It has almost been a whole year since marijuana in Canada has become legal, and while people have been using it as a medicine, you can now use it for recreational purposes. With marijuana now being legal, there seems to be a new trend today; CBD oil. CBD is for people who struggle with chronic pain, and does not contain any THC, meaning it won’t get you high. Dr. Mike Hart owns Ready To Go, a medical marijuana clinic on Richmond Row, and his goal is to get people off opioids and prescriptions, and instead use cannabis products, like CBD oil to treat pain.
Dr Hart tells XFM the main differences between CBD, and THC.
“CBD doesn’t make you high” says Hart.
“Some people have made the mistake including myself saying that CBD is non psychoactive. Psychoactive basically just means that it’s going to give you some type of change in your perception, so coffee or caffeine for example, is technically psychoactive, people can get addicted to caffeine, but at the same time coffee doesn’t get you high, CBD doesn’t get you high so that’s the big distinction.”
Hart expands, and says that THC can and will reduce your overall mental health.
“THC can in fact reduce your overall cognitive function and can actually reduce your short term memory, and it can in fact in some people induce a small amount of paranoia, so you do want to be careful if you don’t use THC a lot.”
Hart says that while CBD does help most pain in your body, but people with more serious cases of pain may respond better to THC products.
“Unfortunately, there are some conditions like neuropathic pain, they have pain with a lot of numbness and tingling that type of thing, those patients unfortunately do respond better to THC, but for a lot of patients just starting off, if you’re struggling with a bit of pain, especially a repetitive injury and arthritis, CBD is really good for reducing inflammation, so that’s where I would start with someone who has some type of repetitive injury or if you’re looking to recover faster from your workouts and things like that.”
With marijuana now legal, CBD could be the new way to treat your pain in a natural, and healthy way.
