In the public health sphere, talk about cannabis has increased exponentially in recent years. The therapeutic benefits of the plant seem to be endless in the eyes of many holistic medicine experts and doctors. However, many Americans are still concerned about the relative safety of using it on an everyday basis. They wonder if (like many other frequently used drugs) cannabis will have harmful side effects or if they could become addicted to it.
The short answer is no, cannabis is not regarded as dangerous by virtually any accredited medical professionals or by the CDC. There’s been a lot of research done on the plant to determine if it has any possible harmful side effects, and one researcher whose work has been especially significant is Dr. Bonni Goldstein. Goldstein is a physician and the medical director at Canna-Centers in California. According to her, cannabis is the opposite of dangerous and is actually a treatment method she uses on patients of all different age groups and conditions.
Goldstein even suggests switching your normal pain relievers like ibuprofen for cannabis, as it could potentially prove to be a more effective anti-inflammatory and pain reliever. She says that the side effects from these everyday medications are common and serious, including things like ulcers, high blood pressure, or even death. She argues that choosing these dangerous, non-natural and non-healing medications over cannabis is counterproductive.
Instead, Goldstein says, you should use the phytocannabinoids and terpenes found in cannabis to heal your everyday issues. Cannabis is natural, non-toxic, and has been used as a medicine for centuries. She argues that any method of cannabis administration, including vaping, tinctures, or topical balms, are more effective and safer than everyday anti-inflammatories.
Goldstein says that a lot of misconception surrounding cannabis stems from the fact that cannabis is taught as being a drug of abuse. She argues that any drug can be a drug of abuse, but that doesn’t mean it can’t also be beneficial. She thinks that educating her patients on their cannabinoid receptors and endocannabinoid system as a whole has had an amazing impact on her patients’ ability to self-medicate with cannabis.
Dr. Goldstein is real-life proof that cannabis is certainly not dangerous. In fact, she shows that it is quite literally the opposite of dangerous. In addition to her research, the CDC has removed cannabis from their list of causes of mortality, as there have been no known deaths attached directly to cannabis abuse. In fact, they recently published a report in which they detailed all of the therapeutic benefits of cannabis. More information comes out every day on the positive impacts of cannabis, and slowly the stigma surrounding it being ‘dangerous’ is being broken down. Researchers like Goldstein can assure us of one thing: cannabis isn’t going anywhere soon, and it isn’t anything to be afraid of.
Sources:
Dr. Bonni Goldstein, MD
Project CBD
