medicine Archives - Ministry of Hemp America's leading advocate for hemp Wed, 01 Jul 2020 00:07:55 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.2.2 https://ministryofhemp.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/Icon.png medicine Archives - Ministry of Hemp 32 32 A Nurse That Prescribes Cannabis: Treating Hemp As Medicine https://ministryofhemp.com/cannabis-nurse-podcast-hemp-as-medicine/ https://ministryofhemp.com/cannabis-nurse-podcast-hemp-as-medicine/#respond Sat, 27 Jun 2020 17:32:20 +0000 http://ministryofhemp.com/?p=61837 Meet Eloise Theisen, president of the American Cannabis Nurses Association. She's a nurse that fights for patients to have access to hemp and cannabis.

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The war on drugs prevented medical professionals from treating cannabis as medicine, but that’s starting to change: today on our podcast, we meet a nurse who specializes in cannabis therapy.

But first on this episode of the Ministry of Hemp podcast, Matt starts with a statement about why hemp advocates and companies need to support the Black Lives Matter movement. Now that hemp is legal, we need to be part of healing the damage caused by the War on Drugs.

Then Matt meets Eloise Theisen, President of the American Nurses Cannabis Association, for a discussion about treating patients with hemp and cannabis. The conversation covers everything from building a cannabis regimen for specific patients needs to how to talk to your loved ones who could benefit from hemp or cannabis but may be hesitant to try.

This episode is part of our Women in Hemp series.

About Eloise Theisen

Eloise Theisen, RN, MSN, AGPCNP-BC, is full-time faculty in the Medical Cannabis program at Pacific College of Health and Science.

Eloise is a co-founder and the Chief Visionary Officer of Radicle Health and currently works there as a Board Certified Adult-Geriatric Nurse Practitioner. She is also a senior advisor to Circle Labs.

Eloise was one of the first healthcare practitioners to bring a clinical dosing regimen to the cannabis space and she has treated more than 5,000 patients using cannabis. Her work has been featured in Newsweek, the SF Chronicle, Leafly, Weedmaps, Merry Jane, and Green Flower Media. Eloise continues to advocate for patients at the local and national levels through education and has successfully increased access to local cities.

You’ve got hemp questions? We’ve got hemp answers!

Send us your hemp questions and you might hear them answered on one of our Hemp Q&A episodes. Send your written questions to us on Twitter, Facebook, matt@ministryofhemp.com, or call us and leave a message at 402-819-6417. Keep in mind, this phone number is for hemp questions only and any other inquiries for the Ministry of Hemp should be sent to info@ministryofhemp.com

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Photo: A picture of Eloise Theisen, a white woman with brown hair in ringlets below her shoulders, in a blue blouse and wearing a circular necklace. Theisen is a cannbis nurse and helps run the Cannabis Nursing Association.
Eloise Theisen is president of the American Cannabis Nurses Association.

A Nurse That Prescribes Cannabis: Complete Episode Transcript

Below you’ll find the complete transcript of episode 44 of the Ministry of Hemp Podcast, “A Nurse That Prescribes Cannabis”:

Matt Baum:
I’m Matt Baum, and this is the Ministry of Hemp podcast, brought to you by ministryofhemp.com, America’s leading advocate for hemp and hemp education. Welcome back to the Ministry of Hemp podcast. Today on the show, I’m going to be talking to Eloise Theisen. She is the president of the American Cannabis Nurses Association. We talk about everything from building a cannabis regimen, to who is cannabis right for, to how to talk to your relatives that may benefit from cannabis, but who are a little afraid to try it out. It’s a great conversation, and I hope you stick around for it.

Black Lives Matter & the War on Drugs

Matt Baum:
But before we get into that, you may have noticed that the world has changed recently. It started with the death of George Floyd up in Minneapolis, at the hands of a police officer. This kicked off an unprecedented amount of protest and incredible support for the Black Lives Matter movement that it desperately deserves. And we here at Ministry of Hemp are taking it very seriously as well, and doing our part. Because it’s not just our job as good citizens of the United States to make sure that all of our citizens are taken care of, but it’s also our job as hemp advocates to recognize that a lot of this police brutality, and arming of police force, and the innocent deaths of Black people at their hands stems from the war on drugs. Our editor-in-chief Kit O’Connell, put together a fantastic piece that you can find on ministryofhemp.com right now. And of course, I’ll have a link to it in the show notes, but it basically talks about how this started in the 60s, with President Nixon.

Matt Baum:
Cannabis has been a major target of the war on drugs, the same war that has led to ballooning prison populations and done terrible amount of damage to both Black and Latino communities. We were thrilled to see so many different hemp companies filling our email inboxes. Some of them even let their employees take the day off to go and demonstrate peacefully. It’s been amazing. And we are calling on all hemp companies out there to support Black Lives Matter and support this movement, and help fight racial injustice in this great country. Some of you are probably thinking, “Matt, this is quite the leap from hemp to Black Lives Matter,” but it’s really not. And if you head over to Ministry of Hemp and check out the piece that Kit wrote, you’ll see there’s a long history here, and it really does start with the war on drugs.

Meet cannabis nurse Eloise Theisen

Matt Baum:
My conversation today is with Eloise Theisen. She’s the co founder and chief visionary officer of Radicle Health. Prior to Radicle Health, Eloise founded Green Health Consultants, which is a medical cannabis clinic that helped patients use cannabis to help treat chronic and age related illness. She was one of the first healthcare practitioners to bring clinical dosing regimens to the cannabis space, and she’s treated more than 5,000 patients using cannabis. Currently, Eloise is an adult geriatric nurse practitioner, and she lives with her husband and two girls. I spoke to her from her house in Northern California. Here’s my conversation with Eloise Theisen. Eloise. Welcome to the Ministry of Hemp podcast. It’s nice to have you.

Eloise Theisen:
Thank you. Appreciate it.

Matt Baum:
You’ve done an amazing amount of work and been on an incredible journey. So let’s just start. Where did this journey begin? And it’s ended with you as the president of the American Cannabis Nurses Association, which is incredible, but I’m guessing at one point you were just a nurse, and you decided to go off into a direction that you probably felt a lot of push back for.

Eloise Theisen:
Yes. I call myself an accidental entrepreneur. I certainly did not anticipate being in this sort of platform. My background is in oncology. So I’ve been in nursing for 20 years, and worked with oncology patients for about 13 years at various levels, managing other nurses, working directly with them. I suffered from an accident that left me in chronic pain. So at the age of 36, I ended up being completely disabled and quickly learned how our standard of care with pharmaceuticals for chronic pain is ineffective. So I had my own personal journey towards cannabis as an alternative medicine, and quickly became curious as to why wasn’t this being offered to me, and why did it work so well?

Eloise Theisen:
And then you start learning about the endocannabinoid system and all the different components of the plant, and my mind was really blown. But I was successful at using cannabis to come off all my pharmaceuticals. So I was really fortunate to get off the opioids, get off the cocktail. I think I was on eight different medications at one point. I was able to go back to school to become a nurse practitioner. And I was working, doing my clinical hours at an oncology office. And every day, patients were asking me about it. It almost became kind of comical. Like, “Do I smell like that? Am I sweating it out? Do I have a green aura around me?” Because the minute that door closed-

Matt Baum:
Right? Like, “Are you going to call the cops?”

Eloise Theisen:
And they would whisper it. They would close the door and they would say, “What do you think about cannabis?” And I said, “Oh, I think it’s such a great idea.” It became pretty obvious pretty quickly that people wanted somebody to help them navigate cannabis as a medicine. How does it work? What should I expect? Is it going to interact with other medications? So I just took a leap of faith and decided to start a practice with a physician that was geared towards helping patients navigate cannabis as a medicine. I started that in 2014, and that’s what led me to eventually my work with the American Cannabis Nurses Association.

Matt Baum:
I think it’s amazing that a lot of the people that I’ve spoken to on this show that work in healthcare have very similar stories, where they were either working in healthcare and they saw how many pain pills and opioids they were handing out and said, “There’s got to be something better.” Or, like you, they had an incident where they became a patient and went, “Oh my God, they are giving me a lot of opioids.” And that slowly pushed them into the cannabis world, which I think it’s amazing you ended up there. I’m sorry you had an incident, but that’s incredible.

Eloise Theisen:
That’s okay. Lemonade.

Treating hemp & cannabis as medicine

Matt Baum:
So you get into this and you start working with the physician and developing regimens. What does that look like? When a patient comes in and says, “Okay, I have this pain.” How does this work? How do you put together a regimen?

Eloise Theisen:
The most common question I get is, “What should I use for X, Y, and Z?” And I wish it was as simple as me saying, “Take five milligrams of THC at bedtime, call me in two weeks.” Cannabis is such a complex plant. The endocannabinoid system is so complex. We’re really trying to still understand a lot of that, and really figure out what are the best protocols, what are best practices? So it’s very individualized. When somebody comes in, I do a very thorough health history. I’m looking at your age, what have you tried, what worked, what didn’t work, how much sleep do you get, what kind of support system do you have, have you tried cannabis before, how much alcohol are you drinking, because you see that a lot in the older population, how much water do you drink, what other symptoms do you have, and then working with the patient to determine their goals of care.

Eloise Theisen:
And we’re really fortunate in California to have access to huge cannabinoid profiles, a lot of different cannabinoids to work with. So I will use best practices, what I’ve found works for, peripheral neuropathy, for example, and start the patient there and provide them with a full treatment plan. Start with this dose. Increase it on this day. This is your target dose. Here’s your potential side effects. It really helps ease them into it and give them more confidence in it as a medicine, because most people are scared.

Matt Baum:
Of course they’re scared. It’s new. But when you regimen it like that, like what you’re talking about, this is the same way that you would introduce any medication, basically. And I like that you’re treating it as a medication. Northern California is where you’re at, right? And California is very green friendly, we’ll call it. What do you say to people in other states that aren’t so friendly, that are looking to getting into something like you’re in, where you’re not just educating, but you’re actually helping patients with cannabis. What do you say to these other people that are fighting, like in North Dakota, and I’m in Nebraska, for example. Is there any hope?

Eloise Theisen:
There is, yeah. I think people look to California as having it together. And I would say that we’re progressive in terms of what we offer, like our cannabinoid products that we have available, but we’re not progressive in how we treat this as a medicine. It still is very much, access is based on where you live and your zip code. When I first got into this, I remember my cannabis attorney. I was so exacerbated at times at just how hard it was. And she’s like, “You’re either a warrior or an advocate.” And I think I actually ended up being both, because you have to fight so hard to educate people and help them remove the stigma that they had. I came with my own stigma, but the American Cannabis Nurses Association has almost 1400 members across the United States. So we have these little gems all throughout our country, our nation, that are educating at the local level. And I think that’s really where our work needs to start. Act local, think global. And we’re fighting local city, states, and federal government.

Matt Baum:
I’m sure. That was My next question is like, what does that look like? 1400 people nationwide. Everyone is obviously fighting different battles. But what kind of pushback are you guys feeling? I would assume it’s pretty intense from insurance companies and medical institutions and whatnot.

Eloise Theisen:
Yeah. I mean, it comes down to… A perfect example is, we’re a nonprofit national nursing organization, we don’t do anything but educate, and we just had our bank account shut down. And it’s like, “Sorry, we don’t deal with cannabis businesses.” And I finally just decided to be really stern and say, “First of all, you need to prove to me how we’re a cannabis business. And if you can’t, I’m reporting you to the FDIC, because it’s discrimination.” How far that will go, I don’t know. But that’s part of the work that we have to do, is to really push back, keep pushing that uphill battle.

Matt Baum:
Seems like the financial battle is the biggest battleground right now, too. It seems like insurance companies are even opening to this a little bit, but it’s the banking industry that seems to be holding everything back. And they’re not even afraid of it because it’s scary or it causes reefer madness. It seems like they’re just afraid that the FDIC is going to shut them down, and say, “No, you’re dealing in something illegal.” Good lord.

Eloise Theisen:
Yeah. We don’t have… Safe banking, it needs to be a priority. Especially when I look at what’s currently going on right now with these armed robberies because of the rioting and looting. There’s no protection for these cannabis businesses who are having their safes stolen with cash in it because they don’t have bank accounts. And I’m certain that the city councils and the state is going to come back and say, “See, we told you that cannabis is dangerous.” And they just don’t get it. It’s like, “Well, if we had safe banking, we wouldn’t have thousands and thousands of dollars on site.”

Matt Baum:
Yeah. You’ve literally forced someone into a cash business. And what happens to cash businesses? They get knocked off. Of course.

Eloise Theisen:
Right, right. Yeah.

Treating older patients with cannabis

Matt Baum:
I’m sorry to hear that. So on a lighter note, switching gears a little bit, you were a geriatric nurse. Tell me about, what are the bulk of the patients that you see? Who are they? What are they coming to you for?

Eloise Theisen:
They’re predominantly female. I would say about 85% of my patient base is female. Usually around 75-76. So they missed that time in the 60s, when they would have been exploring or experimenting with cannabis or psychedelics, so they really are cannabis naive. And they’re usually a little bit nervous or hesitant about cannabis. They come in with this sort of like, “Well, Eloise. I don’t want to smoke it, and I don’t want to get high, and I don’t want to gain weight.” So they have these stigmas that they’re bringing with them.

Matt Baum:
In your head, you’re like, “Actually, you do. You just don’t know it.”

Eloise Theisen:
Yeah. And I do actually have that conversation with them, and I’m like, “Well, tell me. What do you think getting high means?” And they’re like, “I don’t want to hallucinate and lose control.” And I’m like, “Okay, well do you want to feel more communicative with your spouse? Do you want to feel less anxious and less angry and less irritable?” They’re like, “Yeah, actually. I think I do.” So they’re primarily coming to me for age related chronic illness, chronic pain, anxiety, depression, insomnia. I do get some neurological conditions, like Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s disease. And then of course, people undergoing chemotherapy. That is another big one.

Matt Baum:
I’m sure. How much of what… And obviously, we can’t go into hardcore data here, but if you had to guess, how much of what you are prescribing would you say is THC versus CBD?

Eloise Theisen:
I would say it’s pretty even. And of course, it depends on the condition. I find that CBD can be great for anxiety. We’re definitely seeing some data to come out to support that. It’s a great antidepressant, anti-anxiety. The chronic pain usually needs multiple cannabinoids, and usually THC is really important there. Interestingly enough, with Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s patients, THC tends to be more effective as well. CBD can be great, but it really depends on the product.

Matt Baum:
Right. Of course. You’ve got to have the good stuff, otherwise it doesn’t make any difference. Do you think, from your opinion, you said a lot of these patients that come in have stigmas they bring with them, is the stigma against CBD as large as it is against THC? Or do you think they just don’t even understand what it is?

Eloise Theisen:
I don’t even think they know sometimes it’s related to the marijuana cannabis plant.

Matt Baum:
That’s fair.

Eloise Theisen:
Yeah. They’re much more open to it because of the quote-unquote high that is not associated with it.

Matt Baum:
Of course.

Eloise Theisen:
But the conversation I try to have is like, “Look. THC is very therapeutic. People just have over-consumed unintentionally because they don’t understand dosing. And that’s where we see adverse effects.”

Teaching doctors and nurses about cannabis

Matt Baum:
So you are one of the co founders and the Chief Executive Officer of Radicle Health. Tell me about Radicle Health. How big is this? How many people are there? What kind of an operation is it?

Eloise Theisen:
There’s a whopping two of us.

Matt Baum:
Oh, wow. At least management meetings are easy, right?

Eloise Theisen:
Yes. That’s right. So Radicle Health was founded in 2018, and we’re an education company. So what we do is create content for healthcare professionals who want to learn about the endocannabinoid system. It primarily was started for nurses, but we’ve expanded to all healthcare professionals. There’s just the two of us that work on the content, and it’s all available online. So people can watch the content on demand and learn about ACS and cannabinoids.

Matt Baum:
Very cool. We’ll have links to that in the show notes, of course.

Eloise Theisen:
Oh, thank you. I appreciate that.

Matt Baum:
Definitely. So these professionals, are they coming to you, or are you going to them?

Eloise Theisen:
It’s a little bit of both. I’ve done a lot of work, boots on the ground, in my community. I’ve done a lot of outreach to support groups, like giving talks to Parkinson’s groups, and also local hospitals, hospices. Then it becomes word of mouth from there.

Matt Baum:
Right. Do you see many… And I’m not trying to put anybody on the spot or start a fight, but do you see… I mean, obviously I’m on your side. But do you see many of these professionals pushing back? Do some of them come at you just to be like, “I want to see if this is BS. And I want to see what she’s got.”

Eloise Theisen:
Yes. I have been harassed and called names. And the most recent experience was last year.

Matt Baum:
Oh, really? Can you talk about it without naming names?

Eloise Theisen:
Oh, totally. It’s funny, because people are like, “Oh, it’s so great what you do. And I’m sure everybody thinks you’re a rock star. You talk about education and cannabis.” And I’m like, “No. People really don’t see the value in it still.” And I was asked to do a talk for physicians at a hospital in Southern California. And I was told, “Eloise, you’re probably going to get five or six people here.” So I was like, “Okay.” And then next thing I know, it’s wall to wall people. It’s standing room only for all the old people. And this guy had come up to me prior to the talk, and he was starting to drill me. “Well, I hear cannabis causes schizophrenia.” And all of those concerns that people have, that it’s addicting.

Matt Baum:
The Reefer Madness playbook, basically.

Eloise Theisen:
Yes. Just going through it. And I was answering his questions really politely. And then the talk started, and then he started interrupting me during my talk with the same questions, now with his audience there. And I finally got to the point where I just wouldn’t make eye contact with him anymore, because I’m like, “I’m not going to entertain your questions anymore. We’ve already discussed this.” And then he just got so angry that he stood up in the middle of my talk and yelled at me.

Matt Baum:
Oh my God.

Eloise Theisen:
“You’re talking about a dangerous drug, and I’m not going to tolerate it.”

Matt Baum:
So this is a crazy person. Just full on lunatic at this point.

Eloise Theisen:
Full on. And stormed out. And I was like, “Okay,” and I just went back to my talk. But inside, I was like, “Oh wow, that was intense.” And then of course afterwards, I had a group of physicians come up to me and say, “Don’t worry about that guy. He’s out there.”

Matt Baum:
Yeah. Of course.

Eloise Theisen:
That was his style. But you certainly do get people who get very angry about, it’s a drug, and you’re promoting the wrong thing.

Skepticism & misinformation about cannabis

Matt Baum:
What about the other side of that? The people that aren’t necessarily lunatics, but just skeptics, real skeptics who want to group… I admit, I am a skeptic. And I think it’s good to be skeptical, because when you can start to see data come in, it’s very difficult to be skeptical. But there are a lot of skeptics out there that put CBD, and THC, and cannabis as a whole in with holistic healing and all this other woo that’s out there. Have you dealt with a lot of that?

Eloise Theisen:
Yeah. I think sometimes, people see it as sort of a hippy dippy medicine. They don’t take it seriously. And I think you’re right. I think it’s important to be skeptical. I think that, often, the pushback I get is, “We don’t have enough research.” Which I will say yes and no. You have to understand the history of the plant and why we don’t have enough research. We also do have good research on some things, like sleep and pain, using cannabinoids for those conditions. We actually have really good data on that. So it’s really about having that conversation of, “Yes, here’s where we do need more data. Here’s where we have some beginning data.”

Eloise Theisen:
And then, when I was watching the whole COVID crisis, how accepting people were of looking at other drugs for off label and starting to administer them without good clinical data or trials. And so, I would love to have that sort of acceptance for cannabis, which I consider to be incredibly safe. Why are we so afraid to… The other pushback I’ll get was, “Well, there was only 40 or 50 people in that trial. It wasn’t big enough.” And again, you could say, “Well, it’s small because people are scared, and you’re not going to get a lot of people who are going to come out and try it.”

Matt Baum:
We’ve also just started testing this stuff, literally. We’ve had 75 years where we couldn’t even talk about it, let alone test it. And not too long ago, I was on Twitter and I had seen somebody had posted something about hydroxychloroquine or whatever. And they had said, “Hydroxychloroquine kills people, whereas CBD has been proven to cure COVID-19.” And I was like, “Okay, let’s back up. I totally agree with you. Hydroxychloroquine is a bad idea. No doubt. But let’s not start saying that CBD cures COVID-19.” And then they’re like, “Well, check out this study. Check out this.” I’m like, “Those are studies. I get it. But this is not helping the cause.” Both sides are bad. We need to just pare it down, treat it like a science, treat it like a real medical profession and a medicine. So you wrote a book in 2019, all about pain, it’s called Pain-Free with CBD. Tell me about that. You haven’t mentioned being an author before this, so all of a sudden you became an author too.

Eloise Theisen:
I wrote a chapter in it. I know. 2019 was an intense year, and I was fortunate enough to write a chapter in the book with Alice O’Leary Randall. And I don’t know if you’re familiar with her.

Matt Baum:
I can’t say that I am.

Eloise Theisen:
But her husband… So she’s actually a very important person in the medical cannabis history movement. Her husband, Robert Randall was the first patient to receive marijuana from the government that was grown in Mississippi. So he was found to have glaucoma at a very early age, like 23-24. And he found that when he inhaled cannabis, he could actually see better and it preserved his sight. So he decided to take on the federal government, and eventually started something that allowed for the government to administer 300 cigarettes of cannabis a month in this tin. And they had other patients and they started the movement back in the 70s. So she wrote the book and asked if I would come in and do the condition piece. And we put in there a chart for potential drug interactions, that’s really designed to give patients or consumers some information that they can hopefully bring back to their physicians and say, “Will you monitor me? This might be a drug interaction.” So that was a lot of fun.

Matt Baum:
What are the largest drug interactions that you’ve seen. I’m just curious. Because you hear, “Oh, there’s none. There’s zero.” And then you hear, “Oh no, there’s a million of them.” And it’s hard to know.

Eloise Theisen:
It’s like you said. We have these well-meaning advocates, I think, that sometimes go to the-

Matt Baum:
Right. A little too well-meaning.

Eloise Theisen:
Yeah. It’s like it starts to become hyperbole. So it’s interesting. And when I first came into it too, I was incredibly conservative, like, “Oh no.” I really have seen very few drug interactions that have required a patient to stop using cannabis. We’ll definitely see some certain blood thinners, warfarin is a known interaction that needs to be closely monitored. We’ll see interactions where the opioid interactions, people use less of it. So some interactions are actually really positive, where you can see they’ll start to decrease their pharmaceutical intake.

Matt Baum:
I would guess vice versa though, there’s doctors that say like, “No, no, no, no, no. We want you to stay on the opioids and decrease this other thing.” And then, we’re not… Great.

Eloise Theisen:
Yeah. Or say, “If you test positive for THC, we won’t prescribe your opioids anymore.”

Matt Baum:
Yeah. We just had a Q&A show, and a guy called in. And he was from Nebraska as well, and had a pain doctor that was saying he’s going to test his wife, and if she tests positive for THC, she’s cut off, done, no opioids, zero. And that’s completely legal in Nebraska, which is just… He’s not a police officer. He is a doctor. It’s just insanity to me.

Eloise Theisen:
Yeah. It sounds like malpractice. The suffering that that patient will have as a result of opioid withdrawal is miserable. I wouldn’t wish it on my worst enemy.

Matt Baum:
Well, not to mention that she had a very serious Crohn’s condition and was already in pain, and the opioids were not working.

Eloise Theisen:
Of course. Yeah.

Building trust and ending the stigma around cannabis

Matt Baum:
What do you say to people like my grandmother, for example. She’s in assisted living and she’s had a lot of pain because of a surgery she had on her neck. And I would like her to try CBD. She’s terrified of trying marijuana, for reasons that I totally get. I’m like, “Grandma, I do it all the time. I’m fine. Look at me.”

Eloise Theisen:
It’s not enough.

Matt Baum:
No. It’s not enough. But what do we say? I’ve found, talking to my mother and talking to her sister, who are very active in her care, they are very resistant. And I get why they are, and I can come to them with information, but they’re so skeptical. Not even skeptical. They’re afraid of that information, where it comes from. Where do you start that conversation when you meet a patient with a family member or family members? How do you even start that conversation?

Eloise Theisen:
I usually ask them, “Why now? What brought you to consult with me now?” And that opens up the conversation, because they’ll say, “Well, I’m desperate. I’ve tried everything else.” They’re pretty good about revealing their biases or their concerns. So a lot of it is educating them and building that trust and confidence. A lot of times, I’ll say, “Well, why now?” And they’ll say, “Well, my grandson told me I should try it, or my kids told me to try it.” And so, they’ve heard it enough that they’re like, “Okay. I’ll try it. But I want to work with a medical professional.” So that really does help open up the conversation, because there’s already a… Nurses are the most trusted profession.

Matt Baum:
Absolutely. More so than doctors, even. It’s crazy.

Eloise Theisen:
So there’s already a level of trust. So it’s always interesting to hear what brought them to it. It fascinates me every time.

Matt Baum:
Definitely. Well, you’re doing amazing work and we’re super proud of you. And I’m sorry to hear about your recent financial issues, and hopefully you can get past that, definitely. But what do you think in your opinion would be the best thing that could happen tomorrow to make your life easier? This could be governmental or anything, to make…

Eloise Theisen:
It would be allowing for safe banking access and allowing for cannabis… We’ve been deemed essential in so many states during COVID, yet we can’t access any of the same resources or relief stimulus packages that other businesses can. So I just want an even playing field there. And in fact, many of our members, when we surveyed them, want the plant, descheduled. I know that’s going to come with its own challenges, but right now I just want safe access, safe banking, safe access. And I want fairness for all of us in this industry to have the same rights as other businesses.

Matt Baum:
It’s the saddest thing in the world. But every time I asked this question, that is what I hear it. I don’t hear like, “Oh, we want huge tax breaks. We want this.” We hear like, “Look, we just want to be treated like everybody else. Please regulate this. Please put rules on it so we can follow them.” It’s just so sad to hear. But the good news is there are people like you and 1400 other nurses across the United States that are fighting this. And I just want to say thank you. Please keep it up.

Eloise Theisen:
Yeah. Thank you. Thank you.

Matt Baum:
I know it’s not easy right now, but-

Eloise Theisen:
It’s hard being a leader right now.

Matt Baum:
Being a warrior and an advocate, as you said.

Eloise Theisen:
Yeah.

Matt Baum:
Anything that you wanted to talk about that you don’t think I touched on, or I’m not hitting?

Eloise Theisen:
Anybody who’s considering exploring cannabis for a serious health condition should really consider working with a healthcare professional to help them get the right product as soon as possible, on the right path.

Matt Baum:
Absolutely. As opposed to that guy you know that can score some weed.

Eloise Theisen:
Yeah. Doug. Your buddy, Doug.

Matt Baum:
Don’t get me wrong. Doug’s great when you’re playing video games, but if you’re in chronic pain, let’s talk to a medical professional.

Eloise Theisen:
Doug may not have everything you need.

Final thoughts from Matt

Matt Baum:
And yeah. Be sure to check out the show notes for the links to Radicle Health and the ACNA, and maybe you have a relative that you’ve been trying to talk about looking into the benefits of hemp or cannabis. We would love to hear from you. Give us a call at (402) 819-6417. Tell us your story. I’d love to hear about it. That’s about it for this episode. Thanks to everybody that’s been downloading and supporting. And like I just mentioned, if you have hemp questions of any kind, call us (402) 819-6417. Leave us a message, and myself and Kit O’Connell, the editor-in-chief of ministryofhemp.com, we heard a rumor that our friend Drew might help us out next time too, could answer it right here in one of our Q&A shows. If you’re too shy to leave a message, that’s fine. You can hit us up on any of our social media. We’re at /ministryofhemp or @ministryofhemp. And you can drop your questions there too.

Matt Baum:
Speaking of Ministry of Hemp, like I mentioned, get over there and check out our Black Lives Matter and hemp post. It’s an amazing read. We’ve also got a great new CBD review for CBD Pure Hemp Oil, and a really good article on CBD topicals. It’s a closer look at why people use them. If you want to help spread the message of hemp and support the show, head over to patreon.com/ministryofhemp, and become a Ministry of Hemp insider. Any amount you donate helps, and it gets you access to things like our podcast extras that I do, early access to articles, and all kinds of bonus articles too. Not to mention, the fact, like I said, it just helps us spread the good word of hemp, and we can’t thank our current Patreons enough for helping out. Thank you so much, you guys. Seriously. I got to get out of here, and I like to end the show the same way every time. Remember to take care of yourself, take care of others, and make good decisions, will you? This is Matt Baum with The Ministry of Hemp, signing off.

The post A Nurse That Prescribes Cannabis: Treating Hemp As Medicine appeared first on Ministry of Hemp.

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