Can cannabis’s CBD help mend our brokenness?

Aug 19, 2018 Countryman, Features / Columnists

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By Dennis Nichols

It’s funny how we often think of an issue in black and white. Most of my fellow Guyanese I talk with about marijuana use see it as either a bad thing or a good thing. They tend to shy away from the grey areas. But that’s where so much of our brokenness seems to lie, as individuals, and as a nation, in those uncertain spaces between sanity and lunacy.
That’s exactly where research is going. Cannabis has numerous strains, and contains several chemical compounds that interact with the human body in ways that may be difficult to describe or predict. They do so in an internal structure which until recently many were unaware of – the Endocannabinoid System.
This is basically a biological network of endocannabinoids, special neurotransmitters that bind to receptors in the central and peripheal nervous systems. Its functions include regulating memory, mood, pain, appetite, sleep, fertility, and the effects of cannabis among others. Chemical compounds found in marijuana mimic the effects of some of the body’s natural endocannabinoids.
Cannabidiol, or CBD, is one such compound, a sort of foil to its more well-known partner, tetrahydrocannabinol or THC, which has psychoactive properties. In my layman’s opinion, their studied application, especially CBD’s, could be a boon for at least some mental and related health issues affecting Guyanese.
Data on the prevalence of mental and ‘social’ illnesses in our country appears to be short on specifics, and not quite up-to-date, but most of us don’t need it to tell us we have a big problem in these areas. Just visit the psychiatric clinics, stroll around Georgetown, or talk with some of the ‘concerned’ residents in communities throughout the length and breadth of Guyana. Read or watch the news, and observe the homeless and the destitute resigned to apathy.
Some of the information and ideas presented here are based on local observation, while some are gleaned from facts and research coming out of the United States which seems to have a virtual monopoly on internet cannabis-related news.
We all know that marijuana is illegal in Guyana, although there are currently efforts to ease the punitive measures meted out by the courts for possession of small amounts. But in the U.S. although its possession, use and sale is illegal under federal law, 28 states allow for medical use, while nine have legalized it for both recreational and medical use, something that is also allowed in research programs approved by the Food and Drug Admininistration (FDA).
And just last month the FDA approved the first marijuana-derived drug, Epidiolex, for the treatment of seizures associated with two rare and severe forms of epilepsy, after ‘careful scientific research’ and clinical trials. It contains no THC; its main ingredient is Cannabidiol (CBD) which sources say appears to have therapeutic value for numerous conditions either alone or in combination with THC.
There are many individuals, agencies, and a plethora of websites dedicated to spreading the gospel of CBD and medical marijuana with regard to mental and other disorders, although one group, looking at marijuana as treatment for depression, anxiety, and bipolar disorder, said the data was decidedly mixed. It said it wasn’t clear if cannabis would help someone with a mental condition, and that it would probably ‘come down to an individual’s unique reaction’. That’s not saying much.
Others are much more upbeat, affirming what they claim as the very real potential for treatment of several conditions including mental illness and anxiety disorders with medical marijuana. Some of the conditions listed as treatable are depression, insomnia, PTSD, schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s Diseases, Tourette’s Syndrome, and Traumatic brain injury.
Surprisingly, no less a person than the U.S. Director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) observed in 2015 that ‘… pre-clinical research (has) shown CBD to have a range of effects that may be therapeutically useful, including anti-seizure, antioxidant, neuroprotective, anti-inflammatory, analgesic, anti-tumour, anti-psychotic, and anti-anxiety properties’. And NIDA has not been a marijuana-friendly entity.
Imagine that four years earlier this group had said there were no sound scientific studies supporting medical use of marijuana for treatment in the United States. (NIDA is a part of the U.S. National Institutes of Health, (NIH) a federal agency which currently funds research into the possible uses of THC and CBD for medical treatment)
Now according to the same agency, recent animal studies have shown that marijuana extracts may also help kill certain cancer cells, reduce the size of others, and slow cancer cell growth from one of the most serious types of brain tumours, and that purified extracts of THC and CBD when used with radiation, increased its cancer-killing effects. This is from a U.S. federal government department, folks.
There continues to be major focus on marijuana’s CBD. CNN’s Dr. Sanjay Gupta, a former cannabis doubter, has said it is ‘time for a medical marijuana revolution, and opined recently that it could help solve the opioid epidemic in America. He added that if regulated and made available nationally, it could save up to 10,000 lives a year.
We don’t have an opioid crisis in Guyana, but we do have a mental health crisis with similar aspects of substance abuse, drug addiction and antisocial behaviour. We blame marijuana for much of it. But paradoxically a substance derived from that same maligned plant could be of possible benefit. I wonder what our medical practitioners, our psychiatrists, and our government think about that!
Our brokenness as individuals, and as a people, is apparent throughout our land. We are not alone. Other far more ‘advanced’ countries suffer the same scourges of physical, mental, and social ills. A few days ago in the ‘greatest nation on Earth’ scores of people overdosed on synthetic marijuana laced with a powerful opioid, and fell ill at a park in Connecticut, near one of the country’s most prestigious educational institutions – Yale. It was an ironic twist in the ongoing substance abuse saga.
As I have said before, I suffer from severe insomnia, which is coupled with anxiety. It is a disturbing and debilitating condition that has limited my potential in life. if CBD is proven to alleviate these conditions, and I can get my hands on it, I would fight with my last ounce of strength in a court of law for my right to use it for that purpose, though it be deemed illegal. Yes, we also need a revolution here.
In 1990, one of my sisters died in a U.S. hospital after suffering epileptic seizures for most of her life. After a tragic brain surgery, and hours before she succumbed, I watched in helpless anger as seizure after seizure wracked her frail body; her eyes opening intermittently, staring at mine. They seemed to be pleading for intervention. Now what if medical cannabis could have lessened that terrible trauma, or even prevented it?
The answer to that question can do nothing to reverse what happened to my sister, or mitgate the impotence I felt as I watched her final life-struggle 28 years ago. Doctors probably knew much less about CBD and other cannabinoids than they know now. Some of them are pushing hard for further research, and reform. It could be both a life-enhancing and a life-saving move.

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