Category: cannabis

TSC Talks Guest Nikki Lawley

TSC Talks guest Nikki Lawley is a former pediatric nurse, former blackjack dealer and much more, who went from a full active life to chronic daily pain and other debilitating symptoms after suffering a traumatic brain injury on the job in 2016. This is the story of how it happened, what happened and how she’s been able to move from existing in survival mode to having a life filled with hope despite ongoing challenges. In her own words; “since my (TBI) injury, one of the things that I’ve learned more than anything is about living in the moment. my life changed a second and I can’t go back and write a new ending, but I sure can start now and I just have really become more human with this injury. ”

Nikki states: “I suffered both a traumatic brain (TBI) and whiplash injury to my neck. Due to this, I have been unable to work as a nurse ever since. My injury also comes with some debilitating symptoms, which include cognitive issues, chronic headaches, and severe neck pain. Cannabis helps alleviate my pain, bringing it from a 7/10 daily pain and down to a more tolerable 2 and 3. Other symptoms of my injury include impacted balance/coordination, visual impairment, and depression/anxiety.”

She details what was an active, chock full life, growing up in Buffalo, NY, relocating to Fort Myers, FLA and then returning to the Buffalo area, having to change careers moving from nursing to HVC sales, working at a local Planned Parenthood and back to nursing, as well as taking on a second job as a blackjack dealer at a local casino. After listening to Nikki talk about how she was able to roll with life’s challenges repeatedly and reinvent herself time after time, one can see how life as she knew it coming to a screeching halt after her TBI, was a brutal blow. It was in part, the perseverance and tenacity from years of walking through changes and challenges that gave her the ability to push to find answers and not give up after her injury.

Regarding the aftermath of the TBI, she states, “And I expected to be out a day, maybe two, definitely not three-plus years. And when I say, I could not cognitively function, I could not stop the head pain. I literally cried for the first year after my injury so often, because I just, I had so many different medications and yeah, so many treatments failed and people were like, “Well, it can’t be from the concussion.” She goes on to further explain, “So two of my ligaments are completely level three in the front and they really caused a huge amount of issues as far as, I get no cerebral spinal fluid CSF flow to my frontal parts of my brain because of the way the bones are and again, it causes complete compression and occlusion of the CSF flow. The neurosurgeon said, Oh, you don’t need surgery will wire back to work and, and I constantly felt like I had to tell people my side of the story like I’m not crazy people, there’s something really wrong. It is not normal to never not have a headache. So one of the biggest things that devastated me and probably the most of my cognitive challenges was I can’t count anymore. When I worked at the casino, I emptied a deck of cards. So fast in blackjack, and I could count like backward. Just never a challenge. I cannot count higher (now) consistently than five.”

So after years of seeking treatments, paying out of her own pocket repeatedly, traveling around the country and doing everything and anything she could to lessen the daily nightmare she was living in, on a trip to Vegas, she saw a “sign from God” in the form of a billboard advertising,

“So I’m standing outside looking and it’s hot, and it’s like, the sun’s on my face. So, I should be feeling happy because I came out of Buffalo in January. I wonder though. They have these driving billboards on the Vegas Strip, and I see this “get your medical cannabis card today. ..call one 800 get your weed card” and I’m like, I doubt that’ll help. And then it comes back by again. What the hell? So, my husband came back from a walk because he said I literally can’t stand to be around you. I have to get out of the room. Yeah. So I mentioned to him when he gets back, I’m like, there’s this billboard, “get your weed card”, you know and he said do it. He said, “Do it like just do it now. Let’s do it.”

Nikki was finally able to find some relief with some guidance and using particular strains of cannabis that she has only been able to find in Nevada and Canada. The cannabis took her pain from a daily level 7/10 to a 2/3 on the pain scale. However, it has been incredibly frustrating not to have access to the strains of cannabis that actually work in her home state of NY due to restrictive regulations. Nikki often travels to Nevada and Canada to find the right strains that give her the relief that allows her to function.

Throughout this journey, despite hitting some true “window ledges” where she didn’t know how she was going to go on, she’s come back to being a passionate and eloquent advocate for TBI survivors, sharing her story of hope and the amazing potential of the cannabis plant every chance she gets.

“What I do now is I just started sharing my story. I sent it to Mike (Mike Robinson, Cannabis Advocate/Activist) and I have a very good friend Rachelle Gordon, who is a writer for financial cannabis news. And she kind of helped me lose some of the rambles and make my story more concise. And then I said to Mike, “I don’t know do you think this is worth having more exposure? Do you think people want to hear about this?” You know, I’m not trying to be famous in any way shape or form. I’m just trying to promote awareness.”

For Nikki, while cannabis has provided relief, she still struggles with misunderstanding and judgment because injuries related to TBI are invisible. Sharing this final quote here;

“But you know, if nothing else, since this injury, I’ve learned so many things about chronic illness, and how, how much is misunderstood about it. And just because somebody doesn’t have a broken leg or isn’t in a wheelchair doesn’t mean they’re not disabled, it doesn’t mean that they’re not challenged in some way. If I use my parking sticker, it’s usually when it’s icy out, and I met a huge risk fall risk. So I still suffer with dizziness and balance issues and depth perception issues. I feel guilty that as the person using that sometimes, and I shouldn’t.”

There’s a lot more in this episode you don’t want to miss! Thank you Nikki Lawley for the inspiration and education on TBI, cannabis and dealing with life!

Nikki’s links:
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nikki-lawley-aa281517/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/nikki.lawley
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lawleynikki/?hl=en
Recent podcast: https://player.fm/series/coffee-party-usa-radio/i-want-access-4-all-nurse-nikki-lawley-stops-by-for-a-cup-of-joe
Blog article: https://www.mikesmedicines.com/medical-marijuana/cannabis-shopping-with-nikki-lawley-everyone-is-unique/
Nikki’s book suggestion: https://www.amazon.com/Medical-Cannabis-Primer-Ushering-Marijuana/dp/1885176023

https://tsctalks.com STAY TUNED FOR MORE!
TBI One Love: https://www.tbionelove.com/single-post/TBI-One-Love-Survivor-Nikki-Lawley

TSC Talks Guest Ricardo Rivera-Acevedo

In this episode, my guest is Ricardo Rivera-Acevedo, Chief Science Officer and Director at Ecovita Health Corporation, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada working to initiate and manage a medical cannabis extraction facility and guide research and development of new therapeutic products. Ricardo is host of the Cannabis Science Podcast, the first weekly Canadian radio show focused entirely on cannabis and he is also a Scientific Consultant at ACGT, where he works to provide the skill and knowledge necessary to comply with the regulations set forth by Health Canada’s Cannabis Act.

Born and raised in Puerto Rico, he attended City University of Puerto Rico. One of his college professors was from Canada and encouraged him to check out Vancouver where he ended up coming and starting his Ph.D. at the University of British Columbia in the Department of Pharmacology with a fantastic mentor. “That’s kind of where I started my path of not just drug development, medical research, but also my introduction into the science of cannabis.”

While preparing for his Ph.D. comprehensive examination, he mentions, “while studying the capsaicin receptor (the spicy hot feeling when eating a chili pepper) that receptor is actually activated and interacts with cannabinoids. And that receptor is also directly involved in pain sensation, noxious pain sensation. So I began to prepare this document for this examination. And I began to realize, Oh, you know what, there’s a lot more to cannabis than I had previously considered in terms of like these molecular interactions because I always thought cannabis just had its effects on you know, on CB 1 receptor, cannabinoid receptor one and CB 2, and that’s it. But it’s much more complex than that and much more dynamic. And so that kind of began to push me in that direction”

Ricardo discusses being involved in the first clinical trial with dried cannabis on the island of Puerto Rico. “We were able to do the hard work and effort to initiate the first clinical trial with dried cannabis on the island of Puerto Rico, one of the first of its kind to any US territory.” He describes some of what he learned from this research; “So the basis by which you should really guide your therapeutic use is through the ratios of cannabinoids, CBD and THC. Now there are a bunch of other cannabinoids and they have some very interesting effects. But the main cannabinoids that are well studied right now are the THC and CBD. We’ve definitely established this conclusively, but it’s also something that other groups and other labs have seen and many people have known for a long time, which is that when it comes to cannabis, the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. So what does that mean? That means that when you have for example, CBD by itself, it is not as effective as CBD with THC, and then CBD with the other constituents in cannabis. But the issue is that, sadly, people have been focusing on CBD and THC for a very long time. So there’s a lot of other chemical constituents that are now being explored but because they occur at such low levels in the plants, they’re very difficult to get at levels too, to do a lot of these scientific experiments, particularly in smaller sort of academic environment. So what we’re trying to do is to isolate them, purify them and then begin to introduce them back into a formula that reproduces what’d in the plant, but then we can also add or remove these different cannabinoids and see what happens. Because, honestly, to be just like open with you right now, it’s kind of interesting and novel information that we’ve discovered. It’s not just CBD and THC, that are doing this stuff, we’re seeing effects that we can’t describe just by looking at the THC and CBD that are very beneficial for a patient. And it has to do with the other cannabinoids that are actually present. And some strains have some of these cannabinoids like CBC for example, or, or even CBN that people have said, Oh, that’s the degraded products of THC. They do seem to have benefits for patients that are now only being teased apart.”

Ricardo also discusses his podcast; “Cannabis Science Podcast is exclusively dedicated to discussing the most up-to-date science on cannabis and cannabinoids, from an industry insider’s perspective”. He decided to start this labor of love to educate and inform anyone and everyone on the science of cannabis. What he had assumed was common knowledge even among the scientific population was not necessarily so. The podcast was launched in an effort to get everyone on the same page to inform and education on the science of cannabis.

In his own words; “I am a scientist and entrepreneur working to help biotech companies find better ways to solve poorly managed health conditions. To do this, my areas of expertise include drug chemistry and pharmacology, extraction, formulation, product development, facility design and operation, project management, regulatory consultation, as well as designing, organizing and directing clinical trials. I also strongly believe in science education and communication as valuable tools to improve people’s lives by empowering them to make well-informed decisions for themselves and society. At this moment, I provide the training, knowledge, and skills necessary for organizations to successfully achieve their product and research goals”

From his website bio: Dr. Rivera-Acevedo is an Adjunct Professor in the Department of Anesthesiology, Pharmacology & Therapeutics at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver. He is also cannabinologist and consultant for various pharma companies around the world.

With a BSc from the University of Puerto Rico – Cayey and PhD in Pharmacology from the University of British Columbia, he has extensive knowledge and expertise researching cannabis and its derivatives. In 2015, he established the first laboratory for cannabinoid research in the Department of Pharmacology at UBC, which is dedicated to understanding the therapeutic uses of different cannabis strains and formulations to treat different diseases.

He also teaches various undergraduate courses within the department including Introduction to Pharmacology, Statistics in Science, Drug Development, Natural Health Products, and Pharmacogenomics.

As former Director of Chemistry for Cannevert Therapeutics Ltd, he lead the chemistry team conducting R&D, QA/QC, and manufacturing research to improve cannabinoid extract formulations and development of new delivery methods. He also helped organize and supervise one of the first internationally recognized clinical trials with cannabis in Puerto Rico.

When not in the lab, he can be found in the dojo practicing Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, teaching mindfulness to high school students with the Vancouver Crisis Centre, co-hosting the shows Cannabis Science Podcast, Cannabis Con Ciencia Podcast, and El Bus De Las 7 on Vancouver Coop Radio 100.5 FM.”

Thank you, Ricardo, for providing us with a glimpse of your ongoing research, work and projects in the area of cannabis science! There’s a lot more within this rich, informative episode that will be helpful for anyone wanting to increase their scientific knowledge on cannabis and gaining more of an understanding of the vast untapped potential of this plant.

Ricardo’s Links:
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ricoriver/
Website: cannabisconciencia.org  (Cannabis Science and Research)
Podcast: https://cannabisconciencia.org/podcast/
Email: ricardo.rivera@ubc.ca
Twitter: CannabisFaculty, payme4science
The Univ. of British Columbia: https://www.grad.ubc.ca/alumni/profile/ricardo-rivera-acevedo
Press Release: https://apnews.com/7fa52c472c1092fdcb22ca734d4e449b
Research Gate: https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Ricardo_Rivera-Acevedo

TSC Talks: https://tsctalks.com

TSC Talks Guest Tiffany Watkins

TSC Talks guest Tiffany Watkins is a “Cannabis Enthusiast”. She’s been an activist for 20+ years and has done a lot of work to bring awareness to health care and proper distribution of Medical Cannabis as well as paving the way for Recreational Cannabis.

She has marched the Capital (CA), to help bring a voice to those in need of the protection of the Compassionate Care Act. Additionally, she has attended and spoken at City Council meetings and delivered talks as a keynote when invited.

She states, “Cannabis is my passion and I am driven to assist this industry in becoming the standard when it comes to treatment plans, revenue achievement, and sales models.
My intent is to continue helping, building and growing within the Cannabis industry. ”

We discussed her early years getting involved as an activist and what drew her to get involved in the industry; “what drew me in was during that time in the early 90s, we were really coming off the scare of the 80s with HIV and AIDS and there were plenty of my friends whose lives had been touched. They either had a family member or they were personally affected and at that time they were noticing that cannabis was very helpful in easing side effects from some of the very heavy medications that they were on to try to help with the HIV and sometimes full-blown aids. Cannabis helped stave the wasting away. They were using cannabis to increase appetite and lift the mood and just have a better quality of life. They were treated like criminals.”

We go on to discuss the timeline of her life and career, after early activism, exploring other options as there was not an opportunity to build a career in cannabis. Eventually, Tiffany delved into agriculture distribution which “just kind of steamrolled into me making a choice, leaving behind the mainstream and just going head headfirst back into cannabis.”

She talks about her work at Old Pal the home mantra and an ethos of the company is “it’s just weed”. It’s for the people and it’s accessible to everyone. And we spend some time discussing her new business called “Lady Canna”; “when I first developed the concept of Lady Canna, it was geared towards women. It was geared towards the forgotten voices. And as cannabis has really become more mainstream, it is very much so dominated by males….so that’s where it kind of was born. But where it’s ended up is being a platform for education, change of stigma, and overall approach to usage of cannabis”

“I think that that really is where is the fire burning underneath is that I just want everyone to understand we have another choice out there for help for relaxation for all a multitude of things that happen in our lives. We have another thing out there that can help us and we need to listen and stop making a villain out of it.”

Tiffany is full of wisdom, inspiration and demonstrates the kind of longevity and tenacity that will make Lady Canna a success. There’s much more in this episode to educate, inform and empower all who listen. Check out Tiffany’s links:

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tiffany-watkins-9910a5176/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ladycanna101
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ladycanna101/
Old Pal: https://oldpal.com/

TSC Talks Guest Dr. Uma Dhanabalan

TSC Talks guest Dr. Uma Dhanabalan is Founder/CEO, Global Health & Hygiene Solutions LLC, Uplifting Health & Wellness, Natick, MA.  She is a highly respected physician trained in Family Medicine, Occupational & Environmental Medicine, specialized in heavy metals, a Fellow of the American Academy of Family Physicians, a Cannabinoid Medicine Specialist and Medical Review Officer.

She completed her Bachelor of Arts degree with high honors from Rutgers University and a Medical degree from the University of Medicine & Dentistry in Newark, New Jersey. She completed a Family Practice Residency at the Medical University of South Carolina, in Charleston, South Carolina and then her Master’s in Public Health and Occupational & Environmental Medicine Residency and Fellowship at the Harvard School of Public Health in Boston Massachusetts. She is also certified by the American Academy of Cannabinoid Medicine and by the Medical Review Officer Certification Council.

She has received awards from the American College of Occupational & Environmental Medicine for her research project: “Occupational & Environmental Exposure to Lead in South India”, from The 7th World Ayurveda Conference & Arogya Expo for her presentation “Cannabis & The Therapeutic Uses” and the Educational Achievement Award presented by Clover Leaf at Cannabis Business Award 2017

She is the Founder/CEO for Global Health & Hygiene Solutions, LLC established in 2006, with a mission to promote wellness and prevent illness. She worked for Kimberly Clark as Regional Medical Director for Asia Pacific She worked for the Hanford Site in Richland, Washington, the largest and most complex cleanup projects in the world, where plutonium was manufactured for the first nuclear bomb detonated in Japan.

She created the TotalHealthCareTHC model where she “Educates Embraces Empowers” patients and promotes cannabis as a treatment option at Uplifting Health and Wellness, in Natick, Massachusetts. She is an advocate, activist, and educator and speaks globally about cannabis as a plant medicine. Her mission is to change the Stigma regarding Cannabis and for the world to know about the Endocannabinoid system through education” https://necann.com/news/speaker/dr-uma-dhanabalan/

Dr. Dhanabalan states: “Cannabis is not for everyone, yet it should be a first-line option not the last resort,” and “Cannabis is not an entrance drug, it is an exit drug from pharmaceuticals narcotics and alcohol.”

Meeting and talking to Dr. Uma was a transformational experience for me. She logically explains the evolution of her understanding of cannabinoid medicine, starting from an early age. Born in India, moving to the US from India at age 8 with her father, a chemical engineer and her mother, a mathematician and working in computer software, she was raised with a strong interest in science as well as a passion for understanding preventative health.

“I’m a family doctor, went to South Carolina (and) finished my practice residency, then I decided to do my second life which brought me back to Massachusetts to Harvard. Where I did my masters in public health because that’s where I really realized I had to go back to that calling of preventative medicine.”

She goes on to say, ” That was something that has been rooted in me, that’s never really encouraged in most doctors’ lives. You know, it’s always -make a diagnosis- what’s the treatment plan? What’s the ICD code that you have to bill with, and how many people?… La la la la la. That’s the world of healthcare. Ultimately, what people have to live with today. I was very fortunate also, not only did I have all of that as a background, I had a culture. My parents kept up with my language. I spoke five different languages when I came to this country.”

Dr. Uma discusses various experiences she had leading up to her “AHA” moment when she was with her mother who was dying of lung cancer for unbeknownst reasons, “she had seen a TV program and I could still hear her saying using ganja and I damn well knew what that word was. I beelined it and I heard her said they’re using it for COPD, asthma, lung cancer, PTSD, and I still remember that” From there Dr. Uma has gone on to become one of only 50 physicians certified to practice cannabinoid medicine in the United States. She was one of High Times’ top 50 females in Cannabis in 2019. I’ll share one more quote to wrap up this intro, with the 3 key facts she shares when doing public speaking, and often she is told by doctors that they just didn’t know this;

“number one, nobody, and I use the word nobody because there are no deaths ever in the world from this medicine. You cannot die from it. You may feel like you’re dying, you ain’t gonna die from it. Fact number two, the government has a patent number 66 35 07, issued on October 7, 2003, and it’s owned by the government. And it clearly states cannabinoids, not just one, cannabinoids, as an antioxidant. And guess what? A neuroprotectant. There’s nothing here about the developing brain. There’s nothing here about neurotoxicity. It says neuroprotectant, and they have known about it for Parkinson’s, Alzheimer’s, dementia, strokes, protection of the heart. They have known about it. Fact number three, doctors had the liberty to write prescriptions because it was allowed. And it was in the United States pharmacopeia from 1852 to 1942.” Wow. Check out her website to learn more: http://totalhealthcarethc.com/

Dr. Uma’s Links:
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100008556311630
Twitter: https://twitter.com/drumasays
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/dr.uma_thc/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dr-uma-dhanabalan-md-mph-faafp-mro-cms-02843040/
Other links:
https://necann.com/news/speaker/dr-uma-dhanabalan/
https://hightimes.com/news/honorees-high-times-female-50/
https://www.cancerschmancer.org/summit/
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/cannabinoid-medicine-rebirth-nature-dr-uma-dr-david-bearman/

TSC Talks Guest Marissa Fratoni

TSC Talks guest Marissa Fratoni, Holistic RN – Cannabis Therapeutics – Maternal Health – Writer – Public Speaker, is a wealth of information and insight on cannabinoid therapeutics holistic medicine and integrative health. I met Marissa through Jessie Gill, Marijuana Mommy, when discussing our medical cannabis project, wondering if she knew of any local to MA cannabis nurses so I was thrilled when she agreed to have a chat.

We started off talking about how she went from traditional nursing in a very demanding operating room at a local hospital to becoming a visiting nurse, then “on a whim” taking a job in a local dispensary, she says,

“Working in the dispensary just completely opened, changed my entire perception of the plant. I was in interacting with people who were very chronically ill and seeing miraculous changes in their overall quality of life with the use of cannabis. And these are things as a visiting nurse, I didn’t see you know, my patients were always you know, very a lot of them were very compliant with their pharmaceutical regimens and whatever their doctors were telling them, but they weren’t healing and what I saw in the dispensary was cannabis patients consistently coming in and saying, this is helping me it’s improved my entire life. It’s changed my life. I mean, those are things that I’m was not hearing as a visiting nurse”

She ended up engaging with a lot of people looking for support and she started to offer consultations to women; mainly weight loss, wellness consultations in the realm of motherhood. But then, she started working at the dispensary and had patients who found her that way too when her name was coming up as a cannabis nurse.

“It was a game-changer for them, you know they were looking for people who could help them build a bridge between what they weren’t receiving in the medical community and what they were getting in the medical cannabis community. For a lot of patients, they’re stuck navigating all of this on their own. And that’s essentially where cannabis nurses come in”

We also discuss her role interacting with the traditional medical community, she states, “my goal as a nurse is to not to get them to just completely transfer off of medications. I think there’s a lot of poor information out there and a lot of people think that it’s either-or, and it shouldn’t be. There’s a lot of great things available through modern medicine. There’s also a lot of great things available through holistic and integrative medicine and practices. And I think my goal as a holistic nurse is to help to again, bridge that gap.”

We discuss the CBD craze, her concerns with product safety and labeling, emphasizing that every company that has a quality CBD product on the market will be backed up by functional lab testing, where they’re able to tell you the cannabinoid profile and if it’s tested positive or negative for any contaminants. If it’s tested positive experiment, it shouldn’t be on the shelf but they should be able to tell you what is in that product within that bottle.”

Marissa also has some experience working with patients in recovery using cannabis as a “harm reduction” tool and has some really relevant insights on working with those struggling with heroin addiction and how cannabis can be a useful but cautions that medical supervision and support are needed when detoxing, etc.

It was a pleasure to pick Marissa’s brain on her broad offerings and wide array of lived experiences she’s developed into a fabulous platform. Check out her links and thanks for listening!

Links:
Website: https://holisticnursemama.blog/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/marissa.fratoni
Instagram: @holisticnursemama
Twitter: @Marissa_Fratoni
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/marissa-fratoni-94b62429/
Central MA Yoga: https://centralmassyoga.com/marissa-fratoni/
Medium: https://medium.com/@marissafratoni
https://cannamommy.org/about