The Integration of Chinese Medicine with the Emerging Cannabis Industry

Christian Boscardin is a graduate of Emperor’s College Master’s program and a current Doctoral candidate. With over two decades of experience as a grower of medical cannabis, Christian was a valuable member of the first cohort to receive a certificate for Medical Cannabis from Pacific College of Health and Science.

His expertise in breeding cannabis and in-depth understanding of the therapeutic effects of terpenes have given him a unique advantage to bridge the gap between evolving cannabis practices and traditional Chinese herbal strategies. Through his own research and experimentation over the years, he has discovered how these two healing modalities can co-exist and even work together to better help patients.

The following has been edited for length and clarity.

Q: As legalization becomes more universal, do you think it is relevant for TCM practitioners to be more strongly versed in medical cannabis treatment approaches, physiological effects, etc.?

A: The literal code for acupuncturists [in California] is that we’re allowed to use everything: plant, mineral, animal product. For me, thinking that cannabis would be decriminalized, I was like, “why wouldn’t the actual herbalists be the ones doing this?” People in dispensaries are the ones at the forefront, and it’s illegal for them to give you any medical advice. So, that’s not fair for them to be on the forefront of the plan.

Everyone will be familiar with CBD for pain, for sleep, for digestion, for anxiety, for very common problems. I always thought that it would be good to be familiar with what to be able to suggest in that realm in case they were not open to Chinese herbs. Where I’ll be working, they’re asked about cannabis referrals all the time. It will be a beneficial part of my practice. Knowing what we’re doing as it gets more popular would be helpful so we’re not doing any harm, of course. And, as it develops, maybe there is some synergistic effect. And also, of course, contraindications.

I keep seeing on CALE, the question is, are we allowed to prescribe marijuana? And the answer is, it’s an herb. So we’re there, but we can’t sell it. That’s the odd dichotomy of the whole thing. But someday soon, let’s see.

Q: It sounds like you plan to practice in a way that doesn’t necessarily combine TCM herbs and cannabis, but really just adds an additional tool to your repertoire. So, if a patient doesn’t want TCM herbs, you would offer cannabis instead?

A: Cannabis is comfortable on the ears. They’re like, “Oh, yeah, I know about that.” Once you start going deep [with TCM], it’s so deep. You need to hit the middle road because that’s where most of your patients are going to be. You have to speak their language and offer options that meet them where they’re at. You can’t tidal wave them with information. It’ll be so overwhelming. They won’t want to participate.

Q: Huo Ma Ren, the cannabis seed, is the only part of the plant currently prescribed in the Chinese herbal medicine space. Is there therapeutic use for other parts of the plant, from a TCM perspective?

A: It has been used in our medicine for thousands of years. It was put in there to be the “handling of 100 medical conditions”, the use of cannabis. They used the flower, the stem, the leaves, and the roots. Hua Tuo, he was the first person to use cannabis as anesthesia for surgery. He combined it with wine. The word for anesthesia in Chinese, 麻醉 (mázuì), actually means cannabis intoxication.

They used the roots as a tea (it’s calming for the Shen), but now the roots are basically just thrown out and have been thrown out for a long time. The seeds were ground into a powder and then mixed with other herbs as an immunity tonic. The leaves were ground into a poultice to help relieve pain and inflammation. And, going back to the root, it has choline in it. So it plays a role in nerve function, brain development, energy levels, things like that. But almost no one is really using the root. I thought at one point you could start your own business from not even ever doing anything, never growing anything. You could just collect the roots from cannabis farms!

Q: Do you have any anecdotal examples of interactions between TCM herbs and cannabis (positive or negative)?

A: Ren Shen decreases the psychoactivity of cannabis. I guess that was a failed experiment because I put them together thinking the opposite, and then later thought “did I just neutralize myself?”

Q: What is the medical cannabis approach to treatment of disease in patients?

A: With TCM Dui Yao pairs, two herbs can enhance the functions of each other. That is the same with THC and CBD. It is important to have them both working together, and this is known as the entourage effect.

Essentially, for me, after 20 years of thinking indica and sativa were what made something medically beneficial, it’s really not. It’s the plant terpenes. It’s the terpene profile that gives it all of its medicinal effects. Once I learned that, then that’s when I started to try to learn the plant artistry and get to the deeper layer of what’s going on. It’s not how heavy of an indica can I make something to get this? How heavy of a sativa can I do to make that? It’s like the balancing, or the dominance, of the terpene profile which really gives its essence. Like a multi-layer cake as opposed to just chocolate. The intricacies started to interest me in learning plant identification and how to grow male plants. These are all things I couldn’t do at my farm because it’s female dominant and one male plant ruins your yield and everyone’s in the neighborhood. You could seed everything. So I started doing that down here on a smaller scale. I look forward to doing it more in the future.

You could use the benefits from the plant without ever crossing any legal boundaries. There’s no THC involved, but there are medicinal effects from the terpenes. For example, α-pinene, its anti-inflammatory, aids in memory, and antibacterial, or linalool is good for anti-anxiety. β-caryophyllene, that’s the one for total bone health because it helps bones mineralize. Myrcene, that’s for pain, that’s in indicas.

I was thinking of ways you could add these for specific effects to TCM formulas without involving legalities. I just saw they found a plant in Brazil that’s been growing like a weed, and they’ve been able to extract the CBD compound from it. So, if you have to go safe routes because whoever is in charge of what’s allowed is not okay with it, I think there are ways to do it.

Q: How well are different strains regulated? How do you know you are getting the terpene profile you need to impact a specific condition?

A: You have to have it lab tested. You hope that from a dispensary they can get it lab tested, or it’s lab tested, and you can ask for the profile of the cannabis.

Otherwise, what ends up inhibiting suggesting something is farming practices. I know an oncologist, he says he can’t really recommend it to his oncology patients because of the farming practices. The additives in the fertilizers will actually cause more harm than good. Same with Chinese herbs, too. The amount of things like lead in the herbs, or something like mugwort. A lot of mugwort commonly grows on the side of the freeway, and they harvest it. Then you’re just burning car intoxicated mugwort in your practice, and you’re inhaling it.

Q: Your thesis at Pacific College of Health and Science for the medical cannabis certificate was a little hard hitting. You predicted a lot of the pitfalls of legalization, and all of this kind of closed a chapter on cannabis for you. Can you talk a little bit more about your research and thoughts on the future of this industry?

A: I focused on the business side of cannabis for the capstone. I had the inside track. They were selling butterflies and rainbows and that everyone makes it. I’m out going to farms, going to friends’ places. These are real farms, people are paying all their money and waiting for the counties, as legal as you can go. And it’s just not working. From the financial standpoint, you’re watching the price go down and then seeing that trend continue. People coming into the industry don’t have any reference to what it used to be.

I just had the thought that it would eventually go to a market crash and then big companies like Johnson & Johnson or Coca Cola could grow at a loss for a year, wipe everyone out, and then grow however many fields of it to make it unsustainable. I wrote that dispensaries would be gone. The common farmer would be wiped out, and that the future of cannabinoid medicine actually will not be from plants. It’ll be synthesized. They’re starting to do it now and have been.

At the time, no one knew what I was talking about. I had said, for financial gain, to invest in the companies producing synthetic cannabinoids. You could switch one molecule and then put it all into pills through pharmaceuticals. Yeah, this is me talking, right? Crazy. I just said that the best idea is to save your money and then invest in the way that’s taking over. I checked in on my idea (my probably too much caffeine idea) recently, and there are companies doing it. I feel like that’s the next movement of cannabinoid medicine, unfortunately. On a big scale, it will be synthetic production.

I was also trying to say that it’s not necessarily the worst. I was just trying to warn people from going all in and thinking everybody wins. I asked how legalization will actually increase drugs. Drug dealers don’t have morals. It’s going to bring more hard drugs in. They can’t sell this one thing, so they’re just going to take all their money and put it into something else. They don’t care. And it’s just going to flood and make all of our towns worse, and here we are. Meth is coming in like it never has before. I feel like it’s partially because of the legalization of cannabis. I’m like, you guys, what are you talking about? Have you ever been out in the dirty world before? This is inviting a world of trouble. That was my doomsday prediction. I was like, am I that guy in here? I am that guy, but I’m the only one that has that experience. That’s when I started just breeding for the love of cannabis.

I wish I was wrong, believe me, but it was actually a good thing for me. The first few years, I was a terrible TCM student, but I was making good money doing practically nothing. That’s not good for my world. It kept me not where I should have put my energy. I was doing all right. So then once that door closed, my grades went way up. I started getting everything and putting in the time. All my friends [who are also growing cannabis] thought I was so crazy going to community college and acupuncture school in my mid-30’s. Now they’re like, we should have listened to you.

I’m still not making any money eight years later. I’m not doomsday, but I’m going to be careful how I spend my energy. I’m going to refer out to a reputable [cannabis] collective [for patients] and keep it easy.