Never Tell the Doctors About Weed - Even in 2024
Photos Courtesy of Author
Back in the day, it was pretty well known that you never clued the doctors in that you smoke weed. There were legal ramifications of doing so, at worst, or getting judged with a heaping ton of stigma at best.
One would think, however, that in 2024, in a country with over 38 medicinally and 24 recreationally legal states, you could tell doctors about your cannabis use with understanding and a little knowledge on their side to help you navigate your health.
Modern Medicine Still Doesn’t Understand Cannabis
I recently learned how wrong that was with my father, a 94-year-old man in Texas. A state where even in its most remote reaches, one can find a “CBD” shop that sells all manner of cannabinoids. I stopped into one and bought a beverage to enjoy at my brother’s house; I’m happy this state has access.
However, increased access has not come with increased knowledge and experience. That lesson couldn’t have been louder on the Sunday afternoon when we called 911 to take my dad to the hospital.
We were sitting at the table, eating breakfast, when he attempted to stand up and leave the table. He couldn’t, said he was too dizzy to stand. I offered him water. He couldn’t use his left hand, which is dominant, and had to raise it with his right hand. He still couldn’t grab the water.
My mother and I shared a knowing glance of “he’s having a stroke.” She called 911 and did a quick stroke test on him, he passed it. I left the room to call my brother.
When I returned, the paramedics were already knocking on the door. My mom was still on the 911 call. These cats move fast in their area somehow! So fast, however, that I was unable to alert my dad not to say anything about the fact that he takes cannabis gummies for back pain.
On the ambulance ride, he told them about the gummies when they asked about his prescriptions.
From Bad to Worse: A Doctor’s Refusal to Listen
We got to the ER and started walking to his assigned room: me in front, my brother behind me, and my mom last in line. As we turned a corner, the lead EMS grabbed my mom to talk. I was in the room trying to figure out where she was when it dawned on me.
I ran out and caught up to where she was talking with the guy, and sure enough, they were talking about his weed gummies. My mom’s face was in utter panic and hoped that I would turn up at any moment. I intervened, told the EMS the dosage, the chemistry of the product (it was 5 mg 1:1:1 THC:CBG:CBC with 1 mg of beta-caryophyllene for you science nerds), and the purpose of it in managing his back pain. I also mentioned that there have been periods where he’s taken them and not taken them, and never has he had an episode like this, so it’s clearly something else. The EMS agreed.
The doctor, well, he was a different story.
He came in asking a few questions of my dad, and performing a few tasks to assess stroke likelihood. Then comes the question, in a super condescendingly flamboyant tone:
“SOOOOO, I hear you ate your son’s cannabis gummies?!”
He almost sang it, like it was his little joke for the day, having a man in the ER for overdosing on weed candy.
Again, I gave him the rundown, everything I mentioned to the EMS. This dude didn’t know wtf I was talking about. He just kept smiling smugly, with a very distant look in his eyes. They took my dad in to run tests on his urine, his blood, and to do a CAT Scan. We wait for 5 hours to get a result. The smug, singing doctor returns and tells us there was nothing on the tests that concerned him.
“It was probably the gummies!” he exclaimed and fluttered out the door.
In the days that followed, after some research and a confirming appointment with my dad’s cardiologist, it was clear what he experienced was a transient ischemic attack (TIA), also known as a "mini-stroke." They last anywhere from a few minutes to an hour, and they don’t show the lasting damage of a full-on stroke.
But for a 94-year-old, a TIA is not something to just ignore. Sure, it’s a way better outcome than a full stroke. But what doctor worth their salt would just shrug off such a medical experience with such an elderly patient?!
When Will the Medical System Embrace the Endocannabinoid System?
We still live in a world where only 13% of medical students are even taught that the endocannabinoid system exists, as of the last survey on the topic. Because that leaves over 87% of medical doctors utterly ignorant of an important and influential system such as the ECS, they’re only left to sift through what they read in publications, media, and online discourse.
AJ Harrington in Forbes wrote “Nearly two-thirds (64%) of physicians said that patients themselves were their dominant source of information about cannabis, followed by the internet (44%) and medical journals (40%). The survey reveals a glaring lack of knowledge about the therapeutic uses of cannabis among health care professionals, most of whom receive little to no education on medical marijuana or the endocannabinoid system in medical school.”
So a doctor with no education on the ECS and only left to believe what the media says about cannabis use is, of course, going to assume my dad was dizzy from eating weed. They’ve read all the stories about people greening out on brownies. They’ve heard all their colleagues share the story of “that old guy that got into his son’s stash.”
On this day, perhaps for the following week or even for the rest of this doctor’s career, my dad will be one of those “water cooler” stories. They’ll never accurately say “I had an advanced-age patient come in with a mini-stroke.”
That’s why you should still not tell your doctor about consuming cannabis.*
*Don’t take this as medical advice. If you’re about to go under general anesthesia, you must tell your doctor about your cannabis use or you might wake up mid-procedure. This is a real risk. I’m not a medical doctor nor a medical professional, and you should always follow your own best guidance on what you disclose and when. Just be ready to have symptoms disregarded if you do.