Long hours spent sitting down in front of a computer can lead to body aches and health issues. Here’s how CBD can help.
People in the U.S. have been following social distancing guidelines for about a month. The more that time passes, the more people get used to quarantine and let go of the strict schedules and habits, leaving room for more hours spent sitting down in front of screens and an off sync sleep schedule. This takes a toll on everyone, even on people who continue to exercise regularly and to eat healthy foods.
An achy body is not a fun thing to deal with. Even in a normal situation, body aches are ailments that are hard to deal with, requiring patience, visits to the massage parlor and even medication if the condition becomes chronic. When in quarantine, you likely don’t have access to these kinds of things, which is why CBD could provide some help.
Different studies show that CBD is effective when it comes to treating different kinds of pain, whether they’re chronic, due to inflammation or headaches. Most people use CBD topicals to treat these kinds of issues, even if some report success when using ingested oils.
Photo by Pharma Hemp Complex via Unsplash
CBD topical oils and creams can be used to treat localized pain, such as achy joints or muscle strains due to sitting down for long hours, being hunched up in front of your computer or pulling something will trying out a new workout. Some anecdotal evidence also says that applying these oils to the sides of your head can mitigate headaches.
When it comes to chronic pain or the kind of pain that flares up in different areas of your body, you can try ingesting CBD oil, which might also make you feel more relaxed. Pair this with different activities such as muscle stretches, yoga and other medications, and you’ll quickly find relief and a healthy way of spending your hours.
Don’t be afraid to try out new products, such as CBD roll ons or CBD massage oils. Do your research and take advantage of the discounts that are appearing throughout April. Look up simple ways to massage your joints and remember to stay active. Once the quarantine is through, you might have picked up a habit that will allow you to lead a more relaxed life and you might have also helped a small business make it out of a tough situation.
Famous people celebrate 4/20 just like the rest of us under quarantine: online through social media.
If you weren’t sure whether your favorite celebrity consumed marijuana, you better check their social media feeds. Because on 4/20, plenty of artists, influencers, and famous folks couldn’t help sharing how they were celebrating the famous cannabis-centric holiday.
Then again, this is an event that is communal by nature. If you aren’t aware, 4/20 started when several California teenagers gathered to smoke joints at the same spot every day at 4:20 p.m. That concept—like-minded folks getting together for a toke—unfurled across the country throughout the 70s, in countercultural places like San Francisco, Ann Arbor, and more.
Thanks to the coronavirus pandemic, nobody can follow the usual 4/20 tradition. So instead everyone is gathering in video chats, livestreams, and more to celebrate online. If you’re not into any of that, maybe you can find some inspiration from some of your favorite celebrities below.
Happy #420FromHome. Cannabis has taught me how to slow down and shut up. I’ve become more patient and kind and probably a lot more bearable to be around. Happy 4/20, everyone. pic.twitter.com/zDOmPgS3vT
Also, Seth Rogen joined Jimmy Kimmel Live! to give an update on his life under quarantine. According to Rogen, he has been smoking “an ungodly amount” of cannabis. You can only wonder what he’s doing on 4/20.
Quarantine has many people wondering if they should alter their hair. Here’s what hairdressers have to say.
Few things represent change more evocatively than a haircut. It’s the scene from Mulan, where our title character chops her locks, that people remember the most for a reason. In real life, people visit the hair salon, bond with their hairdresser and leave feeling fresh and resolved. New bangs or a fresh bob lets people feel ready to embrace the coming stage of their lives with an added dose of confidence. Sadly, in quarantine there’s no hair salon, so it’s up to every one of us to cut our own hair or, God forbid, shape our bangs.
If you’ve been feeling the urge for change lately, you’re not alone. All sorts of people on social media have uploaded photos of their post haircut/bleached hair results, so much so that it’s become a meme. Most of the results are not pretty, but some are quite nice.
ugh all these egirls are dying their bangs pink and i’m gonna do it by like day 5 of quarantine pic.twitter.com/WwkafPOAfS
While many experts and horrified internet users are urging people not to do this, listing the many things that can and will go wrong when bleaching your own hair or when trying to shape a bob with no hair cutting experience, others are more positive and supportive. Just learn some stuff before you start cutting.
Photo by Tim Mossholder via Unsplash
“I see people trying to make the big jump from having no bangs to bangs and they end up cutting them so short and they freak out,” says hairstylist Brad Mondo in an interview with Vox. “Start off by wetting your hair, cutting it, then styling it how you usually style it. Then cut it again in the style that you would usually wear your hair.”
Changing your hair is a straightforward way of altering your perception of yourself, if only for temporary results. It’s also fun to try out new things, especially when faced with a situation that makes you realize how insignificant a bad haircut is. Hair grows back, even if it takes some time to get there.
If you’re someone who gets stressed out over changing your look yet still have the itch to go for that quarantine haircut, do some research and go for it. Purchase some cheap scissors from Amazon or acquire the proper tools needed for decent bleached hair. You can always get a buzz cut if things go wrong. That’s a quarantine thing, too.
Science indicates black market products were the culprit behind EVALI, so how do consumers vape responsibly moving forward?
In the fall of 2019, a few months before our lives were abruptly overwhelmed by the nationwide spread of the deadly Coronavirus pandemic, one of the big health care issues being reported on a daily basis was the growing number of individuals who used THC oil vaporizers, and who had been hospitalized (nearly 3,000 nationwide) with serious lung damage, at least 70 of whom died. This was a new phenomena, obviously a serious problem and one that should concern all of us, whether we use vaporizers or not. Do marijuana vapes cause lung illness?
With the benefit of a few months of hindsight, we can now better understand the cause of the vaping-related health crisis, which now appears to have largely disappeared, and how those who enjoy vaporizing marijuana oil can do so while minimizing the risk.
Vitamin E Is the Likely Culprit
According to the Center for Disease Control (CDC), the majority of those experiencing vaping-related health problems had been using vaporizers to smoke THC oil and in November they issued a finding that identified vitamin E acetate — a diluting agent sometimes present in counterfeit, unregulated vape pen products — as the primary “culprit.” While we have all become accustomed to thinking of Vitamin E as a healthful product when used as a cream for skin conditions, for example, it is a far more dangerous substance when it is heated and inhaled.
Until recently, most state health agencies did not test THC oils for vitamin E because they were not aware it was being used by some manufacturers. So some contaminated oil cartridges were apparently being sold at licensed marijuana dispensaries. Now that the problem has been identified and publicized, state labs are now testing for this adulterant and vaporizer oil cartridges bought from a licensed dispensary should now be safe.
But that is not the case with oil cartridges bought on the black market. Those have not been tested by a state-certified lab and continue to present an unacceptable health risk to the user and should be avoided.
Photo by Lepro/Getty Images
The Vaporizers
There is no evidence that vaporizers themselves if manufactured correctly, are inherently dangerous or can cause life-threatening lung damage; rather there is some evidence that vaporizers may provide a safer alternative to smoking marijuana. Some risk appears to arise from cheaply manufactured and designed vaporizers that allow for the medicine contained in the reservoir to come in direct contact with a metal heating element or the post the heating element sits on. This brings about the concern that heavy metals and other dangerous contaminants could potentially leach into the medicine through to the user in lower quality vaporizers.
This leads to the inevitable conclusion that the current vaping health crisis could best be overcome by legalizing and regulating marijuana in all of its various forms and testing the THC oils being used for any and all contaminants; including vitamin E and heavy metals. It is primarily the black market that currently permits these dangerous THC oils with contaminants to be sold to unsuspecting consumers. In a regulated market, the risk from contaminants should be minimal.
For those who prefer to continue to ingest their THC via a vaporizer that uses THC oil, they should identify a manufacturer who is carefully testing their device to be certain it is not leaching heavy metals or other dangerous contaminants and that they are not using vitamin E acetate or other potentially dangerous adulterants to achieve a viable viscosity level in the THC oil.
One such responsible manufacturer is Gofire, a company in which Keneh Ventures has made a substantial investment. Gofire (gofire.com) makes a true vaporizer, an inhaler that offers a measured and refreshed dose, using BPA-free, Class 6 pharmaceutical-grade plastics, abolishing concerns about heavy metals leaching into the medicine by removing the heating element from the reservoir. Gofire’s technology physically extrudes doses of the medicine from the reservoir into a separate ceramic convection oven for vaporization. By removing any metal that would come in contact with the oil they have eliminated the common industry practice of reheating the oil with each inhale. This causes degradation of the medicine, can allow harmful compounds to contaminate the medicine and can even lead to a burnt or sour taste over the lifetime of the cartridge.
Photo by Chimpinski/Getty Images
Following more than five years of research and experimentation, they launched their premium product into the market in December of 2019. Gofire has another product coming down the pipeline that takes a more mass-market approach with a lower price point while still driving the same quality and control offered in their premium product. I am hopeful this will establish a bar that other vaporizer manufacturers, as well as those who manufacture THC oil cartridges, will have to meet or exceed.
Fortunately, when consumers are made aware of a specific health concern, they will generally avoid it. The spike in news coverage of serious vaping-related lung illnesses in the fall apparently convinced many consumers to be more cautious in the products they buy and use, as this phenomenon appears to have subsided just as abruptly as it had arisen.
The authors of a recent study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association reviewing the sudden spike in vaping-related lung illness concluded their team’s findings are “consistent with the hypothesis that people have demand for marijuana products, and in states where they don’t have access to them in this regulatory fashion, they end up purchasing them elsewhere.” Let’s all commit to avoiding these types of problems moving forward by legalizing and regulating marijuana all across the country, so no one needs to risk their health by using untested and unregulated black market products.
Keith Stroup is the founder of the National Organization for the Reformation of Marijuana Laws (NORML) and serves as a Keneh Ventures Advisory Board Member.
From improving patient safety to understanding ever-changing guidelines, here are 7 vital resources that every healthcare professional and organization should have at their fingertips.
Staying on top of a pandemic is no small task. Whether you’re an administrator, HCP or organization, finding information that’s easy to access can be a feat all on its own.
While coronavirus is stretching every aspect of the nation’s health care system, many associations and organizations are partnering to elevate important information and a better level of care for all.
In a world where information is available at the speed of light, it’s important to have a curated list of up-to-date and easily accessible materials to share with your team and partners.
From improving patient safety to understanding ever-changing guidelines, here are seven vital resources that every healthcare professional and organization should have at their fingertips:
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The Institute for Healthcare Improvement hosts a comprehensive guide for all healthcare professionals and organizations on their site. Broken down by job type and need, the list covers testing, administrators, healthcare facilities, reimbursement and more.
The Joint Commission Center for Transforming Healthcare offers a thorough file-cabinet-style list of curated COVID resources by subtitle. They state, “Our goal in creating this resource page is to support health care professionals and organizations on the front lines of the COVID-19 pandemic. The situation is changing rapidly, and recommendations have been changing with similar speed.”
The International Association of National Public Health Institutes offers a country-by-country list that incorporates WHO resources as well as CDC guides.
For those in rural areas, the National Rural Health Association offers a full list of COVID-related resources on their site. Focused especially on advocating for communities who are often underserved, they also offer a state-by-state Department of Health list.
The Centers for Disease Control compiled dozens of resources, curated especially for healthcare professionals and organizations here.
Keep up to date with the Food and Drug Administration’s daily briefings and COVID-19-related news here.
The National Association for Healthcare Quality (NAHQ)has a COVID-19 toolkit available to non-members. Click here to view the resources. Additionally, NAHQ has announced a collaboration with 7 healthcare associations, sharing information to get to the front-lines more quickly. These associations include:
Whether you’re a healthcare organization, practitioner or professional, ensure you have the most accurate information by bookmarking these sites. Afterall, mandates and guidelines are changing at the speed of light. Helping patients stay well is a full-time job; these resources will save time and increase efficiency.
Cannabis can help relieve symptoms of anxiety, stress, and depression amid the coronavirus pandemic.
With a national disruption to routine and a general destabilizing effect on our collective mood, the coronavirus is causing an uptick in anxiety nationwide. Between mid-February and mid-March, anti-anxiety medication prescriptions rose 34%, according to a new report from Express Scripts.
This represents a stark 180-degree turn, as doctors prescribed benzodiazepines like Xanax and Valium less in recent years. Prescriptions for anti-anxiety medication dropped more than 12% over the past years, but the trend seems undone by the coronavirus pandemic. The rapid prescription rise corresponds with when the World Health Organization declared the coronavirus a global pandemic.
Anxiety isn’t the only mental disorder exacerbated by the global pandemic. Antidepressant prescriptions jumped 18.6% while sleep medications rose 14.8% as well in the same time span.
If you are experiencing these symptoms but don’t want to rely on pharmaceutical medications, cannabis can help. A 2015 rat study reported that marijuana “could potentially help” reduce symptoms from stress-induced depression. Additional animal studies found taking CBD amid dramatic instability resulted in less stressful experiences versus those that did not.
But a landmark 2018 study published in the Journal of Affective Disorders provides the most significant answers. Using data provided by marijuana app Strainprint, researchers saw that around 90% of patients reported decreases in symptoms of anxiety, depression, and stress after smoking cannabis. Researchers did see less dramatic results over time with depression symptoms, but not with anxiety and stress. That’s why in a time of intensive short-term instability, marijuana might work best.
Photo by Gift Habeshaw via Unsplash
“Cannabis reduces perceived symptoms of negative affect in the short-term, but continued use may exacerbate baseline symptoms of depression over time,” researchers concluded.
However, the study emphasized consuming proper strains of marijuana to combat specific symptoms. Those with anxiety often worry smoking marijuana will cause worse symptoms of paranoia and deep unrest. Because most people receive marijuana from a friend or a at party, it isn’t optimized for their best practice. In those situations, where the cannabis in question is purchased on the black market, you could be smoking a high-THC strain without realizing.
The aforementioned study says those strains aren’t ideal for anxiety symptoms. Instead, you should acquire high-CBD or 1:1 CBD/THC strains to lower feelings of anxiety or stress. If you can’t access a legal marijuana dispensary at this moment, you can always ingest a dose of CBD oil beforehand to even the cannabinoids in your system.
Five teenagers who called themselves the “Waldos” came up with the term well before it swept the nation.
420 is weed’s magic number. While the origins of the date are not known by the average marijuana user, even those who know of the drug peripherally have heard of the popular weed reference. Where does the date come from? Turns out a group of teenagers ignited the 4/20 craze.
Some of the explanations behind this date are ridiculous, with some claiming that it stems from Adolf Hitler’s birthday (?), that the marijuana plant contains 420 different elements or that 420 is the code police officers used when they spotted someone smoking weed.
According to Time magazine, most marijuana experts say that the number dates back to 1971, when a group of Marin County, CA teens known as the “Waldos” — Dave Reddix, Larry Schwartz, Steve Capper, Mark Gravitch and Jeffrey Noel — would meet at 4:20 p.m. every day after school to get high by the statue of the chemist Louis Pasteur. They would say the number 420 to each other, which was a coded way of saying marijuana.
Dave’s brother, Patrick Reddix, was working with Grateful Dead bassist Phil Lesh. They toured together, spreading the term among band members, other bands, friends and groupies, until it gained worldwide recognition.
Photo by GDJ via Pixabay
In the 70s, April 20 was a date only celebrated among smokers and outcasts. Smoking marijuana was associated with hippies and those who protested against the war effort and large corporations in America. Nowadays, its reception has shifted so much that the date is treated as a holiday, especially by canna-businesses which offer discounts on their products.
Capper said it wasn’t until 1997 that he realized how big the term 420 had gotten until Schwartz told him. “Larry called me up one day. He said, ‘Steve, it’s everywhere. There are T-shirts and hats. Everybody is capitalizing on it.’ ”
Sadly, and in an unbelievable twist, Pat Reddix passed away in December 2018.
“I was there, and Pat died at exactly 4:20 p.m.,” his brother Dave said. “It’s on his death certificate. What are the chances of that?”
Lizzo is one of the most famous artists in the world. Does she smoke weed?
Lizzo has been making music for years but it was only recently that she’s been embraced everywhere, from the VMA’s and Grammys, to movies and TV series watched by millions.
With the coronavirus pandemic, she’s donated food to hospitals and has also tried to entertain people as best she can, providing at-home concerts and guided meditations.
But, like with many Americans in lockdown these days, does she smoke weed?
When it comes to Lizzo, it’s not a question of whether she smokes weed or not, because we can all assume that she does. The problem is finding publications where she discusses her marijuana habits. While she’s open in her media interviews, no journalist has asked her directly about her marijuana use, probably because they’re talking about more pressing matters.
So, while Lizzo may not be a Seth Rogen kind of celebrity that advocates for the drug, she’s pretty open about the fact that she loves it and that it’s fun for her.
Bad highs suck, and are made even worse during lockdown. Here’s what to do while high on 4/20.
This 4/20 marks the first time the iconic stoner holiday is spent in quarantine. Sure, there are those who usually spend 4/20 getting high at home, but sometimes, you just want to be surrounded by friends. Sharing is caring, and all that.
Regardless of your plans this year, we suggest stocking up ahead of time and devising some sort of plan so you can have a great time indoors.
What you do with this day is up to you, but here are a few suggestions of what not to do while getting high in quarantine:
Going to the grocery store
This year’s 4/20 falls on a Monday. If this is the day when you usually stock up on groceries and necessities, don’t get high before you go out. Apart from the fact that visiting a grocery store while high during a pandemic sounds incredibly stressful, the weed might make you act fuzzy and distracted, which is annoying and dangerous when following social distancing guidelines.
If you haven’t heard, Zoom meetings are very trendy right now. Despite this, getting high and going on a video call is not the best idea, especially when it involves coworkers or your parents. Be sure to organize your 4/20 celebrations with this in mind, keeping your smoking session to the latter part of the day or postponing it until the weekend.
Bake (no, the other kind)
Baking has been hyper popular during quarantine. It’s why yeast and flour are hard to find in most grocery stores. Not only does baking require hard-to-find ingredients, it demands focus and skill. What makes it so great for self-isolation is also what makes it so bad for being stoned. You don’t want to waste your ingredients on baking something that’ll most likely end up inedible if you prepped it while high and woozy. A better plan is to bake ahead of time, that way you have snacks at the ready.
Despite the ethical dilemma of ordering online whilst in a pandemic, we’re shopping now more than ever. While it’s okay to support small businesses and to order necessities during a time of crisis, it’s also important to think things through before shopping, especially when impulse buying something you don’t really need. Adding weed to the mix might cause a mental break down when you check your bank account the next morning.
Watching intense movies
This suggestion depends a lot on who you are as a person. If you’re someone who enjoys being high and watching disturbing stuff, go for it, live your life. If you’re someone who’s susceptible to what they view, that scary movie you’ve been meaning to watch can wait until after your high has passed. Believe us: Parasite is much better viewed sober.
With so much time on our hands, getting high is a simple way to have fun. Here are 5 methods you should try that don’t involve inhaling.
In the age of coronavirus, one of the few outlets we have for fun and escape is marijuana. A new poll found that people have increased their cannabis use in significant ways, claiming that 33% of Americans tried marijuana in March compared to last year, whereas only 12.5% of people had tried it.
Unlike alcohol, marijuana won’t leave you with a hangover or pack on the calories (you do have to be wary of the munchies). Since COVID-19 is a respiratory disease, these 5 methods of consuming cannabis won’t harm your lungs in any way.
Baking
Baking with marijuana is awesome, whether you’re keeping things simple with firecrackers or taking the more elaborate route of preparing a pot cake or brownie. With all kinds of weed baking it’s important to decarboxylate, which is the process when you heat up marijuana in order to bring out its effect. If this is your first time preparing these treats, remember to always use a recipe, learn the basics of cannabutter and start off slow. The pot brownies might be delicious, but eat too many of those things and it’s easy to have a lonely quarantine freak out.
While some people believe that the uplifting effects of caffeine might cancel out marijuana’s mellow, others believe caffeine makes for a better high. The only way to know is to try it out for yourself. Coffee and cannabis is a popular way to blaze up in the mornings for a reason, so don’t knock it ’til you try it!
There are dozens of marijuana topicals, ranging from skin care products to shampoos and conditioners. These products are infused with cannabis and also contain other nutrients, oils and natural scents. They wont’ get you high, but they will relax you.
Lubricants
Cannabis lubricants have experienced a boom of sorts recently. Brands like Foria are beloved by many and manufacture products that contain THC, CBD, or combinations of both.
As for CBD lube specifically, benefits include pain and inflammation management, which are reportedly very helpful for women, especially those who struggle with painful or uncomfortable sex.
