Michael Backes, author of “Cannabis Pharmacy: The Practical Guide to Medical Marijuana,” will be the next guest speaker for the Malibu Public Library Speaker Series.
Backes is currently a consultant on medical marijuana uses to state government regulators, patients and marijuana dispensaries that are trying to embrace a scientific model. In writing his book, he reviewed thousands of studies from around the world.
The Malibu Times caught up with Backes, who is based in Southern California, to get a preview of his book and some of the issues of medical marijuana use before his talk next week. Backes is personable, intense, highly articulate and a walking encyclopedia of knowledge on the subject.
He originally began researching the medical uses of marijuana in order to find a way to prevent his own severe migraine headaches.
“Conventional migraine medication raises my blood pressure and risk for stroke,” Backes said. “I tried medical marijuana, and it worked.”
One of the challenges in using marijuana to treat any condition is in knowing how much to take. “There’s very little professional dose guidance, even for medical use,” he said. In order to help figure out appropriate doses, Backes worked with a science-based marijuana dispensary in L.A.: Cornerstone Collective.
Because marijuana has been illegal in the U.S. for so many years and because it has such a negative stigma, researchers have been reluctant to request funding to study its medical uses. For that reason, most of the research over the past 50 years has taken place outside the country.
For example, Backes explained that Israel has been studying marijuana since 1963 and integrated the cannabis pharmacy into its healthcare system decades ago. “The government got out in front of it and let the medical professionals take the lead. We could learn a lot from them.”
“Smoking marijuana is relatively recent,” Backes explained. “But for medical uses, it’s taken orally or with a vaporizer.”
The component of marijuana that causes the “high” is called THC (tetrahydrocannabinol). “A dose of two or three milligrams is where you start to get high, but many medical conditions can be treated with two milligrams or less,” Backes said.
Another important component of marijuana — CBD (cannabidiol) — doesn’t cause any high, and has shown serious promise in clinical trials for certain kinds of epilepsy, anxiety and stroke.
Backes said before cannabis was illegal, it was often used in the 19th century to treat migraine, cramps and asthma (it has a bronchodilator effect).
Medical interest in marijuana was resurrected in the U.S. during the ’80s AIDS crisis. “It was used to reduce the side effects of AZT (nausea and vomiting) and the wasting syndrome from loss of muscle mass,” Backes said.
A big breakthrough came in 1989 with the discovery of the endocannabinoid system in humans — receptors in the brain and immune systems affecting appetite, pain sensation, mood, memory and other functions. Marijuana is simply “a plant that is able to mimic your body’s own cannabinoids,” Backes explained. “You can have a clinical cannabis deficiency that results in migraine, fibromyalgia and other conditions.”
There’s a lot of ignorance on the subject. Backes said the regulators of marijuana dispensaries, whether at the state or local levels, “often don’t ask the right questions and don’t set the bar very high.” The topic of marijuana can also be a political hot potato. “Regulators only oppose medical marijuana until they get sick and need it,” Backes said. “I’ve had it happen four times now.”
Because of often poor regulations, “it’s not fair to patients having dispensaries that don’t really understand what they’re selling,” Backes said. In addition, “doctors that are practicing today who graduated medical school before the endocannabinoid system was even discovered” often have no idea how to write a prescription.
Backes thinks the future will see more of a push for mandatory testing of the products, and predicts that marijuana will be legal in the State of California by next year. In addition, he said, “Science is moving fast, and we’ll understand product safety much better” soon.
Does Backes have anything to say to those naysayers? “I embrace the evidence, which shows that marijuana is safe to use if used intelligently. It’s not for everyone, but we shouldn’t be frightened of it or have irrational fears.”
Backes will speak in Malibu on Wed., July 15 at 7 p.m. in Malibu City Hall’s Civic Theater. The event is free and open to the public. For more information, call 310.456.6538 or visit malibucity.org.
