Medical marijuana users have it easy. They latch onto a particular brand and that’s that. Not so for medical cannabis patients. They have to be more choosy because they have specific needs. Needless to say that choosing a medical cannabis product is not a task for the faint of heart.
There are so many choices that a patient could easily be overwhelmed on that first visit to the dispensary. Even veteran patients sometimes struggle when their local pharmacies introduce new products. Again, medical cannabis patients have very specific needs. Not just any product will do.
Strain Names Mean Very Little
Medical cannabis patients immediately run into a problem because they need to choose between different strains. Here is the dirty little secret about strains: they are just names. More importantly, they are brand names that mean very little in terms of medical benefits.
Producers and manufacturers choose brand names the same way their counterparts in other industries do. They look for names that people will remember. They invent names they believe will sell product. Rarely do strain names have anything to do with ingredients, effects, or any of the issues that matter most to medical cannabis users.
Dosage Isn’t Consistent
Medical cannabis patients also run into problems where dosage is concerned. Remember that doctors do not prescribe medical cannabis. They merely recommend it. No prescription means no specific instructions about dosage and delivery method. And patients are often surprised to learn that potency can vary from one product to the next.
The best a patient can do is work with a cannabis pharmacist to figure out the most appropriate dosage. If a producer or manufacturer decides to modify potency even slightly, it could be back to the drawing board for patients.
Multiple Delivery Methods
Adding to the challenge of choosing medical cannabis products are the many different delivery methods. The operators of the Beehive Farmacy in Brigham City, Utah say the most common delivery methods for medical cannabis are dry heating, vaping, and edibles (like gummies).
Unfortunately for patients, delivery method impacts how quickly a medicine’s effects kick in. It can also affect bioavailability. A person’s experience with a medical cannabis vape may be far different from the experience of eating THC gummies.
Beehive Farmacy says it is not uncommon for medical cannabis pharmacists to recommend numerous delivery methods for different scenarios. Patients are often encouraged to layer different products in order to get just the right effects for a given point in the day. A patient may use one delivery method in the morning, another during the workday, and a third at night.
Physical Responses Are Different
The proverbial icing on the cake is the reality that physical responses to medical cannabis are different. Take treating chronic pain with medical cannabis. Each patient has an optimal dose. Take too little and it doesn’t help. Take too much and it is quite possible that the cannabis will actually make the pain worse.
Finding the optimal dose is never easy. Furthermore, the optimal dose for one patient is likely not the same for the next one in line at the pharmacy counter. There just isn’t a black-and-white physiological response that applies to every patient.
Could this be why medical cannabis consumption is so often referred to as a journey? I think so. It can take a long time to figure out the right products and dosage. And even after a patient does, things are always subject to change. It is enough to drive you crazy if you aren’t comfortable with how the medical cannabis journey works.
