A new study published in the Journal Complimentary Therapies In Medicine has found that approximately 50 percent of the US population suffers from sleep disturbances, and emphasizes that if cannabis can treat insomnia that it’s clinically relevant. The study found that sleep aid sales have declined with the recreational use and legalization of cannabis, based on data from Colorado, and points out that the negative association between cannabis access and sleep aid sales suggests a consumer preference for cannabis.

 

Our results are consistent with evidence that legal access to medical cannabis is associated with reductions in Scheduled II-V prescription medications (e.g., opioids and sedatives), many of which may be used in part as sleep aids,” the authors wrote.

“These findings support survey evidence that many individuals use cannabis to treat insomnia, although sleep disturbances are not a specific qualifying condition under any U.S. state-level medical cannabis law.”

Study author Sarah Stith,  a microeconomist at the University of New Mexico, said in statement: “From a public health perspective, the possible widespread use of cannabis for less severe medical conditions both highlights its therapeutic potential and raises concerns regarding the risk-benefit tradeoffs of substituting a substance associated with abuse and dependence for relatively ineffective OTC medications with typically low levels of abuse potential.”

“From an economic or business perspective, regardless of underlying mechanism, our documentation of changing purchase behaviors has implications for multimillion-dollar US markets with OTC sleep aids likely just one example,” she said. “It is important for the medical community to recognize that the lack of medical guidance does not necessarily lead to a lack of medical use. Dispensaries and online forums are stepping up to fill the information vacuum as individuals are forced to take treatment into their own hands, with statistically evident effects on treatment choices.”

Growing Your Own Cannabis Legally

You will need a Doctor to give you a prescription using the proper Health Canada form found here. Once signed, you will have to mail this document along with the ACMPR form found here which require you to specify where you plan to grow and you will also need the property owners consent if it is not your primary residence. We recommend always getting the property owners consent even if you don’t need it for this licence. You could technically get a licence to grow without their consent but they could always evict you and its just bad karma, just tell them.

Health Canada allows you to grow approximately 5 times the amount of grams you were prescribed per day in plants i.e. if you were prescribed 5 gram per day, you can grow 25 plants indoors. Many Doctors are not comfortable signing these prescriptions and if they do, they are extremely conservative and don’t understand that many people prefer to eat or juice rather than smoke and this require much more product. There are clinics that can guide you through the process and get you a plant allowance that is large enough for you to be self-sufficient and not risk going over your limits.

Once you mail out the prescription along with the ACMPR document you are not legally allowed to begin growing. While it is very common for people to start growing because they believe that the Doctor is basically the gatekeeper to the program while Health Canada is more administrative, you are not yet legal and could get in trouble with the law. You have to wait until Health Canada mails you your official licence and then and only then are you legally allowed to begin growing.
We strongly recommend starting out the right way and this will ensure you are 100% legal and can focus on the fun of growing for yourself.

If you’d like assistance to make sure you go through the process legally and the right way, please contact us about acquiring a licence and we’ll help you through the process every step of the way.