Can cannabis eliminate pain without getting high? Can it be a substitute for opioids?

Getting a grip on the United States opioid over prescriptions, and additions is critical. I have been researching substitutes and solutions and just filmed my TED Talk and will be issuing data, research and solutions. This article is the third in my cannabis series.

About six months after we started looking into cannabis as an investment, we had another deal brought to us about this company called Pharmastrip.  Pharmastrip had a new sublingual delivery system for medication.

You just put this little strip, similar to a Listerine strip, in your mouth, and it dissolves and releases medication directly into your blood system. This way, it gets into the system much faster and can skip the "first pass," where everything has to go to the liver first. This can allow for lower dosages, faster action, and less damage to the liver.

The other great thing about the strip is that it is evenly put together. This means you can cut the strip in half and get precisely half the dose on one side and half the dose on the other. You cannot do this with a gummy as the way it is made, the compounds ball up and are not distributed evenly.

This means you can cut a 10mg gummy in half; one side has 1mg, and the other has 9mg. This sublingual technology would be the perfect way to dose cannabis. Also, since it gets into the system faster, if you want to use something for pain or anxiety, you want it to take effect as quickly as possible. This technology is the perfect combination to help slow down and maybe turn around the opioid epidemic.

Now we have the medication and the delivery system. Unfortunately, it is still illegal in many states and impossible to move from state to state since it is federally illegal.

However, there was another option. The farm bill allowed us to use hemp legally from a federal standpoint. So, we could use hemp and anything made from hemp legally. Delta 8 is a product that is easily released from hemp. The research says delta 8 has the same pain-blocking potential as normal THC.

This should not be surprising because the way normal THC-based cannabis works are that the THC is the engine that drives the ship. However, cannabinoids are the steering wheel that directs where the ship goes and what it does.

So if you have a combination of cannabinoids for pain and get it from cannabis proper or hemp, your brain doesn't know the difference. That means we can get a distillate of hemp based on Delta 8 and still have the cannabinoid mix to block pain.

Since Delta 8 is legal in Texas, I had some strips made and shipped in to start testing and see how they worked. After personally working with the strips to find a place where the dose could be beneficial for pain without having any psychological effects, I was handed several ways to test it on pain.

My 73-year-old mother broke her sternum in a car wreck and was in great pain. Every time she tried to breathe, it hurt, making her take more shallow breaths. I gave her a strip and told her how to dose it by cutting it and to see if it would help with her pain before we went to an opioid.

She reported that it really helped, but the thing she noticed the most was how much it helped her relax. She said that when she was able to relax, it really helped her breathe.

Then my 10-year-old son had surgery to remove six screws and a plate from his arm. We got the pictures from the surgeon. I have been told not to show them. The bone has six pretty large holes where the screws were. I was sure he would feel pain as this surgery was not a small amount of work.

They prescribed him hydrocodone and acetaminophen, which is called Norco. Having researched opioid addiction and death, I didn't want to give him any opioids if I could avoid it, so I cut up one of the strips into about a 3mg dose and gave it to him.

Within a few minutes, he told me his arm didn't hurt anymore, and I could not tell any change psychologically, meaning he wasn't high.  Neither his mother nor I could tell any difference in how he acted, which was a concern of mine.

Then my office manager broke her toe, moving boxes, and couldn't walk without significant pain. About half a strip, and she was able to walk around and felt almost normal.

As these reports started returning, I was open to anyone who asked to try them. When I was in Mexico, one of the guys got a really bad migraine to the point he was throwing up. He had to go back to his room to get in the dark so the migraine would calm down enough that maybe he could sleep.

I gave his girlfriend a strip to take to him, and 20 min later, he was back down on the beach. Since then, we have tried it on several pain issues, and the strips have proven to be very effective as far as pain goes. There are places where it is spotty, though, such as neurological pain like sciatica.

Some say it helps. Others have said it doesn't help. While cannabis, specifically Delta 8 in this case, has been shown to help with the pain I have tried it against, I would say it doesn't make all the pain go away on everything, but it does appear to be more effective than 64% of the time.

It looks like using the Delta 8 for pain has been wildly successful. I am very excited to get this to the public and see the results on a larger batch of people.

Check out Chalmers Pillarsofwellness.com for Wellness updates! And ask me any questions you have at questions@chalmerswellness.com. I answer all of them and look forward to hearing from you.

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Dr. Matt Chalmers

Disclaimer: This content is for informational purposes only. Before taking any action based on this information you should first consult with your physician or health care provider. This information is not intended to be a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. Always seek the advice of your physician or other qualified health providers with any questions regarding a medical condition, your health, or wellness.