Pot Brownies Completely Altered My Birthday Party Experience

I was a youngster, adult, but a youngster still. My friends and I were celebrating a birthday and we were on our way to a party. But before we did, his girlfriend made us some brownies, which happened to have some marijuana in it. We're sitting in the sort of living room. There's a little coffee table in there. And on the coffee table, there's these ceramic figures. There's elephants, there's giraffes, lions, and tigers. I'd say I must have taken 3 bites of that brownie, but all of a sudden, those figures started moving. And, you know, the lion literally, in my view, jumped across that little coffee table onto my lap. That was my first and last exposure to marijuana.

Hello and welcome to the Wellness Musketeers podcast, where we tackle complex health issues from multiple angles. I'm your host, Aussie Mike James, and today we're diving into a topic that's been lighting up conversations across the globe, marijuana use. In this episode, We're bringing you a comprehensive look at cannabis through the lenses of health, fitness, addiction, and economics. Our team of musketeers is ready to cut through the smoke and bring you clarity. Dr. Richard Kennedy will share his medical insights on marijuana's effects on the body and mind, including the potential therapeutic uses and health risks. Welcome, Dr. K. Good to see you guys. Okay. David Litz and I will be exploring how cannabis use intersects with fitness and overall wellness strategies. Welcome, Dave.

Hello.

Hi. And last but not least, our economist, Ketel Heyding, will break down the financial and societal impacts of marijuana legalization and commercialization. Welcome, Ketel.

Okay, you always get my name wrong. That's okay.

You're Australian.

You see things from the other side of the world.

I know.

To be a part of this fantastic, fantastic, clear-sighted panel.

Okay. On that note, whether you're curious about the medical applications of cannabis, concerned about its potential for abuse, or interested in its economic implications, this episode promises to deliver a well-rounded perspective on this complex plant. If you find value in our discussions, please take a moment to subscribe, share, and leave a review. It helps us reach more people. So let's spark up this discussion and explore the multifaceted world of marijuana use. And I thought today, panel, with the thought of full disclosure here, we might just reflect a little on each of our use or non-use of marijuana. We'll start with you, Dr. K. What's your experience with marijuana?

Because you would start with me. Well, way back when, 4 times. When I was a youngster, adult, but a youngster still, we were— my friends and I were celebrating a birthday and we were on our way to a party. But before we did, his girlfriend made us some brownies, which happened to have some marijuana in it. And so I'm going to set the table. This is— we're sitting in the sort of living room. There's a little coffee table in there. And on the coffee table, there's these ceramic figures. There's elephants, there's giraffes, lions, and tigers. And I'd say, I'd say I must have taken 3 bites of that brownie. It was delicious, by the way. But all of a sudden, those figures started moving. And the lion literally in my view, jumped across that little coffee table onto my lap. That was my first and last exposure to marijuana. So scary.

But I'm guessing you've treated people with marijuana who've used marijuana quite a bit, Dr. Ko, over the years.

Over the years, yeah.

Yeah. What about you, Kettle?

Yeah, I mean, I don't have these fantastic stories really, but I tried a little bit in my youth as well. Not very effective, but I remember we were stopped for drunk driving, but we failed the test for marijuana.

What?

This was back in Norway. So I think that was kind of interesting. And then since then, no illegal activity. But once it's become legal, of course, I will have to try it. So I've been trying a little edibles and, you know, I tried sometimes a little bit too much. And, you know, you feel like you're amongst friends and you're there, but you're not there. And that can be quite uncomfortable. That's pretty much my experience. I used it a little bit to help sleep, so very low effect, low dosage, but not anything particular to write home about.

Okay. What about you, David?

Yeah, I mean, I've smoked occasionally over time, done edibles occasionally over time. One time I took something, just like Kettle said, thought, okay, I'll just take a little bit of an edible and I'll go to sleep. And I had to, I took it around 9 and the next morning I taught a boxing class at 6. And then midway through the boxing class, I realized I was still stoned. I didn't understand the difference between, you know, a round and the break from the round. And I've had other experiences with edibles that where I thought I'd left and gone to another planet in another country or something. It was just, it was, it was a frightening disaster, but I repeated my mistake once or twice. But I think it should be available for people, but, um, You know, you gotta let your conscience be your guide or something.

Well, viewers, well, listeners, now for something completely different. My experience with it is zero, zilch. I've never had a smoke or an edible, and not because I'm just some great moralist, but I think because I was brought up in Australia in the '70s and '80s, we were very much a pub culture, and it just wasn't part of our lexicon or our way of life for most of the group. I, you know, hang around with and alcohol was very much a big mind-altering substance. So there was no need for marijuana, but we had the occasional people who used it, but I'd never experienced it. But I think the biggest thing that stopped me from using it on a deeper level was the smoking aspect because my father passed away from smoking normal cigarettes, too many of them. He got emphysema and my best friend's father, the same thing, another heavy smoker. And if you've seen emphysema, that's not a good thing to die from. And so that's always put me off from smoking, any aspect of smoking. So it's always held it back, but I've got an open mind. I've dealt with people who've used it and athletes, people in the Parkinson's area and so forth. So I have an open mind about it, but I've just got zero experience using it. So that's our backgrounds in it, listeners. So onto the actual discussion. Let's just start it off, kick this off with our first little statement here. Is marijuana a miracle cure or a dangerous drug? What's your views on that, guys? Dr. K?

I don't think anything's a miracle cure. Marijuana falls into that general category. I don't, you know, like anything else, anything in excess tends to be more of a problem than it tends to be a solution or benefit. So I don't, I don't particularly think that Marijuana is, it has good points in the right circumstances for the right people, but it's not necessarily for everyone.

Okay.

Maybe I can, I mean, Dr. Kennedy, of course, is the expert, but I'm pretty concerned about what you see in the industry and it's probably being pushed by the competition in the industry as well. They're putting forward quite often claims, substantiated claims about the benefits of different marijuana products. And, you know, and that's not regulated anyway. I mean, it's regulated in a way they are not allowed to do it. But then, you know, if it is a competitive industry with a lot of actors, it's very easy to put it out there and get clamped down and then they put it back again. So that's a concern.

Yeah, that speaks to our second question, I guess, about the health benefits. And I can relate what you're talking about there, Kettle. I think the popular press sometimes makes it a blanket cure for everything with headlines. For a while, they would, they did that with one particular Parkinson's patient whose tremors decreased markedly when he took marijuana. But the doctors and specialists, some of the best in the world that I've spoken with at various conferences, have said that that may work for that person, but it's not a blanket cure by any means. So these blanket sort of statements that it's a cure for everything, have got to be taken with a little bit of balance, I think. And, uh, but what if, so what would be the benefits of taking marijuana, Dr. K? What, what sort of, what are the purported benefits of it medically?

So medically, so again, we need to go back to why would people from a medical standpoint want to take marijuana? Um, and there are many reasons why people would consider it. And the basic issue is, is that the most common reason people initially medically take marijuana is for pain, to relieve pain, to relieve spasm. And so in the medical community, so for instance, as you mentioned earlier, Parkinson's patients or people who get multiple sclerosis and end up with spasticity, which means they periods where they're really stiff and can't sort of move forward really well. What they found— and again, big issue is, is there are— there aren't enough studies that have been done that where you can give a person marijuana who happens to have Parkinson's or happens to have arthritis or happens to have, you know, for their ligament in their knee or something, because there is— there aren't really good studies right now.

They've done—

they're doing more. Most of them are observational studies. You give a person it, and the dilemma is, is what works best? Does smoking marijuana give the benefit as well as a gummy or an edible would. The only true studies where they really studied it clearly, so far to my knowledge, has been for cancer chemotherapy. The results of chemotherapy, one of the main side effects is nausea and vomiting. And what they found was when they gave people marijuana in pretty much all the formulations— smoking, edibles, even tinctures that you can rub on the skin or oils. The reduction in nausea and vomiting was real to those patients. But like anything else, the longer they used it, the less the benefit. Now, they've done some comparable studies where they've taken marijuana and given it to a group of patients. Who have nausea and vomiting after chemotherapy, and then they've given it, and then they've taken the prescription drugs to give them and compared the two to see which one got the most benefit or relief of those symptoms. Hard to say, partly because it wasn't a standardized way that they got it, because they used people who went to their own medicinal clinic and got their type of marijuana. And one medicinal clinic is not the same as the next. The percentage of the different cannabis and THC, high hydrocannabinol, cannabidiol, can never pronounce it. That's why we call it THC, is the one that has the more euphoric high sensation, relaxing sensation, whereas the CBD or cannabinoids are the ones that can have a benefit in reducing things like anxiety. So they have found that people who take it to relieve depression, it has found benefit. Anxiety.

What about sleep? Oh, sorry.

Sleep as well. But what the belief is, is that first of all, when it's in people who are using it for the very first time, who aren't frequent users, they tend to get much of those benefits initially. But like anything else, if you keep using it, sometimes the beneficial effect wears off, and in some, you actually get more of the effect that you were trying to prevent. Therefore, people sleep now instead of it being relaxing. Because if you think of what happens when people get the marijuana, the THC portion of it, it makes them feel relaxed. It makes them feel calm. It makes them feel comfortable. So initially that makes sense that the person next will be able to sleep better. But it doesn't, you know, they haven't done studies to compare, well, how is it in the most important part of sleep, which is REM sleep? We don't, we don't really know. At least I've not seen anything. Continuing to do studies to try and—

Do you think it—

I mean, it must be very difficult. Sorry.

Do you think it's a good idea that all these states are legalizing marijuana for medicinal purposes?

I think it's a— well, the dilemma is, is that you have states that are legalizing it, but according to the federal government, it's still illegal. And that creates— now they're creating laws to do that, but at the same time, we don't have enough information right now to say that it's, you know, the only thing that it's been proven really well is nausea and vomiting from cancer chemotherapy.

It must be very difficult. As you know, the gold standard for medical testing is the double-blind random test. So, I mean, as long as you feel the THC, then you know that you got it. You know, if you have a very small dosage, maybe then you can kind of have a placebo and They don't know whether they get the placebo or not. And then you can actually do it. So maybe they've done that for cancer patients because, you know, you need that in order to get it FDA approved.

There are, and the other thing that there are two pediatric seizure disorders that happen in only in the pediatric population where they found that marijuana, but specifically two types of drugs that they have approved. And I cannot remember the name of them right now, but those two marijuana-type drugs have been beneficial in preventing seizures in those children, parentheses, but it hasn't been effective in people who have other seizures, like most adults who have seizures, but in that pediatric age group, yes. Okay.

Dr. Ko, when you talk about the calming effect, I guess anecdotally from what I've seen, people who have rather aggressive or sometimes violent dispositions. I've seen good effects on those sort of people because it sort of brings them down a little. Popular culture, we've got Mike Tyson, I think.

Yeah.

Who's sold marijuana now, I believe. But I think that's had a good effect on him from afar at least. And people I've known who've had that sort of hyper-stroke-violent disposition, that certainly helped them calm down. Is it something they would use in a psychological setting? Cercise, would they prescribe that or is that still an unknown?

I'm sure there are people who would be willing to try it if they, if they have failed at everything else. And again, this goes back to how marijuana, particularly the THC portion of it, works in the brain. There are, there are receptors in the brain for cannabinoids. And so what happens is, and the best, the good example is the person like you sort of described who's hyper, anxious. And those people, if you give them marijuana, why they— their anxiety goes down, why they calm themselves down is because it affects the release of dopamine into the system, which then makes people calm down. You know, same token for people where they try to— were depressed, who they give marijuana to, because the other side of marijuana is that it makes you feel good.. It makes you feel this release of, I'm cool, I'm feeling relaxed and everything else. Puts people in a good mood. Same thing with the release of and the effects of serotonin and dopamine in the brain. So from that perspective, it does that. But the dilemma is, is that one medicine, one medical medicinal marijuana site versus another, the dosaging and everything may be very different.

Okay. Like, is it like you're saying before though, where the effects diminish over time, the perceived benefits?

Well, that's one of the things that they found is that the longer you use it, what they found is people's memory decreases, their ability to concentrate into focus decreases. So indirectly, how does that affect an adult down the road? You know, one day they're, they're this level of IQ. To, and they've said that people's IQs who chronically use marijuana will decrease. Now, I've had friends who told me, I'm definitely not as smart as I was, but I can't stop taking the marijuana. Really? Well, you know, and so I, you know, I always say, well, why don't you stop it for a while and see if you get smart again?

Like when I took it and I had a discussion and I couldn't really remember what the other person had said. What's that? That's not long-term use, but it shows a little bit of the lack of concentration that you can get. And it was actually quite powerful. I thought, you know, like having Alzheimer's.

Like, but it's funny because when, when you're with a group of people, everyone's stoned, you kind of feel like you're being really profound and thoughtful when you're talking with other people.

But it's more silly. I haven't had that, but I've seen people in that environment. They look completely silly.

Like my, I have a friend and her sister smokes every single day and that, and her family says that she's, um, she's an easier person to be around. She, it helps with her anxiety, with depression. And, and I just wonder, and she also smokes cigarettes and I'm thinking, is that what it points out?

And sort of what we've been saying is that it affects different people differently. And so there are people who can, you know, my first experience with it was not a good one. And so because of that experience, anytime the thought of doing it, I remember that experience because it was, it was so vivid and real to me that I wouldn't wanna do it. Well, the same thing for the person who on the other side realize if I take this every day, I'm, I'm calmer. I'm not— so these are the people who have attention deficit disorder or hyper-anxiety disorder. They'll take it and they'll tell you they're much calmer. And people who are around them, who know them, will say that they're different. Yeah. They'll think that they're taking a prescription drug, but they may only be taking marijuana. Because, you know, it's like anything else. Most of us don't go around telling all our friends every drug we take. Not part of the normal conversation to sort of do that. Now, when it's appropriate, you share that information, but on a normal basis— well, it's different if you're smoking because you can smell it a mile away when it's there. You know, it's easy to know that it's in you somewhere. You may not see the person smoking, but than you.

You walk down the street in New York and you get it here, you know.

In DC. Oh yeah, in DC, I as we used to call it.

You get it, I, just walking down.

But to be the devil's advocate here, Dr. K, when you talk about chronic use, I mean, if you're a chronic person with chronic alcohol use, you used to get the same things though, right? Your memory goes, your speech deteriorates, your performance deteriorates and so forth. So I guess it's a matter of anything done to excess has some consequences that aren't too good.

Without question.

Yeah, but the analogy I've always used, and again, I'm not a smoker, but I've always said if you get a group of young bucks or young aggressive guys around drinking alcohol, there's, there's going to be something happens later on. I mean, there could be trouble. Yeah, but a group of people smoking marijuana, that won't be an issue. I mean, is that too simplistic, a sort of a—

Again, this goes into Who are these people basically before all of this happened?

Controlling for the type of people we're talking about. Yeah, I see those boxers, whatever they take, they're gonna get into trouble. And those slim nerds.

Yeah, that's what happened. And I think that if nothing, if nothing more we get out of this is that, and it is important to recognize that the marijuana that's out there is not uniform.

Right.

So, so the, so the marijuana that's being sold in D.C. is going to be different than likely than the marijuana in Virginia or the marijuana in Massachusetts or in New York, whatever, wherever. And because it affects people differently. Now what we are creatures of habit so that if we go to the same store all the time to get the same thing, and we get the same benefit from it, we tend to revisit it. Well, it's no different than marijuana. If you go there and you're in this terrible pain, you got this terrible back pain that the opioids— and that's one of the things that they have found, that in people who have been— their pain's so bad that they're on opioids, when they start taking marijuana, their use of opioids goes down. And technically the view that opioids are much more dangerous drug long-term for use. So there's a— indirectly, there's a benefit from it. You get the person off of it.

Can you talk a little bit about the different kinds of marijuana and the difference between smoking marijuana on the body and eating marijuana on the body, like sativa, indica, on the couch, or hybrids, that kind of thing?

Oh, the— so the smoking is the one that many people back in the '60s and the '70s was the thing that most people were doing. Now it's a combination of because it's legal in 39 states now and the District of Columbia that you can now— they're selling it as edibles. In different forms, as, as gummies. I've even seen things where they're, they're, they're giving it funny names to attract— I always say this is a negative part of it— to attract things like calling it Pot Tarts. And you know, it's a takeoff on Pop-Tarts.

Yeah, sure.

You know, which indirectly— who are they indirectly trying to sell this to? It's and, you know, and for one thing, so, but you can— smoking is the quickest way because you inhale it and it goes in, gets into the bloodstream immediately, and it goes to every organ in the body, including the brain. So, and this is how they've come up with different ways of giving people treatment for it. They found that people, when they were taking the gummies or the brownies or however they're taking it, by mouth for those people who have a condition we call irritable bowel syndrome, where people have periods where they have a lot of loose bowel movements and crampy abdominal pain, or they have— there's a form of it where you have crampy abdominal pain and constipation, or another— there's 4 forms of that. And what they found that some people who take it that way get relief of their symptoms. But it is— but again, because there's no— it hasn't been standardized how they've tested it, you don't know if it's really that, that marijuana that they took earlier in the day, or is it that they just changed what they ate or that their stress level is less? We just don't know. When you smoke it and inhale it, you know, they see that it has a benefit where it gives people, and as Kendall said earlier, once you inhale it, because it goes directly, it's like alcohol. It's why when you go to a bar, they always put a little tiny, tiny straw in the drink. And what does that do is if you sip it through there rather than just drink it, you actually are sipping in, taking in oxygen, goes straight to the brain.

Was that why they had the straw?

I just ignore the straw.

I just—

just a straw. I thought this for girls.

I thought, yeah, yeah, that quick way to get people, because a lot of people that go to bars don't really drink a lot. So you do that and they sort of nip and stuff. You get it, go straight to the head.

So is that why— so if you want to save money, put a straw in your drink in a bar? Like, so I, I read that when you eat it, your body metabolizes pot in a way that it's more intense effect on the body by eating it as opposed to smoking it. I don't know if that's because every place you get it, it's different. It's not like you buy—

well, the— well, I guess indirectly the difference is, is that when you eat it and it's broken down and put into the circulation, it goes to every organ in the body. Equally. It just gets distributed equally versus inhaling it. It's first coming up here to the head. It's first coming up here to the head, to the lungs, and then goes everywhere else. There's it.

I have a question related to what Mike said, fear of cancer, I guess, or the same effect of tobacco. But I do think that smoking marijuana is less linked to, to cancer.

I don't know what you, what you have is you may have people who have more, they're more at risk for having a condition we call bronchitis, which is inflammation of the upper lining of the