Cannabis Voices

Tom Curran is a prominent medicinal cannabis activist in Ireland, a cause that became close to his heart supporting his partner Marie Fleming through multiple sclerosis.
Marie had struggled to manage the excruciating muscle spasms commonly experienced in MS, and when she finally tried cannabis, it was the only thing that brought her relief.
At the time, both Tom and Marie were known in Ireland for their battle to change in the law on assisted dying, and it was after Marie's death that Tom publicly spoke about growing Marie's cannabis medicine.
Tom is founding member of the Irish Medicinal Cannabis Council and is director of Exit International, an organisation that campaigns for and provides information about assisted dying.
Resources
Marie's book 'An Act of Love'

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Lucy Stafford is no ordinary 20 year old. She's dynamic, intelligent and passionate science student, but growing up, numbed by the increasingly heavy doses of opiates she had received since the age of 12, Lucy believed otherwise.
Lucy has Ehlers-Danlos syndrome - a debilitating and extreme painful condition caused by a lack of collagen in connective tissues. Before cannabis, Lucy had resigned herself to a future defined by her disease and the inability of her doctors to manage its symptoms.
When Fentanyl, which is fifty times more powerful than heroin, failed to control her pain, Lucy's doctor ran out of options, and in desperation to help his patient attempted to prescribe her Sativex through the NHS. Unfortunately, despite the recent change in the law legalising cannabis based medicines, his request was denied.
However, this sowed the seed for Lucy that cannabis might actually help her and she began her own personal journey navigating the illicit cannabis market, eventually getting a legal prescription through a private cannabis clinic.
Lucy now gets her cannabis medicine prescription through Project Twenty21, the national registry aiming to get 20,000 medical cannabis patients signed up by the end of 2021.
Lucy is also a founding member and patient advocate for PLEA (Patient-led Engagement for Access) and one of the first recipients of the recently launched Cancard - the card scheme started by friend of the show, Carly Barton, that allows to people to verify themselves to police as medicinal cannabis patients.
Oh and during lockdown, Lucy has taught herself to walk again (and is regularly walking 5km). Without cannabis, this would never have been possible.
Useful links:
PLEA
Project Twenty21
Cancard
The CBD Book: The Essential Guide to CBD Oil

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This interview with Sharon McEvoy for my upcoming book 'The CBD Book: The Essential Guide to CBD Oil' is one of the reasons I started Cannabis Voices.
It wasn't until I spoke to Sharon about her son Niall and heard how he went from extreme anxiety and self-injurious behaviour to the healthy, cheeky, chatty little boy he is today after taking CBD oil, that I really felt the book come alive.
But merely including Niall's story in the book still didn't seem enough. I felt somehow that Sharon needed a platform for her story to be heard in her own words.
And boy, does she have a story to tell.
"“We started giving Niall CBD oil in July 2016’” says Sharon, ”and by August, we had a different child in front of us. "First of all, the self injurious behaviour and headbanging stopped. Then the hyperactivity stopped and the child could sit for five minutes. You could see his system calming down. We saw all of these senses that were in total overload come down to a normal rate.”

Like many parents in similar situations, Sharon has had to become an expert in how to manage Niall's autism - and has dedicated many hours educating parents about CBD oil through the Facebook Community 'CBDs of Autism' which has thousands of members worldwide.
This podcast is a must for parents who are considering giving CBD oil to their child with autism as Sharon gives some great, practical advice on how to make those first often scary steps.
“I’ve been very wary of putting Niall out there as this posterboy for CBD and autism because it doesn’t work for everyone," says Sharon. "It’s been a very long journey to get where we are and we’ve made a lot of mistakes along the way. You’re not going to cure their autism. But what you’re looking at is to stop ‘existing’ within the four walls of your home and start living a life.”

Resources:
CBD's of Autism (private Group)
Cannabidiol Based Medical Cannabis in Children with Autism- a Retrospective Feasibility Study (Adi Aran)
Lower circulating endocannabinoid levels in children with autism spectrum disorder (Adi Aran)

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This episode is to honour and celebrate the legacy of previous guest Michelle Kendall who died last year from ovarian cancer.
In her words:
"I think the universe gave me lemons. And I didn't just make lemonade. I feel like I've made lemon meringue pie."
Michelle is referring to her unwavering determination to use a scientific approach to finding a cure for her cancer using cannabis.
As well as making her Schedule 1 documentary highlighting the blockade on research into cannabinoids caused by the completely unjustified schedule 1 classification of the cannabis plant, Michelle and her husband Bruce ploughed their savings into funding research through the Israeli lab of Professor Hinanit Koltai from the Volcani Institute with the view to finding a cure for her cancer.
Sadly Michelle passed away in September 2021, too soon to see the publication of the peer reviewed paper based on her initial studies and curiosity which found that combining THC, CBG and CBC showed anticancer properties against ovarian cancer cell lines.
Bruce and Hinanit hope this is just the start, and are looking for funding to eventually translate these findings to clinical trials.
For anyone interested in finding out more about this work, please contact Bruce through the company he set up with Michelle before her death.
https://www.CannaOncResearch.com

[email protected]

+1 (805) 708-7353
You can hear Michelle's previous interview on Cannabis Voices here.

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A few months ago, I interviewed Dr Claude Cyr, a Canadian family doctor and author of a number of peer reviewed papers about the use of cannabis in palliative care for an article I was writing for Project CBD.
Dr Cyr describes palliative care as the best 'port of entry' for integrating cannabis into medicine because it is one of the only disciplines where physicians actually have the time needed to spend with patients.
He says: "Palliative care is a specific situation where we can actually put into question the core philosophy of medicine which is the evidence based paradigm. I think physicians need to stop obsessing over the evidence when their patients are dying and clearly telling them, ‘I’m really enjoying this, I’m getting huge benefits from this, I’m sleeping better, I’m eating better.’ But the physicians are nodding their heads and saying, ‘I hear you, but I can’t accept this because I’m still lacking evidence.’

“But I think there is enough data out there to convince physicians that it’s safe for palliative care patients, and it’s predictable.”
I particularly enjoyed discussing with Dr Cyr how the psychoactive nature of the cannabis plant can actually have a therapeutic place in end-of-life care, potentially helping a patient to accept their death.
“When you look at the studies of psychedelics in depression and existential anxiety in cancer patients, some of these results have been dramatic,” says Dr Cyr. “Although cannabis isn’t a true psychedelic, there are some similar experiences that patients tell us about.

"At smaller doses patients experience a psycholytic effect, a lowering of the defences allowing people to explore other aspects of their psyche, and that’s when they start making connections between different aspects of their reality.”
A great, informative interview to be enjoyed.
Useful links:
Doctors for Responsible Access.
Dr Cyr's published papers on palliative care:
Cannabis in palliative care: current challenges and practical recommendations
Paediatric palliative care in Canada: A national survey of paediatricians
Quality indicators for paediatric palliative care
Another great article by Dr Cyr:
Moving Beyond Old Prejudices for the Sake of Patient Care: Incorporating Cannabis in Cancer Symptom Management
My article for Project CBDon cannabis and palliative care featuring Dr Cyr's interview
https://www.projectcbd.org/medicine/cannabis-palliative-care

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