Greetings Carolina!
I have only just returned from Tucson, and there is so much to share. But perhaps I should first introduce myself, as I have been assigned the post of medical director of the North Carolina Cannabis Patient’s Network. I am still uncertain of all the duties this position entails, but I shall do my best at whatever they turn out to be, and I welcome your suggestions.
I’m in a unique position to help the medical cannabis movement in North Carolina. Generally speaking, doctors tend to be very hesitant to involve themselves with the movement, especially when practicing in states that have not yet passed medical cannabis legislation. This is largely out of stigmatic fear of losing their medical licenses, but also out of ignorance. The endocannabinoid system is not taught in medical school, so physicians have to go out of their way to learn about it and how to practically apply this knowledge into patient care. Since I’ve been doing this in the State of Hawaii for over two years now, I’ve learned a lot about the cannabinoid medicine and shed most of my fear concerning its practice. I feel I can speak in Carolina with the confidence of experience that comes from a still thriving out-of-state practice without unduly alarming the N.C. medical board.
For clarity, my wife (Michelle) and I have relocated to Carolina, where we plan to settle, but we continue to return to the Hawaiian Islands on a regular basis to tend our still growing practice (including over 1500 medical cannabis patients.) Despite this rather inconvenient commute, I will do all I can to put my experience in cannabinoid medicine and my N.C. medical license to good use. I am optimistic that Carolina will pass medical cannabis legislation within the next few years, so much so that we already have a company name for our practice to hit the ground running once a medical cannabis law is passed. That company name, “Carolina Compassionate Care” also happens to be the screen name I have using here on NCCPN.org over the last year. As medical director, I thought it appropriate to have a separate screen name for my new position as well.
This last week I was honored to join a delegation from Carolina to the Seventh Clinical Conference on Cannabis Therapeutics hosted by Patients Out of Time in Tucson. Despite all attempts by the federal government to block such research, there is an incredible body of scientifically based information amassing on the endocannabinoid system, and in my next blog posting I shall attempt to share some of this information. But this conference also featured some truly inspiring crusaders in the medical cannabis movement – people who, like many of you, not only have had severe illness to contend with, but a legal system oppressive to those who choose to treat themselves with the safe, natural, non-addictive, effective medicine that is cannabis.
This safety and efficacy of cannabis speaks for itself, so much so that I have tended to shrug off the call to become a professor of cannabinoid medicine. As if I don’t have enough to think about! And yet… such titles inspire some, and so I decided to join a very new organization called the American Academy of Cannabinoid Medicine, and this weekend in Tucson I sat in on their very first examination to become board certified in cannabinoid medicine. (And with any luck I passed the test!
I’ll let you know.)
For now, I am honored to serve as medical director to the North Carolina Cannabis Patients Network. I hope to meet you all in meetings throughout the state. Nationwide popular approval of medical cannabis is at an all time high (pun intended!) Together we can bring safe access of medical cannabis to Carolina.
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