How to Talk to Friends Who Are Nervous to Try Weed, Part 1

[00:00:00] Ellen Scanlon: This podcast discusses cannabis and is intended for audiences 21 and over.

[00:00:13] Ellen Scanlon: Are you trying to drink less alcohol this summer? Cannes delicious cannabis beverages come in lots of flavors and with THC levels that range from one milligram to 10 milligrams, so you can choose how you want to feel. Use promo code DoThePot for 20 percent off when you visit drinkcann. com. That’s drink C A N N.

[00:00:34] Ellen Scanlon: Try a can today and have a great time without a hangover.

[00:00:45] Rosie Mattio: I think the de stigmatization, we have so much work to do. And these conversations that I’m having with my friends or my parents are so important. And I encourage people, if cannabis is a part of your life. Talk about it more openly. If I’m a mother of four and I’m having these conversations with my daughter and it’s my business, I need to be more open about my consumption and have those conversations with people so they can get more comfortable around it.

[00:01:05] Rosie Mattio: Because the more we’re educating, the more we’re de stigmatized and the more comfortable people will be in making it a choice for their life.

[00:01:13] Ellen Scanlon: Welcome to how to do the pie, a podcast, helping you feel confident about cannabis. I’m your host, Ellen Scanlon.

[00:01:26] Ellen Scanlon: You just heard from Rosie Matteo, the New York based founder of cannabis PR firm, Matteo communications. Many of my friends and family do not consume any cannabis. Hi, Mom and Dad. I respect and understand the reasons that people may feel nervous about weed. In the U. S., cannabis remains federally illegal.

[00:01:54] Ellen Scanlon: That is a non starter for many people. Yet when I started How to Do the Pot, there were only 11 states that allowed adult use, recreational use of cannabis. Now there are 38 states that allow medical use and 24 states plus Washington DC that have legalized cannabis for adult use, which means anyone over 21.

[00:02:20] Ellen Scanlon: A lot has changed. And Even with three quarters of Americans now living in a state with some form of legal weed, cannabis is still shrouded in stigma and fear for a lot of people. In this two part series, we’ll tackle the most common questions that new consumers Or people back after a long break, ask about weed.

[00:02:46] Ellen Scanlon: I’ll talk with some of our most trusted medical experts about the latest news on health and safety. Cannabis advocates and women all across the country will share tips about how to have a positive experience, whether you’re trying weed for a medical condition, for sleep, sex, period pain, or just for fun.

[00:03:09] Ellen Scanlon: In today’s show, we’re covering health and safety. We’ll hear from medical experts about how cannabis connects with our bodies, and talk about how to avoid anxiety and other negative side effects if you’re considering cannabis as an alternative to prescription or over the counter medicines. As safe legal access increases across the U.

[00:03:32] Ellen Scanlon: S., I hope this series can lead the way toward a more nuanced view of what it means to be a person who likes weed. Let’s let those old judgmental stereotypes fall away. It’s time.

[00:03:56] Ellen Scanlon: Before we get into this week’s episode, I want to talk for a second about How to Do the POTS newsletter. The newsletter is a twice a month resource that will help you feel confident about cannabis for health, wellbeing, and for fun. The newsletter is also our direct line to you. You can hit the reply button and let me know what topics or guests you’d like to hear on the show.

[00:04:20] Ellen Scanlon: There are already thousands of subscribers reading and responding, and the more, the merrier. We couldn’t do this without you, so please go to DoThePot. com to sign up. Thank you, and I really appreciate your support for the show.

[00:04:43] Ellen Scanlon: The first question most people have is about whether cannabis is legal where they live. If you’re not sure, a quick Google search can clear that up. The next question a nervous friend might ask is usually about safety. So is cannabis safe? Here is what we know. Currently, cannabis is classified by the federal government as a Schedule I substance, which means they consider it to have no medical use and high potential for abuse.

[00:05:16] Ellen Scanlon: The scheduling is being reviewed right now, and we’re waiting to find out if the government will reclassify cannabis as a Schedule III substance. This would have wide ranging effects and allow for more medical research. Everything we’ll talk about today is what doctors and medical experts know now, and I am very excited for the studies and research that will be possible, hopefully soon.

[00:05:45] Ellen Scanlon: To understand the safety profile of cannabis, you need to start with the endocannabinoid system. California based Dr. Jessica Knox is a Harvard trained physician and co founder of life sciences company Pivotal Holdings. She explains what the endocannabinoid system is.

[00:06:05] Dr. Jessica Knox: The endocannabinoid system is this complicated, intricate communication system within our body that modulates All of our other systems.

[00:06:13] Dr. Jessica Knox: So, so most people know about the cardiovascular system, our heart. They know about the neurological system, the respiratory system. These are the systems we all learned about in health class in high school, right? But nobody learned about the endocannabinoid system. Even still, I graduated from medical school in 2012.

[00:06:28] Dr. Jessica Knox: The endocannabinoid system, the primary components, have been discovered by the early 1990s. 20 years later, I was not learning this in medical school, but the endocannabinoid system, really important system that’s sort of balancing and modulating all of these other systems in our body to maintain what we call homeostasis or balance in our body.

[00:06:51] Ellen Scanlon: More importantly, your doctor is not familiar with the endocannabinoid system. Illinois based Dr. Lauren Stryker is a menopause expert and a clinical professor of Obstetrics and Gynecology at Northwestern University’s Feinberg School of Medicine.

[00:07:09] Dr. Lauren Streicher: When I went to medical school, and I’m aging myself here, we never even knew the phrase endocannabinoid system.

[00:07:16] Dr. Lauren Streicher: It really hadn’t been identified. It was certainly not understood. And as time has gone on, of course, there’s been a tremendous amount of research and understanding what our internal endocannabinoid system is and the sorts of things it controls. And there’s not very much that it doesn’t control, quite frankly.

[00:07:36] Dr. Lauren Streicher: Helping

[00:07:37] Ellen Scanlon: the body achieve homeostasis or balance is the main purpose of the endocannabinoid system. Coco Mears is the Illinois based co founder of Equilibria, a by women, for women wellness company. She explains more.

[00:07:53] Coco Meers: What we’re doing is we’re helping our body balance better. It is literally all about that high school biology word, homeostasis.

[00:08:03] Coco Meers: Every single system in our body, our endocrine system, reproductive health, circadian rhythms, response to pain, analgesic responses, anxiety, stress, it’s all regulated by The endocannabinoid system, when that endocannabinoid system is healthy and our body is able to balance itself. When you’re reading those first emails in the morning, you’re not reacting as much when your kid is screaming in the pickup line because of God knows what, they forgot their lunch and they’re, they’re, they’re really hungry and angry.

[00:08:43] Coco Meers: You just can take a deep breath. When work is really stressful or you’re nervous before a presentation, you know that it’s going to be okay.

[00:08:52] Ellen Scanlon: Adding what are called exogenous cannabinoids can bring your body into homeostasis. Basically that means that consuming cannabis can help create more balance in the body.

[00:09:06] Ellen Scanlon: Think of it like a lock and key system. Your body is primed to accept these cannabinoids. California based Sandra Gwines, a nurse and educator at the Pacific College of Health and Science, explains how cannabis helps to modulate your system.

[00:09:23] Sandra Guynes: We know that with cannabis, because it modulates, or when we say modulate, it basically controls, it can bring your endocannabinoid system up or down.

[00:09:31] Sandra Guynes: So we know that that helps with rest. And resetting, allowing us to sleep, allowing our body not to feel like it’s constantly in a panic state. And inflammation is one of those big things. So a lot of things can cause inflammation. It can be physical response because we are injured. It can be based on foods.

[00:09:49] Sandra Guynes: It can be because your immune system is not well. So there’s all different things that can cause that inflammation. But we’ve seen that with cannabis, a lot of that. Controlling and reducing of the inflammation can really show great benefits. So, some of the conditions and some of the symptoms that responded well to cannabis, fibromyalgia, Crohn’s disease, lupus, rheumatoid arthritis.

[00:10:12] Ellen Scanlon: Many people feel nervous about cannabis because they have bad memories of feeling too high. Dr. D’Andra Isike is an anesthesiologist and pain specialist at Johns Hopkins University in Maryland. For The getting high question comes up with a lot of her patients.

[00:10:32] Dr. Deondra Asike: Most commonly, people are really concerned about the potential side effects and how it’s going to make them feel.

[00:10:38] Dr. Deondra Asike: They want to know if it’s safe, and I say absolutely it is when used appropriately. They want to know if they have to feel high in order to get pain relief, which of course is not the case at all.

[00:10:49] Ellen Scanlon: To really change the narrative about cannabis, let’s talk about getting high. It may sound surprising, yet you do not have to get high to benefit from cannabis.

[00:11:02] Ellen Scanlon: California based Caitlin Krebs is the CEO and co founder of NaluBio, a cannabis biotech company that’s pioneering chemistry derived, no high cannabinoids.

[00:11:15] Caitlyn Krebs: So the thing I like to say when someone says they’re nervous about cannabis is that there are a hundred and forty other molecules that have therapeutic benefit that come from the cannabis plant that don’t get you high and no one knows that.

[00:11:29] Caitlyn Krebs: You just think cannabis gets you high. They don’t realize that there are many other parts of the plant. That can really help you and you don’t have any of the psychoactive or intoxicating effects.

[00:11:40] Ellen Scanlon: I asked Caitlin about the safety of cannabis and whether she has concerns about how it might interact with prescription drugs.

[00:11:49] Caitlyn Krebs: Cannabis is very safe. That’s the, the thing about it. I mean, people have been using it for 3000 years. It is very safe. I would rather add that in than any, and I come out of the biotech industry, than any pharmaceutical drug into your toolkit. Some people are worried, you know, the FDA is worried if there are any liver issues.

[00:12:10] Caitlyn Krebs: There have been some large studies that show there are no liver issues. It’s a very safe molecule. So I wouldn’t be worried about the drug interactions.

[00:12:18] Ellen Scanlon: If you recognize the voices of Dr. Isike or Dr. Stryker, it’s because they’ve shared their expertise in two of our very popular series. Dr. Isike talks about cannabis as an alternative for opioids in our Weed and Workout series.

[00:12:35] Ellen Scanlon: Dr. Stryker explains why one in four women are turning to cannabis to treat symptoms of menopause in our Menopause 101 series. If you’d like to learn more about those topics, I’ll link to both series in the show notes.

[00:12:57] Ellen Scanlon: I have a lot of friends who are nervous about cannabis and they trust me to tell them what’s going to work for them. The edible I recommend most is from Camino, which is one of my favorite women run edible brands. Camino social gummies are perfect for new consumers or for someone coming back after a long break.

[00:13:17] Ellen Scanlon: I love them so much that I have a special name for them. I call them a warm hug because that’s how they make me feel. The Social Gummy’s flavor is called Sparkling Pear, and it’s a low dose edible. Taking a Camino makes me feel a little calmer, happier, more social. It helps me unwind and feel like myself after a long day.

[00:13:41] Ellen Scanlon: And everyone I share them with loves them. I’m very excited that now they are available across the country in select states. And I get to offer you 20 percent off Camino gummies that ship right to your house. Use promo code DOTHEPOT when you visit shopkivaconfections. com for 20 percent off your order.

[00:14:05] Ellen Scanlon: I’ll add links and all the details to the show notes. Try a Camino social gummy today. You will not regret it. Because who doesn’t feel better after a warm hug?

[00:14:23] Ellen Scanlon: How to Do the Pot has an ongoing series that shares women’s stories of buying legal weed for the first time. I created it because going to a dispensary can be a little nerve wracking your first time. I want you to feel a support system of other women who have been in your shoes. Dominique White is the Director of People and Operations at the Illinois Dispensary, Ivy Hall.

[00:14:49] Ellen Scanlon: She knows that sometimes the weed shopping experience can be intimidating, or just not that helpful. At Ivy Hall, they are modeling what a woman friendly dispensary can look like.

[00:15:03] Dominique White: If you’ve ever had the pleasure of shopping at any dispensaries in Illinois, for the most part, we call it turn and burn. It’s like, get in, get out.

[00:15:10] Dominique White: There’s a computer in that corner. That’s where you place your order. This is where you ring up. Once you’re done, you leave out of this door. And at Ivy, we really try to change that. experience a ton with having live bud tenders on the sales floor, everyone equipped with an iPad. So if they don’t have the knowledge already, which we put everyone through a nice amount of training through the state training system and our own personal ivy hall experience training, but at the end of that The expectation is that you take care of customers.

[00:15:37] Dominique White: If people come in and they have questions, they’re not in the corner by themselves trying to figure it out. It’s really important as consumers to know what you’re putting in your body, but also on the flip side of that, from our side, we want to make sure that we’re the experts and that the thoughtful recommendations that we’re making for you are just that.

[00:15:54] Dominique White: So that way, when you come back and see us again, you can say, Hey, Dominique really made a recommendation that helped improve the quality of my life. I want to shop with her again. People can smell that, that phony a mile away. So it’s up to us to be genuine and really give people a great experience alongside with a really great product that will work for them.

[00:16:11] Ellen Scanlon: How you legally buy cannabis depends on where you live. With one big exception that’s being called the hemp revolution. What you need to know is that low dose, hemp derived products, mostly beverages and edibles, are a popular and legal way to gain access to cannabis without going to a licensed dispensary.

[00:16:37] Ellen Scanlon: As you can imagine, there’s a fair amount of controversy about it. Here’s how it happened. Back in 2018, government legislation known as the Farm Bill legalized hemp. Remember, that is when the craze for CBD really began. However, in the past year, a new market has opened up for hemp derived cannabis. This time, it’s not just CBD.

[00:17:03] Ellen Scanlon: It is intoxicating cannabis that contains hemp derived THC. Prior to the hemp revolution, legal cannabis could only be sold through state licensed dispensaries. Now, hemp derived cannabis can ship to all 50 states. This change has kind of upended the cannabis industry. California based Christie Palmer co founded Kiva Confections in 2014, and it remains one of the most trusted edible brands out there.

[00:17:38] Ellen Scanlon: Thank you. She explains what’s going on with hemp derived cannabis products.

[00:17:43] Kristi Palmer: I think it’s important to start with like, what is hemp? What is cannabis? Okay. So they’re the same thing, but hemp has been bred over the years to have less THC, right? And THC is that active ingredient is what gets you high, right?

[00:17:54] Kristi Palmer: So THC is the thing that everybody wants to regulate. So you’ve got hemp, which is a cannabis plant bred with low THC. And then you’ve got cannabis, which is bred to have Large amounts of THC, so then there’s the farm bill and the farm bill allowed cannabinoids from hemp to be legalized. So what people do is they extract large amounts of say CBD from hemp and then with the process.

[00:18:19] Kristi Palmer: They extract all of the other cannabinoids and they create a high level of THC or they convert CBD in a chemical process into another cannabinoid, call it like Delta 8 is a big one that you hear about a lot now. You can just grow a ton of hemp with a very low amount of THC and then just extract a lot of the THC in your large amount of hemp, which is harder to do on the cannabis industry side because you’re constrained with cultivation sizes and things like that, regulations, and it’s a little bit more difficult.

[00:18:50] Kristi Palmer: So that’s what we’re seeing now is hemp derived THC and cannabis derived THC. And the big question, how are they different? They’re not. It’s THC that is the exact same thing, it just came to be in a different way. It came from a different plant. So now, there are states that don’t allow cannabis products, but they allow hemp products.

[00:19:18] Kristi Palmer: And so, Hemp products are showing up with THC and they’re showing up in, you know, I think my favorite example is like in Texas at the liquor stores. And there are beverages with THC on the end caps of big liquor stores, not the corner store, but like, you know, equivalent of the Bevmo. It’s like a really big deal and you can just walk right in and you can just buy it.

[00:19:45] Kristi Palmer: So it’s feels like a little bit of a, I don’t like to call it a loophole because it’s legal, but it’s a window. It’s a crack. It’s a incredible opportunity for sure for companies to access folks that normally don’t have access to THC.

[00:20:04] Ellen Scanlon: These low dose products are bringing a lot of new consumers into the market.

[00:20:09] Ellen Scanlon: It matters who you buy them from because they’re not regulated or tested at the state level like the products you can buy in licensed dispensaries. Stay tuned this fall, we’re working on a new series about how the hemp revolution is faring and what might change after the election.

[00:20:36] Ellen Scanlon: When I meet new people and they find out I’m a cannabis advocate, I get to have a lot of interesting conversations. One of my favorites is about sleep. I often hear, Oh, I don’t like weed. I just take an edible to sleep every night. I think that ties back to the stigma around getting high, and I hope you have a better understanding of that now.

[00:21:02] Ellen Scanlon: When Rosie Matteo, who you heard from at the beginning of the episode, started sharing on social media that cannabis was helping her sleep, it definitely got some attention among her friends.

[00:21:14] Rosie Mattio: I have friends, they’ve never tried cannabis. They all get married very young, never in their whole lives, not even in college.

[00:21:20] Rosie Mattio: And I’m like, whoa. And at first, they’re a little nervous about it. But like when I started like posting, getting good night’s sleep now, you can’t even imagine how many people dropped into my DMs. Friends of mine being like, well, I would try those. Because it’s similar form factors like a sleeping pill.

[00:21:34] Rosie Mattio: You know, you put it in your mouth and you sleep. The sleep is also interesting because a lot of the fear around cannabis, and I have this too, and somebody who has access and is around a lot, like, I sometimes can get a little paranoid, I can be a little awkward, or like if I’m in a business setting, I might want to be laughing my face off like I would with friends.

[00:21:52] Rosie Mattio: Just getting used to it might be nerve wracking, but if you’re using it to go to bed, no one’s judging me when I’m in my pajamas under my covers.

[00:22:00] Ellen Scanlon: Feeling paranoid or having increased anxiety is a big concern for new consumers. Paranoia doesn’t affect everyone who consumes cannabis, but it does affect some people.

[00:22:15] Ellen Scanlon: In 2014, Oxford University conducted a paranoia and cannabis study. They divided participants into a test group that received cannabis with THC and a group that received a placebo. About half of the test group experienced feelings of paranoia. That seems like a lot, but one third of the placebo group, who didn’t consume any cannabis at all, also experienced paranoia.

[00:22:47] Ellen Scanlon: I think this study shows that mindset is everything. The best way to maintain a confident mindset is to understand what you’re taking. I want to make sure that you never have to deal with paranoia as a side effect. Another study from the Vanderbilt University Medical School confirmed that the amygdala, the part of your brain that expresses conditioned fear, has endocannabinoid receptors.

[00:23:17] Ellen Scanlon: The theory is that consuming cannabis that has a high percentage of THC can over stimulate those receptors, which can potentially cause paranoia. This doesn’t always happen, and many cannabis consumers never experience paranoia. To keep you from ever having it happen, here are some tips to avoid feeling anxious or paranoid.

[00:23:42] Ellen Scanlon: Pace yourself and start slowly. Often I think new consumers expect a huge revelation when they first try weed. Cannabis, especially low dose cannabis, can have subtle effects. You might feel a little more relaxed, quicker to laughter, things like that. It’s really not meant to be an overwhelming experience.

[00:24:08] Ellen Scanlon: Talking to a friend who’s nervous about weed can be a delicate balance. I get it. I never want to pressure anyone and I want to offer useful tips for whenever they’re ready to try it. Washington based Kia Baker is a military veteran and host of the Female Veterans Podcast. She knows it can be a big leap to consider something that’s been illegal for a long time, especially if there are still personal or professional risks associated with cannabis.

[00:24:41] Kia Baker: I think the conversation starts and builds over time. Really depends on the friend, because you know your friends, right? And you know what they’re going to be open to and what they’re not going to be open to. But even the most rigid mind, when you start to show them and help them to understand the benefits of it and what it’s done for you, start the dialogue, start the conversation, start the education process.

[00:25:09] Ellen Scanlon: Rosie Matteo believes that we all have a role to play in destigmatizing cannabis, and she thinks it will bring benefits for everyone.

[00:25:19] Rosie Mattio: I think that destigmatization, we have so much work to do, and these conversations that I’m having with my friends or my parents are so important, and I encourage people, if cannabis is a part of your life, Talk about it more openly.

[00:25:31] Rosie Mattio: If I’m a mother of four and I’m having these conversations with my daughter and it’s my business, I need to be more open about my consumption and have those conversations with people so they can get more comfortable around it. Because the more we’re educating, the more we’re de stigmatizing, the more comfortable people will be in making it a choice for their life.

[00:25:46] Ellen Scanlon: In next week’s episode, we’ll learn why some people choose not to try cannabis for a second time, hear trusted advice about the specific amounts of weed to try, and I’ll share my favorite tip for what to do if you accidentally get too high. I hope this episode helped ease any fears about cannabis. If you found it helpful, please share it with a friend.

[00:26:14] Ellen Scanlon: We love new listeners and are here to help everyone feel confident about cannabis.

[00:26:24] Ellen Scanlon: Thank you for listening to How To Do The Pot. For lots more information and past episodes, visit do the pot.com. Are you one of the thousands of people who love how to do the POTS newsletter? If you’re not getting it, please sign up at do the pot. com. And if you like how to do the pot, please rate and review us on Apple podcasts.

[00:26:47] Ellen Scanlon: It really helps people find the show. Thank you to producers, Maddy fair and Nick Patriot. I’m Ellen Scanlon and stay tuned for more of how to do the pot.