The Therapy for Black Girls Podcast is a weekly conversation with Dr. Joy Harden Bradford, a licensed Psychologist in Atlanta, Georgia, about all things mental health, personal development, and all the small decisions we can make to become the best possible versions of ourselves.
As cannabis consumption continues to be prevalent, it’s imperative that we understand the science behind the plant. What is cannabis and how does it interact with our minds and bodies? And, what do we need to be mindful of when using cannabis to protect ourselves and those around us? This week I was joined by Neuroscientist and Professor Dr. Yasmin Hurd. During our conversation we explored the different properties in cannabis, the difference between CBD & THC, and what new important research is being done today centered around cannabis usage.
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Welcome to the Therapy for Black Girls Podcast, a weekly conversation about mental health, personal development, and all the small decisions we can make to become the best possible versions of ourselves. I'm your host, Dr joy Hard and Bradford, a licensed psychologist in Atlanta, Georgia. For more information or to find a therapist in your area, visit our website at Therapy for Black Girls dot com. While I hope you love listening to and learning from the podcast, it is not meant to be a substitute for a relationship with a licensed mental health professional. Hey, y'all, thanks so much for joining me for Session to three of the Therapy for Black Girls Podcast. We'll get right into our conversation after a word from our sponsors. As cannabis consumption continues to be prevalent in black communities, it's imperative that we understand the science behind the plant. What is cannabis and how does it interact with our minds and bodies? And what do we need to be mindful of when using cannabis to protect ourselves and those around us. In this week's session, I speak with neuroscientists and professor Dr Yasmin heard during our conversation. We explore the different properties in cannabis, the difference between CBD and THHC, and what new important research is being done today centered around cannabis usage. If something resonates with you while enjoying our conversation, please share with us on social media using the hashtag TBG in session or join us over in the sister circles. Let's talk more in depth about the episode. You can join us at community that Therapy for Black Girls dot com. Here's our conversation. Well, thank you so much for joining me today. Dr heard nice being here. Thanks for having me. I was wondering if you could get us started by talking to us about the research that you conduct and how you got started in conducting research related to CBD. So the research I conduct relates to trying to understand what everybody calls addiction and related psychiatric illnesses. And I had been studying the developmental effects of cannabis for many years in addition to studying the neurobiology of heroin effects on the brain. And when we look at adults that had heroin used disorders, we try to look at what are some risk factors, and one risk factor we look at, you know, genetics, of course environment, and one thing was also looking at early exposure to cannabis, whether that be prenatal or at a lessent exposure. In our animal models when we want to study the neurobiology, we normally use th HC to look at the effects of cannabis, and we would invariably see that animals, for example, with self administer more heroin in no matter what their friends from others who are there ads. We do that behavioral transmit a difference. But I wanted to at least say we were always saying that th HC was cannabis, and I said, let's at least study another cannabinoid just to make sure. And when we gave CBD, it was surprising we actually saw a different effect than we saw with th HC. CBD cannabidial actually reduced the animal's heroine seeking behavior, and that became my path into studying CBD and we replicating our studies in our animal models, and then I wanted to see if CBD could do the same in humans, because there are a lot of animal studies for research that never really translate to the human and become therapy, and when we run our clinical trials, it actually did the same thing. It reduced heroin craving in individuals who had a heroin use disorder. Now I became like the face of CBD, ironically because no one was studying CBD at that time, and when we started thinking that this could be a potential treatment for substance use disorders at least for all produce disorders, and then I've been trying to understand its effects on the brain ever since. Thank you so much for sharing that. So I am fascinated. I don't know a lot about like animal studies and then how that translates to like what happens with humans. But can you say a little bit more about, like how often is it that something we see that works in like an animal study translates to working in humans. It's rare, I will tell you. And that's the problem that we have right especially for psychiatric disorders I'm talking about in particular. Animal models and so on are very important to understand the mechanisms by which certain drugs may act on the brain, or understanding the biology of certain behaviors, But to translate it to developing medicine, less than five percent, it really is that rare. So when I saw the effects that they in fact replicated what we saw in our animal models. It gave me hope, and that's why I started to promote that perhaps we should be studying CBD, and unfortunate's got very complicated because now CBD is sold everywhere and it's in the water and their coffee. For me, I thought that it could be a potential medicine and that could have such huge impact. So you use another word that I want you to tell us a little bit more about. So you said something about a cannabinoid. What is it? Thanks? So, the cannabis plant is extremely complex. It's made up of over a hundred and forty cannabinoids. Many people know th HC. Right, that's the cannabinoid that's the most prominent carnabinoid in the plant, And that's the cannabinoid that you know it makes you feel the high that's associated with the euphorogenic effects of cannabis. That also is what we know is associated with the mental health challenges that we see in certain cannabis users. But cannabin dial CBDs another carnabinoid. It's just a much lower concentration in the plant and these are the original plan and it's even lower now in the plants that are on the street. Of the plants on the streets are not the original plants. They have been genetically modified to give a much higher concentrations of th HC and inadvertently they reduced CBD in the plant, which actually in a way was a buffer in on sent you could say to th HC, there are other chemicals in the plant as well. Often people in the hear of turpenes. But th HC and CBD are cannabinoids, got it. So yeah, you mentioned like it feels like you hear about CBD kind of all over the place now, But there are other and I'm guessing these are also cannabinoids. So cannabis and hemp are those also other like cannabinoids. So th HC is the cannabinoid within cannabis and hemp. Actually, hemp is a cannabis strain that doesn't have much THC in it. In fact, it's the opposite. It has more CBD because it has like less than point three percent th HC. Hemp now is legal throughout the country, but cannabis is still illegal federally and it's still considered a Schedule one drug. So cannabis and hemp are the plants, and th HC and CBD are the cannabinoids within those plants. Got it, Okay, So from your research, how do people typically get into cannabis used. The one thing about cannabis today is that so pervasive in our society, but even before today, and it's not just cannabis. Many people say, oh, cannabis has been around for thousands of years. All the other drugs have also been around for thousands of years, except for the new ones that we've sympathized, but mostly it's in the US. There's just been this long history with cannabis and even the term marijuana, which came actually from Mexico and the prejudice that was made in terms of, oh, marijuana and those Mexicans are crazy, and it became this negative things of the Mexicans are bringing marijuana into our country. And then it became oh, to stop the kids in the sixties who were for peace, and that black people were smoking cannabis, and you know, the War on dreads. A lot of it came from trying to demonize cannabis. But I think cannabis in our society many people started using it like alcohol, and because it didn't lead to like overdoses like opioids, and it just became you know, you have all these terms from Marywell, I don't know, from weed. It just became very kind of a norm, even though it has been penalized so much, and especially for black and brown people, where so many people are locked up in prison because of having cannabis on their body, things like that. Now that we've come kind of full circle where everybody thinks that it should be legalized, many people think it's benign drug. Many people think it's like alcohol. And so you have now this promotion of cannabis used where you see advertisement not even for CBD. And I separate cannabis really from CBD, but I think that it's the drug that, along with alcohol and cigarettes, that many teens would be exposed to first. This is when they start experimenting and figuring out themselves in part. And it's just become part of the norm in our society. So it's basically everywhere. You know. The other thing that I've heard a lot doctor heard is around cannabis being like a gateway drug. So I'd love to hear from you is this true? And what is a gateway drug? So a gateway drug and I think the term is misused from what the initial authors of that term really admitt So basically is that the use of one drug will then lead you to use another drug. And usually the first drug is something you know more of a social not so far drug, and it leads you to them take a harder drug like heroin or cocaine, and cannabis is when you look at the pathway that many adults who have a substance used disorder, when you look at their drug history, many of them started off with cannabis. They also started with alcohol or nicotine. So that's why those drugs are considered gateway drugs in that context. But it doesn't mean that if you use cannabis that automatically you're going to develop a heroin used disorder or cocaine use disorder. So the epidemiological studies does say that there is a link between especially early and frequent cannabis use and subsequently developing another substance use disorder. And I will say that the data shows that nearly adults with a substance used disorder started off during adolescence with substance use, and so that's time period during adolescence is that time period of vulnerability where that gateway hypothesis stemmed. And that's why I think that we do pay a lot of attention to team use of drugs, whether it's alcohol or a cannabis, just because that's the time period that it makes more vulnerable. It seems really interesting because I don't know that I have heard alcohol being described as a gateway drug, but it sounds like from what you're saying, in a lot of ways they are kind of on poor. So both cannabis and alcohol, you see, tend to be connected to later drug usage. Yeah, cannabis, alcohol, and cigarettes are considered gateway drugs, I think just because of the optics cannabis being the illegal drug while cigarettes and alcohol are socially legal. That's why cannabis, perhaps the term gateway was people in regular society thought of it that way and promoted that way. But all three of those drugs, because these are drugs that are more accessible to perhaps two teens, even though those drugs are illegal for teens to use. But you know, if something isn't society for adults is gonna find its way. Toto as right, And but all three of them are considered gateway drugs. And when we talk about gateway. Is there something happening by illogically that indicates like okay, you would need a different kind of stuff since they maybe get that same kind of a high, or is it more related to something else. So that's why the research that I did try to look at that. So when you look at humans and human studies, they're very complicated to go for this gateway on a neurobiological level. Why because sometimes teens who eventually do develop a disorder to cocaine or heroine use, they were around the people who were selling the drugs. So many people think that the drug dealers start them off on cannabis but then move them to go buy heroin or something, and or the friends that they have, the environment that they're in. So the animal models actually help us to see what is the neurobiology irrespective of your friends, irrespective of your mother, your father. And when we do look at animal models, we do see that early exposure in life too. Like I said, p HC does increase the sensitivity to like opioids and psycho stimulant, cocaine or something later in life. So it does change the brain to for there being more sensitive to those drugs. So for example, in our animal models that adults with actually even prenatal exposure to cannabis, or at less an exposure to cannabis, they self administered more heroin when given a choice. So we know neuro biologically that there is a sensitivity, but just like humans, not every animal will do that. So we know that behavioral traits also make a difference. We also know that stress also makes a difference. So the stress and combination makes this difference, and that's why you know, again our society and certain communities have a lot of stress in them, and those combinations make it challenging for mental health. People start to self medicate and then they find themselves going down a path that they normally wouldn't. So what does th HC Actually due to the brain and body, So th HC bind store natural cannabinoid receptors in our brain in that body, and actually our carnabinoid receptor is one of the most prominent abundant receptors in our brain, and in our brain it regulates many different systems because it's so abundant. So from I'm going to get very sciency from our cortex that cognition, learning and memory. It's a part of the brain called like the hippocampus, which memory, are parts of our brain that deals with mortor coordination, emotional regulation, so all of those things. When we have THHC in our bodies, it can bind to those receptors and modulate those things in the body. We have a lot of cannabinoid receptors as well, so we know that our endogenous carnabinoid system is very corret call because it's really integrated in the functioning of so many things, not just our brain, but also other organs and our immune system. More from my conversation with Dr Herd after the break, So what happens to our cannabinoid receptors if we're not actually consuming th HC or CBD or something else, like, what happens to them naturally? You know, you will hear that, oh, I use cannabis, But because we have natural cannabis receptors, and yes, we have these cannabinoid receptors, but we have natural cannabinoid ligands in our brain and body, so we naturally make these substances, but we make them at very low concentrations, and that's the difference. So when we consume cannabis and th HC, it actually is like this huge hammer. So if you think of this little tiny pin that your natural cannabinoid leggas, the natural cannabis chemicals in your body and your brain would normally just like tap them lightly, and then now you have cannabis, which is a huge hammer that then hits them very hard. Those receptors. So our natural cannabinoid chemicals in our body are critical for regulating all these systems normally, but over a certain concentration, and that's where the challenges and that's the issue with mental health. For example, why does high dose you see induced like psychosis? Why? And yes, definitely more in some individuals that have a genetic vulnerability. And it's because that's the cannabis, and especially the synthetic cannabis, because they bind to our natural receptors much tighter and they produce a much stronger effect. And that's what caused this disruption of the cells because the cells aren't used to having this hammer. It like that, got it? You are really taking us back to like science one on one today. I feel like I'm learning so much. So we do know though that CBD, it seems like typically has a more calming effect on the brain and the body. How else does CBD make us feel and what can it be used for? So CBD is very interesting can aminoid and I'm fascinated by it. And one of the things that's important to know it doesn't buy into the kinnapinoid receptor like the THHC does not in the same way. So it's actually even works as an antagonist to even block part of the THHC effects. So we're all trying to figure out how CBD adds on the brain. But we do know that instead of having this hammer effect, it has small effects at many different sites, and perhaps those small effects but in multiple systems, is perhaps why we don't see that CBD has really bad side effects like we see obviously with THHC and CBD. We're still again trying to figure out what does it do. We know from our studies and from other people who have replicated our studies and looked at other population We know that CBD reduces anxiety. We're trying to figure out how does it do that. We know other researchers and number of groups have shown that CBD actually reduces psychosis. We're trying to figure out how does it do that. We know it can improve sleep, but again we're all trying to figure out the dose and the timing of how CBD is doing some of these things. There are also people trying to study CBD. We have a project starting soon with pain. I don't know if CBD is really going to be as effective for pain without having some THHC there. But these are things that has to be studied in order to understand what concentration, what dose of CBD is effective for different condition. But because one dose is not going to be effective for all conditions, we know that CBD might be effective for we still have a long way to go, I think, to finding out the dosing we know from the only FDA approved use of CBD is for two childhood forms of epilepsy, rare forms of epilepsy, and so there they have characterized the doses and so on, but those are very high doses. Okay, so please forgive me if I butcher the science behind this. But what I hear you saying is that CBD does not act on our carnabinoid receptors in the same way that THC does, and that it may actually be acting on other receptors and other parts of the body besides just the carnabinoid receptors exactly. And when I hear you say that you're studying and other people are studying, like we know that it does kind of manage anxiety or helps to decrease those symptoms. Is it acting in the same way as like an anti anxiety medication with work or differently. So there's some things that we see that it has in common. So, for example, are indogeness it's called serotonin. It's a neurotransmitter that's really linked to depression and anxiety, and CBD actually works as an agonist at one of those receptors, so we know that it tweaks the serotonin system as well, So that may be one of the reasons why it has certain anti anxiety properties. As I said, the research is long that in order to figure out why CBD has some of these effects. But the one thing we do know that again, unlike THHC, it doesn't produce intoxication. It's not addictive. So when I hear people tell me, oh, they got CBD and they got so high or something, these teenagers are saying that, I know that they did not take CBD. So that's one of the things that people have to be careful because they're selling CBD and putting something else in there, we have to be very careful about where you obtain your CBD. From the f d A, they have had a number of groups run many different phy doses of CBD to try to see if, indeed if it is addictive, and even the animal models it does not show that sign at all. So you already mentioned a couple of times how problematic it is that we're not really even using like the original plant anymore, and so who knows what kinds of things people are adding. So even when you do like your own research, how is the CBD or whatever substances made. So I work with pharmaceutical companies that make miscal GMP. You know, it's like when you go to the pharmacy and you would buy your medication, you know that every single tablet is made the same, is pure a certain grade and meets a certain level of It doesn't have intoxicants in there, it doesn't have lead, it doesn't have mold. So we work with companies that make sure that we have high quality medicinal quote unquote levels of CBD because that's what we want to in the long run developed to really have products out there not me. I'm not going to be making saddling the money from it. But we want companies to, you know, develop products just like any other medicine. You know, I always say, you go into the pharmacy and you pick up a bottle of aspirin. You know exactly what the dosage is. It tells you on the you know the label, and you know when to expect, how long it would last. You know, aspirin came from the bark of a tree, willow tree. We isolated the active ingredient, which was aspirin. There perhaps other things in the bark of the tree that might increase or decrease its actions, but we know exactly what the active ingredient was and that's what's in every tablet that you get. But you know exactly the dose. And that's what I want for CBD. If it's going to be medicine, it should have that quality that you go into a pharmacy, you know exactly what it's in each of those capsules and you know what to expect and even what side effects to expect, not even does when it might alleviate your anxiety or whatever, it may turn out to be beneficial for so Dr Hurd. Are you finding that there is still stigma that exists related to CBD even though it feels like it's kind of everywhere right now. I think that there is in some groups, and that's why there is still obviously this push for federal like cannabis is still a Schedule one drug and so on, and because people don't realize the difference between CBD and cannabis. It's not cannabis. It may be a cannabinoid that comes from the cannabis plant or the hemp plant for those people who get it directed from him, but it's not cannabis, and that's why I want us to call it different names. Some people think, oh, they're just trying to legalize cannabis by CBD, and some people did. I mean, don't get me wrong. I think the people who really promoted a lot of the state legalization used CBD for medicinal cannabis and for epilepsy. But I think the stigma of cannabis comes onto CBD for some groups of people who just wanted to think that people just want to get high, and that's not the case. More from my conversation with Dr Herd after the break, what other kinds of like mental health concerns are being explored that could be helped by CBD. So in addition to the anxiety, and as I said, our research also on opiate use disorders, other people are looking at other substance use disorders as well. For alcohol, there's some work even the nicotine psychosis. So now there's really, you know, some really nice studies from England where they have looked at people who in the high probability will develop love schizophrenia and it's called like a prodromal state, and all of us for every disease, just like cancer, we want to try to get people early. And they've given CBD to some of these young people and showing that CBD does in fact decrease the progression to schizophrenia. So those are the things. So psychosis, there's also research being done with depression. To me, it's more of the anxiety is fear, but who knows if the dosing may make a difference for the different disorders. So those I think are the strongest mental health related indications that a lot of groups, and obviously anxiety and PTSD goes without saying so PTSD is a big area that a number of research studies are being conducted with. So can CBD be harmful for anyone? Like, is there anyone who should be mindful of not even taking anything with CBD? I think most people should always be cautious. And again this is the researcher in me and the nearest scientists where there's not a lot of data, even though people think it's been around for thousands of years. Everything has been around for thousands of years. Is just that we haven't really studied it. So what we see with CBD, the most side effects, especially higher doses is more your g I track, your guess or intestinal a little diarrhea of so on. It obviously can make you sleep, so no driving if you take hidoses of CBD. If you have epilepsy, we do see that the liver enzymes, so the drugs that we take are metabolized in our body right and excrete it out and your liver bricks down metabolizes these and your kidney and zone gets rid of the through year and the zone. But if people have a liver problems, they may not metabolize CBD in a way that you might have too much or so on, And if they have the anti epileptic medications that also have issues with the liver. Another thing is that we still don't know the interaction with other medications, and it comes back to the metabolism again. We all metabolize things differently due to our genetics and so on, and some medications they will overlap with the enzymes that metabolizes CBD, or CBD may inhibit those enzymes that metabolizes your benzodiazepine, for example. People think that CBD is benign neutral, but it's an active ingredient that is active in your body. So you have to make sure if you're taking any of the medication that it doesn't interact in how that medication is metabolized. It might help to speed up the metabolism of that drug or decrease the metabolism, and people that might even increase the side effects of the other drug that they're taking. So things like that I think are really important for people to understand. M HM. And you've already talked earlier about how cannabis can be related to things like memory concerns. Sometimes you see some schizophrenia kinds of things and maybe psychotic kinds of symptoms. Are there other things we should be concerned about as it relates to hannabis and our mental health. Cannabis and mental health is a huge, huge topic, and especially I will say for the developing brain, and that's what I focused on. As I mentioned in the beginning, we don't know why, but for cannabis, at least, the developing brain is much more sensitive than the adult brain. And so that's why we see the greater sensitivity to psychosis than adults. We've them studies with prenatal exposure to cannabis in moms. We studied moms and their kids and our animal models, and we do see emotional differences in their kids, greater stress reactivity in their kids, and all of those things increases mental health risk. And mental health risk is exacerbating by stress, and we have such high stress in our communities today that that combination for me to the developing brain and mental health vulnerability is really important. You know, Dr Hurt. As I'm listening to you talk, it often seems like when I hear just people's experiences of using cannabis, they feel mostly positive about the experiences. I'm aware that unlike maybe something like alcohol where you kind of have these hangovers where you can't get to work in the morning, you're having difficulty focusing. It doesn't seem like cannabis has maybe some of those same level of kind of side effects. So how would someone know if they're actually struggling with a cannabis maybe addiction or that there may be some concern about the level of cannabis they're consuming. So the same thing you know with alcohol. So it comes back to the amount of use. What you describe people periodic. They go to a party perhaps or on a weekend or someone and they have a joint or so, and that's not what the issue is. The issue is with people will wake up the first thing, the next hour, throughout the day, even before better, and that they can't stop. When they stop, they have many negative emotional effect and even aggression, they anger, the even sometimes the sweating, and so cannabis used disorder. Actually about thirty of people who use cannabis regularly will develop a cannabis use disorder, a diagnostic disorder. So it's like many other drugs, and that finding the cannabis, you know, consuming the cannabis takes up a lot of their time. And this is despite that they need to go to work or you can impact on their work or so on. That they can't stop using. And it's not just like I said, the periodic use where they feel happy and and it's important also to understand that not all cannabis is the same. So the cannabis that has a low THHC concentration, it's not again the major issue. Like we forget the sixties, seventies and eighties, even nineties, two thousands, you have like four pc TC in cannabis today it's fift and for a lot of ten kids they dad it which gives like SEVC that is not cannabis, that's a completely different drug. So they're like knocked out. And that's one of the things why cannabis is very challenging because indeed you can have the quote uncold recreational cannabis, but you also have the hardcore cannabis that has very high THHC. So to me, when someone tries to stop, well, one that they have to keep using. Two they try to stop and they're not able to stop. They have a lot of the anxiety, that can't sleep, the anger just like any other drug, withdrawal symptoms in one part. Then you know the person has a challenge with cannabis and maybe developing a cannabis used disorder. So I also love to hear your thoughts about edibles. We know that they're all kinds of like gummies and brownies and like all kinds of different ways that you can consume. Now, what is typically in inedible is that typically cannabis TBD or something else. It's usually cannabis in edibles usually TC, but now they make CBD edibles as well, and so that's one of the things. Also with kids in Colorado, when they made cannabis legal, you never had kids having problems, like in emergency room problems, but they would take the gummy beers and someone that their parents had and would consume it, and they definitely went to emergence room. They definitely had issues. One of the things also, I forgot to mention with these high potency TC cannabis, we've seen this hyper and mess that they vomit a lot, their temperature of their bodies change a lot. We're seeing that more and more, and it's because of the high THC in cannabis. But for gunnies, for edibles, they can be anything, and it's just that because when people consume them, usually the effects then come on a little later and then people then didn't feel it, So then they start taking the next brown ear, the next gummy beer, and so then the combination and then they get a much higher response. They have like hard palpitations that they go through a lot of the physical issues of having too high th HD in their bodies, and that's sometimes the issues that people face with edibles. Got it, So, what tips would you give from people who maybe are interested in learning more about cannabis used? Are like, is there a way that you can consume cannabis safely? What kinds of safety tips would you offer for people who are interested in, you know, either using or learning more about it. Yeah, it's really tough because even for me when I look at the Internet and I started to try to see, like said, what kind of information is out there? The things on the internet are so deceptive. End of the day, I do think it depends on where you purchase your cannabis, because you have to be sure that doesn't have any other product and it's safe and also you know what the concentration is. Even the dispensaries. They have done tests of the cannabis sold into some dispensaries and seeing that the th HC concentrations aren't even what they put on the labels. But I think still purchasing from reputable places I think is the first step, and like everything else, is to use a low dose th HC and not go for these higher t HC concentrations that have become so prevalent. If indeed just as mild whatever is what you know you're looking for. And I do think at the end of the day, have and know you have a family risk of mental illness. I think that th HC or cannabis is not recommended. M Okay, something else that I forgot to ask you that I want to make sure to go back to you. You mentioned their concerns, especially for like a not fully developed brain. At what age is the brain consider fully developed? I think some people will tell you never for the men, but usually it's a not mid twenties. You know that the brain starts to reach full maturity. So even though we say eighteen people can go to the military and twenty one to drink and so, and it's actually a little longer than that. So definitely like mid twenties before the brain reaches that level of maturity. I mean, And that is a specific concern I think, which is why you see like on college campuses right when you know, people are finally out of their families home and then they're experimenting maybe with alcohol and other drugs. That is why this could be such a big concern there, because the brain is not fully developed typically at that age. Absolutely, I tell everybody, if you want to try everything, wait till you. I don't have kids myself, and I tell my neviews. I used to tell them and my friends kids, way to at least twenty five and then you can try. It's like, just give your brain time to develop. Is there a lot of funding for the kind of work that you're doing, not to heard, and what kind of resources are needed? If not? When I started, I will tell you there was not a lot of funding. And I was even told that the research I was doing, I should look at something else because you know, cannabis is an important or interesting and definitely why am I studying in developing brain? And when I started studying CBD, nobody was studying I could even get CBD to study in our humans because it wasn't available Today because of the changes in our society and the legislations that have gone on across the country, there's a lot more research focused on funding from the National Institute of the Health and in particular the National Institude of Drug Abuse focused on cannabis and even CBD as a potential treatment. There are a number of studies that they are supporting in that realm. It is very difficult to get other types of funding. Unfortunately, it's still very challenging, but at least now there are a lot more researchers in the field looking at cannabis for many things, from its potential impact on the developing brain to its potential as a treatment for many different disorders and not just CBD, and meaning cannabis itself, and trying to understand role and can we develop it as a safe medication, as I said, for a number of different indications. So we'll see, but me personally know we need more research funds. But that's the nature of the world that we have in science, of course. So doctor heard, where can we stay connected with you for people who maybe want to follow your research, like what is your website? As well as any social media handles you'd like to share. I'm really bad with that so on Twitter it's like herd lab h u r d lab. The one thing is that people can always email. I don't know if your audience will be really interested in a lot of the deep science papers that we have, but they're all online. Thank you so much for joining us, Doctor Heard. I'm so glad Doctor Herd was able to share her expertise with us today. To learn more about her and her work, be should to visit the show notes that Therapy for Black Girls dot com slash session to and be sure to text two of your girls and ask them to check out the episode right now. If you're looking for a therapist in your area, be sure to check out our therapist directory at Therapy for Black Girls dot com slash directory. And if you want to continue digging into this topic or just be in community with other sisters, come on over and join us in the Sister Circle. It's our cozy corner of the Internet design just for black women. You can join us at community dot Therapy for Black Girls dot com. This episode was produced by Freda Lucas and Alas Ellis and editing was done by Dennis and Bradford. Thank you all so much for joining me again this week. I look forward to continuing this conversation with you all real soon. Take it care,