“If we were having this conversation two years ago, people would think we’re bananas,” says National Access Cannabis‘ Atlantic Canadian manager, Kenny Lord. NAC has several storefronts in Canada, with its latest just opened at 5990 Spring Garden Road.
You can’t stroll into the place and pick up a bag of weed—it’s not a dispensary. With nurses and doctors on site, the staff finds out if cannabis is an appropriate treatment for what ails you.
Diandra Phipps (you might recognize her from enVie—A Vegan Kitchen) manages the Halifax store. She says some doctors aren’t comfortable prescribing cannabis, while others don’t have enough information about it.
“A patient from outside can get referred here as any doctor would refer to a specialist, whether it be a dermatologist, a pain specialist or what have you,” she explains. Cannabis can help with issues such as anxiety, insomnia and multiple sclerosis. Folks like Lord and Phipps act as consultants, but NAC’s physicians make the final call as to whether someone qualifies.
According to Phipps, most of the patients who come to the clinic are people over 40, and have been using prescription drugs with little success. “When we think of cannabis, we think of getting high,” says Phipps. “You don’t even have to have any psychoactive effect from this product anymore to gain access to the benefits.”
Smoking a joint every day is far from the only option. “We motivate our patients to actually vapourize. It takes away that carcinogenic effect…it also, of course, preserves the really important compounds in the plant.”
Cannabis is also available in the form of oils, pills and—well —edibles. NAC sells products to help you with your cooking and the Halifax location plans to host workshops on the topic, among others, next month.
“We really want to give all of our patients the tools, the resources they need to make sure they are getting the most out of this product,” says Phipps.
Related Stories
Task force makes recommendations for legalizing weed in Canada
Check out this Swiss Army knife for weed
Puff & Paint celebrates cannabis and creativity
The best pot for periods, period
Waiting to exhale
This article appears in Nov 24-30, 2016.
Why are we hiding our pot use behind “medical” reasons? Jesus! I have any number of illnesses that could make me eligible for pot, but I like to get high too! I get high more than I treat the symptoms from illness with it.
And once it’s legal – watch the price soar! You’ll pay tax and “levies” on top of overhead costs.
And the folks at National Access Cannabis will grow fat on consultancy fees.
Foolishness.
Cannabis is a medicine as you have stated in your own words
” I have any number of illnesses that could make me eligible for pot”
Getting high as you put it or more importantly when your CB1 receptors are activated by THC Delta 9, they actually give CB1 receptors of every living tissue in your body a feeling of bliss which is the body’s way of healing itself. I am not sure what your point is on your post but we are not hiding behind “medical” reasons, quite the opposite my dear friend. We are actually putting it out in the forefront so that our communities can benefit from this medicinal plant as we have done over 4000 years ago.
THC isn’t found naturally in the body. The existence of a specific ‘bliss receptor’ for THC implied that it was actually just a forgery of a hitherto unknown natural molecular key. The key was isolated by Israeli scientist Raphael Mechoulam in 1992: arachidonyl ethanolamide, later called ‘anandamide’:
http://antoine.frostburg.edu/chem/senese/101/features/anandamide.shtml
Ojela
^^^^ You just keep taking your pills and we will all be better soon lol^^^^^Fool!
Marijuana Prohibition- The most illogical and inhumane law on the planet created by very very stupid and out right ignorant individuals. Those who enforced/enforce such law are in fact committing a true criminal act. The law itself is 1000x more harmful to a human being than
the plant itself.
Legalize it!….. and PLEASE leave good people alone once and for all you dirty corrupt cops!
The longest and dumbest argument in the history of mankind even when all the strawman arguments get debunked in a massive way, they(brainwashed prohibitionists) continue to make themselves look and sound stupid in their failed arguments against marijuana. They have NOTHING but stupidity and sheer ignorance of something they supposedly have never tried or seen before in person,have zero experience other than what the seen in propaganda videos growing up and the dumbest thing about prohibitionists is they actually believe that they are much smarter than ANYONE who tried or uses marijuana. They are wrong on so many levels and live in a tiny bubble.Some even have university degrees and still stupid on the subject.
That leads me to this SCIENTIFIC question- What caused these people(mostly Conservative voters) to be so incredible stupid on purpose? To think that anyone who uses marijuana will act like Cheech n Chong is your first and most important mistake you gotta drop on this subject.
Take a hint Conservatives-There would be people out there in the world who are just plain dumb,naturally dumb with dumb parents and dumb everything whether or not marijuana plants even existed on Earth. So just because some dummies use weed as well does not mean that “the weed caused it!” GET IT?
A past Canadian Health Minister(Ambrose) told the entire nation that “pot-needles will litter the streets.” That woman holds masters degrees.What made her so stupid to think that syringes can be stuffed with plant matter and injected into the human body?
Any brainwashed cops or Anti-marijuana pill-popping alcoholics wants to continue to debate this topic and be made FOOLS!! Looks much better for legalization side of the argument.
THE WAR ON WEED IS A WAR ON HUMANITY AND MUST STOP ASAP!