first thing I think, again, we know what my purpose in life is at this point, you know, try to know more about those prescription drugs. Don't just take it. It's not, there's no magic pill. Stop, stop, stop. And so of course I've been getting on all the ozimbic people, like, you know, know that it's, don't think the size zero is worth it. We don't know what it can do. But of course the real purpose behind ozimbic isn't to help you become a size zero. It's to help.
people who are suffering from diabetes or who have medical ailments where they cannot lose weight. Would something like this THCV help them without the serious effects of, you know, name the drug that has a good jingle on TV?
Dr Caplan (20:37.282)
Right, so to be totally realistic, the answer is yes, but we don't have an industry that supports it yet, which is mind blowing to me because clearly something that could help people control their appetite would be attractive to an obese population in America, not to mention everywhere else. But yeah, the plant does produce this, the science is there to support it, but the industry is...
Brandy (20:43.04)
Mm-hmm. Right.
Dr Caplan (21:02.334)
in a challenging place. You know, the consuming public thinks that cannabis is all about THC, the high, or CBD, the not high molecule, but there's a lot more to it. So even though the science is there, very few people are reading about the science, very few businesses are willing to take a risk on producing products that might support this. But I'll tell you, there are organizations that are pursuing it and I'm trying to help advise them. That's one of the things that I do is try to help people learn whether they're regular people or businesses.
Brandy (21:21.523)
Right.
Brandy (21:26.377)
Great.
Bye.
Brandy (21:32.508)
Right. Well, you know, I think I've heard recently, and correct me if I'm wrong, because I haven't followed this as closely as I probably should, but there is actually some movement on the Hill to get this taken off the schedule one drug list.
Dr Caplan (21:49.566)
Yes, it's an area of excitement and a lot of rumor these days. The president has been trying to learn more about it. He encouraged the Health and Human Services Department to give a recommendation to the DEA about rescheduling to see whether this still belongs on the Controlled Substances Act. As it is right now, the listing of cannabis is that it's no medical value at all.
Brandy (21:53.723)
Right.
Brandy (22:08.095)
Thank you.
Dr Caplan (22:18.05)
that it's up there with heroin and medicines of abuse that have no benefit, which of course is silly because the government has a patent for one of those benefits that cannabis provides. But this process of changing the laws is very slow. The Congress has tried to make changes as time goes on. It's been through the court system. It's a very difficult thing to change because it's so entrenched in our culture, this ignorance and lack of understanding about cannabis.
Brandy (22:35.358)
Yes.
Dr Caplan (22:48.242)
is so entrenched that major change will have to happen to move the needle.
Brandy (22:54.016)
Well, hopefully we can get some more movement on that because, you know, I think most patients want another option other than just, you know, the opioid that we know is not the best or the black box warning, biologic or, you know, pretty much fill in the blank pill that, you know, we're easily given. I think we'd all like another option just for our own health and our own benefit. And
Dr Caplan (23:18.646)
There was a bicameral commission between the House and the Senate that solicited input from the cannabis industry. And believe it or not, I sent them the Dr. Prouf Cannabis Handbook. I said, look, read it. That's what I've been doing, trying to share with the world. Just read. It's right there.
Brandy (23:28.484)
I'll do you.
Brandy (23:33.628)
Yeah, well thank you for that. I think to bring it back home a little bit to veterans, I think that's a really great group to really get out and talk to about this because I think many people think we're all these straight-laced, never done anything kind of people. And really for many of us, especially those of us who serve during operation and during freedom and before.
plenty, there's still plenty of Vietnam vets alive and looking for better treatments. Same with Gulf War and other time periods. Um, you know, we want something better than just that black box warning drug that they want to give us because it's just not enough. Um, I don't, I don't want just a few $1000 a month for my life. Thank you. US Army. I really just want my life back as best as we can get it. Um, so, you know,
Dr Caplan (24:19.627)
Yeah.
Dr Caplan (24:28.918)
Yeah.
Brandy (24:31.048)
Talking about it and educating people, I think it's very important, especially for veterans who could use these alternate treatments.
Dr Caplan (24:38.506)
I completely agree. I think we owe them a debt of gratitude and honor. I think we can't celebrate a country which is so amazing and powerful without tipping our hats to the veterans that make it possible. And I think at the same time, we shouldn't be kicking them in the behind once they're done with their service. We have to be treating them for the physical and emotional mental health ailments they've suffered on our account.
And it's shameful, I think, when we have a natural substance, which doesn't have meaningful side effects that actually can provide quality of life improvements right off the bat and even without guidance. And then look, there are systems already where you can find guidance. There are doctors out there like me. There are nurse practitioners and PAs who are trying to help. But we need to connect them with the VA's, with the...
voting public to make sure that this is an issue that people care about and really respect.
Brandy (25:33.533)
Yes.
Yes, because one of the things I read about in your book that for me was just it hit home was just having some treatment that's available could be available to me that is not immunocompromising And I think the majority of the united states of america, you know When I said to them immunocompromising in 19 or 19 2000. It could be 1999 in my head. Who knows? But in 2019 Um, they were like, you know what?
What does this mean? But of course over the pandemic, everybody got to know at least something about what it means to be immunocompromised. And now that people are familiar, I like to say, okay, well, now that we're through the big COVID piece, let's talk about how this really just affects my life every single day that nobody else sees. And it's the winters most often. My husband catches something, he's fine 24 to 48 hours later.
Me, I'm still on the couch two weeks later, miserable, unable to move, still got the low grade fever. Thanks for handing that off to me, honey. It is a quality of life issue. I just wanna be able to make it through a winter without having a two month viral infection.
Dr Caplan (26:49.59)
Yeah, I mean, where, where anti-inflammatories come to the table, you know, we are very limited with stuff we get over the counter and stuff that we can prescribe from a physician's office. Cannabinoids are some of the strongest anti-inflammatories we have access to. Not a lot of people understand this, but you know, autoimmune disorders, diabetes, Graves disease, vitiligo, there are many more where the body attacks itself. Lupus, you mentioned earlier.
Brandy (27:01.172)
Thank you.
Brandy (27:05.52)
Mm.
Yeah.
Brandy (27:16.936)
Yes.
Dr Caplan (27:19.03)
endocannabinoids actually serve to help treat that. That that's an overactive immune system. That's an immune system which is out of balance. Let's look to the system which is all about balance. That's the endocannabinoid system we're talking about. And we have the tools now to be able to adjust. And it's not all easy. It's not a one pill and you're fine. It's a process as medicine should be. It's understanding the products out there.
Brandy (27:25.268)
Mm-hmm.
Brandy (27:42.088)
Right.
Yes.
Dr Caplan (27:46.474)
It's understanding how to shop for those products. It's understanding yourself and how to match the products to your needs as your needs change over time. You know, this is a dance. Just like exercise is an adjustment over time. You're not going to need the same exercises one day from another. Two people aren't going to necessarily want the same benefits out of exercise. The same is true of cannabis and getting to know the variability, the options, getting to know what would be good for you.
Brandy (27:54.377)
Yes.
Brandy (28:08.704)
Mm-hmm.
Dr Caplan (28:15.37)
is a whole education. And that's what I'm here to do, is try to help teach the people who are curious.
Brandy (28:22.828)
And you know, you're talking about the autoimmune, of course, those things just pile on one after another. Every time I think I've got all the diseases identified, next thing I know I've got a new one cropping up. And a lot of them are skin issues. And my latest and greatest and most favorite problem, which is not my favorite, are migraines. And you know, I read in your book, there's benefits for skin issues and migraines in there as well.
Dr Caplan (28:49.63)
Yeah, yeah, I mean, the entire chapter eight is all about headaches. And some people suffer headaches because of things that are easy to control, like dehydration or too much caffeine or caffeine withdrawal, but some headaches are more structural, that's about inflammation, or it's about vasospasm where arteries are contracting and compressing, and cannabinoids can help, guess what, with balance. So depending on what the concern is, there's probably a cannabis
Brandy (28:58.932)
Great.
Brandy (29:05.186)
Mm-hmm.
Brandy (29:12.672)
Mm-hmm.
Dr Caplan (29:17.066)
system or formulation, which can help. But it depends on you learning what is out there near you, what's accessible, what's legal, and then what your body might help. I find helpful. You know, not a lot of people know. I see hundreds of patients with headaches where topicals is their solution. They're literally rubbing a lotion on their temples or on their neck or on their shoulders, and that's giving them enough cannabis, not where they're feeling high or altered, but it's calming down the headache.
Brandy (29:26.548)
Mm-hmm. Right.
Brandy (29:38.997)
Thank you.
Brandy (29:44.798)
Right.
Dr Caplan (29:46.466)
Simple. I mean, imagine all you have to do is put a lotion on instead of taking pills every day.
Brandy (29:52.072)
That's that. I mean, again, for me, I'm you know, I'm very on brand. I don't deviate. You know, that that's a great option to have people who don't, you know, always looking at what am I ingesting? What am I taking? You know, what drug do you think is, you know, better for me right now? Let me take a look and see if I really want to go down that road. You know, a topical.
Dr Caplan (30:13.962)
Right, people have seen cannabis, people have all been brought up to believe that cannabis was this entrance drug that you start cannabis, all of a sudden you're going to be doing heroin and then you're going to be a prostitute and then you're going to start robbing banks. Of course it's silly, quite the opposite. Cannabis is really the exit drug and when people are taking too many pharmaceuticals or they don't like the experience they're having with traditional medicine, cannabis can help you get off of them if you know what you're doing, if you have some guidance. That's what my hope is.
for the doctor approved cannabis handbook is give people that guidance.
Brandy (30:45.32)
Yeah. And again, just better options. I talk a lot about how many women are affected by these autoimmune disorders. And the numbers are really shocking. I recently read that 80% of autoimmune patients are women. 80. That's insane. And.
I think we are less likely to push back. We are less likely to ask questions. We're less likely to stand up and say, no, I want something different. And often we just don't want to rock the boat and we go forward and do what we're supposed to do. And I've also been reading more recently that these terrible side effects are more likely to hit women as well.
You know, probably for all the reasons that I've listed, I haven't been able to find any reading on, you know, any other particular reason that there's anything in our, you know, in women's bodies that's just making these things happen. So I'm sure it probably is something to the effect of just how we tend to interact with our doctors.
Dr Caplan (31:57.922)
Well, it's also a failure of the medical system. I think it's no surprise that our male-dominated society has bulldozed over women's rights and women's health and women's choices. That's no surprise, I think, to anybody. But this is also an area where cannabis can be helpful. Women are more than half of the inhabitants of this earth, and cannabis helps women more than it helps men. For things like menstrual issues and menopause issues.
Brandy (32:06.396)
Yes.
Brandy (32:25.628)
Great. Yes.
Dr Caplan (32:28.582)
And, you know, to people that are on social media, on Twitter and Instagram and my YouTube channel, just two days ago, I put out videos teaching people how cannabis can help with menstrual cramping, menstrual, you know, excessive bleeding and how cannabis helps with menopause symptoms, hot flashes, vaginal dryness. I mean, there's so much opportunity for cannabis to help women. You know, to say nothing of breast cancer and endometriosis, I mean, the list of ailments which affect only women is many.
Brandy (32:43.488)
Great. Yeah, good job.
Brandy (32:56.445)
Yes.
Dr Caplan (32:57.886)
And it's really important, especially now in this kind of male-dominated culture, that women be educated, that they inform themselves about their options, and direct their doctors with the kind of care they want.
Brandy (33:10.556)
Absolutely. And the education is very important. You know, I like to say I'm kind of a pushy broad. So, you know, I think people see me coming at them, but the education is very important. I remember, I'm just gonna throw this guy under the bus. I won't put out his name, but a neurologist at Walter Reed, as I was going through the hell of my life of this reaction and I wasn't able to get to work, I was, you know, I was 40.
how was I 44 and I'm walking with a cane, you know, all things that are not normal. Right. And, um, as he was trying to ask me questions, he immediately wanted to prescribe me an opioid. And I said, no. And he pushed back and said, well, I think it's better. And I said, well, I asked about cannabis, which I knew, you know, I'm sitting at Walter Reed. You know, you get, you know, don't expect much with that question.
And he really spoke down to me and said, well, I don't like it. You need to never even think about it. You need to take this opioid. And then he also, somewhere along the way, said, oh, so what are you now? Just a homemaker? And the guy is very lucky he's still alive today. I'll say that. I must have been in a really, really good mood. But I don't think that my experience is unusual. I'm just the pushy brat. No, you know, absolutely not. So coming in armed with education.
Dr Caplan (34:24.63)
Yeah, it's...
Dr Caplan (34:29.93)
Yeah, it's a sad reality, but when doctors give opiates and benzos to their patients, we know this from studies in the emergency room world, they get better quality of care reports. That doctors are evaluated as having given better care in the emergency room when they give these kinds of addictive medicines because patients want to feel different. But the sad reality also is, you know, from a British medical journal in 2014,
Brandy (34:43.357)
Mm-hmm.
Dr Caplan (34:59.158)
These medicines, opiates, benzodiazepines, Ambien, Lunesta, cause and all cause mortality tripling that no matter what ailment, they are harmful for mortality. So we're in this time for a transition where doctors are getting the wrong message that they sometimes are covering their behind. They don't want patients to have a bad experience in the medical world. They want to treat someone's pain and discomfort and stress, but they're using the wrong tools.
Brandy (35:11.049)
Wow.
Brandy (35:24.063)
Right.
Dr Caplan (35:26.634)
And my mission, maybe it's crazy for me to be yelling to the mountaintops, but my mission is to help cannabis become a tool that doctors can consider and patients should know about.
Brandy (35:35.356)
Now we need the people that just yell at the mountaintops. I mean, it's, you know, the recent PACDAQ for burn pit victims really were just victims of this burning mess. It was John Stewart and a couple from Texas who were deeply affected by these burn pits and said, no, we need to do something.
So, you know, it always starts with yelling at the mountaintops. And I know as a patient, I'm extremely grateful for the folks that yell at the mountaintops.
Dr Caplan (36:11.358)
Right on. Yeah, I mean, I've been given the crazy eye for a long time that I'm doing this off the beaten path stuff. But I'll tell you, you know, the people who read my book are knowledgeable and they know what resources they can find. They know where to shop. They know how it's meaningful to them. And for the people that are brave enough to give it to their doctors, maybe they can just hold it as a bludgeon and hit the doctors over the head with a book if the doctors won't read it.
Brandy (36:26.236)
Mm-hmm.
Brandy (36:36.152)
You know what? That's some good advice. You know, it's gonna take a while. It takes the meeting of all the good things, education, doctor's acceptance, policy, lobbyists get on boards, you know, all the things. But, you know, I appreciate everybody who's working so hard, especially you. Like I said, I really enjoy this book. It's the Doctor Approved Cannabis Handbook, so.
Go out, read it. I think it's a really great book, and I really love being introduced to new ideas. So thank you so much for that. And for everybody who's interested, go to cedclinic.com, and that's where they can find your AI chatbot, more information on your book, lots of great information there.
Dr Caplan (37:23.538)
Exactly. And for people that want information about me and background checking me, my name is benjamincaplin.com. For people that are on social media, I'm there and happy to chat with anybody. It's at Dr. Caplin, so at drcaplan on Twitter. And for Instagram, it's at Dr. Benjamin Caplin, so drbenjamin. But you're right. If you go to cedclinic.com, you'll find me and my clinic.
all the other links from there.
Brandy (37:55.348)
Well, thank you so much. I'll be sure to put you on my website as well, livi I really appreciate the conversation. I've learned a lot today and hopefully so have all of my listeners. So thank you.
Dr Caplan (38:09.442)
Thank you so much for having me. I really hope we can move the needle even one person at a time.
Brandy (38:14.129)
Absolutely.