The Science Behind Sex And Cannabis

We’re big supporters of cannabis here at Unapologetic Motherhood, and learning that it can benefit our sex lives is just another great perk of this amazing plant. We brought in Jihad Haassan from Another Creative to talk about the science behind sex and cannabis, and how this plant can help to amp up our sex lives!

We all want to grow our pleasure as much as we can, and learning how to get out of our heads and into our bodies is a great step forward in our pleasure journey. Cannabis already has so many uses and things it can do for us, but quieting the noise in our heads? That’s pretty priceless. Jihad is here to go into detail about how all of this works and the science side of what’s going on in our bodies.

This week’s episode is all about the science behind cannabis and how it works. We’re looking into different methods of using, how cannabis works in our brains, and where to find the best research. If you want to learn more about the sensual side of of cannabis use during sex, make sure to check out or companion episode, Cannabis and Sensuality with Sensuality Coach Carli Jo!

Interested in all of our episodes? Join the UM Club! We have amazing new episodes and topics every week, and right now you can join for only $6!

Guest Expert

Jihad is the Chief Experience Officer at Another Creative Ltd., where he consults responsible digitally-native personal care brands on building their businesses through data-driven strategy and design. While working with these brands Jihad has put in countless hours researching the science and applications of plant-sourced technologies, from cannabinoids (cannabis) and psilocybin (magic mushrooms) to adaptogens and superfoods.

In This Episode We Talk About

00:51 – Who is Jihad?
06:10 – How does cannabis and CBD help us get out of our heads?
22:31 – How does THC affect our mental state?
25:19 – Research on cannabis and how to interpret it.
1:01: 46- Tinctures and how to use them.
1:07:20 – Using suppositories and other forms of cannabis
1:15:40 – Where to find Jihad!

Watch the Video

Listen to the Audio

Read the Full Conversation

Hello and welcome to another episode inside the Unapologetic Moms Club. Today I am very excited to be chatting with Jihad Hassan from Another Creative all about the science behind sex and cannabis. So welcome Jihad.

Thanks so much for having me here. I’m pretty excited.

Yeah, I’m really excited for this conversation. We’ve connected, it’s been great chatting with you about all different things about plant medicine. And we have a previous episode on cannabis and sensuality, and it was really based a lot on the experience. And it was really interesting, but we love really getting down to the facts side of it as well and hearing more about the science. So looking forward to getting into all of that with you.

Awesome, that’s what I’m here for.

So let’s kick it off. Who are you? What do you do? And why are you so passionate about it?

Okay, so a little bit about me, I’m just gonna introduce myself to your audience, because I doubt that anybody’s gonna have heard of me. I’m Jihad Hasson, and I’ve worked with a few cannabis and magic mushroom companies that you might have heard of, if I’m doing my job right, both as an operator and a partner. And today, I really work more as a hands-on marketing, consulting and product education consultant with startups, which are honestly like my favourite to work with. And not just because they tend to be more innovative but also because they tend to just be a lot more passionate in general, like you have a smaller team, it’s a lot more intimate. And the people are just a lot more involved in the actual product development part, which I just love. I think any other environment, honestly might just kill me.

But to give it a little bit more of a context on like who I am, because I feel like context is going to be important. I’m not a doctor, my background and my education was almost entirely focused on politics and civil society before I got into business. And I was pretty sure for a while I was going to change the world through policy. Politics was dirty so I just stopped pursuing that altogether. And I was a pretty big advocate of like cannabis and magic mushrooms.

So back home, I did consume some cannabis, which I’m more comfortable saying now. And I wasn’t comfortable talking about it at the time because it was a zero tolerance policy country, right. But when I came over here, and I started investigating it a little bit more, I remember one day when I was on a mushroom trip, I just sat there kind of thinking about what I was doing with my life, right? And I kind of realized that I not only didn’t want to go into politics, but that there was this beautiful relationship that we create with our environment, right. Like as we design our technologies, as we design our tools, you find that these tools and technologies design us back, so I knew that I wanted to get into something that was product focused. And I knew that I wanted to change this society, like some grassroots level.

And then I somehow stumbled into a job in cannabis, I had no idea that it was a job in cannabis when I stumbled into it. And ever since then, I’ve just kind of been studying it. And I think a lot of PhDs would agree that if you end up dedicating 24 hours a day, seven days a week for five years, then you’re going to end up being somewhat of an expert on a subject. And I’m not saying that I’m a PhD level, but I do have a certain amount of background that I’m pretty proud of. And it carries me through a lot of conversations with friends that are biologists, friends that are doctors, friends that are in the pharmaceutical industry. So it’s been pretty great.

Now, the more I learned about it, the more I realized that there were so many things I could actually help with, right? So let’s just take cannabis for a second, let’s not talk about psychedelics yet or at all if this comes up in the conversation, but just focusing on cannabis. We have things like imbalances of the body like endometriosis and fibromyalgia, to imbalances of the mind like Alzheimer’s and neurodegenerative diseases. And then you have everyday well-being, right, like your low libido, low mood, energy levels are just crashing, you can’t sleep very well. And it doesn’t seem as I was studying it that there was an intractable disease or everyday benefit that you could actually get from this planet if you knew how to use it, right. And that’s basically how I got into it. Just the more I got into the rabbit hole, me and my ADHD, the more I fell in love.

I love that. Yeah, similar to me, the more I learned about it, the more I just kept going and wanting to learn more and become an advocate. And that’s this great thing about this plant, right, it’s so helpful, so multi-dimensional, there’s so many things you can do with it and learn about it. And it’s a pretty incredible tool that we all have access to.

It is, at least in Canada and some parts of the United States. The rest of the world isn’t really as lucky as we are, although you’re seeing kind of a domino effect, right? Because once Canada, which is the first G20 country to actually fully legalize and decriminalize cannabis, you started seeing a bunch of other countries do it. So we have New Zealand having conversations, you see a few countries in South America, you see a few countries in South Asia as well that are entering the conversation. And then we have the obvious in Northern Europe. So it’s just an exciting time.

It really is. And I forget how lucky we are in Canada that it is fully legal, fully accessible to everyone of legal age. But it is so much harder in different areas of the world. It’s nice that things are changing in the States. But there’s still so much with the war against drugs and the prison system, and things like that. But we’re very fortunate in Canada, that that’s not as much of an issue and that it is so accessible for anyone to go to a store, ask some questions and try some things out.

We definitely are. Sorry mom for bringing this up. But at one point, when I was living in Qatar, I actually went to prison for a month and a half for having a little bit of hash, just like a little bit. Yeah, it’s crazy. We are lucky. And I’m so glad to be here.

Yes, yeah, I bet. Quite the difference compared to having to deal with that. And then now you can walk around and just go to the store for something you’re penalized so hard for. All right, well, let’s switch gears really into the sex and cannabis viewpoint on all of this. And so I thought we could kind of start out with more emotional and mental side. So many people, myself included, love pairing cannabis and sex because it really helps you get out of your head and into your body. And yeah, and with that, lowering inhibitions, upping your libido. So what exactly is going on when people are experiencing these things?

Okay, there’s a lot of other questions about the mental side, you know, there is the mental side, and there’s the physical side. And I’m just going to start with the mental side. But having said that, I don’t want to get too frou frou about it. But to make it clear, cannabis and sexuality is less about cannabis and more about sexuality. Right? Now I’m gonna get into the science of what that means, but I just wanted to set the stage with that.

So we’re gonna start with CBD. Because apparently one of the biggest culprits of really bad sex does tend to be being in your mind, being stressed out, being anxious, or just generally being depressed. So I’m going to give you maybe like a list of four or five things just to narrow it down because there’s so many molecular targets that CBD interacts with, we’re just going to focus on the ones that matter for this.

So we’re gonna start with the endocannabinoid system. It’s responsible for maintaining homeostasis in not only your body, but also in your brain. And it’s with you throughout development from when you’re in embryonic development all the way through adulthood and maturity, right? It just doesn’t go away. And it’s one job is to make sure that you’re resilient to stress and disease. Now CBD keeps your ECS healthy by improving your endocannabinoid tone, and endocannabinoids are cannabinoids that your body naturally creates. And they’re quite critically implicated in a host of physiological functions.

So that includes for a very, very big degree, and especially when it comes to the biologically female. And for the purposes of this conversation, I’m really sorry to anybody that I might be offending, but I’m going to be using the term female, because I’m just talking about the biology, nothing else. But it is critically implicated with reproductive functions in females.

Now, they’re also both interacting with neurotransmitters and hormones that affect sexual behavior, desire and even pleasure, right? Like testosterone levels actually dictate how much pleasure you experience. But by toning your ECS, you’re allowing it to properly regulate how much of these hormones should be in your body, at what stages in your life, and also influences your brain activity and your stress and your immune responses to ensure that that balance is there.

Now, the second thing is – that was just number one, that was your ECS. The second thing is your brain, right? It actually resets brain activity in two very complex brain regions that are heavily implicated in feelings of anxiety, and are also being studied right now specifically for the purposes of psychosis. But really just for anybody that has general panic or anxiety, these brain regions slide up, and CBD is able to kind of decode some of the programming that is in them. And for anybody that’s curious, they’re specifically called the striatum and the midbrain. So these are the two regions that CBD is acting in.

The other thing that it’s doing inside of your brain besides just kind of rewriting some of the code is it’s increasing levels of GABA, which is the enzyme that basically is in charge of like fighting noise in your brain. It has many jobs but the most primary job, the focus, is that it quells something called excitotoxicity. So if you ever feel like you have a lot of noise in your brain that actually is a thing, and it’s called excitotoxicity. So it reduces that and increases anandamide levels. So now you’re feeling a little bit more blissed out and a lot more happy. And endomide, again, is critically implicated in these sexual functions.

Now, I think it’s actually going to be five things, I have two more things to talk about, but it brings calming energy by activating your serotonin receptors, but it doesn’t do it directly. Instead, what it does is it increases the levels of tryptophan in your body, and tryptophan is a precursor to serotonin, so you have more tryptophan in your body, your body is able to synthesize more serotonin, and you’ve increased your serotonin levels. So now you have a lot more of what we call like the happy hormone, right?

Lastly, and I think this is one of the most interesting ones besides the ECS, is the brainwave activity, because brainwave activity really relies on your thoughts. But when you take CBD, what ends up happening is that you see a decrease in delta waves, and then an increase in alpha and theta waves. Now delta waves are basically what you experience in very deep dreamless sleep, right? It is associated with regeneration, but you don’t necessarily want to have just your brain shut off when you’re having sex.

The other things that it’s doing is it’s increasing the alpha and theta as I mentioned, and theta is what occurs during like vivid imagination, or during the parts of sleep where you’re having very, very clear dreams. It also pretty much arises when you have like a deep focused state. And then the other thing is alpha. And alpha is a little bit more of those quiet, thoughtful times. So your brain goes from the really, really fast brainwaves spectrum, all the way down to these more calm and just kind of like WUSA brainwaves, which is just awesome. And honestly, that’s just what we know for certain. It’s why I tried to keep it so succinct, like you can see how this can drag on.

But science can’t answer whether it will actually help increase libido directly. Right? As I mentioned, it does all of these other things which helps you get out of your head, helps you calm down, and helps you be more relaxed. And anandamide is very implicated in hormonal production and in your sexual functions. But it’s not like just taking CBD is going to increase your libido. But getting rid of a lot of things that are getting in the way of a good libido.

And the thing is like the stress response is a healthy response for your body to have, right? But when it’s unadulterated, you actually ended up hurting yourself. And that’s because the HPA axis and – I’m sorry, if you need to interrupt me at any point to say to ask me questions, or get a little bit more into something, just let me know. But the stress, it’s because of the HPA axis or the hypothalamus pituitary adrenal axis. And I’m so sorry for all the doctors out there when I’m butchering the names of these things. But unchecked, stress will actually extend past the systems involved. And then it’ll begin compromising things like your sex drive and immunity. So you really want to make sure that you’re taking care of any sources of stress, not just at the physiological level, but also at the psychic level. And if you’ve been stressed for a while, then you definitely need to talk to somebody.

Absolutely. That’s kind of a recurring theme that’s come up in a lot of our episodes with Reclaiming Your Hormone Health and Anxiety 101, and we have some mindfulness ones coming out that will be released over the summer, around the time of this being released, And our bodies, when we’re just constantly stressed out being stuck in that go, go, go. Family state of mind that so many of us are just expected to be in all the time, our bodies are stuck in fight or flight mode, and it’s affecting our hormones. And so it’s making us tired and have mood swings and low libido. And all these things are so often chalked up is just a normal part of being a woman and getting older and like oh, that just happens to everyone. It’s normal. It’s fine. And although it might be super common, doesn’t necessarily mean that it should be your normal and there’s lots of things that we can do about it.

Yeah, but that’s the thing that is the problem with pharmaceutical or conventional medicine in general is just when women go to doctors, especially moms, they’re not really taken as seriously. Like study after study has shown that. To me cannabis is almost like one of those things that came along. Doctors haven’t gotten their hands on it yet, in terms of like it being regulated as a pharmaceutical drug, which means that for now, women have this boon of something that they are getting help from each other on more than anything and are using it and finding like a lot of relief for a lot of these imbalances. I didn’t even get to the THC, what it’s doing in your brain.

Well, here we can dig into the THC, I did want to circle back to some of the CBD and just so we can kind of reiterate it so it really sinks in. So it looks like it’s working on many, many different areas. So we have like the ACS system, helping that homeostasis, it’s helping you come out of that fight or flight, stressed out mode to being able to be more relaxed and be more calm and therefore being more open to sex and different things like that. And then you brought it into like the hormones and adjusting that, again, ties into kind of getting away from that fight or flight mode and having the right coordinate kind of hormones that we want to be able to be in that more relaxed state. And then going into the brain, I’m trying to remember all the different steps, so feel free to correct me or add any in, but it was going through where we can experience anxiety. And so our brain is programmed to react to situations or thoughts in certain ways and have that anxious state of mind and CBD is actually helping reprogram how we do that. So we react differently and aren’t as anxious. Is that correct?

That’s right, as a precursor to some of that panic and anxiety is actually tied back to anandamide as well, that programming. So what ends up happening is, let’s say that you have a sudden stressful event or just prolonged stress that ends with like a bang, so to speak, right, like a relationship or something like that, or in a very abusive job environment, or whatever it is, stress with a pop. Now your body will experience like the sudden drop in anandamide. And when that happens, that actually triggers this beautifully choreographed cascade of biological processes that end up actually coding it as a fearful experience. So all of a sudden, you have like this code in your head, your body experienced a very sudden drop in anandamide. And that almost always signals true danger, right. So your body’s thinking about the danger, it no longer cares about anything else. It’s programmed itself to believe that it is under that imminent threat. And the last thing it cares about is really sex. It’s wild.

Yeah, that’s so cool, how the bodies work and just react to different things in that way.

It is healthy, but prolonged stress is actually just, it’s terrible.

Like our bodies are geared for this, for a long time ago when we are being more hunters and gatherers. And we need that fight or flight response to really protect who we are as people and we do still need it. But it’s kind of our lives have so many stressors, even just from news headlines that we’re seeing and being inundated with, and different to-do lists. And so we’re having this kind of primal fight or flight response to everything in our life now, those stressors. And so when we’re able to learn about it, we’re better able to kind of take that step back and be able to shift our selves into that homeostasis point.

Well, what’s really interesting, like going back to what you’re saying, is that it’s true, you know, we’re no longer that age where we need to be constantly worried about like a saber-toothed tiger jumping out of nowhere. But these days, there is just like, a lot more every day anxieties, like things that didn’t exist before that are clamoring for attention 24/7, right? It’s why we have such a sudden, like, increase and prevalence of a lot of – let’s not call them diseases because like, I have ADHD, you know, I don’t really think that it’s particularly debilitating. But your body is supposed to be able to bounce back from that. That’s what the ECS is for, you know, the one thing that the ECS in addition to homeostasis is that, and I keep saying this over and over, it helps you stay resilient to stress and disease.

But over time, there was a shift. And I’m not sure where it happened, you know, I’m not a genealogist or anything by the means. But what you see is that we’re no longer able to bounce back the way that we used to which is why the prevalence of things like anxiety and depression is just so much more high than it used to be, because it is unceasing.

So, the ECS that’s meant to support itself can no longer actually keep itself toned as well as it could before. And that also is because of things like environmental pollutants, right? So environmental pollutants are awful to our endocannabinoid system, as well as like a number of other factors that are just like they’re modern day problems and they never existed in the past. So all of these different things like primal worries are gone now. But our brain is still reptilian and we have all these new modern memories. So we need to until we evolve, we really have to take care of our bodies and make sure that if like, my life is going to be stressful, I need to at least do something so I can help support it. And to me, that means taking CBD from my body and brain. And that also means taking psilocybin so that I can counteract things like neuroinflammation, because Alzheimer’s does run in my family, right?

Yeah, absolutely. We got to be aware of these things. And the more we learn about it, the more tools we have access to, we really are able to better manage and support ourselves. And I really liked that you touched on kind of not necessarily wanting to label it as a disorder. I’ve been diagnosed with ADHD as well. And for me, rather than trying to fix it, I want to learn to live with it, right? I like to think of it as just a certain way my brain works. And everyone has different ways that their brain works. And so now that I am able to somewhat put a label to it and identify it, I can put more understanding behind it and find ways to work with it.

Yeah, I honestly think of my ADHD as kind of a superpower. Like, do you ever find that? Just they say that people with ADHD tend to hyper fixate on things? And I think that’s a good thing. You know, I’ve been able to learn so much and get really dorky about things because of that.

Absolutely. And like when you’re really passionate about something you can just run with it and do so much with that.

100%. But for all your parents out there, CBD does help with ADHD and in a few countries is actually being prescribed for things like epilepsy as well, to children.

Yeah. It’s so cool. I can help for so many things. So yeah, we’ll circle back to specifically the sex and cannabis, we will get into the THC. And I just wanted to kind of again, reiterate, I think the brainwaves was the last one that we hadn’t touched on again. And so it’s taking things from the regenerative and moving to the more blissful, so I’m thinking we’re able to relax, and be calm and experience. Have those different levels of experiences with orgasms and touch and that sort of thing?

Yep. 100%. Sorry. My computer like cut off for a second there. Was there a question in that? Or were you just like reiterating the point?

Yeah, just reiterating. So now let’s go into the THC and what it’s doing on the mental side.

I would say that THC is the more delicious part of the whole, right? THC is a little bit more tied directly tied to our pleasure and reward centers. So when we think about it, low doses will actually – and let’s focus on THC as a low dose thing, because once you start getting into the high doses, like you’re just not going to be able to function, like sexually or regularly.

Yeah, and I think that’s part of why like sex and cannabis can get a bad rap. And I’ve had people mention that on social media is like, I just want to pass out I don’t want to do that. It’s like, No, we’re not about getting super blasted. It’s about having those nice low doses and leaning into that.

Yes, exactly. That’s the best way to put it is that you kind of have to lean into it, right? Because low doses are gonna give you that like, not only just like that dissipation and relief from anxiety that you’re looking for, but it’s also going to bring that toasty, cozy freeing experience that we just like all love about cannabis so much. It kind of just makes you say like fuck it and opens you up, right? Sorry. Like, if I’m not allowed to swear on here.

Sorry, normally I say that at the beginning, speak completely comfortably.

Okay, awesome. But what’s really cool about the experience of THC specifically is that taking this back to anandamide, it mimics its function, right, it interacts with the same receptors that anandamide is interacting with. So what you see is that if you have an endocannabinoid deficiency or a clinical endocannabinoid deficiency, if your endocannabinoid tone is low, what you want to do is you do want to take some THC, you want it to interact with your endocannabinoid system, you want it to reregulate you, and you want it to give you that like very blissful euphoric, like body high that you’re getting. In terms of what how you’re actually feeling like why touch is so amplified. I can’t give you a proper response for that. Honestly, there’s just not enough research on it.

But in terms of people that experience pain and inflammation, or any other kind of like, sexual discomfort, then that’s gonna be gone and you can really focus on just like the pleasure itself. And you know how you always see things through a rosy lens, that’s also anandamide. So that’s that feeling of bliss that we feel when we’re having sex, right? They’re so intricately tied in together. And that’s kind of as far as the research on THC specifically, and the emotional component of sex. And we haven’t even started on the physical report. Right. Like we’re still about to get into that.

Yeah. So yeah, let’s shift into that now. So what about the physical part? So genuinely, people are saying, increased pleasure, I’m assuming that has a big part of like increased blood flow and things like that. I’d love to hear your thoughts on some of the research. I know it’s kind of pulling it from different areas, because it’s hard. There’s not that much research specifically on sex and cannabis.

Yes, yes, yes. A lot of this just ended up being like me synthesizing different sources of research and putting together what I understand from pharmaceutical research and attaching it to some of the mechanisms of action of THC and CBD and a stronger correlation between the two. Right?

You know, we should talk about the stats first, because you mentioned that people are more likely to have orgasms. But let’s say that for anybody that has a vulva, if you’ve reported as using cannabis use before, and these are based off of studies, apparently you have a two times higher odd, 2.13 times higher odds to be specific, of reporting satisfactory orgasm. But what’s more is that not you don’t only have to have consumed cannabis before having sex. If you’re a cannabis consumer period, you’re about two times higher of reporting satisfactory orgasms.

So there’s just – I keep telling people like cannabis is female, right? Like, that’s why when you introduce a male cannabis plant, the female crop is ruined, you know, because they’re just like so holy and fully feminine on their own. And there is a beautiful relationship between the cannabis plant and the human female body. Now, I have a few theories as to why that is, based on some of the emerging evidence, like I said.

First and foremost, I think THC and CBD, you touched on there, are vasodilators, right? So they’re taking a lot more oxygen into our sexy parts, and they’re making them a lot more aroused. And an aroused clit is typically a happy clit, right? Like to talk about the fire in your loins, like you’re gonna find it from cannabis, literally, because it’s helping engorge it.

Then the other side is the pain relieving properties, right? So a lot of people, which is interesting, as I was doing my research, I was finding out that people were having tension, pain, inflammation in sex that they didn’t even know was there, because it was par for the course for sex for them, like it was just what sex was, right? Totally blind to it, essentially it was just how sex worked. The harsh reality is that a lot of us actually don’t know how good our bodies are designed to feel, right?

An even more harsh reality is that women’s issues are rarely taken seriously by medical professionals, especially when it comes to pain, typically – and I don’t know if this has been your experience before. But if you go to a doctor, and a lot of my female friends have gone through this, they’ll have a very serious pain condition. One of my friends actually had her appendix burst and is now in a wheelchair, but they just told her that it’s just like a regular pain, and she’s probably overreacting. And I’m assuming they said that because she’s a woman, which is just wild.

All the time, so many friends going in for all different reasons. And like endometriosis and PCOS especially, doctors can be so dismissive and it takes years and years of advocating for yourself to really get anywhere with it. And like you touched on, it’s something that so many just chalk up to being normal. It’s what life is like for them. But there are options out there.

Thankfully, and the options that are out there right now are basically like cannabis or depending on what your condition is some kind of hormone therapy, which, you know, people avoid for like very, very good reasons. But honestly, more than a few of the things that we’ve been talking about, like the pain and the engorgement, there isn’t really like a biological reason that you should be feeling this or like feeling so much more pleasure when you’re on cannabis.

One potential explanation is that it helps balance your testosterone levels, right, because testosterone in females and in males is basically linked to pleasure. More testosterone is more pleasure. And you also find that typically, if there’s more testosterone in your body, you also have a larger clitoris. But what’s interesting is – and again, I’m not really sure how this happens, but just going over forums, going over a lot of doctor written journals about their experience with patients that have come in talking about their experience with cannabis. There’s things like spontaneous orgasms. There are anecdotes from doctors talking about how their patients were telling them that they weren’t able to have an orgasm sober, but have no problem orgasming when they’re high, right?

And then some studies have also found that woman that use cannabis to manage menopausal symptoms, like hot flashes, night sweats, insomnia, etc. All are finding relief from those symptoms, which are also helping them have better sex lives. But again, it really is so fast and loose right now with the research out there that I want to make sure that anything that I shared is clinically sound. And that’s as far as are about as deep as the clinical research goes for humans.

Yeah, our hands are somewhat tied, there is only so much research out there. But that’s one of the great things with it being fully legal in Canada, legalization slowly building in the states, hopefully more research will really start to come out over the next 10 years.

1:01:46 Yeah, do your research. That’s really what it comes down to. And what we’re all about at Unapologetic Moms Clubs. Do your research, look into things, figure out what’s right for your situation and be confident in that decision.

Fuck yeah.

Yes! We’re coming up to time, but I did want to touch on specific methods of delivery. So you had touched on tinctures as being a preferred method. I actually have my tincture right here from My Supply Co that I use regularly throughout the day. Yeah. So you said it’s the best bioavailability. So you would definitely recommend that as safe to say compared to say smoking.

Smoking and vaping are always going to have the highest bioavailability. Right? It’s like directly in your lungs, directly into your bloodstream. I think they clock out at around like 24 to 30%.

Oh, okay, so it’s almost doubling.

Yeah, yeah. And then there’s another delivery method that they’re working on right now, which is a nasal spray or something like that, that’s supposed to get it up to over 50%, which would be amazing, right? Because now you don’t have to take 50 milligrams or 100 milligrams, you could take 20 milligrams, right? And your products could stay with you for a lot longer.

But if you’re not interested in smoking, and also if you have like an inflammatory disease, then I typically would recommend don’t smoke, right? Especially if it’s an autoimmune inflammatory disease, your body’s already attacking itself, don’t give it any reason to increase like inflammation. And, you know, that’s just not something that you want to do.

That makes sense.

But what’s interesting, CBD does help with anti autoimmune diseases. I guess that’s a conversation for another time between the two of us. Just the forms themselves. First and foremost, I always recommend taking, tinctures. Tinctures, you drop them onto your tongue, you keep them there, I always tell people and minimum of 90 seconds, because I feel like they can’t do any longer than that, like our attention spans just aren’t there for that. Hold it for two minutes or more, that’s perfect, right? Because you want to make sure that as much of the therapeutic agents are like delivered into your bloodstream, and you have a lot of capillaries under your tongue that can make sure that happens.

I’m definitely not doing it long enough. I’m going to have to set a timer!

No, see, the way that I do it is I’ll just drop it under my tongue. And then I’ll just do like my skincare routine, I’ll do whatever I have to do. And then by the time I’m done, I’m just like, I should probably swallow now. Right? But it does distract me from thinking of this thing that’s in my mouth. I’m like, has it been a minute yet? You know, just user tip.

Yeah, I’m all about the marrying like habit changes to existing habits and kind of being able to do that and have it work out a lot better. And so I like the idea of adding it to your routine where you can just add it to the beginning of something you already do. And that already fills the time and works well.

Exactly. And that way you don’t feel like you’re wasting time like this is a 90 second waste of time, right? It’s just like no, this is your wellness, but let’s fit into something that you’re already doing.

The other delivery methods are like edibles, people love edibles, I love edibles, CBD edibles specifically and ratio edibles. But the only problem with those is the – like I mentioned, the 6% bioavailability. So if you’re taking those you typically want to take more CBD. Try not to take too much THC because that’s a whole different ballgame, right? Let’s say you take five milligrams of THC, even with everything factored in, right? Like how much less bioavailable it is, how much of it gets like lost on its way to your high, to the onset. It turns into a metabolite that’s five times stronger than THC. So what you’re feeling when you’re high on edibles is not THC. It’s a derivative of THC, that’s five times more powerful that just like sends you. Right?

So make sure that if you’re taking THC that you’re starting low, go slow, always. CBD, you want to take a lot more than what you think that you need typically, because it does take a about three times as long as tinctures. You said tinctures are like 20 minutes to 30 minutes, edibles will be closer to like 45 to 90 minutes, the range is so much more unpredictable, because it does depend on what did you eat today, right? What did you eat yesterday? What is your metabolism like? There’s just too many things that could potentially get in the way of you having like a very consistent dosing experience. But if you want a party, go edibles.

Some of the other forms, like capsules, isolates, things like that. Or like isolette powders. I’m not a huge fan of when it comes to CBD, there is something to be said for taking it in an oil and dropping it under your tongue. Like I said, with the rest of them when you’re ingesting them, they’re basically just ingesting edibles. And again like that has to go through your liver or it goes through your stomach then your intestinal tract before finally ending up in your bloodstream. So like just do yourself a favour, if you’re in pain or if you want to have great sex, like you want it now – just take tinctures, or if you’re comfortable with smoking and you don’t have an autoimmune disease, I love smoking. So go for that.

1:07:20 And then there’s two others I want to touch on. What about suppositories, because I have heard that to be quite helpful for women with different like pelvic floor issues or endometriosis. It’s able to really help minimize the pain so they can experience more pleasurable sex.

There’s nothing better than targeted therapies right? So because we know that a lot of these pain conditions or chronic conditions exist within like a localized state, suppositories and pessaries are huge. They’re very, very effective. I don’t know a lot of companies that actually do a good job of creating them. Like there’s one company that I saw a long time ago, but I haven’t heard of them since. They’re called – dang, I think it’s like Kief life. And it’s just not a brand that a lot of people are gravitating to, right?

Because you want to make sure that anything that you put in your body that way is something that you can trust, like anything that goes into you in like such a sensitive area is something that you can trust. If you find something that you can trust – and there’s a lot of do it yourself methods as well out there, I would highly recommend doing that. Just make sure that THC is involved, you will not get high at all. The chance that you’ll get high by through like a pessary or a suppository is so minimal, it’s not something that you should consider.

And just make sure that you’re giving yourself the TLC that you need and that definitely includes both major cannabinoids and if you can find a full spectrum product that has some minor cannabinoids and, you know, the terpenes polyphenols and sterols that are in there. Because they do work intelligently together right? You put out a post recently about the entourage effect, which is awesome. So if you can find something that does mediate the entourage effect then just go for it.

Localized is always best. So if you have like a topical as well like for your cramps then you want to make sure you combine whatever you’re ingesting with something that is completely targeted to the area because it will get to your endocannabinoid system transdermally, you just need to make sure that you’re picking the right products with the right quality.

Yeah, the quality products is huge looking for third party testing, again, the full spectrum versus isolette, and just the quality of the ingredients that they’re using. That’s why I like My Supply Co for so many things because I can trust the products and there’s such a range which is really nice. And they actually have lubricant as well or a massage oil, which is great. Yeah. And I read recently where I was doing research on that. And it actually, because the vaginal canal is so absorbent, it works really well for women, they report some great experience with easing pain and increasing sensations. But men don’t experience the same thing because the penis isn’t as absorbent for things like that.

Yes, that’s very true,

Which is a bummer for you guys. But it works out for us.

And like, you know, if you want to start comparing apples to oranges, women also just have so many more nerve endings in their genitals that it’s like, you guys kind of lucked out in a lot of ways, you did. There’s just so much sensation. I think there are these studies that show how a woman’s brain lights up versus how a man’s brain lights up during orgasm. And the woman’s brain basically was like a beacon. It was crazy, like so many different parts of the brain were lighting up and it was like this firework show. And then for men, it was just like a very localized part of their brain. It was just like one part, this is all you get. Women had this just like beacon. And you know, that’s sort of a double-edged sword where it’s like you do have that but there’s just so little out there in the way of helping people actually achieve that. Lubes are great for it. Seriously. So if you’re taking pessaries, that’s great. But if you just want to have like great sex, just like slap some on.

Yeah, there you go. No, that’s interesting, though, that you said that with the brain research. That’s something else I want to look into now. This week, at the time of recording, we are releasing episodes all about tantra. And so I’m curious, like right down to the people that they were using for this test and then let’s say compared to someone who knows more tantric techniques with breathing and meditation and getting into your body, if their brain might react differently to an orgasm than just say anybody that doesn’t have those skills.

Okay. I’m excited for that.

Yeah, there’s a whole other level that you can go with.

And is that really just like an exploration of the mind in relation to sex?

It’s a lot to do with like breathing and getting out of your head and into your body. And when you get into it, too, there’s a way like a lot of men tie orgasms to ejaculation, but there is actually a way to separate the two. And so men can have more repetitive multiple orgasms, similar to women, when they’re able to kind of separate the ejaculation from the orgasm. It’s like a crazy world. So yeah.

Interesting. Okay, I’m definitely gonna need to tune into this one.

Yeah, it got released this week. So you have access as a guest so you can check that one out.

Oh great!

All right. Well, this was a fantastic conversation. Very, very informative. Thank you so much for being here and sharing all of this, do you have any last notes or anything you’d like to say before we sign off?

I do. I do. You know, I wanted to share some like educational resources for people to look to, so that they have this but they can also just in their free time, just go out and like start digging into and going down that same rabbit hole that I went down, you know. There’s so many but if you want like just straightforward like doctor driven information, there’s project CBD. Very easy to read, very digestible, and they talk about a lot of the different conditions that we covered today and more. These doctors were, after many years of practice, basically disillusioned by the pharmaceutical system, by medicine patents and things like that. So they decided to start their own Resource Center. That’s how it was born.

If you’re looking for a little bit more lifestyle content, there’s two actually three blogs that I’m absolutely in love with. There’s My Supply Co’s blog, there is Miss Grass’s blog, and there is Forias’s blog. They’re all great. They all touch on the culture, the medicine, the science, the history of cannabis and magic mushrooms, so they’re fantastic. Foria is very focused on women’s sexual health and reproductive health as well. So that is a great resource for anybody that just wants like simple straightforward, practical advice.

And then lastly, you want to look at like your NCBI’s or your National Institutes of Health or your PubMed for like more in-depth research right. Typically the way that I start, if I had to choose like a hierarchy almost, is I start with like random blogs, so like My Supply Co, Miss Grass, Foria. I start there for just like lifestyle. Once there’s something that’s interesting, that really piques my attention as like being a concern for me, I’ll jump into something like Project CBD. And if they don’t have anything on it, then I’ll do like a deep dive into the more like the databases like NCBI and PubMed.

I do a similar flow where it starts out kind of piquing my interest with lifestyle blogs, and then digging into it a little bit more and getting into the research studies and things like that. We have a bunch of cannabis content as well. And I’m actually partnering with My Supply Co for their journal for getting some posts up there as well. And we’re working on a guidebook all on women’s health and sex and cannabis. And so listeners can be on the lookout for that as well.

That’s so cool. I’m so excited for you.

1:15:40 I know me too! So where can people find you? Before we close out.

You know what, honestly, connect with me on LinkedIn, I’m always just trying to – not like professionally, connect with me on LinkedIn, if you just have any questions, if you want to shoot the shit. If you do want a professional connection reach out to me there too. But I’m not really paying attention to like the for professional opportunities as much as I am paying attention to questions people might have, right? If you just want to get straight to brass tacks and you don’t have LinkedIn and you just want to talk, ask me questions, whatever it is, you can find me on Instagram @ThatJihad. And that’s it. I’m not going to be everywhere, which is funny. I do work in marketing and consulting on people’s Digital and Web strategy. But I kind of hate my own presence. So it’s just, I think once you start doing the work, you don’t want to do it for pleasure anymore. You know, you’re just like, this has become work.

Yeah, I totally feel the same way. It’s refreshing to hear someone else say it because I do so much for work. And I’m so disinterested being on my phone and being on social media for personal reasons.

100% Yeah, like I’m all there for like, you know, writing, putting out knowledge, dissemination, like the internet is such a good tool. But at this point, I’m a lot less interested in it as a medium for like social because I’m just on the computer all the time. I like meeting people in person. So yeah, if you do, if anybody wants to meet up and they live in Ontario, Waterloo, or anywhere around here, just hit me up on any of my social and I’d love to go and just like talk about it. I’m super dorky and very approachable. So let’s get into it.

Great. I love that. We will have everything all linked for listeners. And thank you again for being here. This was a pleasure, super knowledgeable. Thank you for everyone tuning in, you can head to the Facebook group and we can dig into this a little bit more. I’m curious to hear your experiences and your biggest takeaways. So till next time, take care.

Thanks for listening this week! If you want to chat about this episode with me and other moms, check out the exclusive UM Club Facebook page! Thanks again, and we’ll see you next week!

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