In many cases in veterinary medicine we have finally kind of crossed the Rubicon
if you will to the point where veterinarians are willing to say okay
there is there is application for medical cannabis now the discussion is
is medical cannabis an appropriate first-line therapy or is it something
that should only be used when everything else is failed.
My name is Gary Richter, I'm a veterinarian in Oakland California and I
practice integrative medicine meaning that I offer both both Western and
alternative forms of medicine for my patients.
What that means is is that in
addition to you know standard Western medicine so pharmaceuticals, surgery,
dentistry, that sort of thing, we also provide acupuncture, chiropractic,
physical therapy, herbal therapy, nutritional counseling, so things that
you wouldn't normally find in a more conventional doctor's office
The term cannabis, you know, I think it bears a some defining
because there is a lot of misconception as to what that means, there's a lot of
people out there that are using the term CBD to effectively define
cannabis as a whole, so so to be clear cannabis defines the plant, cannabis sativa
and that plant can produce many many different compounds including
CBD, including THC, including quite a number of other compounds called
cannabinoids or terpenes, flavonoids; there's a lot of potentially medicinally beneficial compounds.
Now a lot of people are very familiar with CBD because CBD is so readily available.
The CBD that people are buying sort of
over-the-counter so be it from pet stores or online that sort of thing
that is CBD that comes from what is called hemp, so hemp is cannabis
legally speaking hemp is a cannabis plant that produces less than 0.3 percent THC
so that is quite honestly a completely arbitrary definition by the government
but that's that's what it is so when you're buying something online that says CBD,
then that's coming from hemp.
My name is Heidi Hill,and I'm the owner of Holistic Hound.
Holistic Hound is a pet store that I started in 2003 here in Berkeley California.
About four years ago we started our own line of CBD supplements for dogs and cats as well,
And we sell those both in the store and nationwide through independent pet retailers around the country.
We don't have a lot of misconceptions in our area, but because we are you know distributed throughout the country,
you know, there still is occasionally a perception that these products might get their animals high,
and they're a little concerned about that or a lot concerned about it.
They don't really understand, you know, the power of it.
All of our products are organically grown from Colorado,
and they're THC-free, so we just have to continue to educate people to help them understand
that these products are not, they're not psychoactive.
They are calming and help support the immune system and they have
a lot of different benefits but getting high is not one of them.
Now to be clear, the CBD that's in hemp versus the CBD that's in other types of cannabis,
it's the same CBD. The molecule is what it is.
The difference between the two is what else is in there,
so other types of cannabis quite obviously have things like THC in them, which is a psychoactive compound.
So when you're looking at cannabis products, medical cannabis products,
that have THC and other ingredients in them, it's very important to get medical guidance on how to use these.
because just like in a person, THC can have medical benefit in animals
but it has to be dosed appropriately to avoid any side effects.
And since animals are are just as susceptible, if not in some cases
even more susceptible to the potential problematic effects of a THC overdoses as would be a person.
And honestly I think that that's probably at this point it's probably a matter of professional opinion
because you know specific clinical research into the use of cannabis in the veterinary medical field
is very very much in its early stages.
There's a few studies out but really not much.
I have seen animals that I think did as well or better on cannabis
than they would have done more conventional therapies,
so in my opinion, yes, it's sometimes as good if not better than Western therapy but certainly not always.
Yeah you know there's a number of common misconceptions and when I speak to groups of pet owners.
You know one of the questions that I frequently get after after an hour-long discussion
of how to use medical cannabis and animals is
"So you're telling me I should blow smoke in my dog's face?"
And the answer is categorically no.
You know the cannabis preparations that are used in animals
are almost exclusively things that are given orally.
They can be a liquid like an oil that can sometimes be in treats, but it's almost always ingested.
There are some applications for topical, but under no circumstances is
blowing smoke anywhere near a pet ever going to be okay no matter what the smoke is.
So that's just a non-starter per se and then
really the other misconceptions are there are people out there who believe
and would say that THC is blanketly toxic to animals, also not true.
There is absolutely such a thing as THC toxicity in animals you know
just like with any other medication, any other pharmaceutical
success has everything to do with appropriate dosing.
So you know there's plenty of drugs in the veterinary and human pharmacy
that if used inappropriately can cause harm.
It's no different with cannabis, particularly preparations that have THC in them.
But if they're dosed appropriately, they can they can do an awful lot of good.
So this is where appropriate medical guidance really comes in handy.
And then I would say kind of the the last thing from a misconception standpoint is,
a lot of people feel like that they can just sort this out themselves,
they can get information online, they can talk to a budtender at a dispensary,
they can talk to somebody that they know etc.
And you know there are so many different potential preparations of cannabis
in so many different applications, and so many of these products that are available can potentially be harmful,
It would be a mistake for somebody to try and do this their own without some form of medical guidance.
Somebody wants to use cannabis in their pets I mean the first thing I would say
Is if there's any possible way to have a conversation with a veterinarian
who's willing to have that conversation that's your best bet.
Understand that that is not always possible particularly depending on where people live.
there are some other resources available you know for example,
my book: The Ultimate Pet Health Guide has an entire chapter on medical cannabis.
It has both both medical indications as well as dosing information in there,
so that's something that people can look at.
There are there are some courses that are available online for pet owners as well.
So there are things to do out there.
And I guess the last thing I would say on that topic is if you
just don't have access to anything, only use a hemp based CBD product.
You know, the reality is is that it would be very very unlikely to cause any kind of major side effect
with a hemp based CBD product.
But as soon as you kind of cross that line into something that has TNC in it you have to be very, very careful.
You know, the reason why I got into this business was to help animals.
I mean our mission statement is to help improve the health wellness and quality of life of animals
and that's the mission statement for the store and was from the get-go and it is for this business as well.
There are a lot of people getting into this business for different reasons,
and while there's nothing wrong with making money,
I do think that it's important that it come from the right place.
Because really what we're trying to do is help animals here.
I mean there has never been anything like this that I've been aware of,
this kind of a game-changer type of product In the time that I've been in the pet business,
and I'm a homeopath too, so I was in the health business even before I got into the animal business,
and you know this is a real game-changer
I mean it's here to stay and it's helping millions of people and dogs
It helps provide balance or homeostasis and you know, that's big.
So that's our mission is to help animals, that's always gonna be why we're in this.
I always learn from my patients.
You know I've been a veterinarian for over 20 years and I've learned something all the time from my patients.
So certainly there's a lot to be gained from seeing how these animals respond
You know, what works, what doesn't work.
And honestly, I mean the other place that you learn is you follow the research.
Like I say, there's no shortage of research.
I mean a lot of it right now is going on in human medicine, but honestly there's not that big of a difference.
I mean the human research is still applicable to where we're going in veterinary medicine.
So I mean it's a it's a question of both what's working in the real world,
but equally as importantly is the research that's going to explain to us why it's working.