[Karla Bur]

After a cancer and glaucoma diagnosis in the same year, I began studying medical cannabis by watching documentaries and TEDx videos, reading medical cannabis books and PubMed articles, reaching out to the medical cannabis community via social media, webinars, podcasts, and personal Zooms, making valuable connections along the way. I have connected to many medical cannabis experts around the world, Raphael Mechoulam, the godfather of cannabis research, being my most cherished.

I was completely fascinated with what I was hearing but I was also confused. I didn’t understand the way it works, who it works for, when it works, and why it works. I needed some education but wasn’t sure where to get it. I knew it wasn’t taught at any of the schools, including medical schools. Thankfully, I found several online courses and I now have completed over 20 cannabis industry courses from industry leaders such as Green Flower, Trichome Institute, Association of Cannabinoid Specialists, Healer, and Americans for Safe Access. I am a certified medical cannabis consultant in the US.

I have served as an executive administrative assistant for a well-known cannabinoid Harvard physician who presides over an association of cannabinoid specialists, and as someone who understands the economic hardships of buying medical cannabis, I was very happy to help out Sweetleaf Collective, a compassionate cannabis nonprofit in CA, with their social media for a while.

More recently, I have done contracted freelance work for the American Journal of Endocannabinoid Medicine as a medical cannabis consultant and patient advocate reaching out to my network of medical cannabis professionals to increase the quality of AJEM’s readership and expand its potential audience.

I currently am enrolled in the Curious About Cannabis Master Class 2024 (Go Resindential Scholars!) with Instructor Jason Wilson, MS, which is 6 months long so I call this my Senior year. I am writing a research paper on Cannabis Nutrition for Human Health and Wellness with a Focus on Obesity. This research led me to Dr. Stefan Broselid and ECS.education.

I have suffered with obesity for decades, even while pursuing a degree in nutrition. My obesity has lead to multiple disorders (or did my disorders lead to obesity?). My mobility also has decreased significantly causing me to withdraw from school, work outside the home, shopping, camping, and all kinds of things that I used to do and wish I could do now. I live in my own little world just barely making it through each day trying to find some comfort from these disorders, chronic pain, discomfort, and dis-ease.

As a medical cannabis patient, I have done extensive research on this because it is very personal. I am on a mission to figure out what my ECS tone is, how to get it balanced, and how to keep it that way. My quality of life depends on it.

Although I completed 98% of a degree in human nutrition, which included human anatomy & physiology as well as other science/health courses, I never once heard about the endocannabinoid system (ECS). None of the many healthcare providers that I’ve seen through the years have mentioned it either. I’m not even sure they know about it. Why would they? It’s not taught in medical schools let alone in elementary, middle, or high school along with the circulatory, respiratory, digestive, endocrine, reproductive, or nervous systems.

I am shocked that even though we have known about the nutritional superstar status of cannabis (hemp) for thousands of years, have used it globally for food, fiber, and fuel, enjoyed it socially and during religious experiences, discovered the ECS in the late 80s, and have since learned that it definitely affects human physiological homestasis and several diseases and disorders, particularly metabolism, body weight, and obesity, it is still omitted from textbooks.

I am here to support Dr. Broselid and ECS.education in promoting and facilitating the inclusion of endocannabinoid system education in ALL medical textbooks throughout the world.

[Author]

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