((PKG)) CANNABIS
((TRT: 09:57))
((Topic Banner: Medical Marijuana))
((Reporter/Camera: Aaron Fedor))
((Producer: Kathleen McLaughlin))
((Editor: Kyle Dubiel))
((Map: Boston, Massachusetts))
((Main character: 1 male))
((Sub characters: 3 female; 2 male))
((NATS: Dr Benjamin Caplan and Kimberly Carvalho))
((Courtesy: Zoom))
((Dr Benjamin Caplan, MD, Chief Medical Officer, CED Clinic))
How have things been going as far as your back? I remember
you had some back trouble that was getting in the way of your
work.
((Kimberly Carvalho, Patient))
I do, yeah. It's been going on for a while. Just I've worked in the
operating room for, you know, many years and…..
((Dr Benjamin Caplan, MD; Chief Medical Officer, CED Clinic))
I went to Tufts Medical School here in Massachusetts. I went to
Boston University, Boston University School of Medicine for a
residency and family medicine. And I practiced
family medicine like your old, traditional general practitioner or
primary care doctor, here in the suburbs of Boston. And I was
faced with an onslaught of patients. I mean, primary care doctors
are in short supply these days. And my patients that I would see,
you know, are trying everything they can to get better, as they
should. And I can only, at the time, I could only offer them the
choices that I'd learned about. And in medical school, you learn
about medicines, you learn about therapies, you learn about,
sort of, natural options but only in cursory. And patients were
telling me that they were trying cannabis and that it was helping
them.
((Dr Benjamin Caplan, MD; Chief Medical Officer, CED Clinic))
And I'm sitting across the table saying, "Great, I'm glad for
you. How, I don't know how to help you." I didn't know anything
at the time.
((Photo Courtesy: Dr Benjamin Caplan))
((Dr Benjamin Caplan, MD; Chief Medical Officer, CED Clinic))
And this was embarrassing and it felt unprofessional. Here I was,
across the table, supposed to be the expert in the room, and my
patients were the ones teaching me what's helping them sleep or
how to, you know, deal with their headaches. And I thought,
“Boy, isn't this a great opportunity for me to learn something and
be able to help people?”
((Dr Benjamin Caplan, MD; Chief Medical Officer, CED Clinic))
So, inside this kief are tiny, little, basically, dusts of cannabis
molecules, and it's almost as if we digested an entire pharmacy
into that powder. And inside that powder, we have all of this
chemistry. These are the main cannabinoids that most people
know about, from Delta-9-THC [Delta-9-tetrahydrocannabinol] or
THC and CBD [Cannabidiol]. Some people are starting to hear
about the sleep cannabinoid, CBN. But actually cannabis, as
a plant, has pages and pages and pages and pages of this stuff. I
mean, we're literally talking about an entire pharmacy. And if you
look closely, you'll find surprising things about
cannabis. Eucalyptol, for example, like eucalyptus; or Geraniol
like a geranium; or the smell from roses; or menthol,
mint, peppermint. And all of these things actually are produced
by the plant naturally. And we can harness all of these
individually.
((NATS))
((Dr Benjamin Caplan, MD; Chief Medical Officer, CED Clinic))
Do you want to see it? It's pretty cool to see. This was the kief
and the wax that we just put in. And you can see there's lots of oil
and kief on the bottom, and it's a little bit hot so we use oven
mitts so I don't hurt myself. And when this is ready, I'll be able to
add terpenes, which give it extra kick and help it penetrate the
skin more deeply.
Then you could have a liquid where someone can put on their
skin or eat. And to help them is just revolutionary.
((NATS: Dr Benjamin Caplan and Sheila Mattie))
((Sheila Mattie, Medical Cannabis User))
After going through about two years and about losing 90 pounds
[40 kilos], I ended up getting an endoscopy, colonoscopy, blood
work, the whole shebang. And I was diagnosed with
Crohn's. But then, I started doing the tincture or the oil. And I
actually have a couple of friends who make that. And so, they
would send me a bottle of the THC, a bottle of the CBD, and it
did wonders. And I never tried to do Humira. I never tried to do
steroids again. I've just solely relied on cannabis. And I'm up 50
pounds [23 kilos]. I can eat. I have an appetite. So, things have
gone back to normal GI [gastrointestinal] wise.
((NATS))
((Dr Benjamin Caplan, MD; Chief Medical Officer, CED Clinic))
So, you know, one of the things that is special as we're sort of
pioneering, you and I, in cannabis,
((Video Courtesy: Dr. Benjamin Caplan/CED Clinic))
exploring and learning to, kind of, know where it works and where
it doesn't. Sometimes, we find pockets of illnesses
that gets remarkably better with cannabis.
((Dr Benjamin Caplan, MD; Chief Medical Officer, CED Clinic))
So professionally, I see an industry that needs shepherding. On
both sides, I sort of feel like the Western medical world needs to
learn about cannabis. They have to understand what's out there
already. They have to understand that
((Video Courtesy: Dr. Benjamin Caplan/CED Clinic))
there is research, that the research points to much more benefit
than potential risk of evil. And they need to be teaching their
patients this reality.
Right now, it's the patients that are teaching their doctors or
patients themselves going it alone or finding people like me who
are outside of the system.
((NATS))
((Jon Napoli, Owner/Founder, Hempest and CannAssist
Consulting Group))
We sell a lot to just regular adults who want to grow their own
plants that are, maybe, gardeners and wanted to expand their
gardening into cannabis. Medical patients usually might have a
caregiver grow for them. Some might grow themselves. Most
doctors, unfortunately, are behind the curve on the understanding
of this. They don't teach you about it in medical school.
((Photo Courtesy: Dr Benjamin Caplan/CED Clinic))
((Jon Napoli, Owner/Founder, Hempest and CannAssist
Consulting Group))
So, anybody like Dr. Caplan who understands cannabis, is a gem
to have, a great resource to help educate the medical field in
general.
((NATS))
((Lee, Medical Cannabis User))
So, this is a GMO strain. It likes to stretch really hard.
The reason why I use cannabis is to give myself a better quality of
life and to mitigate and navigate all of the issues that have
arisen from not just Western medicine but from just all the stuff
with the Crohn's and colitis. I would say before it was legalized in
Massachusetts, it was always a difficult conversation with my
primary care physician. But, because he was a good doctor, after
it became legal, he would listen to me as the reasons why I say,
you know. I'm lucky. I've always had really good medical care.
((NATS))
((Dr Benjamin Caplan, MD; Chief Medical Officer, CED Clinic))
Music can be very solitary where you're playing alone and you
can play your emotions out into the instrument, but it's also a way
to play with other people in a chamber group or an orchestra and
connect. You really have to listen carefully to what someone else
is playing and match them and match their pitch and match their
rhythm. And it's a way to quiet oneself and connect with
someone else. So, actually it's interesting. A lot of musicians
become physicians. Part of that is because we have to learn how
to listen to people or maybe we enjoy listening to other people
and connecting with them.
((NATS))
((Dr Benjamin Caplan, MD; Chief Medical Officer, CED Clinic))
Welcome to my life. It's a strange, hectic mix.
((NATS: Dr Benjamin Caplan with his daughter, son and Erin
Caplan))
Hey, can I have a hug please?
Are we going to have a big birthday for you? We already had a
little bit. So, we had cake this morning. No, we didn't have cake?
((Caplan’s Daughter))
No.
((Erin Caplan, Pediatric Nurse Practitioner))
What did we have this morning?
((Dr Benjamin Caplan, MD; Chief Medical Officer, CED Clinic))
So, no more cake today, right?
((Caplan’s son))
Chocolate donut.
((NATS))
((Erin Caplan, Pediatric Nurse Practitioner))
I'm a pediatric nurse practitioner. I'd say, in pediatrics, I mainly
encounter resistance. I think there's a lot of knowledge out there
that people don't know about. And I think there's a lot of research
about the pediatric brain and the concerns
((Photo Courtesy: Dr Benjamin Caplan))
((Erin Caplan, Pediatric Nurse Practitioner))
for what cannabis can do to that or the effects that it could
have on it. And it's mainly negative. I find that people don't really
study the positive effects that you could get, especially for these
kids
((Photo Courtesy: Dr Benjamin Caplan))
((Erin Caplan, Pediatric Nurse Practitioner))
who have ADHD [Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder] or
epilepsy or other behavioral concerns. I think it just needs to be
discussed more in the pediatric community.
((NATS))
((Dr Benjamin Caplan, MD; Chief Medical Officer, CED Clinic))
One, two, ready, go.
((NATS))
((Dr Benjamin Caplan, MD; Chief Medical Officer, CED Clinic))
I've built the largest cannabis library of medical, published
medical journals anywhere in the world. And I put it
on the Google drive that everybody else in the world, who wants
to read, can follow along. They can read the material same like
I'm reading. And I started to tease out, okay, what kinds of things
do we know about THC?
((Video Courtesy: Dr. Benjamin Caplan/CED Clinic))
And I would write it down. And what kinds of things are we
learning about CBC [Cannabichromene]? And I would write that
down. And I’m just, as I'm learning, I'm also organizing so that I
can build an infrastructure to teach people.
((Video Courtesy: Dr. Benjamin Caplan/CED Clinic))
((Dr Benjamin Caplan, MD; Chief Medical Officer, CED Clinic))
I think if you look at the last three years, cannabis has already
revolutionized the world. I mean, we have all but the three states
now that have some form of cannabis accepted legally by
the state. And that used to be nothing. And so, we've already
come a tremendous amount.
((Dr Benjamin Caplan, MD; Chief Medical Officer, CED Clinic))
I think to go past the finish line, we're going to need doctors
to buy in.
((Video Courtesy: Dr. Benjamin Caplan/CED Clinic))
And in order for doctors to buy in, they need to be educated. So,
one of the things that I tried to do was
((Dr Benjamin Caplan, MD; Chief Medical Officer, CED Clinic))
not confront them as a pom-pom cheerleader, that cannabis is
all great because it's not all great.
((Video Courtesy: Dr. Benjamin Caplan/CED Clinic))
It's a tool in a toolbox. There are many other things that work for
people. Cannabis is a tool which works,
((Dr Benjamin Caplan, MD; Chief Medical Officer, CED Clinic))
but we have to help physicians understand that.
((Popup Banner:
U.S. Federal law bans marijuana use, including as medicine.))
((NATS))
((Dr Benjamin Caplan, MD; Chief Medical Officer, CED Clinic))
That was perfect. Wow! You're doing really well. I'm so
impressed, sweetie. And there's nothing to tell you to do
differently. You did it perfectly.
((Popup Banner:
93% of Americans are in favor of medical marijuana use if
prescribed by a doctor
*Quinnipiac poll))
((Dr Benjamin Caplan, MD; Chief Medical Officer, CED Clinic))
Wow! Want to try it again?
((NATS))
((Caplan’s daughter))
No.
((Dr Benjamin Caplan, MD; Chief Medical Officer, CED Clinic))
No? You're done. Okay.
((NATS))
((TRT: 09:57))
((Topic Banner: Medical Marijuana))
((Reporter/Camera: Aaron Fedor))
((Producer: Kathleen McLaughlin))
((Editor: Kyle Dubiel))
((Map: Boston, Massachusetts))
((Main character: 1 male))
((Sub characters: 3 female; 2 male))
((NATS: Dr Benjamin Caplan and Kimberly Carvalho))
((Courtesy: Zoom))
((Dr Benjamin Caplan, MD, Chief Medical Officer, CED Clinic))
How have things been going as far as your back? I remember
you had some back trouble that was getting in the way of your
work.
((Kimberly Carvalho, Patient))
I do, yeah. It's been going on for a while. Just I've worked in the
operating room for, you know, many years and…..
((Dr Benjamin Caplan, MD; Chief Medical Officer, CED Clinic))
I went to Tufts Medical School here in Massachusetts. I went to
Boston University, Boston University School of Medicine for a
residency and family medicine. And I practiced
family medicine like your old, traditional general practitioner or
primary care doctor, here in the suburbs of Boston. And I was
faced with an onslaught of patients. I mean, primary care doctors
are in short supply these days. And my patients that I would see,
you know, are trying everything they can to get better, as they
should. And I can only, at the time, I could only offer them the
choices that I'd learned about. And in medical school, you learn
about medicines, you learn about therapies, you learn about,
sort of, natural options but only in cursory. And patients were
telling me that they were trying cannabis and that it was helping
them.
((Dr Benjamin Caplan, MD; Chief Medical Officer, CED Clinic))
And I'm sitting across the table saying, "Great, I'm glad for
you. How, I don't know how to help you." I didn't know anything
at the time.
((Photo Courtesy: Dr Benjamin Caplan))
((Dr Benjamin Caplan, MD; Chief Medical Officer, CED Clinic))
And this was embarrassing and it felt unprofessional. Here I was,
across the table, supposed to be the expert in the room, and my
patients were the ones teaching me what's helping them sleep or
how to, you know, deal with their headaches. And I thought,
“Boy, isn't this a great opportunity for me to learn something and
be able to help people?”
((Dr Benjamin Caplan, MD; Chief Medical Officer, CED Clinic))
So, inside this kief are tiny, little, basically, dusts of cannabis
molecules, and it's almost as if we digested an entire pharmacy
into that powder. And inside that powder, we have all of this
chemistry. These are the main cannabinoids that most people
know about, from Delta-9-THC [Delta-9-tetrahydrocannabinol] or
THC and CBD [Cannabidiol]. Some people are starting to hear
about the sleep cannabinoid, CBN. But actually cannabis, as
a plant, has pages and pages and pages and pages of this stuff. I
mean, we're literally talking about an entire pharmacy. And if you
look closely, you'll find surprising things about
cannabis. Eucalyptol, for example, like eucalyptus; or Geraniol
like a geranium; or the smell from roses; or menthol,
mint, peppermint. And all of these things actually are produced
by the plant naturally. And we can harness all of these
individually.
((NATS))
((Dr Benjamin Caplan, MD; Chief Medical Officer, CED Clinic))
Do you want to see it? It's pretty cool to see. This was the kief
and the wax that we just put in. And you can see there's lots of oil
and kief on the bottom, and it's a little bit hot so we use oven
mitts so I don't hurt myself. And when this is ready, I'll be able to
add terpenes, which give it extra kick and help it penetrate the
skin more deeply.
Then you could have a liquid where someone can put on their
skin or eat. And to help them is just revolutionary.
((NATS: Dr Benjamin Caplan and Sheila Mattie))
((Sheila Mattie, Medical Cannabis User))
After going through about two years and about losing 90 pounds
[40 kilos], I ended up getting an endoscopy, colonoscopy, blood
work, the whole shebang. And I was diagnosed with
Crohn's. But then, I started doing the tincture or the oil. And I
actually have a couple of friends who make that. And so, they
would send me a bottle of the THC, a bottle of the CBD, and it
did wonders. And I never tried to do Humira. I never tried to do
steroids again. I've just solely relied on cannabis. And I'm up 50
pounds [23 kilos]. I can eat. I have an appetite. So, things have
gone back to normal GI [gastrointestinal] wise.
((NATS))
((Dr Benjamin Caplan, MD; Chief Medical Officer, CED Clinic))
So, you know, one of the things that is special as we're sort of
pioneering, you and I, in cannabis,
((Video Courtesy: Dr. Benjamin Caplan/CED Clinic))
exploring and learning to, kind of, know where it works and where
it doesn't. Sometimes, we find pockets of illnesses
that gets remarkably better with cannabis.
((Dr Benjamin Caplan, MD; Chief Medical Officer, CED Clinic))
So professionally, I see an industry that needs shepherding. On
both sides, I sort of feel like the Western medical world needs to
learn about cannabis. They have to understand what's out there
already. They have to understand that
((Video Courtesy: Dr. Benjamin Caplan/CED Clinic))
there is research, that the research points to much more benefit
than potential risk of evil. And they need to be teaching their
patients this reality.
Right now, it's the patients that are teaching their doctors or
patients themselves going it alone or finding people like me who
are outside of the system.
((NATS))
((Jon Napoli, Owner/Founder, Hempest and CannAssist
Consulting Group))
We sell a lot to just regular adults who want to grow their own
plants that are, maybe, gardeners and wanted to expand their
gardening into cannabis. Medical patients usually might have a
caregiver grow for them. Some might grow themselves. Most
doctors, unfortunately, are behind the curve on the understanding
of this. They don't teach you about it in medical school.
((Photo Courtesy: Dr Benjamin Caplan/CED Clinic))
((Jon Napoli, Owner/Founder, Hempest and CannAssist
Consulting Group))
So, anybody like Dr. Caplan who understands cannabis, is a gem
to have, a great resource to help educate the medical field in
general.
((NATS))
((Lee, Medical Cannabis User))
So, this is a GMO strain. It likes to stretch really hard.
The reason why I use cannabis is to give myself a better quality of
life and to mitigate and navigate all of the issues that have
arisen from not just Western medicine but from just all the stuff
with the Crohn's and colitis. I would say before it was legalized in
Massachusetts, it was always a difficult conversation with my
primary care physician. But, because he was a good doctor, after
it became legal, he would listen to me as the reasons why I say,
you know. I'm lucky. I've always had really good medical care.
((NATS))
((Dr Benjamin Caplan, MD; Chief Medical Officer, CED Clinic))
Music can be very solitary where you're playing alone and you
can play your emotions out into the instrument, but it's also a way
to play with other people in a chamber group or an orchestra and
connect. You really have to listen carefully to what someone else
is playing and match them and match their pitch and match their
rhythm. And it's a way to quiet oneself and connect with
someone else. So, actually it's interesting. A lot of musicians
become physicians. Part of that is because we have to learn how
to listen to people or maybe we enjoy listening to other people
and connecting with them.
((NATS))
((Dr Benjamin Caplan, MD; Chief Medical Officer, CED Clinic))
Welcome to my life. It's a strange, hectic mix.
((NATS: Dr Benjamin Caplan with his daughter, son and Erin
Caplan))
Hey, can I have a hug please?
Are we going to have a big birthday for you? We already had a
little bit. So, we had cake this morning. No, we didn't have cake?
((Caplan’s Daughter))
No.
((Erin Caplan, Pediatric Nurse Practitioner))
What did we have this morning?
((Dr Benjamin Caplan, MD; Chief Medical Officer, CED Clinic))
So, no more cake today, right?
((Caplan’s son))
Chocolate donut.
((NATS))
((Erin Caplan, Pediatric Nurse Practitioner))
I'm a pediatric nurse practitioner. I'd say, in pediatrics, I mainly
encounter resistance. I think there's a lot of knowledge out there
that people don't know about. And I think there's a lot of research
about the pediatric brain and the concerns
((Photo Courtesy: Dr Benjamin Caplan))
((Erin Caplan, Pediatric Nurse Practitioner))
for what cannabis can do to that or the effects that it could
have on it. And it's mainly negative. I find that people don't really
study the positive effects that you could get, especially for these
kids
((Photo Courtesy: Dr Benjamin Caplan))
((Erin Caplan, Pediatric Nurse Practitioner))
who have ADHD [Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder] or
epilepsy or other behavioral concerns. I think it just needs to be
discussed more in the pediatric community.
((NATS))
((Dr Benjamin Caplan, MD; Chief Medical Officer, CED Clinic))
One, two, ready, go.
((NATS))
((Dr Benjamin Caplan, MD; Chief Medical Officer, CED Clinic))
I've built the largest cannabis library of medical, published
medical journals anywhere in the world. And I put it
on the Google drive that everybody else in the world, who wants
to read, can follow along. They can read the material same like
I'm reading. And I started to tease out, okay, what kinds of things
do we know about THC?
((Video Courtesy: Dr. Benjamin Caplan/CED Clinic))
And I would write it down. And what kinds of things are we
learning about CBC [Cannabichromene]? And I would write that
down. And I’m just, as I'm learning, I'm also organizing so that I
can build an infrastructure to teach people.
((Video Courtesy: Dr. Benjamin Caplan/CED Clinic))
((Dr Benjamin Caplan, MD; Chief Medical Officer, CED Clinic))
I think if you look at the last three years, cannabis has already
revolutionized the world. I mean, we have all but the three states
now that have some form of cannabis accepted legally by
the state. And that used to be nothing. And so, we've already
come a tremendous amount.
((Dr Benjamin Caplan, MD; Chief Medical Officer, CED Clinic))
I think to go past the finish line, we're going to need doctors
to buy in.
((Video Courtesy: Dr. Benjamin Caplan/CED Clinic))
And in order for doctors to buy in, they need to be educated. So,
one of the things that I tried to do was
((Dr Benjamin Caplan, MD; Chief Medical Officer, CED Clinic))
not confront them as a pom-pom cheerleader, that cannabis is
all great because it's not all great.
((Video Courtesy: Dr. Benjamin Caplan/CED Clinic))
It's a tool in a toolbox. There are many other things that work for
people. Cannabis is a tool which works,
((Dr Benjamin Caplan, MD; Chief Medical Officer, CED Clinic))
but we have to help physicians understand that.
((Popup Banner:
U.S. Federal law bans marijuana use, including as medicine.))
((NATS))
((Dr Benjamin Caplan, MD; Chief Medical Officer, CED Clinic))
That was perfect. Wow! You're doing really well. I'm so
impressed, sweetie. And there's nothing to tell you to do
differently. You did it perfectly.
((Popup Banner:
93% of Americans are in favor of medical marijuana use if
prescribed by a doctor
*Quinnipiac poll))
((Dr Benjamin Caplan, MD; Chief Medical Officer, CED Clinic))
Wow! Want to try it again?
((NATS))
((Caplan’s daughter))
No.
((Dr Benjamin Caplan, MD; Chief Medical Officer, CED Clinic))
No? You're done. Okay.
((NATS))
