WORKING WITH THE HEAVY CANNABIS USER
CERTIFICATE COURSE
Course Materials + Tuition
 
11 Audios (5 hours and 16 minutes total)
Notes & Slides
PDF Resources (36 total)
 
This is the Certificate option for this course, which means you will receive faculty support, have your coursework graded, and earn a certificate upon completion of all coursework. The price includes tuition.

This course is a part of the curriculum for the Advanced Western Materia Medica program. 
 
 
Overview
​If you are a practitioner working with heavy daily users of Cannabis, whether medical or recreational, or if you are a heavy user yourself, this course will:
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Review the scientific literature behind a dozen of the most common approved conditions for medical Cannabis.
Describe forms and dosing strategies to increase effectiveness or reduce side effects for various approved medical conditions.
Describe the process of down-regulation, dependence, and withdrawal symptoms which can occur with daily use.
Describe the most common chief and secondary complaints of the heavy user in detail.
Describe the most common side effects and withdrawal symptoms, according to our case experience and surveys in the scientific literature.
Describe a strategy to delay or minimize down-regulation and withdrawal symptoms.
Offer a basic nutritional protocol and dosing strategy to minimize the effects of down regulation.
Review the effects of long term heavy daily use on cognition.
Review the effects of heavy use on the male and female reproductive systems, with case studies.
Describe the pattern of appetite loss, daily cyclic vomiting, and Cannabis emesis commonly occurring in heavy users – about 1/3 of our heavy users described such issues in their chief complaints or histories.
Review the typical pattern of effects in patients with post-traumatic stress disorder, with initial benefits but eventual loss of benefit and aggravation after down regulation and dependence, with case studies.
Describe nutritional and herbal strategies and formulation for the heavy user attempting withdrawal.
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In our teaching clinical at the North American Institute of Medical Herbalism in Boulder, Colorado, we began to see an increasing number of heavy Cannabis users as patients after the legalization of Cannabis dispensaries in 2010. This course is based on a review of the cases and histories of more than 40 patients using between 4 and 10 doses of Cannabis per day, or using highly concentrated forms more than once a day. We began to recognize a consistent pattern of complaints and side effects in these patients which were consistent with side effects and withdrawal symptoms reported in the scientific literature and by such groups as Marijuana anonymous. About 1/3 of these patients were seeking assistance to cut down or quit Cannabis use after repeated attempts on their own to do so, and we got hands-on experience with different strategies. Beginning in 2016 we did a thorough scientific literature review of issues surrounding tolerance, dependence, side effects and withdrawal symptoms, and updated this review in 2021. In this course, we include example case reports, and also present more than 35 fully referenced scientific articles and literature on the topic, as well as specialized intake forms and educational materials for patients.
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We are vigorous advocates for the complete legalization of Cannabis, but we feel that the safety insert on a package of medical marijuana should say more than “But its safer than alcohol.” Practitioners and patients should know what to expect and how to recognize the common effects, side effects, and withdrawal symptoms.