Hello! I am Dr. Codi Peterson, PharmD, and you have stumbled upon my very first blog post!
As a practicing pharmacist, I know medicine! I dispense it every day. Whether it’s the notorious opioids like oxycodone or natural chemicals your body naturally produces like epinephrine (adrenaline)–I know about drugs! Even though the cannabis plant is not itself a drug, it produces numerous plant molecules that have actions in the body (aka drugs!).
When you frame cannabis in this way, as a collection specific drugs rather than just an herb, all the of the sudden the topic of using cannabis as medicine becomes much more complex. With tens or even hundreds of active molecules in cannabis flowers, it’s not easy to know which ones are truly providing the therapeutic benefits. It’s possible that because of the complexity of the endocannabinoid system (more posts on the ECS in the future) it may take decades for us to truly understand why cannabis can be such a helpful therapeutic for so many conditions.
There is an entire field dedicated to looking at how and why drugs do what they do: pharmacology–the science and study of drugs. It just so happens that pharmacology is my favorite subject! And yes, some may call me a nerd because of that, but I think this topic is of real value for everyone, not just pharmacists.
What is pharmacology you ask? Well, pharmacology can be broken down into two subcategories: pharmacokinetics and pharmacodynamics.
Kinetics: What the body does to the drug (the movement of the drug into and out of the body)
Dyanamics: What the drug does to the body (how the drug causes its effects)
When we look at medical cannabis, these pharmacologic concepts are exceptionally important. For example: 5mg of tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) orally will have profoundly different effects than 5mg THC inhaled. The difference between the two is explained by pharmacology! It has to do with how the drug is delivered to, distributed through, and eliminated from the body.
I don’t want to get ahead of myself on all of these concepts, but I want you to recognize that the pharmacist is the best suited healthcare professional to lead to the charge towards cannabis reform. It is the pharmacist that understands the nuances of how molecules move throughout and interact with the body. It is the pharmacist that is best trained to teach consumers how to use medication and what side effects to expect. It is this pharmacist who feels medical cannabis cannot be medical without a pharmacist.
If cannabis is medicine, then the pharmacist MUST be involved. Not “pharma”…No. Pharmacists. The liaison between the patient and the world of medicine.
Cannabis Is Medicine
Dr. Codi
P.S. Special thanks to my web design team for making me look far more professional than I ever could. I cannot thank the team at DySem enough.
