Dr. Mary Clifton proudly joins a new breed of physicians entering the cannabis space. These are doctors who are not content with writing a simple annual certificate. While many patients are often thrilled to not only live in a legal state but to get a doctor who will write the state required “cert”; Dr. Mary Clifton likes to talk to her patients about their new experience with an ancient plant.
In this unscripted and informative interview, John and Dr. Clifton discuss cannabis, the good, the challenges and the future. They discuss her entry to medicine, her current career goals and discuss what excites her in this new frontier. Mary and John talk stigma, access, and suffering. They also discuss cannabis as treatment for disease conditions. As usual, John brings out the best in his guests and Dr. Clifton does not disappoint. She discusses dosing, strain selection, hybrids, topicals, edible and vaping and/or smoking. She is disease knowledgeable and does not hold back on cannabis as treatment.
After watching this podcast, our audience should feel more comfortable with using cannabis. Not only using it correctly, but buying, storing and keeping safe while feeling better!
Transcript
It’s All Cannabis! Join John Malanca as he Talks all Things Cannabis with Dr. Mary Clifton
John Malanca 0:00
Hi everybody, John Malanca here with United patients Group Be Informed. Be Well, and tonight’s guest is a friend of the show. She’s done a lot in this industry. But Dr. Mary Clifton, maybe you’ve seen her maybe you’re not but I think you’re going to enjoy this. And we thought we’d just do something different. Just have a normal conversation is so welcome to the show. Thanks, john. Thanks for inviting me. Yeah, so I’ve seen you everywhere. I mean, I’ve seen your because I’m in this industry, but you’re you’re covering a lot of ground and so congratulations. Everywhere I turn I share with that last week when we got an A phone call. I said your name is coming up everywhere. And I’m talking to people from all over the US and and they’ll Oh yeah, I knew Dr. Mary. I said yep, I do. I just got off the call with her. I just did a potty another another shooting with her. So can you so right now you’re on the east coast. Last time I spoke with you actually last two times. You’re up in Michigan with the family and back home in New York.
Now you’re further stuff now. And so you’re bouncing around in the, I guess the technology, technology, half computer and camera will travel. So I applaud you for doing that. Can you share a little bit about your background? How you, you know how you made it to the cannabis industry because cannabis wasn’t your lifestyle. Yeah, and part of your practice.
Unknown Speaker 1:24
It’s a little tricky to get around in the pandemic, but it’s all but still really fun to travel. And so I just have to be a little bit more careful and be sure that wherever I’m going, you’re protecting yourself, you know, but yeah, I’ve been I’ve been a doctor for coming up on 25 years now. And you some cannabis way back in high school and in retrospect, probably that to manage a lot of anxiety. I mean, it was, you know, the 80s and we really did have a lot of tools to help people who are dealing with anxiety and I probably was using it more medicinal Lee but probably records too, but but then, you know, I had a baby really early john, I had my first daughter when I was 17. And so that
Unknown Speaker 2:10
cannabis,
Unknown Speaker 2:12
maybe
John Malanca 2:16
but I have to say, Mary’s the youngest out of seven kids right? out of six. Yeah, excuse me. 60 anyway, throwing a little humor in there but go on.
Unknown Speaker 2:25
Yeah, I had a lot of unsupervised time as a kid which was great. But then you know, it was a little bit too unsupervised, maybe who knows, but, but anyway, Chelsea is just such a fabulous light. But I went to undergraduate and medical school and really graduated from medical school and just always had an interest within internal medicine to provide a you know, a, an opportunity for people to get in. I love innovative things and I love patient empowerment. I love anything that allows the patient to take back their health because so often And, you know, people come in with back pain, for example, and we, you know, we inject them, we, you know, give them pills, we adjust the pill dosage, but we really don’t give people a series of steps that they can do to help to control or prevent their back pain. You know, we really underestimate the value of nutrition and movement and we say that patients won’t do it and so we just don’t even teach it. So I’ve always been interested in that ability to allow patients to take back their health and not you know, keep me in charge of managing that. I spent years doing vegan diet and helping people to eat a healthier diet. I wrote a cookbook and a couple of books that I’m really proud of within
Unknown Speaker 3:45
vegan and then I compiled to please
Unknown Speaker 3:49
Oh, they were the vegan program was called get wasted whi STD know get good and, and then the cookbook was also the good one. cookbook. those are those are great old books. And I bet you can get them for free at this point on Amazon, there’s you know, they’ve been around for many years. But but the diets hard to stick with and I wasn’t I really could never get traction around it and I wanted to have a bigger impact. And, and I anyway, I was never able to really get that off the ground, but still looking for great opportunities for patient empowerment. And about five years ago, you know, my brother died. And shortly after that, one of my good girlfriends died both of these from cancer, and two really opposite experiences. You know, one very uncontrolled symptomatically and the other one very peaceful. So, I thought I would learn a little bit about cannabis because it seemed like it really helped in that end of life circumstance. I figured we had no data because that’s all you ever hear. We have no data, then I’ll get back to being an internist and keep thinking and exploring. And then when I started to read it became an clear that there is so much information that nobody knows. Nobody has the data that is easy to understand or clearly delivered. So I made it my mission to make this data this research available, you know, and understandable so that people who want to work in cannabis or people who want to get help from it for their various conditions can have that information at their fingertips.
John Malanca 5:26
It’s amazing on how many doctors and nurses I speak to on a regular basis who’ve been friends for years. I asked them how they get into this and you know, I went to one of the medical conferences here in this industry. Patients at a time when have you ever been there some friends in Maryland mastery and so, but they go thinking, alright, what am I gonna learn? What am I learn? And they walk out of there like, Oh my gosh, how did I change? How come I never learned about this in medical school or nursing school and there are handful of doctors and nurses. I work with it because of that learning. So I yeah, I know you’re an educator as well. And so I think it’s, there’s a niche and there’s is a need for this because it’s still to this day, I can’t tell you how many patients we speak to on a regular basis, that are seniors that said, you have this talk, talk with your doctor and they said, No, my doctor said if I do happen land, if he said, Lois, if I find out you try cannabis, I’m going to, you know, you need to get another doctor. And she said, basically, you know, kiss off. So I got another doctor, you know, I’ve heard this before with seniors say, I fired my doctor because of that, you know, and so, you know, I just think I don’t want patients to be afraid to ask the question, even if they live in a legal state or not, or a non legal state, it’s not illegal to ask the question. Yeah, you know, and so
Unknown Speaker 6:49
doctors are really scared because it’s still federally not legal. So you’re when you’re offering it to patients, you’re putting, you know, your there is some level of risk with doing That so you have to make sure that you’re within the right boundaries, you know there and that you talk about it properly. Or you can, you know, you can get shut down pretty quickly. So it is important to respect all of those rules. But it’s also important to recognize that we have a very powerful medicinal plant here and the entire endocannabinoid system in our bodies that’s just designed to uptake the cannabinoids and bring them into the cells. I mean, the fact that your body has an endocannabinoid system with CB receptors laid out on every single organ, you know, would suggest to me that cannabinoids are as essential as other hormones that operate the same way like cortisol. And, you know, thyroid just, there’s there are not a lot but there are several systems that work in the human body and affect every single organ. And it’s very important to honor you know what’s happening with cannabinoids and make sure that they’re part of your life on most days
John Malanca 8:02
talking about, I was reading an article about stress, especially what we’re going through right now with COVID. And you’ve mentioned cortisol. Everywhere I go now, you know, months ago, I said, You watch, road rage is going to be, it’s going to come back with vengeance. No, no, no, everyone’s gonna be calm. I said, I don’t think so. I just think people are just, and my article that I’m writing it right before I got on that I’m putting out in our newsletter is about stress of just going to the market, going to the post office, driving down the street, going for a run, going for a ride. Everyone has just just tighter than a drum. And I think everyone needs to stop, slow down. We’ve had the six months to really get back to our house chain. Yeah, there was a there was a funny picture where you saw, okay, I’ve done everything in my house and the guy was on his roof with a lot more now. In my mind, you know, he’s like, I’ve already built three stories. You know, with this Kobe but everyone’s stressed out and so
Unknown Speaker 9:05
everyone is stressed out. And I think that it’s really important especially as we’re all going through this, this collective trauma this collective grief that we’re all dealing with, we can’t see our kids we, you know, people are limited with seeing their grandkids you can’t see your your mom and dad because you don’t want them sick. So there’s just this, this and it’s a lot of grief, really everybody is missing something that they wanted to be able to do before. And we have to be particularly careful now with our brains and very, very, very careful with our bodies. Because the way that we integrate this trauma is going to impact the way that we process it for years to come. So you really want to make sure right now that you’re that you’re tracking your the things that you need to do that you’re getting your exercise that you’re getting your sleep that you’re Using cannabinoids in the formulation that you prefer, you know that you’re taking care of your loved ones and family and friends so that all of that is, is so that you’re protecting yourself.
John Malanca 10:12
You know beginning when you’re talking about your cookbook and how you were your practice was and to where you are now. I think it’s so important to incorporate getting exercise. You’re talking we’re talking about stretching earlier, going out for a run even if you you’re not able to go for a run to get outside, go for you know, a block walk, we’ll help you you know,
Unknown Speaker 10:38
only with managing the trauma but also with giving you some vitamin D to help stimulate a super healthy immune system. And the sunshine itself is directly healthy and the green bath you get in a forest where you’re where you’re seeing multiple different layers and different colors. Green is super nourishing to your brain. All of those things improves your sleep patterns. This is a time where we should all be walking whenever I go out and everybody’s out walking or running. I’m just like, I hope that you can go into this winter and into the flu season and the everything in really good shape. I mean, there’s some suggestion that as we are all masking, we may see a calmer flu season because we’re going to not be exposing each other to the flu either. But you know it Australia certainly saw a lighter flu season, but we really can’t tell because we still don’t know how people are going to be complying with mask recommendation. Yes.
John Malanca 11:35
Yeah, it’s funny you say Australia, a friend of mine. His wife works for cuantas and they told her don’t plan on coming back to work until March 2021.
Unknown Speaker 11:46
Oh, I mean, that’s,
John Malanca 11:48
you know, so that’s, that’s pretty much that’s a big distance to say, don’t plan anything because you’re not gonna be flying. You know, and she would go you know, from from Sydney over here to LA. You know, that was her her rant. But you know, the masking are you sorry, my
Unknown Speaker 12:09
sister was supposed to go back to work for the state of Michigan. They initially said in August, then they moved it to October, but they just can’t figure out how to make it work. And then they had some big space, a redo just a year or two ago to try to accommodate their spaces and make sure which basically meant that the hallways got skinnier and everybody’s cubby got a little smaller. And then and now with COVID. They’re trying to do like every other cubby on Monday, Wednesday, Friday, Tuesday, Thursday, and alternating and you know, as soon as they reopen, somebody gets sick and then they have to shut the whole thing down for a couple weeks. So they just that I don’t I don’t know how we successfully reopen. You know, even
John Malanca 12:50
even the university or your kid your kids are college age early.
Unknown Speaker 12:54
I’ve got one in college and then I have one with you know, who’s a doctor herself down in Nashville, I’ve got two grandbabies down there but the grandbaby back in school and that’s a little nerve racking the little one is the kindergartner this year and but Anna Anna stayed my second is University of Michigan and she just stayed home and is going to work out of the New York apartment for you know for the fall.
John Malanca 13:19
Yeah. Online I have friends that they brought their their kid down University of Miami and five of her son’s in a in an off campus place with with five, four of his other buddies and one had it and now they all have it you know what? And one guy has had it twice. So I kind of just throws it out the window your immune if you’ve had had it once.
Unknown Speaker 13:48
Yeah, this herd immunity. I mean, the concept that we’ll get behind it with herd immunity is hard to say because the immunity may only last about three months. So with with a virus that has immunity for Three months, I don’t know how we’re going to get to herd immunity. And then I mean, but presumably there are some people who have sort of a native immunity, and then there’s the herd immunity, and then there are some people who just aren’t going to get sick. So in some settings, it may make sense that if you’ve already been hard hit, you may be less likely to get hard hit again during the second wave. So places like New York City may have an added level of protection. But all of this is conjecture. I mean, nobody knows we haven’t had a good pandemic for 100 years. So we just we just don’t know how this thing is going to work. I mean, it’s fascinating to me, and then it’s so morbid and embarrassing that it’s fascinating to me, but of course, as a doctor, I love you know, emerging emerging pathogens. I mean, you know, I suppose everybody loves scary things because scary movies have a have a following, but I would sometimes before I’d go to bed and I wanted to scare myself, open up the you know, CDC emerging pathogens and just start reading about like, Crazy stuff that was coming into the food system or
John Malanca 15:02
you know doctor’s mind right there everyone. So what do you do scared? Oh, I watch I opened up the CDC to put myself to bed.
Unknown Speaker 15:12
I think you know, like this one is I mean, it sounds like it’s got some wings like the bird flu. No, you think swine flu a few years ago was interesting.
John Malanca 15:21
h1 and one, you know? No, no Dr. Sharma chintu Sharma out of Maryland. Uh huh. So he’s a medical director of a hospital. And I had him on the show and he got emotional. He said, john, I’ve been through the swine flu h1 n one. And this is the first time that we really don’t know what we’re doing. Meaning we’ve seen all the symptoms come in from this to this so it’s not just oh, you have this this is what you this is that you know, you’re diagnosed with this. He said he’s had one nurse that had two strokes, one nurse acute stroke. She’s seen other doctors and long term he’s I don’t know Long term is, you know, and he every day he when he gets home he said the first few weeks he said he’s not in bed and he’s got emotional, you know, his wife sleeping next to him his kids are in the other room and he just just broke down and what he been seeing and he goes it just you know and so when you’re in it every day and he probably he probably like you were he reads it doesn’t doesn’t have to read the CDC or you know, website every night cuz he sees it at the hospital, but it’s sometime
Unknown Speaker 16:25
in January, February, and I started to see this coming in and I was like, I don’t know if I can get excited about this. I started hearing about it December, January, and then by late January, I was like, oh boy, you know, and once we got into where everybody else was paying attention to it, I was already like, you know, a couple of weeks at least a couple of weeks ahead and very emotional and really suffering with it because the consequences are just can be catastrophic, as you’ve seen, and, you know, my mother was like, Get a hold of yourself. I just, you know, I don’t think you really took her a while. And it wasn’t really until it came to our city. And it right in her town that we had a diagnosed case. And then she was like, no, it’s here. You know, she had always felt like since we were sort of up north Michigan that it was, it was going great for a really long time. And it wasn’t never gonna, but it eventually is gonna find its way everywhere.
John Malanca 17:21
Now, Wisconsin, Michigan all up there. No, it’s not gonna make it to our little town and they said, You’re not gonna believe it’s here in town. You know, I was in Asia in January. So I grew up over in Tokyo and also the Philippines. Oh, cool that I went to just had its hundred year anniversary from 1920 to 2020. And we had about, I’m gonna say 1300 people from around the world showed up in the class in 1960, the class of 2020 mm. And you heard about it over there January in January. Oh, yeah. Talking about it. There’s a flu in the China flu. So I’m probably gonna upset a lot of people. But that’s what it was originally called, was the China a few China flew, trying to flew to China. Yeah, I guess it was. And then I went, and then COVID sorry. We did
Unknown Speaker 18:08
the Spanish Flu all those years ago, we went over there
John Malanca 18:10
there say no to China flu and but it was funny. Already, I’m already a germaphobe. When it comes like that when I was crying, I would fly. And I wipe everything down with, you know, bleach wipes and stuff like that had my mask. So when I flew over there, I had my mask on already and flew back. But there were other classmates. So we were we a handful of us had a bug for 24 hours. It was the same symptom. Fever sore back. Next day, you’re you can go run 10 miles, and I’ve others afterwards talking about, you know, the reunion, and they were sick for six weeks with this and so and then I talked to people They’re still live over there. And they got it. And I was like, they should be careful. I bet it will make it over the states. And I remember one by one, you started hearing all these cases, and two got in and got out. And maybe I maybe I had it. You know, I asked Dr. Sharma, if I could be tested because it’s probably not in your in your system anymore, right. That was January. Where are we right now? August end of August.
Unknown Speaker 19:25
Yeah. So if you had a light case, way back that
John Malanca 19:28
funny, all of us have the same thing.
Unknown Speaker 19:31
Because there’s so
Unknown Speaker 19:32
little bugs that go around just when, you know, like the Las Vegas flew every time you go out there, you always come home with a little bug. But now you can come with a really big bug. I mean, Las Vegas is a source of a lot of super spreader events. And yeah, just really unwise to be in Vegas, right?
John Malanca 19:52
Friend of mine, he’s lived there for 27 years. And he he got that bug a few years ago. And I said How is he goes, man came out of both ends. He goes, he got to the point where I just sat in the in the bathtub in the shower. He had a week. And I go, he goes, I wonder my mommy did your job, man. I was he goes, I was I had no control. He goes, I was so sick. And then a week or two later I talk to him, I go, how did he goes? I lost 10 pounds. You know, so he looked at it that way and I said, eating out but he goes if it was scary because I wanted my mommy and I said man and I still give him a hard time I talked to his mom and it said, you know this is what your son went through to show you the power of moms out there everyone love your mom’s your mom’s are still here Love you Love your mom are so important.
Unknown Speaker 20:42
Yeah, my mom as soon as we get done with this, it’s one of the things I’m tracking. One of the things I’m trying to do. You know what’s interesting is the position of CBD and other cannabinoids in in modulating the immune system. It’s especially in the setting of COVID you know, There’s there’s a lot of research around how CBD and cannabis can impact the T cells. And the way that T cells function and T cells to have a couple of different functions within the immune system, they can help to sort of Rouse a memory response for something that you’ve already had an exposure to, but they also do a really good job of taking a new pathogen that your body has not seen before and packaging it up for the immune system to present it to the immune system to be like, you know, get in here and create some, some immunologic response to this creates some, you know, immunoglobulins so we can fight this. And so that process of chewing up a new pathogen, finding a piece of it that makes sense to present to the immune system and presenting it so you can create the immunoglobulin response is a really important part of the T cells. So, and we know that cannabinoids impact T cell function and can help to regulate T cell function and we also know that they regulate immunity really well. We don’t have great human data on it. But we have a really interesting mouse study where they took I mean, they’ve done a number of things with mice and
John Malanca 22:14
rodents. I know four little guys are just saying here let’s try this. I mean, one of the shining rupt you one of the first conference I had, I had attended and a doctor was talking to actually Dr. Abrams out of San Francisco UCSF. He was talking about rat studies and giving them THC and putting their tail on a heat pad and we’re all quick what the ones that didn’t have any tea cannabis took it to pop their tail off right away and the ones that did you know we didn’t burn any what he said but they were able to keep it on longer anyway go on with your with
Unknown Speaker 22:47
more intolerance to this was related to like how sick you got when you got exposed to a virus. And what they what they did with these. This cage full of mice is they gave half of them CBD and they gave the other half CBD just regular regular, everybody got the same food The only thing changed was that half of them got CBD. And then they and then they expose the entire cage to wrap flu, which basically does to rats the same thing it does to humans they you know, they get laid out and they can eat or drink and they get poopy and sick and they don’t want to play in their mazes anymore. And and what they found was really neat that when certain when these rats that were given a DD were exposed to the flu, they were still able to get up and get after it. They were able to go eat their food and they were even able to play in their mazes a little bit. So this, you know, strikes me similar to when the flu hits your city and one person is coughing a little bit and they go to work and the other person is laid up in bed for three or four days. You know, it may be that this CBD exposure has the potential to modulating that immune response so that you don’t get like super Sick, because part of it is the inoculum. It’s like if somebody sneezes directly into your eye, you know, you’re gonna, it’s a different inoculum that if you walk through somebody’s cough cloud from 10 minutes ago, you know, so the amount of virus you get when you inhale it is different. And that’s why it’s so important to cover your nose and mouth so that the inoculum is decreased, and you’ll presumably get less sick. But the other thing is, when it gets into your body, your body creates that immune response. And if the response is huge, and there’s interleukins and tumor necrosis factor everywhere, then that’s where you get all mucus in your lungs and the pain in your knees and the fever, and all of that. So if you can sort of modulate that immune response in the way that CBD and cannabis appear to, you can, you know, potentially have a much smoother course. So I think right now, the conclusion for me within this crazy time we’re in is to position the Trump appropriately in your brain so that you store it properly. You know, make sure your prefrontal cortex and your amygdala and your hippocampus have adequate cannabinoids. And then if you get sick, you know make sure that you have adequate cannabinoids to modulate that immune response. I think it’s important to have something every day.
John Malanca 25:19
I’m a big fan of health and wellness with with the cannabis products and I do a tincture, but for a lot of states. Even California before it became recreationally legal, or I guess 21 and over here in 2018. Health and Wellness was not on there, but everything else. I mean, you could have hiccups or an ingrown toenail. Yeah, here’s your recommendation, but health and wellness was not on there. Yeah, so it was basically you know, oh, you have glaucoma, right wink wink. I mean, cannabis has been legal in the state of California, medically since 1996. And those were the first qualifying conditions glaucoma and in AIDS, you know, and then I think cancer came on as well, but But for a while but I truly believe that everyone should have some some form of cannabinoids in the system daily you know for for health and wellness bringing the body back you talked about CBD I would say that about 140 cannabinoids, were you in there 120 to 160 with what people say I think I asked you that before Are you are you right around there?
Unknown Speaker 26:21
Yeah I think that’s reasonable. I mean I think they’re finding them all the time but it’s kind of like periodic table you know some are available in such a small amount and when you actually go to ingest them you know the amounts are so trace it’s hard to know what their effect is going to be.
John Malanca 26:37
So you keep in the body with immune your immune function up. Sleep is very important. Of course, we all know that as well. And then diet, getting out getting exercise and incorporate incorporating in some cannabinoids, you mentioned CBD. How much do you know I know you can’t This is not to replace everyone. Disclaimer not replaced on one on one with your own medical record. For Dr. Clifton dusty dusty patients, by the way, not in person, but video now they think everything’s yo daddy. But you know, but I think I truly believe guidance even with CVD that is needed, you know age weight, current health condition. Any other medications you may be on, you know, just to fine tune. It’s not a one size fits all, but I think it’s completely safe to do as a date, in my opinion is like you wouldn’t and vitamin or supplement. Can you talk about that?
Unknown Speaker 27:32
Oh, I absolutely think like thinking about it as an adaptogen or as something to help you to have optimum outcomes. Very, very, it’s a very good place to position it absolute, especially in our current circumstances with what everybody’s going through. But even before this, I mean, you know, we’re designed to work, you know, six or seven hours, five days a week, make sure we get a couple of hours of exercise every day at least
John Malanca 27:59
I’d rather work now. I was working from eight. I mean, I’m working eight to 11. I’m talking my mom the other day. She’s like, can you have office hours? Mom, I just
Unknown Speaker 28:07
noticed. Yeah, and I mean, it’s eight days a week. I mean, every, the more you work, the better off and, and we’re all pushing on our sleep to where we’re not getting adequate sleep. And of course, our nutrition is horrifying for most people. So you’re just, you know, always, always burning the candle and pushing on your adrenal glands pushing on all of your systems. And so having, you know, I think even when you try to do a really good job, you’re still so far away from where our bodies are intended to be that having these adaptogenic tools. I mean, that’s, it’s so interesting that we do all these terrible things to our systems. My mother and I just had this this discussion that, you know, when you’ve got 30% of your grownups, obese or overweight, and you know, everybody is unhappy and nobody is getting their exercise. There. systemic problems in your country. It’s not a matter that 40% of people have no willpower. And they’re just and they’re and and it’s their fault. That is not the problem, you know that we have a systemic problem with how we’re managing our food and how we’re managing our movement, so that we have an unhealthy population. And so we limit your movement with all of these and your exercise with all these motorized assistance. And then we limit your ability to get great nutrition, you really have to fight to get great nutrition. And then you know, we take away all the adaptogens like all of the mushrooms, all the cannabinoids are so difficult to find and all riddled with, you know, prejudices and biases and people just, you know, try to take a multivitamin and think that that’s going to actually make them feel better. And it is not it’s not going to work. We mean if we were living in a much simpler time, we would all still need to make sure we get adaptogens everyday and this is not a simple time to be living.
John Malanca 30:04
You mentioned Well, let me go back here before I go into that one. So for any of our listeners just for for health and wellness, what would you What are you doing? Again not you’re not is not to replace on one on one with your with your medical freshmen what do you what do you see is is kind of a balancing bring your body back to balance.
Unknown Speaker 30:31
Yeah I have some of my CBD products right over there. Usually I show up to a to an event I mean I have some choose. But I think a really I mean probably the best way to access it I like to do two different things. I like all of the tinctures but I like to go with a very highly potent tincture. I use a low potency teacher as a as a face oil to take off my makeup. And then after I take off my makeup, I use it on my face because it has helps to really restore sebaceous gland function and helps to restore like a lot of the moisture as you’re getting old. So I think that works great. I’d use a like a I mean bring it on whatever the chemical you can find to put around my eyes to keep my eyes I mean I’ll take it
Unknown Speaker 31:18
I don’t care if I lose my vision in 10 years I do not want any of her grandma you look okay
Unknown Speaker 31:27
you know that’s like a permanent like job. Anyway, the eye cream is different but the face is all CBD and then I use a high potency CBD tincture and just like 3000 milligrams per per, you know, per bottle or at least 2000 milligrams about and a dropper full of that
John Malanca 31:45
in the morning. Do that at night cuz I know So, you know, I’m sensitive where to find me if I do not the right amount before bed, I’m up. Yeah, it’s an AMA that I can also put you put you down and so on. Yeah, that’s the thing when people think, Oh, I’m taking CBD here all day. And again, even if even if that doesn’t have a, you know, psychoactive effect, you know, it’s still can affect driving if your machinery if you have to do things you just want to relax a bit. Can you talk about a little thing I mean, we’re, I’m enjoying this conversation.
Unknown Speaker 32:21
It’s something that I think is a really great idea to think about how it impacts you. And you can also use all kinds of different products. I love that the industry is ahead of us that way so that if you need something that’s going to restore calm and focus, because you’re stressed out, which can happen to all of us, you open your email inbox and it’s exploding, and you have something you have to work on and you had your whole day planned. You know, sometimes the day kind of runs off with you and all your best laid plans go right and that can be very stressful. So those do need a product that can help you with being calm and focused rather than sedated. So I think to some degree, that Taking the CBD and and wrapping it around with a good set of terpenes with like a limit as opposed to linalool or you know beta carry Athlon so that it so that in the bud so I like the idea of using a tincture at night and then I really love for daytime like rapid onset response these these single source hemp cigarettes that are that are all CBD, no THC although they burn and they smell like a cannabis cigarette, but they’re they’re just all ham and the and they’re very instantaneous in their in their absorption. So you get an A lot of really great innovative companies are coming up with these I love these little these, these little cigarettes. And I featured them here and there on my on my site. You know some of the companies that are doing them, they’re like, they’re funny because they’re innovative, but they’re actually like The oldest vaporizer
John Malanca 34:00
the actually a joint
Unknown Speaker 34:03
yeah but it’s it but it’s a hemp it’s it’s CBD there’s no cannabis in it
John Malanca 34:08
or you know speakers have you ever been to a hemp farm? No Oh my gosh,
Unknown Speaker 34:15
I haven’t actually walked through it I thought
John Malanca 34:18
I was educated. So So for our listeners, they’re about 140 different cannabinoids. THC is a cannabinoid, CBD is a cannabinoid CBN CBG CBN CBD a CBD THC um it goes on and on and on. And each of them have their own benefits and so to find, you know different formulation ratios terpenes terpenes everyone’s familiar with the terpene because you stop and smell the roses that the smell you smell from the rose at the terpene the smell you smell from a lemon or a lime, that’s another terpene and they pine needles, the same thing and they all have their their That’s why you see all these essential oils right now they all have their part to play to bring the body back to homeostasis and healing. And I when the CBD market kind of started coming in about five or seven years ago, there was a bunch of crap out there excuse my language but there was a bunch of crap and it was frustrating to see what was out there. And so I wasn’t sold on this, you know, on the all these hemp CBD companies coming on board till about three years ago I was invited out to a farm. It was 1000 acres in outdoor at 700 square feet indoor. And I walked through this field I said all the darn you couldn’t tell it in my what I always pictured hemp they look like corn stocks, you know that like they’re the industrial the industrial, the true industrial hemp looks like a cornfield. And but I walked to this field and it was like walking in Northern California. The smell, the hairs, the purple colors, everything was the same minus the THC portion. And I had a full on education on that and I said, I’ll be darned. And they had a location where they did sell, they have cigarettes, they sold jars like you would go into a normal dispensary here in California. And that was an ill illegal state, but it was legal for him. And so but I but they had everything from the face creams, the body lotions to smokeable, to vaporisation to tinctures. But that’s where I had my first education on that this the plant of the hemp plant is still in the family, but I always always pictured it, you know, like corn stocks, and
Unknown Speaker 36:46
getting I mean, the corn stocks are going to be good for making fiber but you’re going to need all of those buds and the you know, and the leaves and or
John Malanca 36:54
buds is where you’re into stuff like that too. And so there are some great companies that have have come on board then now with these extraction companies, they can come in and I always describe it like the San Francisco 40, Niners in the day, it’s panning for gold, and the mud goes off and what’s left in the pan is the gold nuggets. And so they’re able to put these, this product in. And they’re able to separate TC out of there. So now this is a, you know, a CBD isolate or still under the legal limit of 0.3% for for him. And so, but like I said, there’s some great company and if that’s all you have access to, do you recommend that for you? Because I know you talk to patients all over the country. And so if they don’t have access to THC, and you you recommend, I guess, some form of cannabinoid in their system. And I’m assuming that you do that with with with company hemp companies as well, right.
Unknown Speaker 37:50
Oh, yeah, I mean, I think that I I thought that as I started to look at this, I was like, What is my contribution? What is my value here? How can I Help because of because we have to move this whole industry forward and help people. But But what does it actually need. And I’ve thought that there would be some sort of creation of like a magic wheel where I would, you know, be able to tell you that you have this condition, this is the product that you need. And a lot of people are doing that there’s so many different products that are coming to market that are that are this really great lineage. That’s super cool background. And it’s a great idea to mix one lineage with another and try to bring the best of both of the parents together. Some of the best products have come from there.
John Malanca 38:37
You can tell the difference. You couldn’t tell the difference if that was a no cannabis grow with high THC or I mean, that’s that the plants are beautiful anyway.
Unknown Speaker 38:48
Yeah, yeah. But I mean, so I think that I think that all people have a great idea. After you see a lot of patients you start to hear that a lot of people with chronic, persistent uncontrolled pain. do really well with AC DC, or a lot of people with depression love Harlequin or cherry pie. But we don’t have as much data as you as we need to really draw those conclusions. A lot of people do very well with CBD a lot. I think even more would do better with CBD products, if they looked at several different products, and if they were willing to titrate them to higher administrative amounts, because a lot of people take a few drops. And then they say, Well, that didn’t work, you know, and they and they go on to something else.
John Malanca 39:30
How long when they say that doesn’t work. How long do you say stick with it for?
Unknown Speaker 39:34
Oh, I mean, you know, I talked to a woman yesterday who’s been having trouble sleeping for 12 years, and she took CBD for a week and it didn’t, you know,
John Malanca 39:45
didn’t work or did work.
Unknown Speaker 39:46
It did not work but I mean week and she was only taking like 10 to 15 milligrams just being really really cautious with it. So we pushed her to 100 milligrams, you know, with you titrating to 100 milligrams over the course of for five days, and I told her to stay there for four weeks and then get back with me, she’s probably going to need four to six months before we can really say that there was a failure there. But at four to six weeks, it might be reasonable for us to add a little more THC, you know, and really try to try to push that. But I think that’s the big issue is that people have a problem that they’ve had for a really long time that they want fixed immediately, or they take a drop or two and they’re like, yeah, that didn’t work, you know, but they but they’re taking a 250 milligram in one vial. So a drop or two might literally be you know, a milligram or two of CBD. Get anybody anywhere. Yeah.
John Malanca 40:39
Yeah. Sleep is so important. And when that’s off, a lot of other things fall in for anxiety, depression, anger, pain, you know, and so,
Unknown Speaker 40:51
stances where, where we don’t have great data that the product actually helps the condition, but that it helps the sleep and the anxiety. Around the condition so much that people feel better, even though they’re dealing with cancer or Parkinson’s, you know, and they may not necessarily in their particular condition be getting benefit in the from the, for the underlying problem. Yeah, a lot of people don’t realize that Parkinson’s patients have terrible nightmare syndromes. They have them, you know, once or twice a week where they’re being chased by a wild animal or they’re getting in a physical altercation. And that I mean, to remove those nightmares for people like you can when you’re using cannabinoid formulations, you can give people so much relief and get them to sleep. You know,
John Malanca 41:39
are you in your practice? Is there something you that you really specialize in? Is it sleep? Are you being brain issues? I mean, do you see the whole gamut?
Unknown Speaker 41:49
I’ve been a generalist for all the 25 years that I’ve been in practice, I’ve always run a medicine practice. So I like to think about a lot of different things and I like to specialize down into one product. So you know, I used to do a lot osteoporosis and women’s health and and then you know you can do something for a while and then it’s fun to switch gears every decade or so. So switching over to CBD has been great CBD and cannabis because it crosses through a lot of different disease states. They always in medical school if you know diabetes, you know medicine because diabetes touches every organ in the body and you can once you learn that disease perfectly, you really, really know the entirety of medicine. But the same is probably true of CBD and cannabis with the way that it impacts so many different disease states. Once you you know, you can spend the rest of your life trying to learn everything you need to know in medicine. You know,
John Malanca 42:45
it’s funny you say that I you know, I’ll present quite a bit in one of my slides that I put up there as a roll of duct tape. And I flick and people look at me like hey, wrong slide. Now look behind you. And I started laughing. I said actually that slides up there because people will call us in Does it work for this and it worked for that. And I say I want to say, it’s like duct tape with 1,000,001 uses, but when you when you really dive deep into this, you know, and I’ll never, I never use the word cure, you know, but I say heal and help and stuff like that. But when you really do your research, you know, on what this plant does, and all the different, you know, the terpenes, and cannabinoids, how they all each play a role. You’d be kind of blown away and surprised. And I’m surprised. I’m not surprised. I think a lot of medical schools are starting to open their mind and say, Hey, we need to get this curriculum into our into our schooling. earlier. You mentioned strains, are you a strain? I’m not a strain person. Because what I if I grew something here on the west coast and you had the same seed and you grew something out there, you know, chances are they’re gonna be different. And so hopefully one day it’ll get to the point where you have Parkinson’s, take this you have diabetes, take this you have cancer. Take this. And like you said, the more education out there, the more clinical trials done on our little rodent friends and hopefully get some human trials in there. What are your thoughts on legalization, full legalization?
Unknown Speaker 44:12
I think we have a lot of great work coming out of Israel. We’ve got some, you know, we’ve got great work coming out of other places. But Israel is really leading the way on these very specific cultivars or strains, or formulations, you know, that are very high light, like, you know, unnaturally high in a particular part in a particular cannabinoid to where they are going to be able to potentially manage serious amounts of inflammation or control cancer in different ways than what the whole plant can do. But the whole plant is so powerful for so many people that really just accessing the whole plant is going to be what most people need to do. And I think the faster we legalize, the faster we get ahold of it, you’ve got a $7 billion industry now but we have The potential for a $53 billion industry if we can remove it from the secondary market and legalize it and regulate it and tax it, and every single state is upside down and underwater right now with unemployment, you know, the faster that people legalize, the faster they’re going to be on their feet and rolling. You know, the best thing to do is get it in person get it sold, but I want it to legalize in a way that allows for a really great entrepreneurial environment because of course, I love the idea of somebody cooking up a potion in their kitchen sink, and then you know, being able to take that several levels out and be able to offer it on a on a on a bigger scale. There’s so many people with so many beautiful, innovative ideas. I just had somebody send me a batch of CBN sweet tarts, that are great little candies. They’re very, very sweet and tart. And they’re very sedating and relaxing with that high concentration of CBN just brilliant. People are doing things thinking about them. So I want that spirit to stay, I don’t want this to become some sort of weird, you know, corporate vibe around a very natural healing plant. So we always want to
John Malanca 46:15
it’s going to get there, and CBN and I’m a big fan of CBN. So So for people who have issues with sleep CBN is another one of the cannabinoids that we were talking about, that helps with sleep, you know. And so, some companies are starting to come out with that right now. And you may have some, you know, you know, if you have some old cannabis from your high school college age, and you haven’t pulled it out of the cover, you know, for 30 something years, it will convert to CBN
Unknown Speaker 46:44
want to get rid of that old straw, nasty stuff, because it does have a higher level of CBN. And we don’t have great data on how CBN works. We have, you know, a little bit again of mouse data where they gave it to mice and they appeared to get more sluggish. I mean, that’s Really the best we’ve got with CBN. But but a lot of anecdotal data that it’s much more sedating than either CBD. So that might be one formulation for people who are dealing with a lot of, you know, very resistant insomnia where they, you know, just need to conquer their head with a hammer.
Unknown Speaker 47:23
That product might be the thing to use.
John Malanca 47:25
It’s, you know, you mentioned a bunch of, you know, a lot of people making their products in their home and doing their own innovation in with California, becoming 21 and over adult use only. And now I see our local governments in there, it pushed out a lot of great companies that didn’t have the money to get the license, they didn’t have the money to go get their commercial kitchens and they’ve had to kind of just close it close. Yeah, you know, and then at the same time, with the adult market here in California, A lot of doctors offices closed down because people don’t need the doctor recommendation anymore. They can just go right to the dispensary as if you and I are going to 711 pick something out. So the
Unknown Speaker 48:10
market is fascinating. It’s a very shifting market. I mean, I have to say going into medicine 25 years ago, I thought it was going to be just I go to my office and I see patients and I get reimbursed and everything’s fine. But that market has been shifting constantly because what gets reimbursed what doesn’t get reimbursed is always changing. And, you know, what you’re what you’re trying and the diseases that we’re looking for the the the, the way that we can look for certain diseases changes, so that you can, you know, have a higher level of success and define different conditions like Alzheimer’s, for example, we have tests like the one that the President did that will let us see if you’re dealing with Alzheimer’s early. That’s one test that you can use, but there’s a whole bunch of other tests that that will help you Identify or osteoporosis I mean, that wasn’t a thing that we could treat for a long time and now we can. So yeah, I agree with you that everything I mean this market is undergoing a whole bunch of growth spasms and I think there’s going to be constrictions and expansions that are going to be you know, very exciting to be involved in but also just stressful and complex for the investor or the inventor.
John Malanca 49:27
Yeah. Well, I was gonna let you let you go but I was going to say you know, all these new invention especially face creams and stuff like that lotion we can nowadays everything I mean, they’re coming out with everything. Like you said face creams, gums, sodas have been around you know, I’m not big on the soda portion but in I can’t tell you coming across our desk here United pagegroup the stuff we get sent yeah Get it? What are your thoughts? You know, you know, how can we get it out there and so some, you know, great products that come out and others are like,
Unknown Speaker 50:09
No, I just
Unknown Speaker 50:11
wants to do like a Fitbit a, you know integrated vitamin and CBD patch.
Unknown Speaker 50:19
Yeah that.
Unknown Speaker 50:20
And so then if you exercise the patch will secrete what you need it to secrete after exercise or if you’re falling asleep the patch will do that. So it follows your Fitbit data and then responds to it with the products that you need real time. So it’s the personalized nutrition thing really taken to this extremely high level. And, and I there may be value for that. And some people I can’t convince myself that there’s there’s value for that, you know, for everybody. There’s probably value for making sure that you get great nutrition but there may be a point where you need to focus on your relationships or your exercise. or something else that is also important to your health? You know, rather than rather than honing in on your nutrition that tightly, yeah.
John Malanca 51:10
Thinking about home, being at home, we’re all at home doing this whole COVID and you know, cortisol and stress levels are up what can you share with our listeners one last time just to get by getting your body back to balance in court and incorporating some why it’s important to incorporate some type of dynamic
Unknown Speaker 51:31
Yeah, I mean, I think that within there’s you can worry about so many things you can really worry about so many things like the ozone coming out of your shower or you know, there could you can get your health can become such a, there’s so many factors every day, but at the same time, there’s, you know, some basics for health that we all can do that really if you follow the basics for health, your it’s going to take your entire day. Just to reach those goals, you know, hydrating, sleeping, spending time with the person you love and also, you know, with your friends and family, making sure you get your exercise making sure you get some sun exposure, you know, and then when you dive into your eating, looking at very nutritious things when you,
Unknown Speaker 52:19
you know, those things, just those
Unknown Speaker 52:22
basic health patterns are going to occupy, you know, the majority of the majority of time that people have to devote to their health. So, I think the best thing to do is to always circle back to the basics and just check them off, you know, track them and check them off. Are you are you are you doing all those things that you need to do each day or most days to to have to have a good day? And also just check in with yourself like, Where am I at right now? Is this a good day is this a fairly good day and most days should be you know, very good to great and if they’re not, then Do you need to get off of your computer? Do you need to spend more time with your loved one? Do you need a little bit longer of a walk today? Did you get enough sleep? It can almost always track back to very simple things. But the the cannabinoid formulations the adaptogenic herbs that that are on the planet and grow naturally and are designed to support that healthy lifestyle need to be incorporated to make sure that you’re as healthy and safe as possible.
John Malanca 53:30
Awesome. I agree with you there too. So how can they find you?
Unknown Speaker 53:34
Oh, well you can find me at CBD and cannabis info.com that’s where all of my my free videos are my 100 video collection and all those are free and then you can always click on there to have you know a deeper conversation with me or one of my coaches if you want to
John Malanca 53:53
see you doing a lot so see CBD and THC
Unknown Speaker 53:58
your website again,
Unknown Speaker 53:59
DVD Cannabis info.com as long
John Malanca 54:02
as CBD and cannabis and cannabis info.com and the and is it spelled out AMD?
Unknown Speaker 54:09
Yes, sir.
John Malanca 54:10
Gotcha. Gotcha. So, always great working with you. And thank you again, Dr. Mary Clifton. This is John Malanca. With united patients group be informed and be well, we’ll see you soon. Bye bye. Thank you again, doctor.
Unknown Speaker 54:24
Thank you, john.