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To This Doctor, Medical Cannabis Is An ‘Exit Drug’
Commencement Speaker For 2021 Graduating Class
On Friday June 18th, Chief Academic Officer of New Be- ginnings High Schools of Polk County, Carolyn Baldwin, and Principal of New Beginnings High Schools of Polk County, Terri Nelson, invited community leader, Dr. Shandale Ter- rell to be the commencement speaker for New Beginnings High School Graduation Class of 2021, held at the RP Fund- ing Center in Lakeland, Florida.
Dr. Terrell inspired the graduating students by telling him about his personal journey in education, life and com- munity service. Dr. Terrell informed the graduates to con- tinue their journey in education, be productive citizens and be successful in life. Dr. Terrell was presented The Appreci- ation Award for being the Commencement Speaker.
Shown are: Principal of New Beginnings High Schools of Polk County, Terri Nelson and Dr. Shandale Terrell, 2021 Commencement Speaker.
Editor’s note: This com- mentary is provided by the Medical Marijuana Educa- tion and Research Initiative (MMERI) of Florida A&M University.
You have probably heard the criticism that marijuana is a “gateway drug,” meaning it’s the first step on a path leading to more potent and addictive narcotics that yield stronger psychological or physiological effects. Dr. Joseph Rosado, an Orlando internist and qual- ified medical marijuana physi- cian, passionately disputes that claim, dismissing it as an orchestrated lie that has been perpetuated since the early 1900s to demonize cannabis.
If marijuana is a gateway to anything, he counters, it’s a life with less dependence on pharmaceutical drugs.
“For years, we’ve been lied to in believing that cannabis is a gateway drug when in reality it has proven to be an ‘exit drug,’ getting you away from all of these medications that cause greater harm than good,” says Dr. Rosado. “Cannabis is not addictive. There is no proof that it shows that it is physiologically addic- tive. It is psychologically ad- dictive, meaning the person believes that they need it and because they believed they needed it, they ended up using it. Contrary to heroin, alcohol, cocaine, amphetamines, that every time you use them you need a higher dose to get the same effect; it doesn’t work that way with cannabis.”
Dr. Rosado considers himself a “pioneer in the med- ical cannabis community,” which is an accurate descrip- tion when you know a little more about him. He was in- volved in Orlando attorney John Morgan’s failed 2014 and successful 2016 medical marijuana amendment initia- tives, often acting as a Span- ish-speaking advocate for those ballot efforts. When medical marijuana became legal in Florida, he was the first qualified physician in Central Florida to recommend — doctors cannot prescribe — medical cannabis to an adult patient and the first in the state to do the same for a
DR. JOSEPH ROSADO, MD
child. He works with such ad- vocacy groups as CannaMoms, Florida Cannabis Coalition, and Minorities for Medical Marijuana, the latter as its medical director. He’s also the medical director of marijua- nadoctors.com, a repository of information written for physi- cians and consumers.
In his book, “Hope & Heal- ing, The Case for Cannabis,” Dr. Rosado admits he “pre- viously never supported the full legalization of cannabis, but it now seems this may be the only effective way to en- sure full effective treatment of patients.”
A patient he first saw in December 2017 for evaluation as a candidate for medical cannabis treatment would surely agree with the last part of that statement. She is living proof of Dr. Rosado’s insis- tence that cannabis is an “exit drug.”
This patient suffered from several afflictions, including fibromyalgia, hypothyroidism (underactive thyroid), mi- graine headaches, seizures, anxiety disorder, major de- pressive disorder, attention deficit disorder, post-trau- matic stress disorder and lower extremity edema (swelling). She also was over- weight and a smoker.
To get her through a day she took a buffet of prescrip- tion medications, 42 to 58 pills, including addictive painkillers.
“Her life revolved around her cell phone alarm, letting her know when she needed to take her next dose,” says Dr. Rosado, who set out to wean the patient off of pharmaceu- ticals.
On Feb. 12, 2018, the pa- tient obtained a medical mar-
ijuana card from the state, and Dr. Rosado “recommended” she begin following a cannabis-based regimen that included taking CBD oils orally, as well as vaping them, and smoking different kinds of “flowers,” the smokable part of the cannabis plant.
Over the following seven months the patient’s physical and mental health improved as she used fewer and fewer medications. She was no longer experiencing tremors and seizures; her lower ex- tremity edema had vanished. She went back to work and began volunteering at her church. She quit smoking, lost 30 pounds and could, once again, sleep through the night. By September she was down to three pills a day.
Dr. Rosado says he’s seen similar results in hun- dreds of his medical mari- juana patients young and old, from the 7-year-old with epilepsy to the 104-year-old with Parkinson’s. But such successes would be unlikely for anyone trying to self-med- icate with street-level mari- juana, he warns.
“They don’t know what they’re getting in that dime bag in the black market or who they’re buying it from,” he says. “They should find one of the 2,500 physicians in the state of Florida who are certi- fied to recommend medical cannabis, make an appoint- ment with them, and have a sit down face-to-face conversa- tion, per state law. If their health situation qualifies, the physician will put them in the state medical marijuana reg- istry and get them on the road to health.”
Click here to watch MMERI’s Conversations on Cannabis Virtual Forum with Dr. Joseph Rosado on YouTube. For more informa- tion on medical marijuana, visit MMERI’s website at http://mmeri.famu.edu.
For more information on qualifying conditions that can be treated with medical mar- ijuana under Florida law, visit https://knowthe- factsmmj.com.
YOUTUBE LINK: https://www.youtube.com/wa tch?v=ZJJTSdkvFWY
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