Here’s a great dosage tip from our friends over at Project CBD and Dr. Janet Weiss.
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ABOUT DOSING
Questions were put to a source familiar with both HortaPharm’s and GW Pharmaceuticals’ research into CBD-rich cannabis.
He generalized:
“At low doses, equal amounts of CBD will blunt the peak effect of THC somewhat, but not eliminate it by any means. If given first, CBD can block the high of THC. At higher doses, the effects of THC overwhelm those of CBD, and one can still become extremely high.”
There were two very interesting presentations at the 2010 ICRS conference in Lund, Sweden, relevant to dosing questions.
• Yosef Sarne, an Israeli scientist, reported that ultra-low doses of THC had long-lasting effects “on cognitive functioning in mice.” Homeopathy!
• Jacqueline Blankman from the Scripps Institute in San Diego reported on a powerful new compound that inhibits MAGL, the main enzyme that breaks down 2-AG. But it did this so effectively that 2-AG levels skyrocketed and her team observed the opposite reactions of everything they had expected –pro-inflammatory rather than anti-inflammatory, etc. At the same time, anandamide levels decrease when 2-AG levels are high (and vice versa), thereby accentuating the biphasic experience.
So dosage is everything, as Ernst Junger once said.
AN EXCHANGE re: DOSING QUESTION
From a reader: Conventional meds have not prevented our son from having seizures. He has been given a remarkable Cannabis concentrate —17% THC, 16% CBD— and wants to make cookies. His plan —which his neurologist is aware of— is to take a single-dose cookie when he wakes up and every four hours thereafter until he goes to bed, to maintain roughly even cannabinoid levels. He wants to find the dose at which he can be functional and seizure-free. He will titrate, of course, but what should the starting point be —how many miligrams of THC and CBD should that cookie contain?
Reply from Janet Weiss, MD: Two options: If using the dronabinol dosing model as a starting point (30-90 mg), then an ingested dose would be 15 mg per cookie, consuming 6 cookies per day. Assumes that 50% of the cannabinoid content is destroyed in cooking or otherwise is not bioavailable, I would start with a recipe that results in 30 mg of cannabinoids per cookie in the batter. If using the Sativex dosing model (2.7 mg THC/2.5 mg CBD) per spray, 5-12 sprays/day (which assumes no destruction from cooking and 80% mucosal bioavailability), then 13.9 mg. is a dose. Since GI bioavailability is less than mucosal, I again come up with an ingested dose of 15 mg per cookie. (And suggest starting with 30 mg. cannabinoids per cookie in the batter). That’s my 2 cents.
