The Little Book of Cannabis How Marijuana Can Improve
Your Life
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To the patients who are suffering, the enthusiasts standing up to
adversity, the activists decrying unjust laws, and those doing time for
victimless crimes: this book is for you.
CONTENTS
Foreword by Dr. Rav Ivker
Introduction
1. Improving Sleep
2. Decreasing Stress and Anxiety
3. Boosting Mood and Creativity
4. Metabolism, Weight Management, and Exercise Recovery
5. Cannabis as a Superfood
6. A Steamier Sex Life
7. An Effective Source of Pain Management
8. A Powerful Support for Cancer Treatment
9. Easing the Aging Process
10. The Exit Drug
Appendix 1: The Endocannabinoid System
Appendix 2: How to Prepare and Use Cannabis
Notes
Acknowledgments
DISCLAIMER
THIS BOOK ISnot intended to be a substitute for medical advice from
physicians. The reader should regularly consult a physician about
matters relating to their health, and particularly with respect to any
symptoms that may require diagnosis or medical attention. While this
book may mention specific product types, cannabis strains,
cannabinoids, consumption methods, and so forth, the author and
publisher recommend that readers notify their physicians if they are
thinking about consuming cannabis for medicinal purposes.
Although the author and publisher have made every effort to
ensure that the information in this book was correct at press time,
they do not assume, and hereby disclaim, any liability to any part for
any loss, damage, or disruption caused by errors or omissions,
whether such errors or omissions result from negligence, accident,
or any other cause.
The state of cannabis research is changing, and with the
renewed interest in this plant, it is being studied more rigorously. As
such, future research on the topics mentioned may come to
conclusions that are contrary to what has been printed in this book.
Please consult local laws for the minimum age for cannabis use
and other restrictions.
FOREWORD
THIS HIGHLY INFORMATIVE book provides readers, first-timers as well as
experienced consumers, with an excellent practical introduction to
the multifaceted life-changing benefits of cannabis.
Retail sales of cannabis began in Canada on October 17, 2018,
making it the second nation in the world, after Uruguay, to legalize
the herb for recreational use. Since 2001, medical marijuana has
been legal in Canada, as it is in the majority of U.S. states, at time of
writing, with an ever-increasing number also approving the use of
recreational cannabis. This rapidly accelerating trend is reversing
nearly a century of prohibition of a powerful medicinal herb used
throughout the world both medically and spiritually for more than five
thousand years.
However, as a result of its illegality, its criminalization, and the
lack of knowledge about the circumstances that led to its prohibition,
as well as disapproval among the medical establishment, the
majority of the world’s current population understandably remains
skeptical. In addition, there has been a relative lack of reliable
evidence-based information to dispel the myths and misconceptions
surrounding cannabis. The Little Book of Cannabis helps significantly
to fill that void.
As a holistic physician and cannabis clinician, I have used
medical marijuana with more than eight thousand patients to relieve
their suffering. From both my professional and personal experience
with cannabis, spanning more than five decades, I strongly support
the material presented by Amanda Siebert. Whether the chapter is
discussing the use of cannabis for insomnia, anxiety, pain,
inflammation, cancer, creativity and sexual pleasure, or end-of-life
care, the author offers valuable and accurate information. I enjoyed
her real-life compelling case studies, which correlated well with many
of my patient stories.
By far the most frequent use of cannabis as a medicine, and its
greatest therapeutic benefit, is the relief of chronic pain. This is
certainly true of my practice, as more than 90 percent of my patients
suffer with some degree of persistent pain. I found Chapter 7, “An
Effective Source of Pain Management,” to be particularly helpful for
any patient struggling with chronic pain or physicians who might be
hesitant about treating their patients with cannabis. Siebert did a
superb job of researching this topic, drawing heavily on recent
studies, historical references, and the work of Dr. Mark Ware, an
associate professor in family medicine and anesthesia at McGill
University in Montreal and the director of clinical research at the Alan
Edwards Pain Management Unit at the McGill University Health
Centre.
As a physician, I found the scientific references to be of particular
interest, and they added to my knowledge base. The book is very
well written, well researched, concise, yet comprehensive in its
scope of cannabis-related quality-of-life benefits. Cannabis is a
complex herb containing more than two hundred compounds.
Siebert is able to simplify its complexity and provide explanations at
a level that can be easily understood by most readers. As a result,
The Little Book of Cannabis is an excellent guide for anyone
interested in using this remarkable herb to heighten their enjoyment
of life.
DR. RAV IVKER
AUTHOR, CANNABIS FOR Chronic Pain
COFOUNDER AND FORMER president, American
Board of Integrative Holistic Medicine
INTRODUCTION
WHILE MY AGE of introduction to cannabis might send a shudder down
the spine of any lawmaker considering the pros and cons of
cannabis legalization, the stigma associated with youth use is one of
the reasons I feel the need to share my experience. At age fourteen,
while taking a break from staffing the merch table at a local punk
show in my hometown of Richmond, B.C., I tried cannabis for the
first time. I had been curious about the strange weed that my parents
had cautioned me to avoid, but when my older friends said it helped
them feel relaxed, I figured my parents were wrong and, like so
many teenagers do, I decided I had to find out for myself if cannabis
would indeed “fry my brain cells.” Seated atop a picnic table with two
girlfriends, I indulged in a hoot and a half from a pipe, which resulted
in a momentary fit of laughter but nothing more. After that first
encounter, I used cannabis occasionally in social settings with
friends, but it wasn’t until college that I began to discover how using
it brought me direct and indirect benefits in other areas of my life.
I remember walking into a friend’s house for the first time during
my second year of college and seeing him point to a set of roach
clips on the table. (For the uninitiated, these are used to hold a joint
when it gets too short to smoke holding it with your fingers.) I
remember thinking, “Wow, this weed stuff can get pretty hardcore.” I
won’t lie; there was a little judgment there—and then I got high. From
that point on, everything changed.
It wasn’t long before I began to appreciate cannabis for its ability
to stoke conversation at social gatherings and calm me down after a
week of late nights spent meeting tight deadlines. Friday and
Saturday evenings were often spent steeped in bubbles of intelligent
thought and clouds of cannabis smoke as my friends and I waxed
poetic about our studies, current events, and pop culture, often
opting for doobies over booze in the interest of avoiding the next
day’s hangover. Soon, when assignments started to pile up, part-
time shifts at work gobbled up my free time, and arguments with my
mother (sorry, Mom) took me to the edge, cannabis would bring me
to a place where all the seemingly impossible tasks of the day could
be tackled with a puff and a simple shift in perspective.
I would soon discover that, even in the depths of a spinning
anxiety attack or a lapse in judgment caused by a stress-induced
outburst, the plant my parents, teachers, and authorities were so
vehemently opposed to was able to bring me more than just
relaxation—it brought me peace of mind.
Then, while writing this book, I was diagnosed with PTSD (post-
traumatic stress disorder), generalized anxiety disorder, and
depression. The symptoms of my conditions nearly put me over the
edge, but I told myself I could manage and that I didn’t have time in
my busy schedule to find help. I chose to wear my struggle on the
inside until I interviewed Dr. Zach Walsh on the subject of PTSD
while experiencing the very symptoms he listed off. That’s when I
realized that it was time I put my health first. (Thankfully, my editors
and publishers were incredibly understanding of this situation.)
Everything changed again, but in a much different way as I began
using cannabis with a new intention: relieving the flashbacks, panic
attacks, and “hair trigger” you’ll read about in Chapter 3. And while
cannabis has certainly been there to help lift my mood, relieve my
anxiety, and calm my erratic nerves, I used it frequently in the
process of writing this book to help spur creative thought, too.
Having said all of this, writing a book about cannabis was never
something I seriously considered until it fell into my lap. While my
day job at a newspaper had me neck-deep in cannabis policy
announcements, news of corporate mergers, and the unending flow
of information on Twitter, writing this book allowed me to gain a
deeper understanding of exactly what cannabis does when it enters
the body, and how we as humans can use its healing properties to
treat different ailments, relieve stress, and even spice up our sex
lives. (Trust me on this one. Skip to Chapter 6 if you must.) My
appreciation for the plant that has brought so much improvement to
my life has grown, you might say, like the very weed in question.
But every time I get excited about cannabis and its potential, I’m
reminded that it’s only truly accessible in a few areas of the world.
The global war on drugs, and on cannabis in particular, has resulted
in the arrest of hundreds of thousands of people. More than half of
drug arrests in the United States are related to cannabis. Between
2001 and 2010, 8.2 million Americans were arrested for cannabis-
related offences, with 88 percent of those being for simple
possession. These arrests cause irreparable harm to families and
communities and occur at disproportionate rates among people of
color.1 The same is true in Canada,2 where in 2016—the year after
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau promised to legalize cannabis—
55,000 cannabis-related charges were laid, with 76 percent for
simple possession.3 That a plant—put here by God, you might say—
with such incredible medical benefits has been vilified truly upsets
me, and that people continue to be unjustifiably punished for using it
angers me to my core.
My personal experience with the plant is just one perspective, but
when it’s combined with the testimony of the hundreds of people I’ve
met, interviewed, and smoked with, as well as the bodies of research
that scientists have been trying to develop for the last several
decades, the benefits of using it become too great to ignore—as do
the grave and inherent harms associated with its prohibition. When
we add the historical uses of cannabis to all of our current evidence,
the idea that this plant is illegal anywhere in the world becomes
preposterous. In truth, the last seventy-five to one hundred years are
the aberration. Cannabis is only the forbidden herb we know it to be
because in the 1930s, a few powerful men crafted some artful
propaganda, and it became accepted as fact. Historically, cannabis
was used to treat a variety of illnesses dating back thousands of
years, and as recently as the mid-1800s it was a mainstay in
medicine cabinets throughout North America.
It is my hope that those who read this book approach this
material with an open mind, and perhaps with a willingness to shed
the negative messages they’ve carried about cannabis from the past.
For years, we’ve been fed misinformation about a plant that in many
cases is nothing short of life-saving. I hope that this little act of
rebellion (after all, this is a book about a controversial substance)
opens your mind to the idea that cannabis is more than just a weed
with an undeserved reputation—it’s a plant that truly does hold the
power to improve your life.
1
IMPROVING SLEEP
Case Study: Guilherme Falcão
FOR AS LONG as Guilherme Falcão can remember (that is, as early as
age seven), he’s had trouble falling asleep at night.
“Since I was a kid, I’ve had a problem staying focused and issues
with anxiety,” the twenty-nine-year-old tells me. Add a young brain
that just doesn’t seem to have an off-switch and you have the perfect
recipe for countless sleepless nights spent lying awake, staring at
the ceiling. Time and place didn’t seem to make a difference, and
even if Falcão was in bed with his head on the pillow by 10 p.m.,
sleep would often evade him until two or three in the morning.
Struggling with insomnia as an adult is one thing, but when I ask
him about the effects that insomnia had on his childhood, his voice
lowers, and I can sense his feelings of frustration.
“I was always tired as a kid,” he says. “I never wanted to get up
and go to school, because I’d only ever get two or three hours of
sleep.” And even when sleep did come, what little shut-eye he did
get was of rather poor quality.
It wasn’t until Falcão was a young adult that a doctor
recommended he try using sleeping pills.
“The medication made it easy to get to sleep,” he says, “but it
was very, very hard to wake up. Every day, I felt horrible side effects
—I was always tired, dizzy, or nauseous—it’s why I didn’t take them
every night; just when I really, really couldn’t fall asleep.”
One night in his early twenties, while out with a friend, Falcão had
his first taste of cannabis. He enjoyed the wave of relaxation he felt
wash over him, but had no idea of the plant’s potential therapeutic
effects. He went home to bed, and what happened next came as a
complete surprise.
“That night, I had one of the best sleeps of my whole life,” he
says. “I’ve been using weed to help me fall asleep ever since.”
Since making the switch from sleeping pills to cannabis, he says
he’s yet to experience a negative side effect—save for an
adjustment to his tolerance to cannabis, an effect any regular
cannabis user, and in fact many regular users of pharmaceutical
drugs, encounter.
These days, he says he gets an average of five to seven hours of
uninterrupted sleep a night, a quantum leap in quality and quantity
compared to the two or three measly hours a night he’d get as a
child. Falcão says the positive effects of quality sleep every night
have trickled into every aspect of his life.
“I have way more energy because I’m sleeping much better. I
think I’m happier now too, because I can have a whole night of
sleep, I can focus in the morning, and I can do my work effectively—
things that I couldn’t do before, because I was always tired or under
the effects of sleeping pills.”
Why So Sleep Deprived?
WHEN WE’RE STANDING in line in the grocery store, health magazines
promoting self-improvement in areas like diet, exercise, and
productivity regularly get our attention, but it seems to me that sleep
isn’t often part of the conversation. Make no mistake: poor sleep is
the big elephant in the room when it comes to what’s causing many
of North America’s most common diseases, including obesity,
cardiovascular disease, type 2 diabetes, depression, and overall
reduced well-being.
All it takes to size up North America’s problem with sleep is a look
at its penchant for sleep aids. The largest-ever consumer sleep
study conducted in the United States revealed in 2017 that 50
percent of adults reported using a mix of two or more sleep aids per
