If I\u2019m being honest, I cringe more than I\u2019d like to while scrolling my cannabis-filled social media feeds.<\/p>\n
From the influencers to the activists, the industry players to the \u201cconsultants\u201d and the genuine advocates to the brand accounts clearly run by social media agencies with only a vague understanding of the plant, many of these well-meaning individuals consistently and irresponsibly spread misinformation.<\/p>\n
\u201cCannabis is not addictive.\u201d <\/em><\/p>\n \u201cMarijuana cures cancer.\u201d <\/em><\/p>\n \u201cSmoking weed is actually good for your lungs.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n I cringe because negative-leaning misinformation was the fuel for the fire of prohibition<\/a> \u2014 not to mention the unjust, 80-year drug war that ruined untold lives and demonized a plant that never deserved such a bad rap in the first place. And even though our well-meaning friends and colleagues are trying to help the world move beyond those decades of misinformation by spreading the good news about this plant, they\u2019re not doing cannabis any favors by disseminating positive-leaning \u201cfacts\u201d that aren\u2019t actually true.<\/p>\n In short, misinformation is misinformation, and we need to avoid it altogether. Or as my friend and colleague Constance Finley said more eloquently during a taping of my Civilized podcast Cannabis & Main<\/a>: \u201cRemember that, as broadly helpful as this plant is, the more we responsibly communicate about it from an evidence-based mechanism and manner of talking, the more we\u2019re going to be taken seriously.\u201d<\/p>\n Honesty, the Best Medical Marijuana Policy<\/strong><\/p>\n Finley, founder and CEO of Constance Therapeutics<\/a>, continued: \u201cSo if you throw out a chart that says, \u2018Oh my god, CBD<\/a> is good for over 200 things,\u2019 and you start tracing it down and, well, [one of those things is that] there was a study that said [CBD helped with] in vitro one time, that CBD might<\/em> have had an interplay in this connection. But it doesn\u2019t belong on a chart on the internet as research<\/em>. It belongs as a very early indication of potential benefits.\u201d<\/p>\n Constance Therapeutics has a unique business model that avoids the current pseudoscience around the plant. They emphasize the importance of one-on-one consultations with the patient, integrated communication with the patient\u2019s traditional physician and carefully tracked treatment regimens that will tell everyone involved a story of what\u2019s working and what\u2019s not.<\/p>\n As Finley and her staff recommend different patent-pending tincture and vaporizable concentrate formulations for their patients, they also prescribe a healthy dose of real talk during their consultations and follow-ups \u2014 making sure to communicate all known possibilities with their patients.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s OK to say to patients, \u2018There\u2019s one study [saying] if you have a rare disease that shows [cannabis] might help you, and we know that CBD isn\u2019t harmful, awesome. Let\u2019s do a customized blend for you and see if that helps, and let\u2019s pay careful attention, and let\u2019s keep good records so you actually know if that helps \u2014 not whether or not you had a better day\u2019,\u201d said Finley. \u201cCannabis is so broadly helpful that we can kind of make it seem like snake oil. And the positive is that it truly is that broadly helpful\u2026 but let\u2019s really try to stick to evidence. Let\u2019s not put [out] bad science because we\u2019re anxious to prove how good our plant is.\u201d<\/p>\n Ultimately, there are more things we don\u2019t understand about cannabis than things that we do, and that means it\u2019s important to acknowledge when we either don\u2019t know the answer to a question ourselves or when there simply isn\u2019t an answer to that question. That unique brand of straightforward honesty is what has made Finley a valued partner to the mainstream medical community, as those physicians have slowly come around to the idea of marijuana as medicine<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u201cWe tell our patients: \u2018We\u2019re not doctors, we\u2019re not scientists. What we can do for you is give very in-depth cannabis knowledge that\u2019s founded on what we know, and what we don\u2019t know we don\u2019t say,\u2019\u201d Finley said. \u201cAnd that attitude has led a lot of very serious physicians to trust us with their patients.\u201d<\/p>\n And when Finley\u2019s patients first experience the surprising-to-them efficacy of medical cannabis as their symptoms wane, fade and sometimes disappear, she again speaks plainly.<\/p>\n \u201cWhen people used to rush up to me and say, \u2018You\u2019re an angel!\u2019 I would say, \u2018No, I\u2019m not an angel. Cannabis is an incredibly powerful plant, and I\u2019m paying attention to what it has to give.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n There\u2019s not a lot of reliable cannabis education<\/a> in these still-early days, but it\u2019s our job as conscientious consumers to know this \u2014 and to communicate clearly with those looking for answers as well as those who think they have all the answers.<\/p>\n It doesn\u2019t help that our current recommendations and retail model are built around an entry-level position that requires no medical, pharmaceutical or prescribing training or experience and typically pays $12-$16 an hour. And this is not a knock on budtenders, most of whom work hard and do their best to send their customers and patients home with a strain or product that will cure (or at least help) what\u2019s ailing them \u2014 unless any of these men and women are spreading bad information, which some of them do (knowingly or unknowingly).<\/p>\n It\u2019s more of a knock on the dispensary infrastructure we\u2019ve inherited as cannabis has crept back into the retail environment. And it seems wrong that while we still need to see a licensed professional pharmacist to procure a cold-and-flu medicine worth a damn, we consult well-meaning 21-year-olds working through their English degrees for medicine to treat our post-traumatic stress syndrome, autism or insomnia.<\/p>\n More than anything, this call for the spread of fact-based information is a challenge for the cannabis community to be better. We all have areas of expertise, and we all have categories that need a little work. But many of our friends and colleagues don\u2019t know which is which, and so they\u2019ll continue to ask us advice \u2014 for themselves or for a family member.<\/p>\n And next time someone reaches out to you for advice, I hope you think long and hard before repeating a statistic you saw on Facebook or a \u201cfact\u201d you heard in a webinar. Do the research yourself until you\u2019re confident that your truth is, in fact, true. Spread quality, well-vetted information and educate those around you responsibly.<\/p>\n And if you don\u2019t know the answer, say those words that can sometimes be hard to say: \u201cI don\u2019t know.\u201d<\/p>\n Liberating, right?<\/p>\n TELL US<\/strong>, have you heard any irrational claims about what cannabis can do?<\/p>\n Originally published in Issue 34 of Cannabis Now. LEARN MORE<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n The post How Pro-Marijuana Misinformation Hurts the Movement and the Industry<\/a> appeared first on Cannabis Now<\/a>.<\/p>\n
If I\u2019m being honest, I cringe more than I\u2019d like to while scrolling my cannabis-filled social media feeds. From the influencers to the activists, the industry players to the \u201cconsultants\u201d and the genuine advocates to the brand accounts clearly run by social media agencies with only a vague understanding ofContinue Reading<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":92,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"false","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1140,50,9106,136,9107,728,85,6599,119,139,9108],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33668"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/92"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=33668"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33668\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":33669,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33668\/revisions\/33669"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=33668"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=33668"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=33668"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Ignorance Isn\u2019t Bliss<\/h4>\n
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\nRead More: How Pro-Marijuana Misinformation Hurts the Movement and the Industry<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"