That's where the use of a cannabis nurse comes in — a registered nurse whose responsibility is to guide patients through their decisions on how to go about consuming cannabis for medical use.
April Hatch is a cannabis nurse for Cannabis Care Team based here in Kansas City. She says that her medical marijuana patients use the drug for an array of different medical issues.
"THC or CBD, those are the two cannabinoids we know the most about, and they have been shown to be effective for managing over 200 different conditions," explains Hatch.
She says that one of the most exciting developments in the medical use of cannabis is how CBD in particular interacts with immune systems.
"It's really able to manage that chronic inflammation that so many people are suffering with today. Chronic inflammation leads to heart disease, stroke, diabetes, Parkinson's... and so, if we are able to get that inflammation down at a cellular level, we could potentially be using cannabis compounds like CBD to prevent a lot of these diseases."
Hatch joins Up To Date to provide insight into what her job entails, and answer listener's questions on medical cannabis.
- April Hatch, cannabis nurse at Cannabis Care Team
