Why do People with Disabilities Use CBD or Marijuana? - Response to a New Federally Funded Study

The Marijuana Moment recently released an article called Medical Marijuana Use Is 'Prevalent' Among People With Disabilities—And It Helps Treat Pain, New Federally Funded Study Shows. 

The researchers issued a note of caution regarding the study’s potential limitations, emphasizing that data were self-reported. The study was funded by a grant from the National Institute on Disability, Independent Living, and Rehabilitation Research, an agency within the National Institutes of Health. (1) 

That's great news but also not as helpful as it could be for a study that was funded by so many places. We thought we could probably do a little bit better, although not given any funding, due to having staff that was actually in the Opioid Alternative Program and Medical Marijuana Program in their state. The same staff that's working one-on-one with disabled parties everyday, is in the cannabis industry, is disabled and a medical card holder. With just a little bit of science research and medical knowledge, you can start to see how marijuana and specifically CBD can be an all around benefit and why to the disabled population. 

Here's the Breakdown… 

Opiates, and furthermore the withdrawal from opiates, exasperate pain. It's a constant cycle of chasing the pain or preventing the pain from coming, which is a constant opioid cycle. On top of this you have to worry about getting sick, running out, and surrounding your life with these pills. The judgment from the very same facilities that prescribed them to you is also not spoken about enough. You get spoken to like you've done something wrong like, you're a criminal drug addict. They test you for other drugs, they question you if a specific drug isn't working for you even though we all know everybody is different. It's invasive, frequent and degrading. This is coming from personal experiences. I say experiences because I hear them happening every day, just like what happened to me. Patients go along with it to stay a zombie, to stay numb, because once your nerves wake up from being put to sleep by opiates they're going to scream out and the pain is worse than it started. That's the cycle. 

Marijuana is different, you still know the pain is there, but you can handle it. With proper strain, extraction, and medical use, including microdosing, it rewires the way your brain handles pain by handling the problem at the control center. 

Pain, anxiety, and stress cause aggression as they all register on the same level and same receptors. What levels and receptors for what? Releasing cortisol.

Cortisol gets released and it affects your entire body. If you have it constantly being released it uses tons of health complications. Most patients with PTSD have a problem with high cortisol levels due to the frequent fight or flight responses. 

High cortisol can damage a number of parts of your body. If it's constantly high it can lead to Cushing's disease, which affects everything. I mean it. Cortisol in constant doses literally destroys your body; your skin, your hair, your organs, your heart, it'll affect your mood, and then some. Not to mention the brain fog. It is not fun. Cushing's is very similar to what they describe fibromyalgia to be like, except for it can be diagnosed easier and there's a direct link to the cause. (2)

Why do you care?

Stress and improper signals, like having PTSD or any kind of complex brain disorder, are symptomatically experienced due to the instant dose of cortisol and how often your body releases it. Sometimes it just feels like a heart flutter, sometimes it can feel like a full-blown heart attack. If it happens enough, your body gets sick. 

Marijuana, specifically hemp actually, lowers cortisone levels significantly, which is why it is necessary to know the difference between THC, CBD, and other cannabinoids. Not everybody is trying to get high, some people are trying to get healthy.

Using THC can suppress the morning surge of cortisol, known as Cortisol Awakening Response (CAR), which is why you may feel drowsy after waking up as a disabled person. 

The fact of the matter is the THC actually raises cortisol levels, especially for novice users. The initial high of marijuana is surrounded by cortisol release, it's part of the psychoactive experience of THC. However after repeated microdosing and medical use you get a blunted stage, this prevents the user from experiencing a significant psychoactive change or cortisol release because they become tolerant to the plant. This is the proper medical dose stage and how you should feel with your medical marijuana. 

CBD however, this is non psychoactive. CBD is also known to significantly lower cortisol levels in patients when used appropriately. You don't have to get to a medical state of use for it to work with your endocannabinoid system because it is non psychoactive and it works immediately at lowering cortisol levels. (3)

People with disabilities experience significant anxiety, aggression, fear, and fight or flight due to PTSD or trauma or whatever it is they go through, and all of these conditions are exacerbated and spread throughout the body with cortisol. Stress especially raises your cortisol levels, and being disabled is stressful and often comes with chronic pain, both cause significant raises in cortisol levels.

Introducing CBD or hemp into the diet not only can regulate your endocannabinoid system but also your cortisol levels!

This is the reason CBD is used in patients with PTSD, CAR, seizures, anxiety, pain, depression, and other conditions in which the mood needs stabilizing or the body needs to sync with the proper release of the chemicals from the brain by having everything in balance. It prevents your brain from overdosing you with cortisol.

“That is why it saved my life and changed everything even though I'd been using Marijuana to self soothe for years. That is why I got into the industry and that is why I don't think people are listening when I'm talking about the medical side of things, because it's not all about getting high sometimes. The medical community are the disabled communities that open the door to legalization,” says Kimber McIntyre, CEO of Natural Healthy CBD and Service Dog Headquarters. 

In closing; pain, anxiety and stress are caused by an overabundance of cortisol. Medical marijuana, specifically CBD, lowers cortisol levels and regulates the gland that's overproducing and releasing it. So, it's not that you don't have pain anymore. It's that it doesn't hurt that bad and you're not that concerned about it because your body is no longer releasing those signals to your brain that you're in extreme pain and you're panicking about it.

It's not going to numb the problem necessarily, it'll silence the alarm though, which in a functional society is what you need to be able to function with a disability... Not be dope sick. 

This is actually why they use the plant and ONE of the obvious reasons that CBD and THC are used by the disabled class and the science behind it. 

Give us a grant! 

All jokes aside - it's just one of our company's goals to be able to study the different strains and effects of hemp and marijuana plants and how they can benefit us on a medical level. We are entirely self funded and therefore not as quick or big as those with unlimited access. We wouldn't be here without you! 

Sources:

1. Medical Marijuana Use Is 'Prevalent' Among People With Disabilities—And It Helps Treat Pain, New Federally Funded Study Shows - Marijuana Moment- https://www.marijuanamoment.net/medical-marijuana-use-is-prevalent-among-people-with-disabilities-and-it-helps-treat-pain-new-federally-funded-study-shows/

2. Stressed Out? Too Much Stress Cortisol Can Hurt Your Body - My Doctor - https://mydoctor.kaiserpermanente.org/mas/news/stressed-out-too-much-stress-cortisol-can-hurt-your-body-2218210

3. Cannabis THC and CBD Affect Many Areas of the Offer to Reduce Levels of Cortisol - Lam Clinic - https://lamclinic.com/articles/medical-cannabis-health-impact/#:~:text=Cannabis%2C%20THC%2C%20and%20CBD%20affect%20many%20areas%20of%20the%20body,to%20reduce%20levels%20of%20cortisol