Page 2 - Cannabis News Florida August 2021

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Back Cover Story: CANNABIS PHYSICIAN SPOTLIGHT: Bart Hershfield, MD

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cannabis medicine knowledge, or to educate patients who they certify about doses, How did you get started within the cannabis industry?
frequency or means of administration. Having medical cannabis legal in Florida is When I first heard about “medical marijuana” 25 years ago, I was skeptical,
a good start, but we can do better. assuming it was just an excuse for people to smoke legally. And when I was told
With the privilege of having medical cannabis in Florida comes responsibility for that it actually could reduce pain and anxiety, I assumed it was only because people
the certified patients, the dispensaries, and particularly for the qualified physicians. smoked themselves stupid.
How is a patient to know that recreational doses are not appropriate for medical Years later, after multiple failed back surgeries and a decade of opioids which had
purposes if they haven’t been educated? Dispensaries can help educate patients, and escalated to 440 milligrams morphine equivalents per day, a family member asked
some have very knowledgeable staff. But as with physicians, dispensary employees about trying MMJ. She didn’t have the benefit of a cannabis medicine specialist to
are only required to have a knowledge of the legal requirements associated with guide her, but over time figured out a regimen which not only allowed her to
Florida’s medical marijuana law. There is no statutory requirement for clinical decrease her opioids by 91%, but also resulted in regaining her energy. She felt like
knowledge, which is why one young budtender instructed one of our patients not she got her life back. Another family member with military PTSD couldn’t tolerate
to inhale from a vape pen, because if could make her cough! As in every other field the side effects of the antidepressants and Xanax prescribed by the VA, turned to
of medicine, isn’t it ultimately the responsibility of the MMJ physician to ensure alcohol to self-medicate, and when that didn’t work tried recreational doses of MJ.
that patients are receiving appropriate and optimal treatment After being educated on medical doses, he has been using a small fraction of the
And can that be accomplished during a 10-minute initial certification visit, or cannabis he used before, with better results, and with a feeling of having regained
during an assembly line certification event in a hotel banquet room? All of us know control of his life.
this is happening, because patients tell us their horror story experiences when they Once I learned about the existence of the endocannabinoid system and under-
transfer to us for recertification. Putting profit before good patient care has never stood the science of cannabis medicine, I became a true believer and advocate. At a
been acceptable in medicine, and it shouldn’t be in cannabis medicine, either. time in my career throughout which I was an employed emergency medicine and
Working with like-minded medical cannabis physicians, I hope that cannabis urgent care physician, when I should have been thinking about retirement, we
medicine will evolve into the medical specialty that is needed to educate physicians, opened a medical cannabis practice so that we could “Pay it Forward”—help others
to partner with dispensaries and the Department of Health, and to advocate legisla- as we have been helped. It is also professionally rewarding to be able to help people
tively for patients, so that together we can help medical cannabis patients obtain the with a treatment that is so much safer and better tolerated than the prescription
best results, at the least cost, and with the least side effects. medications that are traditionally used.

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