Welcome to the Cannaba Verum podcast, the cannabis truth podcast. I speak the language of cannabis freely and uncensored. While educating my audience on the safe use of this live Plant Therapy.
You should know what’s in your cannabis. what’s good and what’s not. It does not come with an FDA stamp of approval yet. using cannabis mindfully as medication is a different concept and Western healthcare philosophy, specifically of the past 100 years there’s a lot to learn and reconsider.
The information you’ll find here comes straight from the scientist and clinicians doing the work and reporting their findings in real time through various online outlets. The scientific truth of cannabis is finally getting out and is wide open for all to see at respected medical sites like pubmed.gov and JAMA, the Journal of American Medical Association…
And I’m right there in the thick of it with all those titans of medicine… as a fly on the wall… because I’m not a doctor. I didn’t go to med school. I took dozens of private cannabis courses offered by cannabis scientists online over the past few years and slowly began to understand the bigger picture. But I’m not a medical doctor or scientist. Oh I can talk to one about cannabis and hopefully inspire more doctors and patients alike, to research the facts as we know them today, and decide alternative health paths for themselves.
This is Honey Smith Walls, a 21st century cannabis shaman, not a doctor, not a scientist. Just here to explain this great big story and the language of cannabis in its historical, political and scientific terms. So you can make educated decisions about the medicine you choose to ingest.
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Seg 1
Honey Smith Walls 0:00
Hey my friends. Today we’re speaking with Colleen Higgins, a pharmacist and author, also a speaker who helps translate the complex world of pharmaceutical and cannabis medications into an assessable language for patients and caregivers in March of 2020, Colleen published her first book, The Cannabis Prescription, How To Use Medical Marijuana To Reduce Or Replace Pharmaceutical Medications. She created Sway innovations.com an educational website designed to translate cannabis science in order to make it more accessible for both patients and healthcare professionals. Coleen speaks to healthcare professionals, trained dispensary staff to best serve patients and educates patient groups. On how the medical benefits of cannabis can be applied to specific symptoms in order to achieve a comfortable and successful outcome. Colleen is certified in diabetes management, medication therapy management and as a pain management specialist pharmacist. And now you’re gonna hear us kerfuffle over the beginning of this session because, oh, you know, the Wi gods were just being naughty to us. But, for goodness sakes, after all, we are grown women. We can do this stuff in high heels. Here we go. Coleen Higgins…
Pharmacist Colleen Higgins 1:53
….and I removed all of my microphones. I don’t know why there’s an echo. So that should be fine.
Honey Smith Walls 1:58
There isn’t. There isn’t now and I put my headset back on. So we’re it girl. It worked. We’re working it. We’re doing it. We’re getting it done too. So there take that Technology! Yeah, exactly. Honestly, hey, listen, I just want to go back and let me start again in case I can’t use that other piece. It was only a few minutes and I just want to welcome you, dear Dr. Colleen Higgins.
Pharmacist Colleen Higgins 2:29
I’m not a Doctor, I did not get my PharmD… I’m an older pharmacist. Yes, I graduated just a year before they brought out the doctor program. Ah, yes.
Honey Smith Walls 2:42
All right. Well, I’m still learning about the degrees of degrees. So thank you for helping us understand that. But so if I may call you Colleen. And please, oh, I’m so glad and grateful that you’re here and I can’t wait for our audience to understand who you are. Oh, you are just a really amazing leader in this industry. So let’s start with your book, shall we? Of course, I want everybody to know that Colleen Higgins is the author of The Cannabis Prescription, How To Use Medical Marijuana to Reduce or Replace Pharmaceutical Medications. It’s kind of a mouthful, but oh my gosh, it needs to be said.
Pharmacist Colleen Higgins 3:32
It’s a mouthful right? It is.
Honey Smith Walls 3:35
And so then you also have SwayInnovations.com by the way. Yes. And that’s an educational website designed to translate… If I may just say the taglines on it… translate cannabis science in order to make it more accessible for both patients and healthcare professionals.
Now, the second part of that equation for healthcare professionals, your pedigree will help them go there faster than mine, because you know, I’ve just had these small courses on the perimeter of a big university education. Mm hmm. But you’ve got a formal education and so they will definitely believe you before they do me and I’m so glad you’re doing this because we need all of you who want to look up this education and cannabis for themselves like I did, and and become leaders like you.
Pharmacist Colleen Higgins 4:41
Oh, thank you, Honey so much. That’s so sweet. It’s about understanding the language. Excuse me, just like you said… cannabis is a language. And there is so much information out there as somebody who has worked in a dispensary as a dispensary pharmacist. Since 2014. I have filtered, you could say, that language down to the essential information that patients need or healthcare practitioners need. We don’t need to know you know the growing cycle and we don’t need to know the extraction temperature. We need to know what dose DO you start THC, what is a dose to start CBD? How frequently do you do dosing? However, the delivery systems that are available in a dispensary are different… that’s my focus. So I’m there for the patients so they can understand it because usually the patients that end up in a dispensary because all the other meds haven’t worked. So they’re used to taking meds… they just need to understand how to apply this med. And the same thing with the health care experts. They want to understand a certain language about it. So that’s what I provide.
Honey Smith Walls 5:52
Oh, see, I want to quote you. You said not long ago “extreme value. You provide extreme value that patients deserve”. That is so monumental because so many of us think we’re undeserving of anything, much less a doctor’s attention or medical attention, you know, we might put a lot of other people ahead of our own medical attention before we we think we deserve that kind of thing, that kind of specialty.
Pharmacist Colleen Higgins 6:24
And it’s hard to get the attention of doctors these days. You know, they’re so busy. Insurance companies have forced them to see more patients per day… shorter amount of time…. you don’t have as much time and focus with them as you used to. So that’s why I want to train the pharmacists because they’re always on the front line. And this is now you know, you could have your pharmacist adjust them… in most states they’re allowed to adjust diabetes medication… you don’t have to speak with the doctor about it. Once the diagnosis comes to us with the cannabis prescription, we don’t need to refer back to the doctor to change the dose or try a different one. The pharmacist can take over and help with the patient at that point and I think it’s such a fantastic opportunity for our profession. I really do
Honey Smith Walls 7:10
I do too. I think it’s an incredible opportunity to change the way relationships are between doctors and patients and their pharmacists. Because I was only made aware of recently by Dr. Leah Johnson, a pharmacist out in California, who made me realize that my clinician is my diagnostician, not my pharmacist. Exactly. And they don’t take the bazillion hours in chemicals that pharmacists do…
Pharmacist Colleen Higgins 7:47
Right… and a lot of times you will get a physician and that’s exactly it. They are the one that will diagnose the condition if we’re talking about a specialist, a cardiologist or they’re going to have a specific set of drugs right… that’s the one they use. As the pharmacist… we take into account the neurologist or the cardiology then we take into account the cardiologist and we take into account the endocrinologist and diabetes…
Honey Smith Walls 8:13
Because you understand all that mixology.
Pharmacist Colleen Higgins 8:17
That’s what we do. And it’s such a fantastic opportunity with cannabis because it seems so big and confusing. It is…
Honey Smith Walls 8:30
And it’s got over 500 ingredients.
Pharmacist Colleen Higgins 8:33
Right, exactly. But we focus on just the ones available in the dispensary, right? If we’re going to apply those certain products. We really have a handful. It used to just be THC, which is the high feeling molecule and a dose related high field so if you take a very little bit you might feel a little to nothing. If you take too much you could feel extremely uncomfortable. So patients need to understand how to consume that and then you have CBD that’s gotten much more popular over the last decade. And then the New Kids on the Block like CBN and CBG and then a Delta eight THC. We have these kinds of designer cannabinoids, which
Honey Smith Walls 9:11
All of those cannabinoids are bi-phasic… every single one of them…
Pharmacist Colleen Higgins 9:16
Yeah, well when taken orally. When taken orally… when you take something inhaled, see the delivery system is critical. And I like to kind of summarize it super quick so people understand it. You typically have inhalation which is either smoking or vaporization. Flower vaporization is going to be your healthiest way to go because there, you’re just taking the flower, grinding it up putting it into a flower vaporizer, and it’s like an oven… it heats up and it takes the crystals that are all over the flower and it vaporizes them and you breathe that in. There’s nothing in between… you’re never combusting and smoking, but when we inhale it’s extremely fast. Within a minute to 10 minutes, you’re going to feel that dose. So for acute symptoms, anxiety, nausea, you know, these are things that come on very quickly. You can quickly take care of that, but also you have a very tight control. It’s predictable, so what you consume goes right into the bloodstream. No first pass effect.. no bi-phasic cycling or anything like that. If not, you have sublingual dosing. There’s products that can go under the tongue. That’s a very quick delivery method as well. Think nitroglycerin. You probably have listeners that are familiar with nitroglycerin, it’s absorbed in under five minutes. Same thing. Anytime you put something under the tongue, it’s going to deliver very quickly and predictably.
Honey Smith Walls 10:34
I guess I’m really surprised to hear that nitroglycerin is still…. I mean… my grandfather took that and I’m almost 68 years old!
Pharmacist Colleen Higgins 10:46
If you think about it, it’s a drug like cannabis that would never be approved today. I mean, say for people… but there wouldn’t be testing for it. So there’s a lot of drugs that have been around that wouldn’t be allowed today but are in practice because they work.
Honey Smith Walls 11:05
Tramadol…
Pharmacist Colleen Higgins 11:06
Tramadol… I’ve seen people be able to stop using Tramadol with just CBD alone. So that’s another interesting…
Honey Smith Walls 11:17
That’s big news about how cannabis is relieving people from the opioid issues. It’s real. It’s real…
Pharmacist Colleen Higgins 11:25
People, plenty of people come off it but if we continue after inhalation, suddenly well, then you have the oral dosing and that’s where you get the bi-phasic. You have a delay in the effect it typically takes about an hour to start working, and then it can get a little different for people you know, a little longer… so it does go through the liver and produce a more psychoactive molecule. Okay, so delta nine THC is, you know, goes directly into the bloodstream and produces a high but this 11 Oh H THC is produced when we take it orally, and it’s even more psychoactive so people say I take the edibles and it makes it feels different. It’s true. It does feel different because the molecule produced when we take it orally is different than when we take it sublingually or by inhalation, the Hydroxy 11 OH THC, which is a different molecule formed in the first pass phase of the liver metabolism.
Honey Smith Walls 12:27
Thank you for helping me see that.
Pharmacist Colleen Higgins 12:29
No problem. No, it’s a lot. But people should know when you take things orally. It can feel differently than when you take it sublingually or by inhalation. Very true.
Honey Smith Walls 12:41
Yes, and they often don’t understand that sublingual and oral are different… what you mean by oral… you mean swallowing it completely like an edible. And by sublingual, you just mean under the tongue or absorbed through your… the inside of your cheeks… right… or under your tongue where all those little bloody capillaries are to soak it up…
Pharmacist Colleen Higgins 13:05
You don’t want to double up… I had heard from a person who I was telling about the training… she goes, “You know these these bud tenders forget to tell people that you don’t want to smoke and then take an edible because you’re essentially doubling up. You’re essentially taking twice the dose and whenever you take too much THC. It’s not going to feel good.”
Honey Smith Walls 13:25
It’s not going to feel good… it’ll backfire.
Pharmacist Colleen Higgins 13:29
It’s backfiring is a good way to put it. It’s just not working out and you can feel really bad for a long period… a few hours… and it’s unnecessary if you just keep your dose low and microdose.
Honey Smith Walls 13:43
Mindfully.
Pharmacist Colleen Higgins 13:47
Mindfully… know you’re dosing… know your numbers. Start by taking five milligrams for an oral dose, wait six hours. If you don’t think that did anything, try 10 milligrams. And if that feels good… great. If it feels a little too strong, go down to 7.5. You know, just play with it. I find that people that are fairly new to cannabis… Five to 10 max or 15 milligrams in severe pain is where people land. That’s it. 5, 10, 15… Somewhere in that range for THC is where most people really experienced help. Consumers, they can get up to 20 milligrams and above.
Honey Smith Walls 14:27
Yeah. And then there’s the percentage of THC in the product that they’re taking which varies between anywhere from 8 to 80%. Depending on what you’re taking, you know, concentrate, you know, is it RSO? Is it is it just a, you know, a little bit of nanotechnology and ohhhh there’s just so much…
Pharmacist Colleen Higgins 14:54
There is so much… yeah,
Honey Smith Walls 14:57
I want people to know I’ve been in this industry for a few years now with five different dispensaries within 20 minutes of my driveway. Right… and I am still unable to find my sweet spot for any one particular medication because we can’t get duplicate medication. You can’t get the same medication twice down here.
Pharmacist Colleen Higgins 15:12
You base it off of the THC portion?
HoneySmith Walls 15:15
No… I base it off the assay of the of the entire product that I got. Yeah, I gotcha. Right. How what the cannabinoid percentages are… the individual cannabinoids of just the ones that they are, you know, testing. Yeah. And it’s hard to find a good assay down here too. I might add…
Pharmacist Colleen Higgins 15:48
It’s very hard with all of the products not only because of the the main the producing the manufacturing procedures, but because every time you grow the plant, it’s a little different. So just for patients that are looking to just simplify… If you’re using a CBD THC combination, those are the ones with the major components… right… focus your dosing on two parameters. Number one, whether it’s just THC alone, in which case, know your number… for me it’s 15 milligrams. I don’t go above 15 milligrams. It makes me anxious, but I am a “troubled sleeper” is a good way to put it.
So I am too.
Yep, so 15 milligrams, so three or four or five hours before sleep and then I’ll take another dose of 15 milligrams usually right around the time I’m actually falling asleep and that will get me through the whole night which is a miracle and I’m super happy so focus on the THC. Maybe a little CBD in there. You know if you have a one to one or close to equal amount of CBD and THC… the CBD will mellow out that high, which a lot of people like…. people sometimes don’t really like the THC by itself…
Honey Smith Walls 16:58
But it also quells the anxiety from THC that’s problematic for so many people…
Pharmacist Colleen Higgins 17:03
Some people love THC alone for anxiety. Yeah, but too much and they’re anxious so it’s very delicate. So focus on the THC dose, get your numbers… get what makes you comfy and then choose whether it’s a hybrid, or an indica or sativa. Now there’s a huge argument whether sativa and indica and do hybrids exists… It’s a good categorization system for for people that just need basic understanding. A sativa in 99% of the people I’ve seen… a small percent where it works the opposite, but a sativa for most people will feel awakening… it will not make them feel sluggish. It is great for depression. So patients that feel depressed or with fibromyalgia fatigue or MS with fatigue… sativas tend to not contribute to that fatigue. Not make you more drowsy… most strains…
Honey Smith Walls 18:02
Because most of those strains have limonene and other uplifting terpenes. Yeah, right.
Pharmacist Colleen Higgins 18:08
Yeah, exactly. They tend to be higher in those strains. Indica in the bed in the couch. That tends to be the more relaxing good for muscle spasm. Good for achy body pain more linalool more mercene… Exactly. Mercene, humulene equals couch lock. You love humulene. I’m a huge fan of all that. So if you focus… if you want to stay simple initially, focus on your THC dose because too much makes you unhappy too little doesn’t do anything for you, and then just grab a sativa and indica. A hybrid is a blend of indica and sativa most tend to be on the more relaxing side although if you’re at a good dispensary where people are educated about their products, you can ask for a sativa leaning hybrid like a Blue Dream strain or you know, with the blended strains really the company has to tell you what it’s like…
Honey Smith Walls 19:05
Because all companies have different products. You can’t go by any name… you have to go by the chemical component itself… what you’re looking for… or that you’re looking for and let the budtender to tell you what his products… which one of his products are geared for that effect… I think might be the way. But you know the scientists are trying to get the dispensaries to change the way they’re speaking about it and go into a more formal system of… I’m sorry, having a brain neuron meltdown right here in front of God and everybody. There you go. Yeah, enjoy it. Thank you everybody. Alright, so anyway, the scientists are trying to get us to say type one, type two and type three. Type one is THC. Type Two is a balanced blend of THC and CBD and type three is CBD leaning.
Pharmacist Colleen Higgins 20:10
Oh my gosh. Yeah. Okay. I hadn’t heard that… OK.
Honey Smith Walls 20:13
Yep. And so then that just dispels all of that other mislabeling of sativa and indica, which is really just the type of bush that it is. Whether it’s a tree or a small bush.
Pharmacist Colleen Higgins 20:26
I think it’s important for patients… it’s valuable. If you have a patient with severe anxiety, and you give them a strong sativa THC rich strain, they’re not going to feel good… feel right. Like too much coffee, you know?
Honey Smith Walls 20:46
And that’s why we’ve got to educate our patients before they get to the dispensary. Right? Exactly. Because our 12 year old budtenders down here in Florida, who are… you know, in every dispensary… I know, I snort too… honestly, you know, I just want them… I feel like they all need to just call me Granny. You know?
Pharmacist Colleen Higgins 21:08
Yeah, it’s important that they… somebody just reached out to me and said the exact same thing. She’s like our budtenders here… Because I put a post up on LinkedIn and I said… “You know, I’m seeing a lot of these places say 10 milligrams is a good starting dose for THC!”. No, I don’t agree!
Honey Smith Walls 21:26
I don’t agree! I don’t agree that all people need THC! I am of the philosophy that most people need a full spectrum whole plant. I agree. That’s been well, mindfully, thoughtfully, cautiously grown for medicinal use. You know, I’m very interested in vertical farming, not vertical Corporation. But if you…. I’ve seen this in action already, it’s like a Ferris wheel with planters on it. And so the farmers who are actually tending the garden as it’s going up, and around the Ferris wheel, they’re standing. They’re no longer breaking their backs. And and the product is being grown in nutrients, not soil. Yes. And so you know, you’re getting you know, the three month turnover, perfect product that you can replicate as closely as possible now without, you know, outside influence at the wind and the birds and the batshit being thrown in to change the terpenes. You know in an outside grow….
Pharmacist Colleen Higgins 22:45
Let me tell you Honey, I’m sure you’re gonna have plenty of people out there who are going to argue against the sun grown and the
Honey Smith Walls 22:53
Hahahaha I’m sure! But I don’t know what to think about it all… I know though. Yeah, I’m a farm girl from Oklahoma. I love the sun and the soil and all of that dirt under my nails. Yeah. Anyway, I’m so impressed…
Pharmacist Colleen Higgins 23:07
Go ahead. I was just gonna say I was out in Northern California. And we had rented a house and when you look down, the soil looked almost burned. And then when you drove by it, it was this deep, dark, black rich soil that you just knew, needed to have stuff grown in it. And I didn’t get a chance to go to a dispensary out there but it looked pretty amazing based on the soil and environment they were growing it in… you know so but if we’re up here in the northeast, we don’t have that kind of luck. So bio… you know, Hydroponics is needed in order to make a perfect product.
Honey Smith Walls 23:41
Yep, that’s right. Have you been to a hydroponic farm up there where you are?
Pharmacist Colleen Higgins 23:46
I have been… I visited two of the growers… one that grows in dirt, which is super interesting and fantastic. They use things like ladybugs to control their insects and things like that. And then Sonic is just super cool, you know, and you can immediately see the differences. I was taken aback by the differences between the CBD strains that are CBD rich with lower amounts of THC and they look so different than hemp, compared to like an indica, you know, fluffy indica. And you can really kind of tell the difference, but not as easily for me at least between the sativa and indica plant visually, yeah, but the CBD plant compared to the… or I could even call it hemp almost except it had more than point 3% thc as hemp is defined as a cannabis strain… cannabis sativa actually, that has less than point 3% thc. These had more but they very much look like hemp. So the visual aspects of it are so fun and so cool. So I recommend to anybody who can go look at a cannabis farm. It’s very fun.
Honey Smith Walls 24:50
I really want to do that and isn’t it… wouldn’t it be interesting if we could have seen into the mind of whatever that was creating cannabis? Fascinating!
Pharmacist Colleen Higgins 25:02
Yeah, I’m gonna do it this way because… and let’s see…. let’s throw another cannabinoid in this way because….
Pharmacist Colleen Higgins 25:08
We’re still discovering… Why we didn’t even discover the Endocannabinoid receptors until the 1990s.
Honey Smith Walls 25:14
I know. Don’t you love Raphi Mechoulam? Have you seen all the precious pictures of him going around that are like neon and whatnot? A 91 year old man still leading the world!
Pharmacist Colleen Higgins 25:28
I met him and went to a continuing education with him where he came to it here in Connecticut.
Honey Smith Walls
Let me kiss the hem of your garment.
Pharmacist Colleen Higgins
He was so humble and interesting and everybody was scrambling to talk to him and he’s just the sweetest most humble guy who said, “The reason I started to study cannabis… is because nobody else was doing it!”. So I was like, Okay. This huge man in science that’s discovered it all and everybody’s so grateful for him.
Honey Smith Walls 25:59
For those of you who have not heard of Dr. Rafael Mechoulam in Israel, he discovered an OME, an entire system in our bodies that he named the cannabinoid system of receptors. And because of it, he found the lock and key system of phyto cannabinoids… that which grows out in the garden… into our endo… our inside our cannabinoid system of receptors that the plant likes.
Pharmacist Colleen Higgins 26:36
The plant works on just those receptors… I describe it like this: We have multiple different opioid receptors throughout our body and the opioids from the poppy plant, which turns into different morphine… the natural opioid goes right up in there like a lock and key…
Honey Smith Walls 26:54
I have chocolate cake receptors in my system! Giggles
Pharmacist Colleen Higgins
Giggles… me too… I have all chocolate receptors in my body!
Transcribed by https://otter.ai
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Seg 2
Honey Smith Walls 0:01
Girl, tell me about the SOP program that you provide because our audience may not realize this, but in business, when you start up a corporation, you have a standard operating procedure that generally has been, you know, created before you ever got there, but you’re gonna change it to be the way you want it. And that’s a secret. That’s that’s a business secret. Yeah, they don’t like sharing their standard operating procedures because it might give somebody else an edge over their business. Exactly. That’s not what we’re doing here. I’ve been offering standard operating procedures for years. And when I saw that you’re doing that too. You know, of course… What hospital is going to take one for me? Nobody, but they will from you girly girl, because you’ve got a pedigree, right? And so I’m proud for you. I’m proud that you’re doing this. I understand it and I think you’re so smart to do it. Because it’s brilliant… it’s a female move to begin with, isn’t it? I mean, we share. We share our shit. There you go. Yeah. Share our tools and our everything that we learned to help others.
Pharmacist Colleen Higgins 1:24
I had done it already and I had someone pay me… You know, I’ve opened up three dispensaries. I started them out. I was there to help open. And the second one paid me for the operating procedures that I wrote. Well, you know, it took me a few more years to figure out that I can provide these for other people as well. So I put up the systems manual, which is like the Holy Grail for direction. It is about 40 to 50 individual SOPs.
Honey Smith Walls
Oh my gosh.
Pharmacist Colleen Higgins
So I’m in the process… besides doing the course… I’m in the process of putting those things together… having them edited… and then those will be individual… so if somebody just wants an SOP for cash handling procedures, because it’s a cash business… it’s all right there. And these are required for the dispensary as well. So you have to do them right… they’ll eventually be able to say oh, I need our opening procedures… That’s exactly what it is… it’s a lot of work. It’s not really all that different between dispensaries… these these kinds of operating procedures. It reminds me of pharmacy… if you go into any pharmacy, it gonna be run pretty much the same. You’re going to know how to do it. You know, as a technician who’s trained as a pharmacist who’s trained to be able to walk in and they have the same procedures in every pharmacy because it works. It’s been around for over 100 years. And that’s what I’m looking to give this industry is procedures that work right to take the weight away that allow the patients to be the star that allow the people that are working there to be trained to be able to help people walking because my best friends live in California. And they’ve been telling me for years we need we need this we need this. Their favorite bud tenders unfortunately, you know, they just don’t know if they do find a good budtender that they like, the next time they go in they’re gone and they quit and they’re not there anymore.
Honey Smith Walls 3:25
I fault corporate for that… I fault corporate for that… they’re not training their staff. And they leave and they’re not treating them well.
Pharmacist Colleen Higgins 3:35
Yeah, well I worked… I just left working for a massive company. Not going to mention the name. I know who that is. Yeah. And they actually had a nice corporate culture. I really have to say they gave you a good pay. They gave you good vacation they gave you a lot of good things. But if you are working on the floor and you’re drowning, and you are surrounded by people that don’t care, don’t understand the product and who aren’t working well together. It doesn’t matter how much you’re being paid if every day you’re going home with a headache… every day you’re so stressed out when you have to show up… and that comes from training. Right. SOPs… right oh, I just… after working there I just said okay, it’s time.
Honey Smith Walls 4:19
Yeah… Suddenly there was so much that was illuminated to you.
Pharmacist Colleen Higgins 4:25
The pharmacists there were just waiting to leave… I was there for a year at this one location… for a year. I think they were on their fourth manager in a year and six pharmacist I might have been the sixth one to go and at eight… I lost count of the technicians that left at number eight in a year.
Honey Smith Walls 4:44
A year. So that’s just miserable.
Pharmacist Colleen Higgins 4:48
It’s not what the patients need. And I’ve always been patient focused, patient oriented. Where I couldn’t stand working at CVS because they, you know, just kill your motivation.
Honey Smith Walls 5:00
They’re horrible. I have never seen a happy looking pharmacist… never in a box store. So every time I go to pick up my old lady scripts at CVS and Walgreens and Walmart and…you know I make the rounds… Yeah…. And so every time I go now, I lean in and say, Hey, do you guys know what’s happening behind the scenes with pharmacist experts in cannabis industry yet? And they all say what… huh… where can I find out more about that?
Pharmacist Colleen Higgins 5:41
That’s funny Honey. I know. LinkedIn. I’m now reaching out. I do a search topic for current CVS pharmacists. And they’re the ones I’m reaching out to because I know they’re not happy.
Honey Smith Walls 5:53
That’s a goldmine for you…. right.
Pharmacist Colleen Higgins 6:00
Walgreens is right behind them. Yeah, they’re running exactly the same as CVS.
Honey Smith Walls 6:04
I’m sorry for them. I really am… because after my my other pharmacists friends began, you know, illuminating their plight… It’s just awful and and pharmacists have not been utilized properly, probably since the big box stores took over. Because they they no longer have their own drugstores. When I was a kid. I went to my pharmacist who owned his own drugstore.
Pharmacist Colleen Higgins 6:33
Me too. That’s where I started working in pharmacy. Right.
Honey Smith Walls 6:36
And my doctor was in the same building with him. So it was my doctor’s little square building one story, and the corner of it was the pharmacist of the small town in Decatur, Arkansas. And that’s just the way you did it. Yeah, and it made sense. To me.
Pharmacist Colleen Higgins 6:54
They well it’s not just that the independents wanted to to go… you know, it’s the insurance companies and these PBMs these pharmacy benefit managers which come in to keep them on track and they’re they’re supposed to be good guys.
Honey Smith Walls 7:10
That sounds like a homeowner’s association takeover.
Pharmacist Colleen Higgins 7:13
And Congress has had hearings on this but they still allow them to practice as usual. Independent pharmacies, they have to fill more scripts in less time with less reimbursement. And that’s why it became these massive corporations where they just make you fill as many as they can get out the door at the littlest profit and it’s horrendous… What they’ve turned this.
Honey Smith Walls 7:38
Why does anybody want to become a pharmacist then?
Pharmacist Colleen Higgins 7:41
Unfortunately, because the job was so good. A lot of people heard there was a shortage. And then the pharmacy schools opened up. And so now there’s a flood because of course they allowed all these pharmacy schools to open up so now there’s a flood of pharmacists coming out and what did these companies do? They turn them into the bean counters and they dropped their pay too… they squeezed out the pharmacist of my age. So all of the pharmacists that are my age that were around… are gone in the stores that had been there 20 years ago. They have younger pharmacists that have come in at a much lower wage and often not as skilled.
Honey Smith Walls 8:18
And how did they get any wisdom… where are their elders to help them understand the fullness?
Pharmacist Colleen Higgins 8:26
They’re a body to fill a shift in those kinds of places. I encourage everyone using… there’s more independents opening. So I think some of the laws, I’m not up to date on the pharmacy laws, but they might have changed to kind of help these independents who are being squeezed by these massive corporations because more independents are opening up around here. I’m not sure about down there, but I encourage people to use your independent pharmacists to support them. You know, a lot of times they will fill prescriptions at a loss. They will fill prescriptions at a loss just to keep their patients happy. So you know, support these these pharmacists and these pharmacies because they’re there to take care of you. They’re really wonderful.
Honey Smith Walls 9:07
I’m going to check into an independent pharmacist near me today because of this conversation. There is no reason for me to be going to those big box stores and giving my money up to corporate attitudes like that. When I’m sure I have an independent pharmacist near me, that I can go to and support and so I’m really tickled about that idea. And we’re gonna help others come to this realization too, and put the pharmacists back into our personal medical regimen for help and resources.
Pharmacist Colleen Higgins 9:51
Yes, and they want to do it. A lot of times these insurance companies like CVS, they own the pharmacy, the PBM and the insurance company so they make you go to a CVS pharmacy for a lower rate on your copay. But people don’t want to do that anymore. I know some people are like, You know what, I’ll pay 15 bucks just to not have to come here. That’s how you’re willing to pay to not have to put up with it.
Honey Smith Walls 10:15
Yeah, that’s bad. That’s pretty bad. That’s pretty bad. And I just went to CVS and changed from one prescription from the Walmart store right down the street to the CVS store. The other way right down the street. And CVS tried to charge me $150 For a prescription I was getting for 10 bucks at WalMart. Yeah. And I said no, you know, you’re not charging me, you know, blah, blah, blah. Anyway, long story short, we got it all figured out. But the insurance company has ruined our patient relationship with our doctors and our pharmacists.
Pharmacist Colleen Higgins 11:04
They rule everything somehow.
Honey Smith Walls 11:07
And they’re ruining our health. Yeah. And they’re ruining our health. The lobbyists. It’s the bullying techniques of the lobbyists. Never changes.
Pharmacist Colleen Higgins 11:15
We keep hearing. I mean, I’m very happy to see the AARP commercials saying we want you to…. don’t believe… the lies of the lobbyists. And it’s true, we would be able to negotiate our drug prices. Right. And as a pharmacist when I was working in pharmacies, I would see the prices creep up and I’d be like… Why is this cream that was six bucks now $60? Like who increases by 10 and it never dawned on me until that weirdo Martin Schurrle raised you know… who was so indelicate about raising his prices 600%. I mean, that’s what made him so strange is that he was so blatant about it. You’re dealing with people’s lives when you do that. But that’s the regular practice of these drug producers. If they can’t come up with a new drug, and they really have not come up with a brand new class of drugs in a long time… then they just take the old drugs and they jack the price up and that’s a regular practice. But this drug has been around for 40 years. Why is it now so much more… and until it gets into the media spotlight? Then you don’t know about it. But unfortunately, why is Congress not putting a law into effect saying there’s a maximum ceiling on a drug that’s 20 years old? You can’t raise the price! They started to do that, but then you don’t ever see any follow through.
Honey Smith Walls 12:29
Well, we call that corruption where I come from. Yeah, that’s corruption.
Pharmacist Colleen Higgins 12:32
All right. Yep. Hey, Big Pharma. And Mitch McConnell. He’s, oh, he’s such a badass.
Honey Smith Walls 12:38
I hear you have a pentchant for the New York triathlon. How does that happen in your busy life? And you swam across the sound? You did the Half Ironman Triathlon?
Pharmacist Colleen Higgins 13:03
That was insane… that half Ironman but the New York is my favorite. Tell us why? Because it’s the distance. It’s an Olympic distance. So it’s not for super long…
Honey Smith Walls 13:15
20 to 24 miles.
Pharmacist Colleen Higgins 13:18
That’s the bike…. so when you jump in the Hudson River, which is as disgusting as you think it is… you go with the current… so it’s not like you have a hard swim… you can literally float it… so that’s number one. Number two, the bikes… they shut down the highways for you. It’s a 25 mile bike ride, super cool. And then you run six miles around New York like in the street… and then like across 58… They shut the street so it’s like a rock star moment. And then you just you know you start this thing at 6am… You’re done by 9 or 10 am… you go over to Tavern on the Green and have a cocktail at 10am because you can… it’s wonderful and you feel so accomplished… and I need to have a goal. I just can’t continue to go to the gym and you know… have the goal of losing weight or looking good or whatever. I need to have something to shoot for… it makes me happy. And I have a My best friend of many years who also loves doing it. So it’s great to have somebody to do it with as well. Okay, I was… we hadn’t done it the last few years because of the heat and COVID. And I was like… Oh, I’m not so sure… he’s like, well, I’m signing up… and as he said that… I signed up. Yeah, setting up that competition as well. But you feel great. It keeps you going. And New York is my favorite because it’s New York. It’s super cool.
Honey Smith Walls 14:39
I love New York. It’s all I can say I Love New York. I’m not much of a big city girl except New York stole my heart a long long time ago. Yeah. Um, and I just want to say that oh, I just got a glance at my husband… Now I can’t remember a single thing I was gonna say.
Pharmacist Colleen Higgins 14:57
I do that all the time. You know? I’ll be like talking and my attention and focus wander…
Honey Smith Walls 15:10
Well, again, the book is a wonderful start for somebody who needs to just understand the basics and how to use medical marijuana to reduce or replace pharmaceutical medications. The name of the book is The Cannabis Prescription. You just wrote that last year in March in 2020.
Pharmacist Colleen Higgins 15:33
I published it the beginning of 2020. Yeah, March on Amazon. It was published the week we went into lockdown. I wrote it throughout 2019… took me about six months to write it. It took me about seven months to edit it… because editing is just a slice of torture. But then when I put it up during COVID and I just couldn’t even believe it… but a friend of mine needed a dispensary pharmacist during COVID times and so he hired me and that worked out okay. But it was essential for people to have a handbook you know? Like yes… I have pain… How do I dose this? I don’t know… And I wanted to give… it’s exactly what I would give in a consultation to my patients.
Honey Smith Walls 16:15
I’m so grateful for this. Listen, I finally recalled what I was going to ask you. Dr. Allen Ao is a pharmacist up there in sort of, you know, up there I can’t say the right place, either Connecticut or New York or New Jersey and he’s got PlantsAndPrescriptions.com
I think he’s he is organizing the pharmacists to get together on a nationwide basis. And he’s on LinkedIn. It’s a l a n and his last name is spelled a o pronounced Ow.
Pharmacist Colleen Higgins 16:54
Okay, I’m writing that down right now.
Honey Smith Walls 16:55
Yeah, yep. And also, my sweet darling friend, Dr. Leah Johnson. And so she’s out in California, but she’s doing something that’s also a national thing, along with Dr. Codi Peterson, the pediatric pharmacist,
Pharmacist Colleen Higgins 17:19
I hooked up with him on LinkedIn. Yes, don’t you love them? The stuff he puts out… his graphics… I actually just hired somebody to help me create good graphics because I’m working on that.
Honey Smith Walls 17:33
And you know what… the graphics really helped me as an armchair scientist. Sink this information in better because Yeah, we love pictures and colors and squiggly pretty hair ribbons. Oh, DNA you called it? Oh, okay. Anyway, I just want to let you know that the other pharmacists that I know and have come to love because their information is spectacular. They’re forming like you are and they’re gonna want to know you. You know. So check them out on LinkedIn, get hooked up and get involved with them too… because they’ll they’ll support you and your efforts as well and put you in touch with so many other people.
Pharmacist Colleen Higgins 18:26
It’s a supportive network we have going you know… we really do. People really want to get the right information out there. We want people to be informed… we want this industry to grow. We want people to be safe. Yeah. So it’s been a really there’s a lot of really fantastic people out there giving good information.
Honey Smith Walls 18:44
I think so too. And we’re going to find them all and expose them all. I’m going to I’m going to put all of your information on my on my…sorry, on the show notes and on my social media as well as my website if that’s alright with you. Thank you. My pleasure. And it’s been so much fun chatting with you Colleen. Will you call me and come back on the show anytime?
Pharmacist Colleen Higgins 19:10
Anytime, Honey, this was super fun. Fantastic to come and chat more about cannabis. I could do it all day every day.
Honey Smith Walls 19:19
That’s great. I’m so tickled to meet you. Thank you so much and have a great day, Colleen.
Pharmacist Colleen Higgins 19:24
You too Honey. Thank you so much. Bye bye.
Bling
Honey Smith Walls 19:39
Hey it’s me again…. I just keep forgetting to ask you, dear audience… if you would mind just taking a moment to go to your particular platform…whether it’s Apple or Spotify or whoever you listen to your podcast on… and liking my program. Maybe leave a little comment, gosh, you know how it works. It’s so helpful to my business. If you just leave a little comment or or especially a LIKE. Thank you so much. You know how much I appreciate you. Kiss Kiss Kiss Kiss
Transcribed by https://otter.ai
MOOOOOOO!!
You’ve been listening to another Cannaba Verum podcast with 21st century cannabis shaman Honey Smith Walls, about the importance of using safe hemp and marijuana products. The process of taking your records with your symptoms and diagnosis to a cannabis specialist can lead you to the correct cannabinoid therapy for your best results. Otherwise, you’re just your own guinea pig looking for answers without any foundational knowledge or ability to determine the best choices… unless otherwise proven by a reputable third party lab test. Please be advised that all street weed is contaminated.
It may do grave harm to a patient with a delicate immune system. I challenge you to check the veracity of my statements in each episode by checking the medical citations posted on my blog. The Cannaba verum.com website.
That’s C A N N A B A V E R U M.com
Sources:
Cannaba Verum is Latin for Cannabis Truth. Sourcing factual information about cannabis hasn’t always been easy for a variety of reasons. However now because of modern innovations, it is. My sources are from leaders in cannabis science like:
Roger Adams, U.S. Organic Chemist who isolated the structure of CBD,
Raphael Mechoulam, Israeli Organic Chemist who isolated the structure of THC,
Ethan Russo, Dir R&D International Cannabis and Cannabinoids Institute
Dustin Sulak, DO – my favorite doctor at healer.com, teaching the art of Cannabis Healing to the world, and other industry greats like:
Rev. Dr. Kymron DeCesare, Ed Rosenthal, Jack Herer, Michael Backes, and Michael Pollen and so many more… plus I use classical sites like: PubMed.com, JAMA.com, ResearchGate.com. I listen to several daily podcasts to keep up with the latest cannabis news across the nation and throughout the world like: The Great Shea Gunther at MJTodayDaily.com and MarijuanaMoment.net. I trust the CBDProject.org and CannabisScienceTech.com. I watch the National Cannabis Industry Association (NCIA) at: thecannabisindustry.org and many more.
You’ll find Citations available on my podcast blog at cannabaverum.com
PS: Helping society get past the fear of using cannabis will be a lifelong journey for me. This industry is just opening up and both patients and doctors are completely cannabis naive and need help understanding where to turn for trustworthy information. If you need help opening that cannabis discussion with your family doctor, please reach out and grab the Dear Doctor Letter I wrote for this exact purpose. It will explain your decision to try cannabis and ask for their help in monitoring your labs and progress. It will also show them where they can find medical research on the subject of your diagnosis and the effects of cannabis. You’ll find that letter here: HoneySmithWalls.com
Show Notes:
I seem to be developing a pattern of showcasing intelligent #WomenInWeed and today’s #cannabispodcast is no different. Pharmacist Colleen Higgins will impress you with her leading ideas to form, cooperate, and organize medical professionals in order to change our current system into something much better. She’s reaching and teaching both patients and professionals and giving them a hand into this industry that we love. You’ll find her book called: The Cannabis Prescription on your iPhone book thingy for a ridiculously low price… really… jaw dropping, considering what’s in it and who wrote it… Don’t miss this awesome source of information! I just got it and love how well it’s written. It’s concise and practical… and I hope you’ll let her know how impressive it is. Not an iPhone book reader? You’ll find the link for a hard copy from Amazon at the bottom of this page. See Colleen’s amazing website at: SwayInnovations.com And scroll down and order her book! It’s the least you can pay for a lifetime of foundational practical knowledge and it ain’t hard to read! I say it like that because I’m a little lexdycksic and I found it easy to visually read. I usually go for the audibles;)
Pax Vobiscum.
Remember…all street weed is contaminated. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5022003/
Need an expert cannabis clinician? CannabisClinician.org
Handbook of Cannabis for Clinicians, Practices and Principles by Dr. Dustin Sulak – https://www.amazon.com/Handbook-Cannabis-Clinicians-Principles-Practice/dp/0393714187 and healer.com
(3) Certificate of Analysis (COA) https://www.pharmtech.com/view/certificates-analysis-don-t-trust-verify (4) https://www.amazon.com/Cannabis-Prescription-Marijuana-Pharmaceutical-Medications/dp/1734003448/ref=sr_1_1?keywords=Colleen+Higgins+the+cannabis+prescription&qid=1637190227&qsid=141-3859991-9589442&sr=8-1&sres=1734003448%2CB095VMF1Z3%2CB082KZ8ZGM%2CB07M8H5LG9%2CB09CHDR5ML%2CB00XPU1YTS%2CB00SSBE6JY%2CB07DP834RX%2CB016CCG256%2CB01HXV90BS%2CB071JRBWXS%2CB0051V8PS2%2CB07KCZSMLJ%2CB07D8CNYTR%2CB00FFSLF10%2CB017THCP6S&srpt=ABIS_BOOK
- Microdosing – https://healer.com/cbd-cannabis-dosage-guide-project-cbd-interview-with-dr-sulak/
- Concentrates – https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/29307505/
- Cannabis Helps Dementia Podcast – Anchor.FM/cannabishelpsdementia
- Society of Cannabis Clinicians – https://www.cannabisclinicians.org/
- Take the Pledge – GreenTakeover.com
- Handbook for Clinicians – Principles and Practice – https://wwnorton.com/books/9780393714180
(7) Get Colleen’s book from Amazon here: The Cannabis Prescription, How To Use Medical Marijuana To Reduce Or Replace Pharmaceutical Medications
(8) See Colleen’s website here: SwayInnovations.com
All opinions are my own and should not be mistaken as medical advice.
