Cannabis: The Gateway Drug to A Healthier Lifestyle?

Cannabis has long been associated with being lazy. But the reality is that cannabis has changed the way many people think about health.

There are people who have suffered from chronic pain and mental illness for decades without getting adequate relief from traditional pharmaceuticals, and during this period, these people have put their full trust and faith in the medical community. Then they try cannabis and get incredible relief. This reaction is always threefold:

1) Happiness from ending the pain and suffering.

2) Anger at the medical community for not offering this treatment sooner. Patients often pose this question on a follow-up with an angry tone: “Why didn’t someone tell me about this sooner?”

3) Openness to learning about new treatments and learning about a healthier lifestyle. This is the real game-changer.

When you hear about people who have “completely changed their lives,” this is unlikely solely to be due to cannabis alone. It is likely that it has to do with other lifestyle changes that have made a significant impact.

As an example, many medical cannabis patients have taken it upon themselves to begin making their own cannabis edibles. Making cannabis edibles can be a very labor-intensive process, and it can also be detrimental to one’s own health. In the past, edibles have traditionally been associated with “pot brownies” or “gummies.” These edibles are often filled with sugar and low-quality fats.

It is not advisable for medical cannabis patients to consume sugar and conventional butter along with their medicine. Classic “pot brownies” are typically brownies infused with cannabis, and brownies are not nutritious. A typical brownie has 58 grams of carbohydrates (33grams of those coming from sugar), and this is not something that should be recommended to anyone. The goal is not to trade chronic pain and mental illness for obesity. The goal is to treat your symptoms while improving your overall lifestyle.

And this is what many patients have done and why patients often lose weight when consuming medical cannabis. Their new-found openness to learning about other medicines and healthier lifestyle choices has changed the way they take care of themselves. Instead of using conventional butter and sugar, medical cannabis patients are choosing to make brownies with grass-fed butter and stevia.

Armed with new knowledge and an openness to learning about new treatments, patients begin to feel more empowered. That’s exactly how you want to and should feel about your own health; you should feel in control. When patients are literally making their own medicine using healthy ingredients, they naturally begin to question the ingredients listed in other foods that they are consuming. By merely paying attention to what they are consuming, they are able to make healthier food choices while feeling more empowered about their health.

Now, before you say that despite the fact that brownies can be made nutritiously, most pot smokers are overweight, let me report the findings from a 2015 study on cannabis users: “Cannabis use was highly prevalent in the study population (57.4%) and was statistically associated with lower body mass index (BMI), lower % fat mass, lower fasting insulin, and lower HOMA-IR, after adjusting for numerous confounding variables.” In other words, cannabis on its own is not going to make you overweight, and it may even be a weight management aid.

The goal is of cannabis therapy is not to simply treat symptoms, it is to improve overall health. The best way to improve your overall health is not by blindly accepting conventional advice; it’s by learning what works for you and practicing it by putting it into action.

The cannabis users who have received the most benefit are the patients who have put the same amount of effort into learning about other aspects of health and medicine as they have about cannabis. They have literally “felt” the effects of cannabis on their own health and now want to experience other health benefits through other medicines, foods, and alternative treatments. This is why cannabis could be a gateway drug to a healthier lifestyle.