Dr. Riley Kirk: The Fight for Cannabis Freedom

Dr. Carlen Costa  0:01  
This is the spicy fat podcast and I am your host curling caster. And we're here to talk about something a little different. We're changing the vibe a little bit, this episode and I am super excited to jump into this topic because as a mental health professional, you know you guys are listening to me, I'm a psychotherapist. But what you may not also know is that I am also a psychedelic assisted psychotherapist. I did my training with Fairisle here in Canada, amazing, amazing organization. And I am also a cannabis educator as well. So supporting my own clients and patients and how they can use plant medicines in their lives in an intentional and informed way. So I brought on a special guest I brought on an amazing guest who I have been following for a really long time. She doesn't know that fountain growing really hard right now. Big fan of this wonderful human. I am so pleased today to have Dr. Riley Kirk on the spicy fat podcast. Dr. Riley Kirk is a cannabis research scientist and a cannabis educator. She obtained her PhD because that's so smart. She is in pharmaceutical sciences specializing in natural product chemistry, where she studied the traditional and contemporary uses of hundreds of medicinal plants. She has worked as an immunology scientist in the biotech industry currently is an assistant Associate Professor at the University of Rhode Island and has worked in the cannabis industry studying the chemical complexity of cannabis smoke, guys, that's so badass, right? So Riley is passionate about making cannabis science accessible through social media channels and hosts an educational podcast called bioactive which disseminates the chemistry and pharmacology of natural products. Riley is also the co founder of the cannabis Research and Education nonprofit organization called the network of applied you're gonna have to help me.

Dr. Riley Kirk  2:06  
Oh, it's good. It's viva. It's called the pharmacognosy. And it's this there it is natural medicines. pharmacognosy.

Dr. Carlen Costa  2:11  
Okay, there somewhere like I've never said in my life, I am so happy to have Dr. Riley here to help you talk about the cannabis industry, academia, and to inform you about some education, how to reduce harm, harm reduction methods, and plants and our mental health and our wellness. So, thank you, Riley. I may just call you Riley. Dr. Kirk, which do you prefer?

Dr. Riley Kirk  2:37  
Please call me Riley. I only use doctor when I'm in a political situation I don't want to be I didn't have to have to call myself doctor to get the respect. But yeah, you can even call me Riley. And also funny thing about the word firm a cognitive see. So most people have never heard of that word. And it's a word that was kind of dying. So I was part of the American Society of pharmacognosy. And at one of our meetings we had, we had a separate meeting that said, do we want to change the name of this establishment? Because nobody can say it? And essentially, people were like, no, because it has such significance in past research, right? Because before we had pharmaceutical drugs, we only had nature as a source of medicine. So pharmacognosy is the original Pharmaceutical Sciences. But now when we think of Pharmaceutical Sciences, we think of synthetics, we think of pharmaceutical drugs, not natural medicines. So I tried to use it often and it's part of the reason we put it in our nonprofit name to start bringing more attention to this word because I think it matters a lot and that's what my entire backgrounds in Wow, I

Dr. Carlen Costa  3:44  
love that totally matters. No, that's super matters. I mean, etymology, right. Yeah. Etymology, the study of words, the history of words how they came to be, is so important. I mean, that's how we carry on the traditions and the meanings and the definitions of why we use these words, right? Oh,

Dr. Riley Kirk  4:01  
Words matter. I mean, especially like we talk about cannabis a lot and whether we use marijuana or cannabis or weed or if we use the words indica sativa. Or if we use other words like the more that we can use the language that we want other people to use, like that's a that's a learning tool in itself.

Dr. Carlen Costa  4:19  
Is there a preferred way that you like to say canvas? Like are you like a cannabis girl? You're a marijuana girl. Are you a Mary Jane? Like or do you just like flutter between all of them?

Dr. Riley Kirk  4:30  
I a flatterer between weed and cannabis. Those are my two faves, but cannabis is like, I think it's my favorite just because I'm a plant person. And that's like, you know, the scientific plant name. Yeah. sativa. So,

Dr. Carlen Costa  4:42  
weed sounds like, almost sounds like when we're using the word queer, for example, right? Like a reclamation. Like it's like, no, I'm taking those word back because you made it bad for so long.

Dr. Riley Kirk  4:54  
Same with the word Stoner. The word stoner still has a very, very negative connotation. I was just on somebody's podcast and I use the word Stoner and they were like, but I was referring to myself. And I was like, I don't think that being a daily cannabis user is a bad thing. So like, I'm trying to rewrite what a stoner is. And I know our community is trying to do this in general. Because you know, a stoner really just means somebody who loves weed and uses cannabis. And why is that? Such? Yeah,

Dr. Carlen Costa  5:22  
no, absolutely. You know what, and you may not know the answer to this, but I just thought of it. My spicy brain is like going off now because I'm just like, loving this conversation. But I'm like, where did stoner come from? Do you know?

Dr. Riley Kirk  5:34  
It's got to come from being stoned right? Like so? Maybe? That's right, my brain goes so. So then where does being stoned come from? Is it just like, being an inanimate object that can't form words? Well,

Dr. Carlen Costa  5:48  
that's what I'm trying to think. Because when you said stone, I immediately went like biblical like, I immediately went like this stoning women who did bad things, right? So that's where my brain went. I know. I know. We're gonna have to do a follow up friends. We're gonna thankfully, Sarah, producer Sarah, who is on the ball for us today, she found writing for Jane Street. Madison Margolin theorizes that stoner may derive from the Italian word. Still not though, which the Cambridge dictionary translates as tone deaf or out of key, but is often applied as slang for confused days or out of touch with reality

Dr. Riley Kirk  6:31  
was much more of a negative take than I was hoping I was hoping it just meant, right.

Dr. Carlen Costa  6:35  
Yeah. But like Italian, so like, fancy, you know? Bummer.

Dr. Riley Kirk  6:42  
Okay, well, we were we were both a little off. But you know, growing,

Dr. Carlen Costa  6:45  
we're growing. We're learning it. We're learning it. But yeah, there is like that biblical reference, right. So sinners were stoners. So I love what you're sharing here is that there is that stigma, there still is that stigma. And as a person like yourself, who is a professional in this industry, like you're in it, you're doing research, you're a scientist? Let's talk a little bit about like, what do you do? Like, what's your day? Like, you know, what is all of this work that you are doing? That's hype you up? I want, I want everybody to know all this awesome stuff you're doing? Yeah. So

Dr. Riley Kirk  7:20  
one of the beautiful things about the cannabis industry is no two days are the same. So like my, my day to day is very hard to kind of predict. But I will say I do travel a lot. I travel a lot, a lot. And that's going to different conferences to present our data that's just going to different labs, seeing different people what they're up to new extractions, kind of all of that stuff. I'm actually going to South Carolina next week to run some experiments, some smoking experiments, actually, which I'm really, really excited about. But in general, what I do is a lot of grant writing, I do laboratory work either at the University of Rhode Island where I do teach classes or at Northeastern University, where we have lab space there as well. I teach courses online, that some days during some periods of time, I just essentially work on my podcast, I work on other short form educational material, like recording tiktoks, and short YouTube videos. And then just other kind of logistic things for our nonprofit because we're only two people. And we're doing a lot of research. So between writing, conducting the research and just the logistics, that's almost like two full time jobs in itself. And then we're doing a lot

Dr. Carlen Costa  8:35  
No kidding. Oh my god, this. But like you like social media, like you blew up on social media, like you're killing the game there, which I love, especially because social media. Like you can't say weed. You can't say cannabis. You can't say these words. So I love seeing all the like creative ways people are talking about their broccoli or their gardening habits. You know,

Dr. Riley Kirk  8:59  
I have mixed feelings about that, to be honest. When I when I when I first started making content on tick tock and it was during the pandemic like 2020 I was like, what is the scientist to do at home? I'll make tic TOCs like why not right? So um, when I first started like censorship wasn't that bad. I could say cannabis. I could say THC. I could say hemp, CBD whatever it was, then something just like switched where all of a sudden, like every video is getting removed that or just shadow banned, like 500 views and you're like, Okay, come on. Like, I know, this video can do better than that. But yeah, so something switched and it got really negative. So everyone started self censoring. And as an educator like it's very frustrating because the information you're putting out is meant to help people and reduce harm and like act as a resource for people to reference and when you can't use the right terminology to describe something it like, oh, like puts a dagger in my heart like I really, really don't like having to censor the word cannabis. Because to me, it's such a medicinal plan and such a positive to my life and to society that, like I often don't censor the word cannabis. And that's why my Instagram still, you know, in jail mode, like I can't be shown to the masses, but to me like it's just not worth it my ethics right now are just a little too radical. I don't want to censor, but I understand to like reach more people, you could censor yourself and that could increase the value of your message. So it's kind of this like, double edged sword where it's like, you know, what do you do? Because, yeah, I use the word gardening when I tried to reach like a larger audience, but for my general content, I I usually just use the word cannabis.

Dr. Carlen Costa  10:45  
Yeah, yeah. Well, I mean, like, I get it, right. I'm a clinical sexologist as well. So when I talk about sex, right, when I talk about sex, or sexual assault, or you know, big things that are stigmatized, HIV, any of that kind of stuff, STDs, like the shadow bands, the like, the limitations are a little bit ridiculous, right? And so I can appreciate that that's definitely a barrier that you have to face on a daily basis as you make your content to reach people. Yeah,

Dr. Riley Kirk  11:17  
and I think you brought up a really good point that is not just us. It's not just like cannabis is the only thing in the world where you're censored. You know, I found a lot of like, sex workers are also, you know, highly censored, and they're not putting up anything that's dangerous. They're just showing, you know, really simple things, but because of the nature of what they do, and what they're associated with, you know, they're not allowed to be shown to anyone because they're dangerous, just like I'm dangerous, you know, because people people can't see this part of the world. Yeah, we're

Dr. Carlen Costa  11:45  
super dangerous stoners. Yeah. But like, in terms of like research, though, you know, as a cannabis researcher, as a woman, you know, what have been some of the barriers or challenges even in psychedelic research, cannabis research that you have, you know, encountered you write grants, like, oh, I can just imagine, like how hard it is to make a living in this industry still, even with legalization in like Canada, for example. But, you know,

Dr. Riley Kirk  12:17  
yeah, I'll start by saying the researchers aren't the ones making money. We're, we're doing a lot of work for free or cheap, just because we believe in the message and like, we believe in getting word out about this medicine. But yeah, in general, there's been a TON TON of obstacles and barriers. And I think one of the big ones is most research when we're thinking about researching anything else is government funded research. Right? We're working with the NIH, then National Institute of Health. NIDA, the National Institute on drugs of abuse has funded most cannabis research. And you can imagine what lens that is studied under when it's funded by that source. So there's certain things that we do apply for government funding for that we think a certain project would qualify. But in general, when we're trying to research actual cannabis and our actual community that's using it, we can't use government funding, because we, we want to use products that are available in a dispensary. And with any government funding, it is impossible, and I'm using the word impossible correctly here, it is impossible to use products that are actually available to people and patients, actual consumers. You can't use it to research it through government funding, you have to go through the approved sources of cannabis, which is like, for lack of better words, the shittiest meds you could ever find, like ever. That's what they have. And nobody would ever use that cannabis for medicine. Like it's not relevant. And we're trying to do not just relevant research, but like tangible, applicable research. So we need real products that are available to people. And, you know, I will say there's a lot of big companies in the industry who have been great supporters of our mission and have supported specific projects or endeavors. And that's what we need is funding within the cannabis industry to fund this research. Because then we can kind of keep the money within and not have to abide or change the script, depending on where that funding is coming from.

Dr. Carlen Costa  14:22  
Do you think some of that will shift because and please correct me if I'm wrong, because maybe I read this wrong but didn't Biden just because you're in America, I'm here in Canada? Didn't he just changed like the classification of cannabis like from a class one to three or something and but that was a really positive thing for you guys.

Dr. Riley Kirk  14:40  
Yeah. So this is very mixed feelings in the industry right now. I think most people who are pro cannabis don't like this because it's essentially just a political move and it should be D scheduled instead of rescheduled to schedule three, because it's still within the class of like compounds like testosterone or codeine with Tylenol. So it's still thought of as pretty dangerous that requires a pharmacists to dispense that medicine if it were to be a an approved drug medicine. So there's pros and cons for sure. I do think there's pros and cons. But unfortunately, research will not change, at least until something else is proposed. Because, you know, if this happened in 2021, or 2020, it would have changed everything for us, like researchers would have been jumping, screaming, celebrating. But in 2022, a law was passed called the medical marijuana and cannabidiol research expansion act. And essentially, this act was supposed to expand our ability to research cannabis. But instead, it really just put all of the control into the DEA into the government to control who's allowed to research cannabis and where they get their material from, regardless of how cannabis is scheduled. So, you know, it could be schedule five, and we would still have to jump through the same hoops that we're currently jumping through. So there will be a few things that would be easier as far as research goes. But at the end of the day, we're still fully controlled, as far as who's allowed to do it and what they're allowed to use for their research.

Dr. Carlen Costa  16:14  
Wow. So maybe you're just gonna have to move to Canada. And we'll just have to be like IRL friends is what's gonna have to happen. I think

Dr. Riley Kirk  16:20  
I'm like, shockingly close to Canada. I live in northern New Hampshire. So it's like I'm, I'm like, I go to Canada a lot. I have family in like Northern New York. And they're like five minutes from the border. So we hop over and buy some smoked meats like, often. Yeah, I love that gray. It's just like what I associate with Canada is like really good smoked meats,

Dr. Carlen Costa  16:43  
you can also come and do some research here out No, but I appreciate that, like those limitations that we are still facing like in North America, in you know, 2020 for your research, or your professor like you're in it, and it sounds like one of the hardest jobs. So not only, you know, gathering that information, doing that, like the proper research, like actual research friends, not like I Googled it, and like, I came up with an opinion. Just as an aside, shifting just a little bit in our conversation. One of the things I encountered myself, as a mental health professional, you know, when I speak to people about you know, their experiences, either with cannabis with psychedelics, everyone's always looking for data, right, qualitative, quantitative, they're looking for the measurement tools, but there is like a sense of mysticism and all that comes with the psychedelic experience, the cannabis experience, how do you kind of navigate or integrate that? Or is that just kind of like you recognize it, but I just need to keep the research a little bit away from it. Because the money? Yeah, no,

Dr. Riley Kirk  17:53  
that's a really good question. And the way that I deal with it through my research is by doing different kinds of research, and using different kinds of research to kind of put these pieces together. And also like operating under the understanding that we don't currently have the tools and we maybe never will, to fully understand the medicinal potential of psychedelics, or have cannabis of any of these kind of entheogens or spiritual medicines, you know, and I don't know if we have to, but a lot of the laboratory data we do has to do with enzymes in your body and your endogenous cannabinoid system and, and how that works with different populations of people and how different strains of cannabis can react with different bodies differently. And that's very rigorous science. That's where we're, you know, in the laboratory, mostly just doing things via like, bench work, we're not dosing people with things and saying, How does this make you feel, you know, it's just like bench work stuff. And then we do a bunch of like, survey, longitudinal data type work as well, where we're asking the cannabis community, you know, if you have these medical conditions, what products worked for you what dose worked for you, you know, what cultivars worked for you. And we believe that the community has so much knowledge, you know, cannabis consumers have been, I started consuming when I was 14 years old, and I'm 30 now. And the stories exist everywhere and people are experts within our community. We just never had a safe open space for people to share that knowledge. So part of what we're trying to do is, you know, give people the voice and allow people to contribute to this data from researchers they trust. I mean, you'll see me heading bongs, blondes, joints, everything on the internet if you if you just Google me, you know, and that facilitates this feeling of trust with people they say, Oh, she's a stoner to like, I mean, think of it from a consumer perspective. Would you rather share your cannabis use experience with me or with the federal government? Like it's probably gonna be me if you're a cannabis consumer and same thing with me If I wanted to share my data, I would want to share it with someone within the community who's doing the right thing with that data and gonna represent it in a good way and not change the narrative. So I think we've liked for a long time and just waiting for researchers within the industry to kind of rise up and start producing data that represents people more than just like, Okay, this single molecule helped in this single laboratory study for this really specific, you know, condition or whatever. Whereas we can look at things from more of a community level or a, you know, global level and say, okay, in general, older people are using these types of products at these doses, or oh, people with fibromyalgia are using these products. And, you know, we can start to learn just based off what people are already doing, and use that to guide future research and then, you know, more educated way, Goddess like,

Dr. Carlen Costa  20:50  
like, that's it like, that's right, like, let the people teach you. Yes. You know, I'm a big fan of that in the cannabis in the cannabis industry, because cannabis has been around before all of these things, right? Yeah. All of these like data points needed to exist. Cannabis has been here forever. We know how cannabis works for us, we know what feels good, and what doesn't. Instead of, you know, looking at research and being like, we don't have any data to start from, it's like, no, you do you have an entire population of people who have been consuming cannabis, using cannabis, all the ways cannabis and psychedelics in so many different ways. It's like, why don't we just ask the people,

Dr. Riley Kirk  21:32  
right? And it's like, you know, everyone always says, we don't have enough research. But you know, we have over 30,000 published papers, peer reviewed published papers about the endocannabinoid system and cannabis and the different constituents. The a huge issue is that we don't have people communicating that research back to the people who are actually using the plant and using the medicine. So then the people who are the consumers just don't know about the research, and they can't use that research to guide their decisions and make you know, better decisions for their health and wellness. And that's something I'm super passionate about, you know, helping fill that gap between the research and the consumer. Because, you know, science is written in a language that nobody understands. I don't even want to read those papers and like I'm trained to and you know, if I can read the paper, and then you know, show it back to the people in like a really fun entertaining way, then I've done my job for that one paper but we need like a army of people doing this for like, every single you know, background, whether it's, you know, there's amazing neuroscience communicators, cannabis and inflammation, just everything, we just need people communicating more agree.

Dr. Carlen Costa  22:41  
Let's talk about it. And like there's two things here that kind of popped into my mind as we're chatting is first, like in Canada, for example, you know, when we're talking about like, a lack of communication or like that gap. What I found was that when cannabis legalized here in Canada, we had like, you know, the bro dude invasion of the industry. So like all of these people from like alcohol, or like Coca Cola, right, who just saw cannabis as like, let's make money off of people happened. And it became this like whole bro dude, culture, an industry driven by men, which I think really separated the consumer from the product in a really negative way. And has been like informing the government in really negative ways. And then the other parts of what we're discussing here is how I do see, however, a lack and I don't know if it's a lack of research, but definitely a lack of communication for how psychedelics and cannabis impact women, female bodies, people with vulva and vaginas? And that, like, can we talk a little bit about women? And like, how are women showing up in the psychedelic space in the cannabis space? Like, what are you seeing? What are you experiencing? And like, what do we need to know? I mean, there's 10 questions that I'm so but we'll start with,

Dr. Riley Kirk  24:03  
I will also just like piggyback on that and say, the best educators I know, in this industry, are women like hands down, there's absolutely no question about it. And, you know, I don't want it to seem like too, like maternal here, because I don't want to attribute everything to that. But I do think that the way that women communicate, and the way that women educate has a lot more story and empathy. And you know, it's more than just like me trying to market my product to you, which is what a lot of the male dominated education seems like it's like, oh, yeah, I'll provide you with a snip of education, but also buy my product, you know, whereas a lot of the women in the industry are just, you know, providing the information out there because we believe that the information should be out there. And it's not promotional. It's not marketing. It's really just talking about wellness and balance. But when we talk about like how women react to things versus men, we know women and men react to that. things very differently. We know that women react to cannabis products differently depending on where they're at in their cycle, which makes sense because your pain thresholds change through cycle while your endocannabinoid system is also changing through your cycle. So even like you might find that certain times of the month, your like tolerance is really high out of nowhere or really low out of nowhere, like and that's part of this fluctuation through hormone cycling. And men experience some level of you know, differences in hormone cycling to just, you know, less extreme. There's also the the component of women have more body fat than men typically, just because you know, whether it's your breasts or just like the different parts of your body, we're tend to be a little squishy here. And it's, it's beautiful. We love it, right. But you know, endocannabinoids, and well and cannabinoids are are stored in fat, and they're also synthesized from fat. So there's a lot of evidence that women are producing different levels of endocannabinoids to because we do have different levels of fat. And this is part of the reason why that would cycle throughout the month as well. So there's a lot of differences, but where I think we need more research is really in pregnancy, and breastfeeding and even postpartum care. Because, you know, for anxiety, depression, we don't talk about it a lot, because everyone's like, Oh, you can't have any cannabis like the second you find out you're pregnant, stop cold turkey and don't even sniff it for you know, the next year. I think that's extremely impractical, especially for medical patients, we haven't really started that conversation. It's not like somebody's all of a sudden, not a medical patient the day they become pregnant. So, you know, I and a lot of people just lie about it, because nobody will actually hear them out. And I think this is why we need to have the conversation about it, instead of just saying, Nobody should do it ever, period, move on, you know, we need to compare it to anti nausea medications, anti anxiety, anti depression medications that women are currently on, we need to think about the mental health of that woman and what it means, you know, to have better or worse mental health for you and the baby, there's significant risks with higher stress levels, higher cortisol levels that can be exposed the baby as well, if the moms really stressed out, and I think in general, teaching the harm reduction protocol of essentially saying if you have to consume cannabis while you're pregnant, you know, use as little THC as you possibly can. Try not to smoke, smoking anything during pregnancy can statistically lower the birth weight of the child, whether that's nicotine or cannabis, it's really just the process of smoking. So like, what about what about edibles? What about dry? Or vaping? Can we use what's called the therapeutic minimum, or the smallest amount of product possible to get the desired health benefits? You know, that's essentially micro dosing is what I'm talking about. But, you know, I'm not trying to like give medical advice to any of the listeners, I'm just trying to bring up these conversations that honestly need to happen because they are medical conversations. And even like from the day you get pregnant, should you stop cold turkey if you are a heavy daily cannabis consumer, or should you taper off like you do every single other drug that you would ever take like, you should taper off. It's healthier for you and the baby. Yeah. Including

Dr. Carlen Costa  28:25  
nicotine. Yes, right. Like smoker. If someone smokers become pregnant, we tell them to taper because it is such a shock to your system, and a stress to the fetus, that like it's too much cannabis would be the same. And I'm not gonna lie Riley like, I don't have children. So I haven't born any children of my body. But I have ADHD. I'm on medication for ADHD. And my brain is actually like my brain, my emotions, my everything just feels magical. Right now, I'm also a daily cannabis consumer, right? Like, I have a mix right now that makes me feel really fucking good. And I can function. And I feel awesome. And one of the things that I am thinking about, you know, is like, I'm 40. So I have a tiny little window of time. And I'm considering like, do I want to have a kid? Do I want to have a baby? But one of the biggest things that is keeping me from being like full on Yes, is I don't know how I'll be able to take care of myself for two years minimum. If I become pregnant, and I can't take my ADHD meds and I can't consume my cannabis. And my body is taken over by a by a parasite and it's gonna go through a huge fucking trauma, because birth and labor is a huge, huge trauma. And how long is it going to take me to recover from that you know, like, and then if I do say like, fuck it, I'm just going to take my chances go into harm. duction model, who can I talk to about that? How can I talk to my partner about that? How do I talk to anybody about that?

Dr. Riley Kirk  30:06  
Yeah, and this is something that so many people deal with. And so many women feel alone with this topic specifically. And I cannot tell you the amount of DMS I get about this all the time, just saying like, hey, I want to have kids, but like, I can't live without my medicine. And I'm like, You're not You're not alone. There's so many people that can't take that weight on their brain when they finally found their steady state. And they said, I can operate really well right now. And then thinking about getting pregnant and how to dump all of that aside for, as you said, two years is like, yeah, that's kind of the timeline that you're looking at. And that's if you have one kid, and that's if I breastfeed Exactly. And then so the other thing is, we really don't have a lot of data or really any that saying that cannabis is detrimental to the baby's health and well being but that lack of evidence is what we're just talking about. And I would say for the next 15 years, physicians are going to keep saying we don't have enough data, we don't have enough evidence, you should absolutely not do that. It's horrible. Like I got in a fight with someone on Tiktok about this, because I was essentially saying like, Well, my harm reduction model is like if this is what's keeping the mother alive and happy and thriving, like I think, essentially microdose in cannabis is fine. And then this OBGYN was essentially like, no, never like, you should never be spilling that out into the world and blah, blah, blah. And I'm like, This is why people don't send you those messages. And they send me those messages because they come from your office, and then message me because you don't make people feel safe with what they know about their body. Like, I mean, at the end

Dr. Carlen Costa  31:40  
of the day, fire trends. Hear it though, here it is, and

Dr. Riley Kirk  31:44  
I'm not a medical professional, like I am not a physician, and I will never claim to be one. But I do know a lot about the endocannabinoid system and I read a lot of research and I think where it becomes detrimental is when you're using really high doses of THC products consistently. And I think a way to reduce harm there is use more CBD forward project products don't smoke, use the therapeutic minimum. And to me, I do believe that that is safer than using Zofran during your first trimester of pregnancy for your nausea and vomiting. I would I would turn to cannabis before Zofran any day, but that's just my personal opinion. Yeah,

Dr. Carlen Costa  32:23  
yeah, yeah, no, no. Should I share that opinion as well? Right? Especially if you're already a cannabis consumer, in fact, right? Especially if you're already in that space like making that switch. I rarely rarely take other than my ADHD meds that I'm on now. And I love I don't take Advil on the regular I don't take Tylenol on the regular I don't take anything. So when I need an Advil, I take it and I'm like, I'm gone. Yeah, right. So like for example, I had an endometriosis attack on the weekend. I had a huge flare up and I was in so much so much pain that even like my CBD, the cannabis like it just wasn't hitting it in a way that I could like get out of bed. So I took an Advil I took an Advil muscle and joint reliever because I was like, let's try this on, you know. And then I had to I was supposed to go for Mother's Day and I had to call my family and was like, I'm sorry friends. I literally can't I cannot drive because the Advil is working. Like it's very

Dr. Riley Kirk  33:23  
mature of you. Oh, good job for saying that you can drive because I do think that's what cannabis consumers are really good with their mind body connection and understanding. And I think that's part of why like cannabis and driving isn't as much of an issue as we originally thought is like, I think a lot of cannabis consumers know where their limits are. And it's not like alcohol where you feel so fearless. You know, when you when you drink a lot of alcohol. No cannabis consumers like I don't want to move fast right now. Like I'm, I'm good. I'm gonna stay here. But I'm the same way about pharmaceuticals. Like I almost just cut off my thumb. I don't know if you saw that on Instagram, but you know, almost did that. And so I have 10 stitches, like right here right now. And all I used was cannabis and I think I ended up taking two Tylenol like the first two nights for the pain, but that's it and everyone's like, oh, like talking about opiates. And I'm like, I don't feel the need to take opiates like this is cannabis like I was dabbing. I was taking a lot of cannabis but you know, dabs and a two Tylenol and I feel great. And it's pretty much all healed. Yeah.

Dr. Carlen Costa  34:32  
And that's harm reduction in and of itself. Right. Like, that's what it is. So then when you do use the pharmaceuticals, they actually work and that's what I love about that hybrid model of like plant based medicine versus like pharmacological medicine right? There is a space that both can exist. I often talk about that right, the sacred and the science or whatever you want to call it right? There is a space that both can exist and we can use both But if things people like your MD like your doctors, or researchers or anybody who's making this big in from in sharing big information, or guiding patients, for example, don't have the proper access or, or information to guide people to be able to have or the time or the time, or the interest or the stigma, right. That's where we're running into challenges. That's where people like you and me, even for myself, when a patient comes in, and this happens all the time, all the time, I'll have somebody come in and be like, you know, I have ADHD, or I have depression, or I have anxiety, or I'm on medication for bipolar, or any of that work. And they'll come to me and they'll be like, so then I read this like, article in like, you know, we'd went to one magazine, and it was like, I can start micro dosing weed or psychedelics, instead of taking my my pharmacy, you know, my pills. And I'm doing that it's been great for this month, and I was like, Okay, I'll see you in a week, because you're about to crash real fucking hard, right? And it's that lack of thinking that we can have both. And we can use both quite effectively. In order to support our systems and our wellness in our house,

Dr. Riley Kirk  36:24  
I would almost argue you have to use both to get actual wellness and growth and healing. Because, you know, I see that all the time with people where cannabis doesn't work for them. You know, pharmaceuticals don't work for them. It's like, okay, well, what other work are you doing in your life? Like, is your relationship good with your partner? Are you alone? Do you go outside? Do you get vitamin D? Are you eating well? Are you sleeping? Well, it's like, and just understanding your relationship with substance, you can't just smoke weed and all your problems are fixed. And all of a sudden, you're healthy and like, you know, thriving in life, it takes you know, a lot of work and some people don't react well the weed and that's totally fine. Some people react really well to it. But even that you still need something beyond weed, you need community, you need friendship, you need to be able to share the other parts of your life. Or you're just dragging yourself, you're not healing, you're just dragging yourself like, you know, and I really do think psychedelics and cannabis are some of the best healing tools, but they're tools to use within community and within yourself. And, you know, to really, you know, focus on your growth. And I think when we stop treating them as tools, and as you know Cevallos, then that's kind of where we get into the, the gray space of it, not necessarily working.

Dr. Carlen Costa  37:39  
Yeah, no, I love that. That is an incredible point. And it kind of brings me into the space of talking a little bit about cannabis psychedelics, I want to touch a little bit on ADHD specifically, because I'm neuro spicy, if you've been following this podcast, you know, I'm spicy, I have ADHD, it's a good time. But one of the ways that I have coped in my life, or one of the tools that I have just naturally gravitated towards whether it was to work through PTSD, or even to treat my undiagnosed ADHD because I'm a late diagnosed human, I was just diagnosed in the last couple of years. You know, cannabis is one of those things that just people I find naturally gravitate towards. Because our brains are so fast and just so busy, the busy brain, that it just feels like it just like chews everything out. But we had talked about cannabis and driving, right? Just a minute ago. And one of the interesting like, and this is just an anecdote, okay, so please don't take this as like science or anything. But this is just an anecdote that I have just observed. Which is one of the ways that I will be curious if you have ADHD is if you can smoke and drive. Because when we consume cannabis, it boosts up our dopamine, right? What do people with ADHD not have enough of dopamine, dopamine. So it's curious because so many people that I know that are neuro spies, not all of them, but many of them who are cannabis consumers who are also neuro spicy, they'll be like, guy can drive in smoke. It just like makes me actually focus and like I'm here. I'm more present. And I'm like, that is wild, right? It's that dopamine connection. So can we talk a little bit about ADHD cannabis, even just psychedelics? We won't talk about psilocybin Yeah,

Dr. Riley Kirk  39:34  
also just starting with more of just like the neuro spicy in general. One of the studies we did that had about 5000 people participating 51% identified as neuro spicy in some way and we're like, Okay, I think there's something here with the neurodivergent community and cannabis because we have a lot of data on adults with autism and autistic children. You know, autistic adults and autistic children reacting very, very positively to cannabis because there's also data that autistic people produce lower levels of endogenous cannabinoids. So then when you're supplementing using the plant, it really just like fills that gap perfectly and really helps people who are very sensitive to sounds and touches and overstimulation in general just feel a little more at ease. And I think that's great. But as far as ADHD, we're missing a lot of research, but we do have some really cool community data. And I think this is very applicable because I mean, any kind of stimulant that somebody with ADHD is on, it just kind of makes your brain go at ease and you can focus on things and like you can, you know, be really productive and like the right ways, which is awesome. And certain strains, specifically ones that are dominant in the terpene terpinolene I don't know if you've ever heard of her pentylene Um, they've shown to be very very helpful for people with ADHD because it has that stimulant like effect. And I can say this I we had this talk in the beginning but like I have a very ADHD like brain I am not diagnosed ADHD but like as my husband, you know, it's, it's a problem. But anyway, if I need to clean that house, if I need to write a paper if I need to just like get something done, I will smoke a tr pentylene dominant strain my favorite ever is Jack Harrer. But anything that's crossed with a jack Jackson Hayes's, they edge ADHD people's brains like perfectly.

Dr. Carlen Costa  41:30  
That's why I love Jackie. I was like, Oh my God. Yeah,

Dr. Riley Kirk  41:34  
that's why I love Jack hair. That's why I love Jack hair. It's like the best feeling in the world and nothing's like it. Like I remember the first time I smoked Jack and I was like, What is going on in my brain right now like, This is the weirdest feeling ever. And then I went on just like a journey just trying to find all the jack Pratt I'm growing Jack hair hair this year, like the plant because I'm just so obsessed with it. I'm also Jack hair is like a very notorious advocate. He's passed away, but he's very notorious advocate in the cannabis space. So that name has, you know, multiple beautiful connotations. But interestingly, you know, people who have non ADHD brains and maybe more towards like an autistic type brain tend to react better to the more not stimulating, but like chiller called the virus, which are a lot of your purple cultivars, your ones that have the terpene profiles of like myrcene, and caryophyllene. Like that really chill lower, like, typically, autistic brains really like those types of products. And this is something our nonprofit is like very passionate about researching is essentially neuro typing cannabis, and figuring out what types of brains react to things better or worse, because, you know, so many people have severe anxiety and THC like makes them want to crawl out of their skin. And I get that and we don't want that experience to happen to anyone. So we can do the background research and figure out you know, what cohorts of people react better to what types or cultivars of products talk about harm reduction and talk about like, really reducing the barrier, because weed is expensive, and people can't afford to try 30 different strains until they find one that works for them. Like, we need better methods at finding good products. So that's what we're kind of hoping to develop for the space now. And as far as psychedelics, I don't necessarily know if there's specific research or data on, you know, psychedelics, helping, but I know that they can help again, kind of similar to what we're talking about with autistic adults, with a very sensory overload kind of situation, especially in public. If you're micro dosing psilocybin, it can really help with your communication barriers that you might have, if you feel like you're trapped in your body a lot, and you're unable to get words out. microdosing has really helped people kind of facilitate connection and conversation and those situations that can be really hard for a lot of people.

Dr. Carlen Costa  44:04  
Yeah, no, I love that you share that. Thank you, I actually have a couple autistic clients who, you know, I support them with their microdosing access information and, and how they're making that work. But then also with ADHD, all the lovely little spicy brains that I chat with, and how can we, you know, be mindful of that, like our neuro type, but then also, you know, how do I want to treat myself right? Like if you just want to go like full on pharmaceutical go off, you know what I mean? But if you want to introduce some plant medicine, then let's talk about it. I

Dr. Riley Kirk  44:44  
love the I love having options. I think everybody should have options. And that's why you'll never like see my content was like if you have ADHD, you should be doing this like I would never do that. I'm just trying to like put information out there. And then and allow people to use that as a tool in their wellness journey. Like I don't need to know everything because as you were saying, like, your past trauma, your past medications, your past, literally every experience in your life contributes to how you're going to heal and what journey you're going to take. And four seconds of a stranger on the internet is not going to provide the nuance that you need for that journey, like you need somebody to likely help you along that journey. And that's totally okay, if not fully encouraged.

Dr. Carlen Costa  45:29  
Yeah, I absolutely agree with that. One of the things that comes up, though, and I just want to talk about because I read one of the interviews that you that you did, and the question is this are neurodivergent people more or less likely to experience hallucinogen persisting perception disorder, right? Because that is one of the things that comes up when I talk to people about cannabis when I talked to them about psychedelics, right, it's, but is this am I going to continue when I'm off the medicine or not using it hallucinations? Is it going to persist? So that's what hallucinogen persisting perception disorder is, is this idea that when you're not consuming any of the the plant medicine, that you are continuously still brought into those spaces into, you know, you'll be hallucinating and stuff, right, you touched on it a little bit. And I just wanted to kind of calm people Yeah, a

Dr. Riley Kirk  46:26  
bit. So that definitely like, should not happen to, I would say anyone that is experiencing it. And I don't think if somebody is experiencing it, it's from the actual act of molecule like interacting with your brain repeatedly. I think instead of maybe due to essentially like if you've ever heard the phrase neurons that fire together, wire together. And essentially what that means is like, if you've developed a certain neuro pathway in your brain, it is more likely to continue down that neuro pathway. So maybe while taking psychedelics, or if you're a heavy cannabis user, you've developed certain neural pathways in your brain, which may lead to some sort of, you know, visual hallucination, and you might experience small amounts of that. But I wouldn't say that's a very common phenomenon to be afraid about, it's important to know it does not happen to a lot of people. And when it does happen, I think that's more of somebody being genetically susceptible to some other condition in their, in their brain, which might be a mental health condition that they might need to seek additional help for. But that sort of like acute, I'm going to call it acute psychosis, I don't know if that's the right term, I don't know. It's very uncommon. So I wouldn't allow that to hold you back. But I will also say, this is again, not medical advice, I'm just gonna say it. This is my experience. If I were to be experiencing psychedelics for the first time, or getting into cannabis for the first time, I'm not going to start with a hero dose, I'm not going to say I want to see God today and just start taking, you know, eight grams, 10 grams of mushrooms, like, that is not the way I would take my journey. What I typically recommend for people, specifically people who are hesitant, like very, very hesitant, it's okay to be hesitant, it is a big endeavor mentally to you know, go down and you should be prepared. And you should do the right, you know, work to get there. But essentially, start with a microdose start with point two, five grams, 250 milligrams, that still might allow you to feel something, allow you to get comfortable in that brain space and say, Okay, this isn't scary, I'm okay with this. And then maybe the next time you try it, take a half a gram, that you'll definitely feel something, you'll feel something different, you might feel a little bit of the nausea. And then again, you can say, Okay, well, this is what my brand is going to feel like, Do I even want to take this to the next level ever, you don't have to, like a lot of people find their therapeutic dose there. But you know, just don't feel pressured to experience that level of hallucinogens or hallucinations. Because you don't have to to get the medicinal benefits from it, you can still get so many benefits from using lower amounts and you don't have to worry about that sort of, you know, longer psychological damage goes

Dr. Carlen Costa  49:13  
slow. We don't like it. So we don't need to see God today, maybe one day if you want to, but like, let's just like be aware of that this is a medicine right? No, no doctor would even put you on a pharmaceutical at the full dose like unless it was like a huge antibiotic and your resistance some type of way. You know what I mean? Like, this is like start low and go slow is consistently the message with every intentional cannabis educators, psychedelic informed educator of any kind.

Dr. Riley Kirk  49:45  
Yeah, you have to I mean, because we've all seen what happens when people don't go slow and that's when it does resolve and oftentimes, you know, not always the best experiences and sometimes I've had a bad trip myself. You know, I have a I have a interesting perspective on this. But I've even seen my own, quote, bad trip. And some other people I've seen have a bad trip, they're typically educational opportunities. And honestly, they lead to some pretty profound healing that you didn't even know you needed until you figure out that brain space. So even things that seem like they're negative in the moment can still be spun off as positive. But that's where it's so important to have your integration steps after your journey and say, Okay, what does that mean? Like, what, you know, what was my brain going through? And what does that mean for now? What does that mean for the future journal a little bit, I paint a lot when I integrate, I love painting. So like, that's a fun way for me. But you know, it can look different. We'll even just call a friend sometimes when I need to integrate and be like, Hey, do you have a minute to talk and, you know, we talk and go through it that way. So this is kind of like those other tools, too, that you need is you need to understand the process of a psychedelic experience. It's not just dosing yourself, you know, it's your intention going into it, then it's the journey, then it's the integration. And if you miss either of those book ends, it's just not going to be the same healing experience that it could have been.

Dr. Carlen Costa  51:12  
Setting setting love setting setting, you know, for cannabis to Yeah, exactly, especially for cannabis as well, you know, but I do love how you said, overconsumption experience is an opportunity to learn something, right? Like, that just reminds me of like, you know, purging is power sometimes, especially when we're talking about plant medicine. Right? Purging is power. So it's like, what do you have to learn from when you're grinning out or wedding out? Or whatever it is that you're calling it? Right? What is it that you have to learn? Is that is that this a call for you actually, to maybe like, slow down? Or like what are you trying to mix too much of mine time

Dr. Riley Kirk  51:49  
it was mine. I literally, I remember that day, I was way overworked. I just come off like a 14 hour day. And I'm like, I'm gonna do mushrooms. And then it was that like, somebody I didn't know his house, took more mushrooms, because he was just like, offering them and then honestly had like, the worst time ever like, like devils and like terrible stuff. But then, you know, the next day, I was like, wow, I was like, not respecting this medicine at all. I was just like, eating it like candy, not even thinking about what dose was going into my body, what my set and setting were like, you know, I wasn't thinking about any of that. And now moving forward, not only am I better at cultivating that experience for myself, but I'm very aware of it for other people, too, who haven't had a bad experience. And I can help prevent that bad experience from happening, which is a really, you know, beautiful thing is being able to cultivate a psychedelic trip for someone that really changes their perspective on the medicine.

Dr. Carlen Costa  52:44  
Yeah, I love that. And if you're a woman listening, right, being aware of your hormones in that time, right, being aware that if you are going to microdose whether it's cannabis or psychedelics, but especially cannabis, because it does respond to our estrogen, right estrogenic cannabis and in our bodies, what a time what a journey, what what a research paper, you know, and being aware that at the beginning of your cycle, the middle of your cycle, and at the end of your cycle, your experience with cannabis will not be the same. I like saying, you know, when the estrogen is low, my tolerance is high. When my estrogen is high, my tolerance is low. And for me, what that means is that, you know, during my week, my PMS week, I have PMDD, unfortunately, so my estrogen is like on the fucking floor is where it's living at that time. And I can take like, you know, anywhere from a 50 to 100 gram edible and four milligram Oh, milligram sorry. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. milligram COVID. I said, I think grams, that's a lot. I'll do that. milligram milligrams. Thank you for that. But then, like when I'm ovulating, or right after my period, when you know, my progesterone, my estrogen are coming back up, my tolerance is really low. So I can just, you know, take like a little five, five milligrams, you know what I mean? Like, or a little 10. And I'm, like, I'm feeling and

Dr. Riley Kirk  54:14  
it's that different, like, that is how much your cycle can change with your tolerance. And I think that's why, if you are a woman and you're curious about this, for a month, try to if you have like a tracker, I wear an aura ring, or if you have a if you just measure your thermometer, if you have other methods of doing that, you know, write down how much products you're using during what days of the month, and I bet you'll start to see a trend of it, of it varying quite a bit throughout your cycle. And it's also a great way to learn about your own body, you know, by by measuring essentially by your tolerance and your cannabis use and how much you need to kind of offset those symptoms.

Dr. Carlen Costa  54:54  
Yeah, I love that. You know, like, I want to spend a whole other episode with you talking about like, turf Beans and terpenes specific stuff and like estrogen specific stuff and all of that, like, ah, there's so many things, we could totally do another Reshef so but you know, there are some people who we do also want to caution with using cannabis. Right? So people with a family history of psychosis, high blood pressure, heart, thyroid disease, even potentially bipolar disorder, you know this, if you're curious, or if you're not sure, how can I use plant medicine? How can I use cannabis? How can I use psychedelics, have a conversation with your doctor, for sure. But if your doctor doesn't seem informed, then reach out to an educator, right? And I'm not talking about the budtender at the dispensary, like they're getting paid minimum wage just to tell you which one to buy, right? Like, we're talking about educators or therapists like myself, who do this work, who learn about it, who read the papers, to learn about how you can use this intent. I love that

Dr. Riley Kirk  55:56  
advice. You know, and I love that you mentioned people other than your doctor too, because so many people don't feel comfortable telling things to their doctor or they just don't want things on their record, which I get I feel you like I fully understand that. And as you mentioned, there's so many different types of educators now you know, whether it is a somebody who specializes mental health, whether it's a farm D, whether it's a cannabis coach that you can actually essentially hire as a medical advocate. Like there's so many different people that you can you can ask for help for who can at least point you in the right direction, or at the very least help you. And you know, I hope someday we all feel comfortable talking to our physicians about cannabis. But you know, I'm pretty loud about cannabis. And I still like my doctor thinks I use like, probably 1/3 of how much cannabis I use, maybe even less than that. So it's good to have other people you dressed?

Dr. Carlen Costa  56:50  
Yeah, yeah, fair, saying, It's fine. It's fine. But Riley, what are you now working on? That's really exciting for you like just to kind of wrap up? What are you working on? Now that's like really getting you excited,

Dr. Riley Kirk  57:03  
I'll tell you about my favorite project we're doing now, which is, this is more of a fun project for community engagement. But it's also my favorite thing to research. And that's the chemistry of cannabis smoke. And the project we have going on is called The Science of smoke ability. And we are researching the cultivation. So what parameters during growing cannabis, and then also the dry and the cure process. So as your cannabis is drying, and it's getting to its, you know, fullest form, what metrics matter for the smoke ability of your final product, because this has never been researched before. But in tangential industries, like the tobacco industry, you know, 50 years ago, they were doing this sort of fundamental research because they understood that people were going to be smoking regardless, even if even a physician say nobody should be smoking, we're still going to be smoking weed. So why don't we research it and understand what makes a quality smokeable product and also for harm reduction? Are there ways that we can cultivate cannabis to reduce the amount of negative compounds entering our body? I would argue Absolutely yes. And this research needs to be done. And it needs to be done in a very public way so that home growers and large scale cultivators and your everyday smokers really know how to quantify quality cannabis and what to look for when you're looking for a nice smokeable flower.

Dr. Carlen Costa  58:29  
That is so cool. I love I'm excited for you right now, like that is really cool. Got it, I'm excited to see how that like what comes from that there's

Dr. Riley Kirk  58:37  
a machine called the combustion machine that we have for these experiments. And it's literally this little box that you put in a joint like into the machine, and it like emulate someone smoking. So it'll like puff for two seconds and take a three second break and puff for two seconds and take a three second break. And then it collects all of the compounds that would be entering your body, but just in the machine. So then we can go analyze that in the lab and figure out what molecules are actually going into our body during the smoking process.

Dr. Carlen Costa  59:08  
Wow. So are you doing just smoking? Like smoking joints? Is that what you mean with the smoking so versus vaping? So

Dr. Riley Kirk  59:14  
we're hoping to do the science of vape ability and x because this is the science of smoke. Okay,

Dr. Carlen Costa  59:19  
smoke abilities. Yeah, let's start here. Sorry, guys. I'm getting excited. I'm getting

Dr. Riley Kirk  59:23  
no but I mean, even if we don't do it, like we very much encourage other people to do the science of vape ability because we want to know and we want to be part of it. But you know, one project at a time even the scientists mobility is it's right now a two year project and I'll probably go on longer than final

Dr. Carlen Costa  59:41  
words what kind of resources or websites or anything would you want? My listeners, your listeners, our community, our community in the cannabis space? Where do you want people to either connect with you or any resources even that you find important that we should know? About

Dr. Riley Kirk  1:00:00  
Yeah, so the resources I have are you know, I definitely am on Instagram and tick tock and YouTube under the name cannabis cam. So that's C A N N A Bi c h e m, I also have my podcast called The bioactive podcast, and that's found on all major streaming platforms, you can also go to bioactive podcast.com. To learn more about that. If you want to learn more about our nonprofit, you can either click the link in my Instagram bio or go to apply to pharmacognosy.org. And learn more about our specific projects we got going on there. There's

Dr. Carlen Costa  1:00:34  
that word again for my cognitive Congressi really fun to say out loud. Just

Dr. Riley Kirk  1:00:39  
I'm glad you think so. Riley, thank

Dr. Carlen Costa  1:00:42  
you so much for being here today. With me, I super appreciate everything like this wealth of knowledge that you are, and just the like bite the small bite that you were able to share with us today.

Dr. Riley Kirk  1:00:53  
Thank you so much for having me on. I love what you're doing with this podcast. And I think these conversations are so so important. So thanks for letting me be part of one. And

Dr. Carlen Costa  1:01:01  
thank you the listener for being here. You know, I appreciate you taking the time. I appreciate you wanting to connect better with you, you know wanting to learn how to love yourself better, because that's what we're doing here in spicy five. So I love you and stay spicy, my friends. I'll talk to you soon.