 Good day everybody and welcome back to another episode of the 40 Autie podcast with your host Mr Thomas Henley. And you may be surprised to see that there is a new episode appearing on the feeds in the ether of the internet. Since I have not probably posted a podcast for like at least three or four months, there's been a lot going on in my life. And to kind of keep it short, I am pivoting towards making a lot more YouTube presentation style content and live streaming. It just seems like a good decision for me at the moment. And the schedule from now on will be around about like once a month, I think. And it's going to be kind of a here and there kind of approach to podcasting. It's not going to be on a schedule, but there will be podcasts coming out with different interesting people that I found on the internet who also want to do a bit of podcasting. So without further ado, this is season three. Hooray! Just get the fireworks going. It's it's it's all happening here guys. Oh my god, brilliant introduction from from me, I must say. I have my guest here today to talk about a very interesting topic about autism and cannabis, which is something that has for a long time had a lot of stigma behind it, a lot of misinformation, a lot of quite strange laws around it, I think at some point. But it's something that has been been increasingly looked into for its medicinal properties. And today, I want to talk a little bit about the link between cannabis and autism, not not due to the the rates, but more what are the benefits disadvantages, you know, possible experiences that people might have with cannabis, things related to THC CBD, you know, THC in the UK, unless you have a medical license is illegal, recreational. In the US, it's a little bit different. I think a few other countries as well. So another rambling by me. I have my guest here today. I've forgotten how to pronounce your name. That is awful. May may be may be me abby. Me abby. Me abby. Okay, let's go. I'm going to go for it again. So that was yeah, do it. That's really bad. It's actually not bad. I've heard a lot worse. So you're good, man. Okay, okay, we'll go for it. Then how are you doing today? Yeah, I'm doing good. I'm excited to chat with you. I always I really like listening to British accents. I don't like calming and reassuring sound and voice. I'm yeah, I'm excited to be here and talk about it. This is something that is very central to my whole life. And actually also my research career. So have you ever been to the UK? I have not. I've had a layover once. But I think it was in London, but it was not enough time to get to get off the plane or do anything. I played water polo in Italy for a bit. And so we just stopped and had a layover. But I never I didn't have time to actually leave. And I would really love to visit and, you know, meet up with there's there are there are great scientists doing advocacy work in the UK. And there's research going on at universities. And all of it is happening. So despite the laws still remaining frustrating in many countries, things are changing. There is a lot more information that we have both in the scientific literature from universities and in the communities. And as you mentioned, the US, which is where I am, I'm in Massachusetts. You know, we have increased accessibility to medical cannabis and also to adult use recreational cannabis really significantly. And in doing that, we've we've found a lot of things. We've learned a lot of things. And I think one of the main things we're we're learning and finding, which we've already known is that it's relatively safe, has a low toxicity and has a really, really high potential therapeutic benefit. And I think it's great that we're going to talk about all aspects about that and how specifically for atypical people, there can be potential sensitivities or even potential, like, hypo reactions, like underreactions. So I think it goes both ways. Yeah, and it's it is interesting. Whenever it's, you know, there's been a lot of laws passed on particular compounds, which, you know, it's kind of crazy thinking about it with like, sort of the rampant use of opioids and things of that nature where, you know, it's only kind of not necessarily like in very recently, but recently that scientists have been able to start looking into things like the therapeutic benefits of like, or the slight ecstasy and TMA and sinusibin. Yeah, it's and it's huge. I mean, that's a whole another piece. I think I'd probably say it's definitely not what I've done my formal academic and industrial research career on. But I have recently taken a course with Dr. Joe Tufour, who's a medical doctor. He's an MD, but he's also a trained Shopee Boshaman. And he gives a course on integrating psychedelics into modern medicine. And I took it last year. And it changed my perspective on a lot of things. And I have used psychedelics medicinally. And I do advocate and talk regularly for them. I actually helped my city to decriminalize psilocybin containing mushrooms for the medicinal benefits. And as you said about the opioid issues that we have going on around the world, and bringing it back to cannabis, we do know that for both of these things, psychedelics, but also with cannabis, we do know that cannabis can be used as a replacement, or as something that can reduce the amount of opioids that someone takes who's in chronic pain. Pain is one of the top three uses for cannabis, regardless of whether you have a medical card or you're using adult use or recreationally. So, you know, we know these things. Cannabis is a plant, grows out of the ground. We've evolved with it. And I, for one, definitely in a state of disagreement with legislature that limits people's ability to use it as a medicine, especially when you could grow it. Yeah, well, I mean, I guess you can grow all sorts of like things which are not necessarily right. That's what I'm saying. Like to tear a flower and exactly. Or geraniums are pretty poisonous if you were to concentrate them, right? Like there's plenty of, there's plenty of things that are unregulated agricultural or floral botanical, right, that you know, we don't regulate this way. And those don't have therapeutic benefits. So it is wild to me, at least. But I have a very difficult time understanding ulterior motive like I have a very linear, like I have a very linear understanding of the motives of human health and like the profitability of a corporation doesn't really factor in for me at all for why why we should be doing the things that we do. Or, you know, I guess it's just how can you help people live a higher quality of life? Like you see all the suffering that goes on and there's so much suffering in the world just period, the world is suffering. And this is kind of, you know, I'm Buddhist, I was raised like with a Buddhist like my grandmother has an influence and the world is suffering. So I get that and like, wouldn't you want to decrease that? Wouldn't you want to like increase people's like health and happiness and overall quality of life? And it just so that part has never really made any sense to me. And I never really never really understood it, you know, I feel I feel that very deeply. I mean, I suppose a little bit of a background because you know, I've talked about all sorts of kind of things on this podcast, but not necessarily like things that might be considered to be taboo, I guess, like to speak about which is it is very silly to me because a little bit kind of my background, I was, I did do biomedical sciences at the University of Manchester and recreational sort of and met a medical sort of alternative compounds was not part of the curriculum. But I basically I went to university and went into like one of the halls of residences, which was I didn't know, but which was notorious for being kind of like a party destination. And at that time, I was very into my taekwondo, you know, I pretty much studied all day and then went to taekwondo in the evening and came back late. And I didn't get much much interaction with the other students. But I had a few incidences of like, you know, obviously like smelling canvas and also people taking all sorts of, you know, drugs and such to access. So I had my first sort of exposure to that, seeing my university. And, you know, immediately I was I've always been a very like T total T total kind of minded person. I'm like, anything that you take, you should not take. And, you know, I mean, at the time, I was pretty much addicted to sugar. But it's the same with alcohol or cigarettes. So many of us are though. Yeah. Coffee. Yeah. Caffeine. Caffeine. But I had that mindset and it was only until well, my second third year where I started to develop some, you know, close friends who started to like challenge those beliefs a little bit, it took me a long time to really accept it as like something that people do and not sort of tie it to their personalities. I assume that people who did that kind of thing were like bad people in my brain. Well, that's why we're raised. We're raised to think that so that's not, you know, this is and it's an intentional bias that has happened, you know, especially with people who are a bit older. It is changing. But for those of us who were raised before, in the US, it was 1996 in California. So, you know, I was six. Like kind of like, I think like the whole sort of experience with that and obviously like making friends with people who did it regularly and talk all sorts of things that kind of, you know, I got to a point where I was like, you know, like maybe I should look into this a bit more. And I started researching about like the actual like compounds and like how they worked. And then I then I got into watching like people's experience with it, which range from like recreational users to medical unit users to like people who describe themselves as like drug addict, drug addicts, not necessarily marijuana but you know, other sorts of things. And I think that there's one time that like a little kind of switch kind of clicked in my brain, where I was like, I feel like for most most things in life, if we haven't experienced it, it's quite difficult to like relate to, to someone who does this kind of taboo thing that, you know, you almost label them as like a different type of human to sort of separate yourself a little bit, or at least that's that was kind of, you know, my mentality towards it. And the point of which things started to change a little bit was, you know, when I started like making good friends with people and realizing that it wasn't tied to the personality, it wasn't necessarily like a bad, a bad thing. I mean, some things weren't good. But you know, it's not like a defining character trait. That makes sense. I think I think it's because we haven't been able to share like so for so many of us who are, you know, so in the US, the term is stoners. I don't know if that's a term that's used here. Okay, so, so stoners are people who regularly use cannabis. And my argument has always been that stoners are medical users, usually, even if you don't have a medical card. Typically, if you're going to be using cannabis every day, there's a reason that you've been drawn to it. And I think that there is this stereotype of stoners that they're lazy, and, you know, no good, like that's another thing. So that's another thing. Meeting like really high performing students who just look like medical students, particularly who just all the time they were doing something. Yeah, no, I mean, it's a, it's a stereotype that they teach us because it's a it's a fear. And it is something that does exist, right? Like if we are talking about potential negatives, like, you mentioned sugar, we're talking about alcohol, like the potential to over you. Yeah, the potential to overuse anything exists. And that is true of cannabis as well. And overusing cannabis does lead to people, you know, lacking motivation. And, you know, it can lead to an any number of issues that do fit that stereotype. But for the most part, a majority of people who use cannabis don't. But until more recently, it actually has been unsafe to be visible with that identity. It's been legally unsafe for you to do it. And I never just like, I'm throwing this out there, like I never thought that I would be as open as I was in it, even though I got my PhD in the system of the brain that works with cannabis, you know, I never talked about it during my PhD ever. It wasn't until three years afterwards that I even first said it, right, that I was like, okay, like, you know, and and now it's been two and a half years since then. And, you know, my perspective has changed so much more since then because I view it as an accommodation for me. It's, it's absolutely a medicine to yes, that it fits that role. But it's an accommodation for my disability that allows me to live a very high quality of life and function very well professionally. And it is a absolutely necessary accommodation for certain settings for me, like networking events and high demand social or or stimulatory environments. I mean, yeah, I mean, it's it's I feel I feel like you can you can definitely overuse anything to some degree. Like you can have used water. Yes. That's actually a huge risk of MDMA. We were discussing MDMA and Molly before. So PSA people like it makes you really thirsty, but don't drink too much water. That's like the that's one of the biggest risks of that. Plus that ecstasy is usually mixed. That's like typically a mixture. But there's, you know, there's that overuse potential exists. Like we're saying with everything. Well, I know you've kind of talked about some of like the reasons and sort of your journey and all story. So again, to this point, do you think there's anything else that, you know, if you can kind of think about, I guess, sort of like a mission statement in your own head of like things that sort of encourages you to do the work that you do and do the online work that you do and be open about it. You know, what what would that look like? I think more recently, I've been finding that I like to help other people find their own way and enable other people to feel that they have the knowledge to explore safely options that are available for us here that don't have a lot of guidance and the education is it's difficult. The barrier to access is very high. And so, you know, my mission really is about helping other people who are like me come to the understanding that I have because I have a very deep and and broad understanding of how I use cannabis for my mental and physical health. And it changes every day. Excited to learn. We talked about it just this morning. I was just saying like, oh, actually, like I need a little bit more of a dose before we get started. Like, I measure it based on how I feel and based on the demands of the day. And, you know, that understanding came from like a really deep understanding of my own brain, of my own disability, of my own, you know, strengths and weaknesses. And how can cannabis be a tool just like caffeine? You know, how can it be a tool to to help me? And how can it be a medicine? And how can it be an accommodation? And how can I, you know, get the maximum of that with there's a whole bunch of different things? I mean, we probably get into it, but there's a lot of different products. And for now, for you guys where there's not as much accessibility, it will have to be increased once more accessibility comes about. But the number of products, the type of product diversity that we see in the markets over here is incredible because it means that it's different medicines and different medicines work for different people. And so, you know, I want to enable people to be able to navigate all of those choices and feel like they have some form of direction and that it's not just like a blind trial and error of, you know, well, I hope this works today because that's not a good medicine. A good medicine is going to be reproducible, right? Yeah. And I think what you said about sort of the range of product is quite, you know, apt for people perhaps in countries where it's not part of the medical system, where it's not kind of recreational because, you know, obviously when you have a system like that, which is not sort of looking into and, you know, making sure the quality of certain things and understanding the different because it's not just one thing, it's a lot of different, it's a plant and it has hundreds of very large variances in what compounds are actually within it. So it's like, and I think that's probably beautiful. It's a beautiful variation. I mean, it's a diversity. It's just like neurodiversity. It's chemo diversity. Chemo diversity. Chemical diversity. Endo diversity. Yeah, cannabinoid diversity, terpene diversity, flavonoid diversity is like volatile diversity is like there's, I think it's depending on what paper you're going to look at. There's anywhere between 300, 400, probably plus, plus, plus, we haven't just like discovered them different molecules in the plant. That's kind of a good segue into like one of the first questions I have for you, which was, I suppose, speaking in more of like a science media kind of way, perhaps a little bit more lay, but not too much. Yeah. Could you tell us a little bit about the sort of the core like compounds present in cannabis and what kind of effects they have, etc. We don't know the answer to it for all of them either. So this is and then also it will vary from person to person, which is another reason why I think education is so important. But in a nutshell, I'm going to break cannabis up into two different types. There is like the traditional type of cannabis, like medical cannabis that people think of, which would be high THC. THC is tetrahydrocannabinol and it is a molecule that's in the cannabis flower. So the flower is actually the part of the plant that contains the most of the active molecules. That's not to say that the other parts of the plant don't have value. Like traditional Ayurvedic medicine uses the leaves to make bong and there's plenty of other uses for the different parts of the plants. But like the flower has the highest percentage of cannabinoids. The cannabinoids are viewed as the active molecules that interact with the brain embodied. THC, CBD, and all the little letters that come after it. CBG, CBNs, C, CBT, CBE, CBL. I mean it goes, it continues on. And they're all very very similar to one another. They actually come from the same starting material and we don't actually know a lot about those rare, the rare cannabinoids. So I'll rewind them and go back to THC. That's the main active one. This is the primary cannabinoid that people are thinking of when they're thinking of cannabis, when they're thinking of someone getting high. It's associated with euphoria, it's associated with the mental and physical effects. An interesting physical effect is that it'll make you cold, drops your body temperature a little bit. I don't know that one. Yep. It's one of the reasons why there's a theory out there that's one of the reasons why also in desert regions and stuff like that hash is very very prevalent in some of those cultures. So THC binds to a receptor in the brain called the CB1 receptor and turns it on. And it's that action that starts like a very complex domino effect that can lead to some of the effects. Now if we're talking about therapeutic benefits of THC, probably the most powerful therapeutic benefit of THC is that it can increase your appetite. And that's not always a good thing. Some people are like, oh, I don't want the munchies. And it doesn't always happen. I don't want that. Yeah, I mean it doesn't happen to everyone. I actually haven't gotten them. You already got it in my tablets. I haven't gotten the munchies in years, you know. But I mean, if you're lifting, you're probably going to be hungry. But like the therapeutic benefit there has to do with people who are suffering to keep weight, are struggling to keep weight on while they're trying to battle something like cancer chemotherapy or HIV. And it's a powerful therapeutic effect. Now the other therapeutic effects that come with it are like vast and huge. Like there's general mental health therapeutic effects. Like it's an anti-anxiety. There's been some research on it being an antidepressant and this is where there becomes a lot of gray area. When we talk about it, I'll list the positives and then we'll go into the negatives later. But it's an anti-inflammatory. So it reduces inflammation and that has all sorts of effects on chronic pain and skin stuff. And then it also reduces blood pressure. And that's really useful specifically for like things like glaucoma but also just like in general blood pressure. And I ran a survey earlier this year and to my knowledge it's the only study that's looked specifically at neurodivergent people who use cannabis and why. Like what are the therapeutic benefits? Now the top three are the top three that are the same for everyone. Like for the neurotypical, the general the general population which includes all of us. Which is pain, sleep and anxiety. Those are the three top uses for cannabis. The three colors of them. It's the main and most. I mean they're also the top uses for pharmaceuticals as well. So they're like the three most commonly used needs. Pain medications can be like, I mean it's it's it I'm hard pressed to think of a pain medication that's like really effective that doesn't cause significant dependency or addiction in the long term. Yeah it's difficult because pain is a powerful is a powerful stimuli. And cannabis is I don't I think it's very different in the way that it modulates pain. I mean it acts upon a totally different system. It's not as powerful I will say that. Like I don't know almost anyone who would make the claim that it's just as powerful as an opioid. But it's powerful enough that if someone wants to reduce their opioid use or get off opioid use cannabis is very powerful and helping them to do that. Like chronic pain aspects of it. Exactly. Like pre-arthritic stuff. I have chronic joint pain. I'm hypermobile and it helps me with that. Very common for autistic people I would say. Yes yeah oh my gosh with all the overlaps of like the weird body weird brain kind of kind of synergy there. And I actually think that's one of the reasons why cannabis is such a powerful tool for neurodivergent people is that there is this overlap between chronic pain mental health and GI issues. And those are three kind of really big broad I call I've been calling them the triad of suffering because that's how I have felt about them for my life. Like a flare in one will cause a flare in the other and then almost always that third one is going to act up because you're not taking care of yourself you know what I mean like it's it can be a really fast downward spiral into that triad of suffering. And actually cannabis helps with all three of those things. And a lot of the therapeutic potential does have to do with THC. And I love CBD and I'm going to move on to talking about that but I'm going to end by my piece of oh sorry sorry go on. I was just saying I'm going to end talking about THC just saying that it's effective it has therapeutic value and that it has a social recreational component too. But like recreation is therapeutic as well and I think that specifically autistic people neurodivergent people who struggle with that closeness like to feel social reward to feel an ease of social interaction is absolutely therapeutic and just for me like from my own personal experience you know I I never formed very significant social bonds until I started using cannabis. It allowed me to to form deeper relationships with other people and that has gone on to save my life because the friendships that I've been able to form and the significance of all the relationships in my life I I cherish them so much. I love my friends and I would not trade anything in the world for my ability to make friends which I I didn't have so. Why do you why do you think that is? Do you think it's like a lot because it's really interesting because obviously like do you want me to get into the real nerdy? Yeah I'm gonna get the real nerdy. I mean maybe maybe I should let's leave that for one of the later questions that I see some stuff on like oxytocin. Yes that's that's what I was going to say. The endocannabinoid system actually controls and mediates oxytocin signaling for social reward. No way. Social reward is yeah and the enzyme that I studied for my PhD is actually the mediator which I think is so cool but it's so full circle for me actually but social reward is the happiness that your brain feels when it's interacting with other people and it's not that I wasn't happy like the way that I described the experience of it in my in my own brain was that I just always was on the outside I just was I just was never fully in there with everyone else and I just always was like my hands were pressed up against a glass and I was sliding off of them like I could never break through I was always just right there and I saw it happening and I felt myself on the outside I did like I knew that I wasn't connecting and I really wanted it a sense of isolation or loneliness I think I think a lot of you know people autistic people listening will probably be able to empathize with that feeling especially like during like the school experience like it's oh that was so lonely and just sad and terrible like I remember someone telling me that like oh high school is like and school in general is just the best time of your life and I was like I really hope not like I'm so glad that wasn't true like I like this whole downhill from that you know for people who are not going to be like late in life diagnosed then I suppose that maybe they were happy and you know the different experience and the first time that I ever smoked weed ever I was 15 and I distinctively remember this because it was the first time that I was able to glance at someone in their eyes like I like I like held eye contact for maybe like one or two seconds and that was extremely long for me at the time now it's like I could do that no problem like it doesn't you know that's that's not it's not hard for me at all anymore but at the time that was something that I'd never done and it was something that always if it happened to me it would feel literally like someone took like an ice pick or something and was like shoving it in my eyes it would be like it would feel like my head would like jam out of the back of my head and I'd be like don't look at someone in the eyes like it hurts like it it hurts it's like fearful it's like it like triggered all these like emotional I don't even know how to describe it really I do you have you ever experienced like experience that piece I know it's pretty common for people to not like eye contact but that was kind of like a physical response early I'm kind of like middle of the road I would say I think I don't like eye contact as much as most people I tend to be you know 70% of the time I'm not making eye contact and 30% of the time I am I tried 50-50 which is what people recommend for like friendships and dating and like workplaces and stuff like that I love that there's a recommendation for that all right I'm going to keep that in mind for like if I have to interact with a neurotypical well then it I mean we can go into like all the social perceptions that people have from very very minor things like that which is totally they think you're sketchy or that you're you know whatever yeah not interested in what they're saying yeah that one gets me because I listen better when I'm not paying attention looking away just like yeah someone's I want to talk to you something important okay yeah okay yeah oh my gosh you're so right you're like okay you want to tell me something important hold on let me um let me go do something else let me draw while you're talking to me and then I'll like actually be focused you know used to drive my friends that I took classes with crazy because I listen the best in lectures when I'm doodling like that actually is and I'm an auditory learner which is lucky and probably another one of the reasons I succeeded in academia but like I I could just I would just doodle in class all the time because that's how I would intake the information the best you know it doesn't look like I'm paying attention but that's the the way that it works the best for me and and you know with the eye contact thing I guess it's really common and it corrected itself quote unquote at the age of 15 and I always was able to force myself to do it right it just was something that I really did not get or like and so the first time I spoke to lead when that's related to the sort of the social reward aspect of it or is that I'm not sure if it's just related to like overstimulation in general and that eye contact is a lot of attention it's a lot of like you know it's like similar to like when when we got married it was like I or any time that you're like a lot of eyes are looking at you like you can feel them and I don't know if everyone can feel them but like I can feel the eyes like on me and I think that there's a lot of overstimulation in your brain then that attention itself is a huge stimuli that can be you know jarring to people and so I think it's like you know and then that's also she's done it that's also why for you when you're saying like you know it's like oh listening to I'm gonna listen to you I'm gonna like look away it's like because you want to avoid the stimuli that's gonna distract you from yeah from the especially if you're trying to like force yourself to do it it gets so fun where you're like oh my gosh to look at them for 50 percent of time and looking away and like what are they talking about oh my gosh I did I did used to do that man I remember that I do remember thinking about that I have like a very complex set of scripting behaviors that I've sort of like been editing out of my professional behavior set or not not editing them out just being more conscious of them and understanding why I'm doing them and like where it used to be that I would show up to like a professional situation and if there's more than two people present I will not form memory of the interactions at all and I'm just going I'm like a robot I'm just like reading people's body languages and talking about their interests the entire time and like having this really complex map of categories in my brain of like what that person's interests are and where they're from and where they went to school and what they like to talk about and that person and seeing if there's an overlap and then connecting the two of them into a conversation and then that person hasn't talked in a little while and they look a little bored maybe you should talk to them like all of that kind of like just complex stuff that then at the end of that I would my body would just crash like you know like at the end of all of that my body and brain would just be like nope that was way too much processing you know I do relate to that cannabis has been interesting for that like let's say I go ahead what about CBD because that you know for anyone who's in the UK you'll undoubtedly like have seen some corner shops selling CBD vapes or lollipops or drinks and there was a big craze about it perhaps like I don't know two three four five years ago or something probably when the farm bill in the US passed because it immediately made it more accessible to us and I think it always was accessible to you but it wasn't like as popular maybe no I know it definitely wasn't as as popular but then then I go by like the I don't know how to describe it maybe like the British version of Whole Foods like a Holland and Barrett is kind of like the supplements and the sort of organic kind of natural focused like yeah we saw that CBD in there and obviously like you know looking into it it's not the best quality but well it's definitely like a round and so I feel like a lot of people in the UK kind of they either have this perception of it like still still being somewhat taboo or just being like a stank oil like just supplement the people of oh that's so hard because quality is difficult without a certificate of analysis or a COA like a third party and there's again when we're talking about product quality and how we have so much product diversity with CBD I really believe in full spectrum products which means it's everything in the plant which means that it has a little bit of THC like not enough to make you feel pretty much anything but enough that it's the entourage effect or something it is yeah the entourage that's perfect the entourage effect is actually a term that was coined to talk about our own brains and the endocannabinoid system has an entourage effect and then that term got hijacked to apply to cannabis but it makes perfect sense with cannabis too I mean we have a complimentary entourage effect going on and that's one of the reasons why I'm a big promoter of like full plant extracts that contain everything in the plant because there are hundreds of molecules and so when it comes to hemp CBD is really similar to THC the molecules are very similar but they feel very different and they actually interact with different parts of the brain and have different or sorry different receptors in the brain and have different interactions with with those receptors and so CBD is non intoxicating it does not alter your state it's a powerful anti-inflammatory people use it for all the same reasons pretty much but I think that it's my personal opinion is that its biggest therapeutic value is probably in like a chronic dosing routine for most people and I think it's most powerful therapeutic effect is that it's an anti-seizure molecule and that it's a really powerful anti-seizure molecule and means it also helps for migrants they share an iteration THC helps for migrants as well and I think for CBD because it's so accessible you know there's been a good amount of research that's come out recently about averse of behaviors like for autistic kids and CBD or rare cannabinoid formulations and it's complicated because a lot of these studies they have different dosings and there's different and then how does that compare to what's on the market etc and so it really still is going to be trial and error but if someone to me tells me like this is just an example and I'm not going to like give any specifics I'm not a medical professional this is not medical advice we are not suggesting anyone do any of these things and everyone should check all the laws in their local areas before they choose to do whatever they want to do but if I were to instruct someone in the beginning which I do often to suggest like how someone would try it out it's always just to start with the smallest amount you know like just start with one start with half of one you probably won't feel anything right because you're not going to feel anything and then you're going to feel safer being like okay I'll try a little more right and you get to a point where like maybe you are going to like you try a little more and the other thing is maybe you try doing this over the course of at least say like two to three weeks because even with pharmaceuticals sometimes you don't see the therapeutic benefit until a few weeks has gone by and one of the biggest benefits yeah one of the biggest effects for me in cannabis is definitely a prolonged effect so it's the reason why I use cannabis every day it's the reason why I treat it as a medicine this way is because the effect will build and stabilize within my body and so like maintaining it at that steady state is actually what keeps me stable it helps you with mood regulation it helps me in general with chronic pain with my GI stuff like and because it's stored in like the fat stores in your body isn't it like it is and on top of it being stored in your fat and then re-released because as you like exercise or walk or throughout your day on top of that it also creates changes in the levels of the receptors like in the brain so every time that it's activating these receptors it sends a signal and your body and your brain you know it your body and your brain is always changing it's always changing from one thing to what it's going to be in the future and so it'll signal your body and brain to change like either different levels of the receptor different expressions like of the areas of where the receptor will be localized etc and we don't fully understand like these like long-term effects right like the more yeah and then to say that we don't understand it in cannabis in THC and CBD like I will throw it out there and say that we don't fully understand it in the psychopharmaceuticals as well so for all of the unknown that I'm like describing in receptor pharmacology it exists as well in the psychopharmaceuticals and so it's it's the same kind of level of unknown so I don't want to like scare people with this unknown and be like well we don't really know there's there's a lot that we don't know and I think that that's exciting I think it's also a lot of promise and when it comes to CBD it's my life changed when I started using it medicinally you know I I use it I use it daily I got the oh nice the full for recovery for recovery it's huge like for the recovery for athletes it's absolutely an integral piece it's more for the it's more for the anxiety and sleep nice that it works but it's that's good yeah yeah I use like a vaporizer and I have like the there's a few companies in the in the UK that sell like zero to you well not not zero but like yeah as reasonable as they can get it down you know yeah within within the legal limits for it to still be classified as hemp so hemp is cannabis hemp is a type of cannabis that just has way way lower percentages of THC and using hemp products I will say that if you are going to get drug tested using hemp products can make you test positive if they are full spectrum because they have THC in them but it's not enough for you to feel the THC effect right it's it doesn't it's a very very mild effect and I started dosing CBD more intentionally and using it and evaluating it oh my goodness a long time ago now 2015 so eight years ago and it really changed my perspective on a lot for me to begin to understand it and even to mix it with THC and to create ratios and you know there are plants out there that are mixed as well like plants at cannabis plants that have both so they're between hemp and traditional THC cannabis and there's plants that make both and then there's there's products that you could formulate to have both right well I think that that's like I think that's one of the the issues in the UK because it's um you know because it isn't there isn't like a variety of different strains and you know types of it and ratios of CBD and THC that are like standardized and you do have to I think if you don't go through the medical routes and you don't get like the which I think you can do in the UK and some some clinics that have done it if you don't go through those routes you are like you you're getting something which is extremely high sort of high THC low low CBD you know very sort of you know stuff that could have other things in it you know it's not like a it's gone through any process it's it could have come from anywhere really yeah that's that's the problem of accessibility right this is an issue because the medicine is different and you could always mix them separately which like I do right I have CBD products and THC products and you could mix them you could dose them at the same time right like one right after the other but the accessibility to the diversity thing it really is a medical issue specifically for neurodivergent people because we we can react so differently to any substance for for that matter it it's worth noting that our brains are usually atypical and many of us take pharmaceuticals like or have taken pharmaceuticals in the past and it's many a time in being a big one I haven't so I actually haven't personally had to deal with this in a long time because I haven't taken any psychopharmaceuticals in like 14 years or something but I know and I want to just say a PSA that that it is really important for CBD specifically that if you are taking pharmaceutical medications that if you start taking really high doses of CBD I'm talking about like very very high doses like this is like in the 500 milligram plus per day dose right like and usually for context usually like if you get like a whole bottle of something it'll be only like a thousand milligrams or something right so yeah so this is like a huge dose but people do need that dose for seizures like people do need that dose for for migraines like it it is it is a high dose but it is also a dose that that people do need therapeutically but if you are at those really high doses you need to be careful with your pharmaceuticals as well because it is possible for CBD to make those pharmaceuticals last longer in your body so basically it doesn't break down as quickly which then means that if you take more of it you're going to have more of that in your body is it to do with like the liver enzymes and stuff like I think that's like I'm from a university that's like sip sip 50 or it is yeah it's a cytochrome cytochrome p450s yeah yeah yeah yeah yep now they uh they grapefruit grapefruit juice is another one that I've in hit in him I love grapefruits oh I love grapefruits too and I can never have them now sadly well not at the moment I suppose but I mean I guess we have touched on like the potentials of you know benefits about around like social reward and and perhaps you know a few sort of personal accounts from yourself but in your experience either with yourself through the research or from sort of personal accounts from other people how can THC and CBD be beneficial to like specifically autistic people like I know you talked about the tried of suffering and like stuff but is there anything else that you'd like to kind of I'm so glad because I started bringing it up when I was talking about the survey for the pain anxiety sleep thing and I like never got to the point with that with that story which is you know that's just how I guess that's how it is some other tangent that was shiny caught my attention and I went down that hole but yes there are specific therapeutic benefits for autistic ADHD neurodivergent PTSD TBI people they like for people with like different types of anti-typicalities definitely but you know specifically going down the lane of the autistic ADHD more like hypersensitive route hypersensitive hyperactive brain my dad like neuro type type people there are some unique benefits like one of them is the mood regulation benefit which has been documented before I've never heard of the mood regulation like I assume that because of the euphoria and stuff it would be like a right like a lifter of scale no the the mood regulation effect is one of the long-term effects it's one of the it's one of the effects that is and this is also full disclosure like this survey was is is just the first preliminary one we are going to have to do way more research actually my nonprofit is planning and is currently doing the very first piece of that research right now unfortunately people in the UK can't take it so I'm sorry in the future when we go global though I'm going to send it to you so that you can share with everyone if they want to partake because it's really important that we start to document these unique therapeutic benefits so mood regulation is one of them another one is focus and productivity so it's interesting most people think cannabis makes people lazy but a a significant number of people will utilize cannabis to actually help them to focus and to get more things done and then the last one is so close and so near and dear to my heart is overstimulation because sensory overstimulation is something that when I got diagnosed when I understood that component of my brain it changed my ability to regulate myself when I understood that you know I'm not super light sensitive out of all things my wife is but I am super sound sensitive I'm very very sound sensitive I'm very very touch tactile tactile types of sensitivity I'm pretty much hypersensitive to everything apart from apart from heavy pressure and vestibular and proprioceptive stuff so I have horrible sensitive I have like the most terrible proprioception I everyone I feel like I'm kind of small but somehow I'm running into everything like just all the time and I still don't know what the difference between vestibular hypersensitivity and dyspraxia is I'm still trying to find somebody who is dyspraxic but not autistic I can't I can't seem to find anybody interesting there's all these overlaps right like this is so these these accounts like this was what was really like so powerful to me is that I opened this survey for literally just 24 hours it was just a quick like let's take a snapshot of those of us who are willing to contribute to this information and I got over 2,000 respondents in 24 hours and over 600 people out of those 2,000 people wrote me a little message I said if is there anything that you want to share like about your use and I'm also posting this publicly so it'll be it's anonymous like you can't see who posted what yeah but that you know you're if if you want to share your story this is the moment because it's it literally is still on my website if anyone wants to go look at it and read what other people had to say themselves from their own experience it's up there and there's 600 different little accounts different things that people wanted to share some of them quite detailed about experimentation that neurodivergent people have used and in the survey it was mostly autistic ADHD people there was like a smattering of a lot of other things and a small percentage of people who didn't identify as neurodivergent but you know this is really powerful because it's something that in terms of you asked me earlier what my mission was and the mission of my life really changed when I started being open about using cannabis for my mental health and about being neurodivergent and when I became out professionally about both of those things it my life changed drastically because people started really sharing their personal stories with me you know and out of curiosity as a scientist too like I love the personal stories I mean human human data is always going to be the most important data for a pharmaceutical scientist like I I study drugs in the brain I don't think that it's as important to look at what it does in mice as what it does in humans that's just my opinion I value the human brain in vivo in vitro experimentation I have weird feelings about mouse research because I did it so I'm gonna like be I'm gonna take a step I knew some people in Thailand who did um cardiovascular research I'm so not a fan of I I said no thanks for the first no thanks for me I was like I don't they're they're really cute I think that they're so I know mice mice and rats and they're like little you know little Cinderella like gus gus and like I can you know like I I'm just like not a fan I mean especially when it comes to neuroscience so also like probably clear but my special interest is the neurodivergent brain on drugs like it's been my special interest for you know since I was 15 before that my special interests were like way less interesting to other people so like that part is actually nice that it happens to be something that I think can help other people but you know I'm very like well because when you were saying about like particularly for the sort of hyperactive kind of neurodivergent types what about like individuals like myself who don't who are who are just autistic and I mean there's obviously like loads of crossovers and it's based on like psychological traits and criteria that people can look for but um for the most of it I'm autistic not ADHD like well I don't know that I consider them different but that's also a different that's a whole that's a whole rabbit hole of like I don't necessarily believe they're different I think that they might be different expressions right or different like because from from me to you and like how I perceive your brain like I don't perceive that you have like any less going on up here than me it just has to do with like the expression right like and so in terms of for that like it is very very similar in therapeutic benefit it just like maybe looks different and if anything like you are probably more stoic and I have a lot of neurodivergent friends I mean I only I am pretty much only able to pay attention to neurodivergent people I feel like I don't I don't really find neurotypical people interesting enough to like keep to keep my because I like the brain I like brains I like interesting brains I like learning about people and I don't know I do I do have a particular fascination with neurotypicals that's kind of that's the angle at which I started my like understanding because I just found them like very interesting I'm not sure if there's autism researcher do you think that they exist for real I'm not convinced that they exist and that they're not just like neurodivergent people who are like really really good at masking and like really really like expending a ton of energy on that or something I don't know I maybe maybe I can't I can't tell I'm sure that they exist I've had a couple of friends be like well I'm neurotypical and I'm kind of like I don't think so but you're welcome to think that way and I I just won't say anything because you know sometimes that's like pretty insulting to sometimes people like I don't think disability is a bad word anymore you know like I I think that it comes with challenges certainly and that every every person's different different disabilities have different levels of challenges and like different types of disabilities also right so I'm not saying that I'm not saying that for everyone disability is not a bad thing because it can be it can be extremely challenging and it depends on your life circumstances and your your ability to provide for yourself my particular sort of thoughts about like like I've never viewed it as like necessarily like a bad thing like as far as like viewing it through like the social model of disability it's very that's very like applicable for me but I think a word which is like characterized by an inability to do something feels quite like like just the the premise of it is negative not not meaning that it's like you're the roots of the words of the roots of the word is what you're saying because it's disability I feel that actually that's a really great point I've never really thought about it that way that's the only right that's the only thing and it's like I don't mind calling myself like disabled it's just that I don't like I don't either I don't think it's a bad thing but the reason why I think has to do with advocacy because I think that like viewing disability that way and understanding disability is more powerful to be able to fight for like advocacy for rights and like so like it's rooted in that which is not it's like I've had conversations about this before too because the same thing with cannabis use like what you're saying about like that the adult use the recreational use market like for me like anyone who uses cannabis regularly regardless of whether you have a medical card or not it's likely medical right and there are problems with us like over medicalizing our terminology and at the same time the reason why I do it is for advocacy because it is the most powerful route to getting access it's the most powerful route for changing your legal the legal perspective of of the people who you know if if anyone here who's listening to like if you know your local legislation like if you are involved with anyone within your local town or your local city who may be interested in learning more about the therapeutic benefits about how that we could bring about community level change and how community level population level change with cannabis and with CBD like is happening and does happen and can work you know there's information available but you could just send them this right like or you could send them anything does not to be this you know but you could you could send them no no no go without yes send them this podcast share it about sure it's it's interesting and subscribe and I mean I think I think it's interesting because I think that it's perspectives that like these are real perspectives and this is real data and on one hand this is new and it's new data and like another data point I have to share is that our current study that we're running with 4500 people who've responded and it's daily cannabis users 91% of people who use cannabis daily 71% of those people identify as neurodivergent and it's it's a high that is a big crossover and I've been in the industry now for close going on five years and I was in the academic research world of it before then and I think I can say with confidence that like the stoners are my people I am a stoner I'm a stoner scientist I'm part of this community my friends and my community are people who use cannabis regularly often and heavily and we benefit from it medically you know I mean thinking about it kind of people I've I met at university and like sort of in my life who do who do that like it's I'm very hard to press to find anybody who uses it regularly who either doesn't have mental health conditions or or is is different in some way like it you know they have the RCD their ADHD the autistic like usually highly creative like I usually a highly creative type of mind whether you're working a creative job or not just like a creative abstract sort of type of type of thinker it's a we are coining it and we're we're publishing we did we give a poster presentation so far but our paper we're caught we're calling it the stoner neurotype it is a specific subset of neurodivergent people who have chronic pain GI issues and mental health issues that you know cannabis specifically happens to rebalance our systems and you know it's not that's what I think is is like a really you know anything which which kind of touches on the aspects of like autism and mental health are fine to be you know something definitely like worth looking into because I know that specifically like things things like therapy that are not sort of guided by either another autistic person neurodivergent person or like a person who has a heavy amount of engagement with like the autistic community or knows people specifically within it as well as understanding the the different nuances of so it is very difficult to find that even in private practice but also like it's pretty much impossible through like general healthcare in the UK like to find someone who is you know going to be good for you in that sense at same year so we definitely do have a gap like incredibly difficult and very high rates of mental health as well and we don't we don't neuro we don't match we don't match with with neurotypicals often in a way that allows us to have that open relationship you know with a therapist or with like a to feel safe and seen in that mental health you know sort of system and no it's a major this is a major issue and it's actually one of the reasons why cannabis can be so helpful therapeutically that I don't know why this hasn't been used more readily because it's so easily accessible but the psychedelic therapy model is like gaining speed like you mentioned with MDMA this is like it's clinical but it's crazy like results that they've seen with like particularly like I think I saw something about psilocybin and like nicotine addiction something yep crazy recovery rate compared to like the two or three percent that you get with like traditional I mean nicotine nicotine was probably one of my most vicious addictions like I feel like every time I rank the top three I change the order based on which drug I've had the most recently which like I haven't had a benzo in a really long time but the fact that it still makes my mouth water to think about it is kind of like all right that one was like clearly very addictive and actually out of the three of the top three drugs that are the most addictive that's the one I had a prescription for right it was like my prescribed medication but the other two are alcohol and I do get prescribed I do get prescribed dies of pamphlet panic attacks and meltdowns I've never I've never particularly had an issue with it necessarily but I definitely do relate to the nicotine aspects of the nicotine like the the crave the like the pull and the loneliness like it's like an emotional addiction it's like it's a heavy one so you know the there's been some really incredible stuff and cannabis is interesting in that the endocannabinoid system and the serotonin system which the serotonin system is what classic serotonergic psychedelics like psilocybin like psilocybin like LSD interacts with the endocannabinoid system has a very close relationship with the serotonin system it's actually something that I gave a presentation on last year I'm I've been very interested in that intersection because I think that there's an increased therapeutic benefit to using less of both of them together and it is very common for people to use them together it's it's incredibly incredibly common for people to mix psychedelics and cannabis endocannabinoid system is a think like a crazy widespread throughout like the entire body which I think is why like it has such like a variety of different effects I know I was looking because there are like hot things that you produce like in your body which are endogenous like things things that you you produce yourself which acts within the endocannabinoid system like I think the I don't know maybe THC is like an analog of anandamide I think is it it's not it's not an analog but it's a memetic a memetic a memetic a memetic so it it like imitates it imitates it yes it's like they are the anandamide it's like the thing that you get when you have like a run as high I used to be running all the time like oh yeah I'm an endurance I'm endurance athlete all the way for that reason definitely anandamide is is a special one and the other one is 2ag and yeah our bodies are creating them right now like everyone I know that used to be one of my favorite things I used to say when I'd be like people even if you're anti-weed your body is making an endocannabinoid like right now and it's essential for our for our like brain survival and everything and so it's absolutely like it's absolutely something that we've evolved to to have and and it's it's an evolutionary medicine in many ways we we have evidence of actually very recently we found evidence of actually using it as a medicine but we have evidence from even before that we were using hemp to make rope from the from the late stone age period so we've just had this very integral intimate relationship with the earth I mean it's not just with cannabis it's with with the earth and humans have you know moved on from that and separated ourselves from that you know relationship that used to drive what we are we're we are animals here and we belong in an ecosystem and I you know I I want to live in a house and have running water and electricity and all that I love the internet and I'm I'm kind of like I love gaming too so it's like I I like technology I'm not saying that I don't like any of those things at the same time when it comes to like our health and it comes to like the food that we put in our body like the quality of our water and what we're doing to our environments and everything you know you can't separate out our medicine from that like this is a conversation about how or it should be more of a conversation about how there are there are tons of natural medicines that are actually way more environmentally friendly for us to be like naturally harvesting from out there or growing and cultivating ourselves or just in using them somewhat minimally or throughout our diet as food and using food as medicine right like it's it it's just complicated because we throw in like too many variables and and ultimately like the actual healthcare system has evolved so far that a majority of people want to go to the doctor and get a pill like that is that is just the perspective that we have reached with where we've gone with technology and and with medicine I'm not saying that that's wrong we could we could talk forever I think about all the the impacts of like modern day things on like our brains and how we work and our psychology and social media yeah because I think I watched a video recently from this YouTube because like the neurodivergent doctor is talking about basically basically making a video on like the social model of disability about calling it that but you know he's talking about oh well neurotypicals have designed a world where they can you know they make it so over simulator over stimulating and uninhabitable in the long term so they can sell like psychiatric medication or something which I don't believe but it is the funny kind of like I would watch that I like I I think that I don't think that it's so conscious right like I don't think that it's like so no I don't even so conscious I think it's purely profit-driven and it's purely about like leveraging and and manipulating populations to purchase more of things and get people to purchase things and that you're doing that while while trying to save the most amount of money which means that you're developing procedures that are polluting the environment and that use chemicals usually I mean it's just I think it's like all of these different factors that I can't even fathom in my brain and and I really only have a good strong understanding of how it affects cannabis right like just that's the only thing that I feel I could speak on but an example of that is actually what has happened to the plant and to the genetics of the plant over the years like the percentage of cannabinoids in say the 70s which is not that long ago you know it's that's like our parent's time the the percentage that was in the of of active molecules that were in the plant was about like 1% and then they would say like oh really strong stuff might be 2 to 4% right all right that is pretty much that's pretty much 22% right like this I'm just like in the 70s like what people were smoking then was pretty much hemp like it didn't have a lot of THC in it and even the hash which hash is a traditionally made concentrate and it concentrated meaning like stronger right like more actives even the hash back then was only about like 20% right so now our flower is at the like 22% to 25% I've even seen up in the 40s which I'm like what is going on there I don't know about that but it's madness it is I don't even know if I want that like no thanks but you know the plant itself is so strong our concentrates are so strong and I mean I'm I'm not telling people not to use them I think that they have medicinal benefit it's just about understanding it and being careful right like I have just when we were talking today about me being like I need to like redo so that I feel better so that I'm better at this and I'm not too fast in my brain and moving past like the the topics before touching on them and that that formulation is like 85% THC so it's extremely strong it's extremely potent and it's about like understanding the dosage and taking like a small little amount of it waiting the full 10 minutes to like see how it's going to feel before just like continuing to take more and more and more and those are the types of conversations that I think make people feel safer in that in that experimental phase of of figuring out like what doesn't doesn't work for them and I think that's so important because of how much product diversity there is and how like what we were just saying about the the plant itself changing the medicine changing like that's why I think we need more research on the people and on these tangible changes and it is what like it is what I plan to do for the rest of my life is to you know continue to advocate for people to be able to have access to this medicine and also for people to be able to have access to the the education necessary to like be empowered themselves to have that self-determination with cannabis because it's it is safe enough that we can it it's one of the only drugs that's safe enough if you were to tell me like oh do I want to give someone self-determination with like an ssri no like no or do you want to give someone like self-determination with like a stimulant like Ritalin consider or Adderall like five ants no like absolutely not because you you can't like the experimentation of that would be dangerous potentially right and so it's interesting cannabis is non-toxic enough that actually we can have this self-determination through community education and I think it's getting there I think that this is going to be you know I'm very hopeful for you guys over there across across the pond across the water I would like to see it change just just part and part the fact like even if ignoring all the medicinal aspects of it and the potential good things that it can bring I think just the fact that we have tobacco and alcohol that's just rampantly binge-drinked and encouraged by parents and literally like a part of our culture that you know have manifolds more detrimental effects on the population than such things such as that I just just part and part due to that like it just doesn't make much sense in my brain I really think that this is also an autistic neurodivergent thing too though like it's like we're incredibly logical like we we want it we want something to make sense because we want it to have like a we want it to have a continuity or some sort of like parallel reasoning like like what you're describing I feel like in my bones it's an inconsistency in reason and that doesn't that doesn't I don't like it yeah I agree I agree I don't like it but I mean we've talked about like sort of I guess like the the science and the ways that it works and a lot about kind of like the benefits I mean I think it would be really good just to have like a I guess like a fuller picture on sort of cannabis as a medication thing or as a recreational thing for people in general also for autistic people because I have seen some particular things I think related to there's one one thing that was related to like brain development like taken before like the age of 25 I don't know if you can shed much light on like the potential sort of negatives that we know I'll I'll say what I'll say what we do know and then I'm going to put it a little bit into context that has a lot of personal bias right because as I said I started smoking when I was 15 and it wasn't a little it was like it was like the first day that I smoked I was like my brain needs this every day and I think I was right about that so that is my opinion but that being said there have been some studies that have been done about so in in general talking about all the all the like big picture medicinal therapeutic benefits it is true and you cannot deny and I just even said it earlier today before we started that it does have a slowing effect or it can have a slowing or a reducing type effect in general on the brain and that over the course of like over the course of like repeated use that there are changes like we discussed earlier for positive benefits that there are changes in the receptor levels there are changes that there are long-term changes that occur so there are good parts of that and there are bad parts of that as well and there's absolutely there's absolutely truth to that for and that it's not for everyone in general and for autistic people specifically in general seem to be sensitive to anxiety like in in general seem to be like be prone to anxiety and that is a side effect THC so THC is what we would call biphasic by meaning two phases two phases there's like a lower phase and a higher phase there is a phase of THC where it reduces anxiety and then there's like a second threshold where it will cause paranoia and anxiety it will precipitate out yeah that's that's another thing that I was you know thinking about because you know obviously growing up socially different to a lot of people around us we can somewhat develop like feelings of mistrust towards a lot like feeling that we have to protect ourselves and also like a lot of you know because we're trying to think ahead and protect ourselves and try and understand people's intentions a lot of like paranoia sometimes as well social paranoia I used to go through every one of my social interactions sometimes I still reread my text messages honestly I do sometimes I'll be like was that rude and sometimes I'll ask if I'm comfortable I'll be like no I do that as well sometimes I'm just in that state of mind and I'm like well I know I'm being stupid but like did that conversation go the way that I thought I did you know so there's definitely been studies that have shown that if you use younger than the age of 25 there are significant changes to your brain and decreases in certain areas and that this can correlate to different that it does correlate to different functionalities right now I don't love that data because I think that there's multiple ways to interpret it but from my perspective from my own brain I do think that it decreased certain things in my brain somewhat permanently I am slower like in general but I'm still plenty quick like I don't think that my brain needed to be faster and I don't think that it should necessarily function faster and in general when my brain is functioning faster it's not a great result it's usually spinning into some form of like burnout like running you know into a certain thing so it's complicated because starting at a younger age can have semi-permanent to permanent alterations and we do know that we know that with other drugs too though so I'm throwing that out there as well because we also the white matter deterioration and also the pharmaceuticals the prescription pharmaceuticals that we give to children and that they stay on for longer than we know there to be on right so it's it's complicated because we are comparing cannabis to we're saying cannabis to nothing but usually it's not cannabis or nothing it's usually cannabis or alcohol cannabis or nicotine cannabis or vivants or Adderall or you know an SSRI like Prozac I guess you know what they have different names in the UK huh they're all different but you know it's not it's not one or the other so I those those studies definitely exist and I am of the opinion that if you have a child who is functioning well and happy and doesn't have chronic issues and doesn't have you know behaviors or anything to be modified like and there's no like not that there's no issue because I don't think that any child or teenager has no issue but let's just say that like in general there's there's like life is pretty clinically no clinically significant issues like yeah like life is going pretty good in that case yeah absolutely abstain until you're 25 in that case don't do any drugs ever just keep being happy and healthy and keep doing you like that's my perspective like at the same time that's a very small percentage of the population that will sustain a high quality of life with that without those tools right you know we've been using substances as tools we've been using natural medicines as tools for I mean probably for millions of years but for at least hundreds of thousands of years and I mean animals do it you could there's particular animals that come to mind that go about eating rotten fruit because they want to get the alcohol like totally and and specific plant specific plants it's so it's you know it's natural it's part of our relationship with this earth that we you know modify our brain chemistry to be in in some form of therapeutic fashion and actually it's very spiritually linked to humanity in our like historic like the history of our relationship with natural medicines and our spirituality and so from from that perspective to me it's that there are populations that benefit from it from a young age it's not everyone and there are populations of people that should wait until they're older and that that's also not everyone and the components finding out who you are what about the the component of stuff I don't know if you know because a lot of this stuff I looked up when I was at university and I haven't really sort of kept up to date with it but I did see some stuff around like like the potentiation of schizophrenia in in some individuals is that something that is because I know some people have the idea that you have it and then you develop schizophrenia but a lot of the the nuance find that is that it potentiates it so it brings it on quicker yeah it's like a triggering the the way that it's been interpreted in the scientific literature is that it's a triggering effect and I disagree with that as well but let me first say what it is there's a strong correlation there is an absolutely undeniably strong correlation that if you use cannabis at a younger age you are more likely to develop mental health disorders you're more likely to struggle with substance use just in general and you're more likely to develop schizophrenia and that's the one that is like the ding ding like at the percentage is like something like you're like probably like four percent or something but the normal the typical percentage in the general population is very very low so I mean four percent is actually quite high but it's whether that is a result of the condition the conditions that you might have or whether it's a causing factor or it's the same same with like mental health and like drug use and so there's a strong correlation but is there a causation and I don't think so yet I think that I have not seen anything to me that has proven anything besides the fact that maybe people who are predisposed to schizophrenia are attracted to cannabis use young they're attracted to drug use young usually trauma and that maybe cannabis has a bigger therapeutic benefit because it's known to have it is known and the experience of using it has therapeutic benefit for people who struggle you know with those things so it's complicated I can't say either way either I this is just my opinion but I've been diagnosed with almost everything so I feel like that's part of where that opinion comes from sure sure well um I have just one last thing before we I guess move on to the last question I have uh I've come across lots of people who do have that mentality and I'm actually one of those people and you know I'm you know I'm asking these questions in order for us to get like sort of like the full picture um but I have I do know people in my life who know people who would describe them as being like having an unfunctional level of addiction or dependency on on cannabis and I understand like the nuance behind it was like it could be anything that that person is is dependent on and you know out of all the things that could be possibly dependent on it's probably like not not too much of a bad one but I mean is the potential for like abuse in that way that that could sort of mess with people's day-to-day functioning? Yeah I mean it exists it exists with anything and it increases the risk with accessibility right like that that's true what decreases that risk is actually education and like knowledge that the medical users specifically medical users who need high concentrations are at the highest risks for developing like more negative relationships but one thing I do want to point out is that cannabis is not as physically addicting as almost any other drug yeah so when you do have a comparison between you know people it is psychologically addicting that's true but every single drug that has a physical addiction will also be psychologically addicting like the psychological addiction comes with a physical addiction as well and so just in general cannabis is not addicting when you are comparing it to other drugs that have way more addiction potential and you know alcohol and nicotine are the easy ones to point to because they're legal and in comparison that cannabis is not as detrimental to your health and is also not as addictive to either of those things but does it exist that people end up in a bad spot in a bad place and using cannabis as escape and not not being intentional with their use not using it medically not not moderating themselves right like yes of course that definitely exists and I think that that issue and the way to tackle that issue has to do with community education it has to do with community support it has to do with openness and I think that that like that issue existing is also a minority issue compared to that issue with with all the other drugs out there that yeah having the same issue and I like the fact that you brought up the education aspect of it because um you know I was I was around a few people who um used to put up partaking in an array of different like recreational substances that I I would not touch because I tended to like do a lot of research into things but and yeah that there's like particular like interactions that that drugs can have and I think like one of the ones that I always used to tell people who did it at like parties like particularly like the interaction between ethanol and cocaine use like creating that that very potent neurotoxin with the combination of the two but also experiences of you know obviously like students at parties who were were drinking you know perhaps and and then also decided to partake in you know recreational marijuana use and and getting into very bad spots as well because of the synergistic effect of them so I definitely think like you know with with a lot of things like this and especially with kind of this like education can be like really like a small piece of information like that could you know be very beneficial to people to now you know yeah it's it's also like our cultural approach to drugs really like in in general as well leaves a lot to be desired I guess that's how I would put it it leads to that binge behavior that we make it illegal you know 100% well um I mean I feel I feel I was gonna go on to the last question where I was going to ask you about sort of legalization of cannabis is my opinion I think we've we've cleared up the medical aspect of it I think the the only aspect to it which I guess there's a little bit less that we've talked about a little bit less which is like sort of recreational legalization like for just people in general like it I know you said that like people who tend to have it on a regular basis tend to use it for medical reasons but do you do you see any like potential good things and bad things to legalization in recreational contexts absolutely not like I am very for I am very pro legalization for both medical and recreational because at the recreational adult use level a majority of people are using medically so to me it's just about increasing the access to the number of people it also it also increases the ability for people to open their minds to using it like specifically the older and aging population has so much to gain from cannabis it can help so much with a lot of aches pains issues and stuff mental health chronic pain GI issues so much stigma in that population you definitely whenever I've suggested CBD to people like CBD is that part of marijuana isn't it I don't want to be lazy and get schizophrenic and you know I don't I don't want to have the it's an awful smell I might think of people walking and about having the smell way everywhere this very like surface level kind of but it is it is the opinion of them but you know it will change and that changes with access because when the access changes and the medicine is out there it works it works really well and people begin to know people that it's working for people start getting oh yeah I want to drink a little less you know like yeah of course you want to drink less you should drink less if you want to be healthier in general drink less and there's a known correlation between the amount of cannabis you intake and the amount you drink like the more that you intake of cannabis the less that you'll drink the more you intake of cannabis the less of a lot of other drugs you take prescription medications including opioids so it's I'm for legalization of both medical and recreational adult use mostly because it is my opinion that a majority of use is medical and has medical benefit even at that recreational level because even at that recreational social component you're still reducing harm of toxins in your body by reducing different substances that are more toxic there's almost no substance that is cleaner or not cleaner is not the right way of phrasing it less toxic than cannabis it's one of the least toxic things we've ever discovered and so I am very probably because of like the I suppose the the amount of components to it like I think there's like a term in the scientific community like a dirty drug as something that targets like lots of different things but it's like a not necessarily toxic dirty drug yeah the promiscuity argument there I would argue that some of the sharpest single bullet single target drugs out there are the most dangerous because they turn that receptor off and then you die fentanyl make an example of that one yes and so it's it's you know these opinions and these things have been crafted these are all assumptions that have been sort of in this like pharmaceutical realm of how we think about our medicine and I'm very biased as someone who studied pharmaceutical sciences so deeply and understands kind of the pipeline of you know how we get these new drugs to market and what it means and the profitability and all of that and and I'm biased because I've been a medical cannabis user for now 18 years and it saved my life and so I have a strong personal bias as well and I understand that and I think that the argument of our you know our conversation about the legalization and for and against it you know the argument there really hinges on community education it really hinges on what resources are you dedicating to preventing the negatives because if you dedicate even half the resources you should you could prevent almost anything bad from happening that's my opinion like my opinion is that it's it is so relatively safe and I'm not saying that we're doing it right here I think that we need to spend way more money on public education here I think we need to start educating children here because the kids get vapes like in middle school and that's a problem so like there's there are issues with it I will say this that doesn't come from the legal market it never does the legalized markets are highly regulated they're tested which also again like you mentioned with like you know just there are there are safety and quality control things that come with regulation and I think that that also is something that's a huge positive and that the issues that people think come with it are compatible by education and that they are happening anyways and they come from the black market so if anything introducing a regulated market puts pressure on that other market to hopefully you know it's just to increase their quality and it's it's also my opinion that any crime that's done when you're on a drug is already a crime I don't actually think being on a substance should be a crime if you're just like sitting at home like if we're just like watching a movie why is that a crime I so I just don't understand that like I don't I in my brain again with the inconsistency of like I don't understand the inconsistency because driving is probably the only exception for this every other thing that you possibly could do that's like a bad person thing when you're on a drug is already a crime vandalizing something destroying proper destruction of property trespassing robbing someone assaults like all of these negative stuffs that people do when they're high on drugs and that's not good right like but they're already crimes so it's like and also since we're talking about cannabis let's throw it out there that it's not associated with literally any of those behaviors whatsoever whereas alcohol is so it's like oh my goodness like the inconsistency like it doesn't I'm I don't I'm glad you're on the same page with me about one but like yeah all the inconsistencies to me it doesn't make no sense throw it all out the window it doesn't make sense like man well I mean for any listeners viewers watching at home I'd love to hear if you feel comfortable sharing your experiences with CBD or THC in either recreational medical use I think the more that we can talk about these things the more that you know it's great and obviously like as as you said it's it's where we're not medical professionals gps we don't suggest anything it's just having a conversation about sort of you know cannabis in the context of autism and neurodiversity which I think is something that we really do need to talk about you know given sort of the state of life quality for neurodivergent folk sort of across the board use it we use our segment here where we talk about song of the day and then we'll have like a little bit of a some some links that you can you can share and stuff but I'd be really interested to know what song have you picked for song of the day it doesn't really make much sense song of the day it's like it's been three months song of the three months maybe song of the three months I get three months that's amazing all right well my song that I picked is acid drops by people under the stairs and the reason why I picked it is because the lyrics of the song that I have really resonated with me from when I was young and it's like when the stress burns my brain like acid rain drops Mary Jane is the only thing that makes the pain stop and that's that's something that's really it captured me when I was young and I still I still very much so feel the same way about how it helps my brain and you know I'm not the only one it's it's a very common it's a very common thing for cannabis to help people specifically neurodivergent people was having a listen there's very like old school kind of rappy kind of it is and it's is it so it's so it's a lot to do that your like connection to like cannabis and and such that's and it's got a great I mean I also just like the vibe it's a good vibe it's a good one well we will add that to the playlist which you can always find at the bottom of the show notes whether you're on YouTube Google Apple YouTube I've already said YouTube any of those places you can find it down below Spotify Spotify there you go probably the main one but if you have enjoyed this please make sure to give it a rate potentially drop a comment give it a like and I mean where can people find you like any links that you would like to share yeah we talked a little bit about the psychedelic stuff I'm giving a talk at the second annual I'm actually co-hosting as well the second annual neurodivergent psychedelic conference so that's just ndpsychedelic.com it's in February and it's all remote and it'll be all day but everything's recorded and the tickets are sliding scale they start at $10 and so if you sign up you'll be able to get the recordings and I'm really excited about our speaker lineup it was great last year that's actually where I gave the serotonin endocannabinoid system talk last year so I'm really excited about that if anyone is interested in learning more about just like I have a lot of education material out there my social media at Instagram is just my name Miyabi with phd after it and I also have a small community that I am teaching about intense pharmacology and as I mentioned earlier enabling and empowering people to like have more self-determination in their own dosing and that could be found at doselikeascientist.com awesome stuff oh wait maybe you should put this one first I have a cannabis non-profit I have a cannabis research non-profit called applied pharmacognacy we're the network of applied pharmacognacy and it's at appliedpharmacognacy.org and we are currently running the largest and most inclusive cannabis study that is the study where there's 71% neurodivergent people and 91% of them use cannabis every day unfortunately though people in the UK can't participate in our survey we do want to change that and we would love to partner with people in the future to make that happen we would need a local UK representative like a company or a university that would be willing to work with our non-profit so if anyone knows of any connections please send them our information well I will put those links down in the description because I I mean even writing it down I don't know if I can I don't know farm I've never heard of pharmacognacy it's actually in our show notes that I submitted to you so it's in that email it's in that email if you want to just go look at the email thank you yeah no worries well I know that you have a long day of social related events today and likewise but it's been really really great to speak to you and I suppose like the last question I want to ask is have you enjoyed your 40 or to experience yeah of course I always love having conversations with other people who are pushing are pushing the boundaries and I really like what you post I resonate a lot with the way that you craft like how you communicate the experience and I resonate with that a lot so it was really great to have a chance to talk to you more and I would just you know I'm excited to just be here and have a conversation with you too so it was great lovely stuff likewise it's it's been an absolute pleasure and it's been something that I've been wanting to talk to talk about for a while and find the right person so it's um it's definitely been like a really you know a lot of things that you brought up even though I've looked into stuff like related to it that you know obviously I I didn't know when it's really good to hear it from someone who's done so much research into it but guys um I hope you have enjoyed this three months episode the first season three blah blah blah did the fireworks and all that season three um and I will see you soon possibly within a month for another episode and in the meantime please make sure to check out my instagram and youtube channel at thomasanleyuk for pretty much daily videos and daily content and um yeah hope you guys are doing good and I'll see you later