Our new podcast episode, “Cannabis Medicine 101,” features the renowned herbalist Tammi Sweet, author of the comprehensive work “The Wholistic Healing Guide to Cannabis.”
Join us as we explore the timeless wisdom and modern insights Tammi brings to the discussion about one of the most holistic, natural healers known to humanity – the cannabis plant.
Tammi shares her insights and knowledge on the healing properties of cannabis, the magic of plants, and the importance of working with them.
She also discusses the role of cannabis as a “gateway drug into herbalism” and the best practices for making your own medicine.
If you’re interested in the science behind cannabis and the dynamic nature of this plant, this episode is a must-watch.
Show Resource Links:
WIN AN ARDENT FX and a Scholarship to the Certified Cannabis Educator Program in November 2023.
Learn from Tammi at the Heartstone Center: https://www.heart-stone.com
Become a Certified Cannabis Educator in as little as 12 Weeks and get paid to talk and write about cannabis: https://cannabiscoachinginstitute.com/3steps
Use the code WAKEANDBAKE for $30 off at Ardent Cannabis: https://wakeandbake.co/ardent-cannabis
Visit Andrea at Reveal Cannabis: www.revealcannabis.com
Email us with questions and requests at [email protected]
If you’d rather read than listen, check out the blog and transcript below.
Cannabis Medicine 101 with Tammi Sweet
Cannabis Medicine Making and Growing
Sweet emphasizes how the cannabis plant has been revered for its healing properties for centuries, long before modern pharmaceutical industries cast a shadow on its use and production.
Cannabis is not just another plant; it is described as one of the most beneficial and healthful plants on our planet, with the potential to positively impact almost every individual who uses it.
Understanding the Science Behind the Plant
Tammi Sweet, with her expertise in herbal medicine and neurobiology, offers a deep dive into the science that substantiates the effectiveness of cannabis as medicine.
Her insights shed light on the intricacies of our biological interactions with cannabis, focusing on the endocannabinoid system which plays a pivotal role in how our bodies benefit from this plant’s medicinal properties.
A Guide to Wholistic Healing
Tammi’s role as co-director of Heartstone Center for Earth Essentials and her position as a traveling Anatomy and Physiology teacher enrich her perspective on cannabis-based medicine.
In her book the Wholistic Healing Guide to Cannabis, Tammi combines her extensive knowledge to explain not just the chemistry of the whole cannabis plant, but also the physiology of the human body’s endocannabinoid system and its significant impact on our health.
Embracing Plant-Based Wisdom
Through this podcast episode, listeners are invited to an eye-opening discussion that moves beyond the stigma and misunderstands surrounding cannabis.
It’s an opportunity to educate oneself about the plant’s true nature and its place in the realm of holistic health and medicine.
Don’t miss out on this compelling conversation with Tammi Sweet and uncover the transformative potential of cannabis medicine for yourself.
EP 203 Transcript
Tammi Sweet: As a person who works with plants, I want them to get the best press. I want them to be revered and respected and worked with and loved.
You’re going to get my unedited answers so hope that’s what you’re hoping for.
I think everybody should be growing their own plants and making medicine and it’s not that hard.
Anybody that’s got a condition where serotonin is involved, we want that CBDA. Like depression, serotonin related migraines, IBS anxiety, pain.
I was in a dispensary and someone was arguing with me and I pulled out both my books and I go, this is who you’re talking to.
Corinne Tobias: I feel like I’m talking to my future self. I feel the exact same curmudgeonly way about all these things that you do.
Tammi Sweet: I just told you all the remedies of my number one sellers of tincture. And I believe as an herbalist that my job is to repeat the giveaway that the plants do with us.
We couldn’t be here without the plants. They share their generosity that contributes to my abundance. And, and my job is to put myself out of business,
Corinne Tobias: Hello and welcome to the Cannabis Coaching Institute’s fall Book Club. All right. Thank you all for being here. So overall disclaimer, we’re not doctors. We’re not lawyers. Um, we don’t claim to be, we are cannabis educators and we’re here today with Tammi Sweet, and we’re going to talk a lot about cannabis and science and all of those things.
It’s not a medical or legal recommendation of any kind before using cannabis, please talk to your doctor and check your state and local laws to make sure that what you’re doing is on the up and up. We are so close. If cannabis is not legal where you are, please be a good advocate and go out and do the work of making that change, uh, making that change in your world.
Andrea Meharg: If you haven’t been to one of our Book Clubs before, we are so excited that especially in this season of Book Club, that all the authors are here with us to talk to you about their book today.
We’re so excited to welcome Tammi Sweet, who wrote The Wholistic Guide Healing Guide to Cannabis among others and the reason that I picked this book for Book Club was kind of twofold. It was one of the first books that I read about cannabis and I knew nothing about you, Tammi, before I didn’t know that you were like a legend in the world of herbalism.
What really piqued my interest in cannabis in general was the science behind why it worked. And you did such a beautiful job, in my opinion of explaining the science extremely well and extremely clearly and never letting go of what we call at the Cannabis Coaching Institute, the “woo”, which is the magic of the plant and working with a plant and it’s being dynamic.
So, um, yeah, that’s why, that’s why we’re here is to talk about this amazing intersection that you’ve put into the book for us.
Tammi, you talk about the plant with reverence and respect and you, I love that you talk about growing with intention and giving gratitude to the plant before you make medicine with it, or consume it, can you talk more about how herbalists in general view plant medicine and then cannabis by itself.
Tammi Sweet: There’s a whole spectrum of, you know, there’s not one kind of herbalist, just like there’s not one kind of flower. My first herbal teacher was Rosemary Gladstar. Um, my second herbal teacher was Pam Montgomery.
I took a plant spirit medicine apprenticeship with her, and both Rosemary and Pam tend to be on the woo woo side, more on the energetic side. I come with a science background. Stephen Buehner, I sat in class with him a few times, but he’s a science geek and holds spirit well.
So that’s my lineage. Those are my teachers. That’s what I teach. So, as in plant medicine terms when I view them as living beings that have their own spirit and their own gifts and they are teachers. I tell my students, um, they are our ancestors. They’ve been here for 3 million years. And so they are our teachers and um, when I wrote that book, I had been lecturing. Cannabis was not in the forefront and I wanted to bring this plant medicine back to the herbal apothecary. So I geared all my lectures to herbalists and wanted them to, you know, welcome her back from the fringes and I, I walk both worlds.
I have one foot in science and I deeply rooted in spirit. So for me, cannabis is just another plant, you know, I mean, she’s a master plant, but she is a plant. And so what I, what I teach is like, if you understand plants, you understand how to begin this relationship with cannabis. I always say that cannabis is a gateway drug into herbalism, you know, so yeah, for me, uh, And I’m constantly constantly reminded how I am a clumsy 2 handed human and I forget to stay in conversation with the plants.
I just have a job to do and I’m going in. I’m like, today we’re harvesting and I’m like, oh, hello, you know, say hello to the plants. So, um, I, I feel like I do the woo, but I can stand and talk the science. And I feel like then it, it gives people more people permission to kind of go to either spectrum end of the spectrum.
Andrea Meharg: I love that. Thank you so much for that. You’re actually a big part of our curriculum at the Cannabis Coaching Institute. One of my favorite quotes ever about cannabis is the one where you talk about how cannabis has been growing, surviving, thriving, adapting for millions of years. And how lucky are we as humans that we can enjoy the fruits of her labor over all of this time?
Yeah. Um, you mentioned master plants. Can you talk more about master plants and what that means?
Tammi Sweet: Sure, that, that, um. A lot of indigenous, uh, healers, uh, have a category of plants that are shamanic plants that can change consciousness, uh, pretty heavily, and even though, even though all plants can do that, there are a class of plants that Westerners call them the psychoactive plants, but that have this unique ability to interact with us and shift our consciousness.
And that’s, that’s what I mean by a master plan. And I feel like with cannabis, a lot of times there’s a big opportunity for forgetting that or entering into an unhealthy relationship with her because she is so readily available that people forget how powerful she is. And, and I, in my experience, you don’t forget for very long because she will kick your butt and remind you what, what she can do.
Corinne Tobias: I love that so much. Tammi and I really appreciate your work because you do a lot of work to kind of level the playing field.
I think that you really are the conduit for it being a gateway drug into herbalism for so many people, like the way that you talk about it, because you’re like, yeah, it’s a plant. It’s amazing. And all these other ones do these in varying degrees as well. And so I do really appreciate you bringing that that, um, philosophy to this work because, you know, in the cannabis world, or as cannabis educators that become so hyper focused on one plant. And I love that.
Tammi Sweet: Can I, can I piggyback off of that? Yeah. Yeah. Please. Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. Because, you know, as a person who works with plants.
I want them to get the best press. I want them to be revered and respected and worked with and loved. And cannabis doesn’t do everything. And she’s not supposed to. And so, you know, people will go, I want to, I need help with sleep. And I’ll go, well, have you tried these herbs first? I spend time dispelling myths about, no, actually, that’s not my go to herb, and, and that’s what I want, like, great, you know, cannabis, now go learn some other plants so that you have a bigger toolbox.
Corinne Tobias: Oh my goodness. No way. I’m like the, like in the, My Big Fat Greek Wedding, like the woman who sprays Windex on anything, but there there’s CBD and CBG and all these things. That perspective is so important. I have one question. This isn’t my legitimate notes question, but what are some of the plants that you point people in the direction of that aren’t cannabis?
Like when they’re like, I’m looking for help with sleep. Like what are some of your other top ones?. Yeah, um,
Tammi Sweet: you know, yep. So if you got a monkey brain that won’t shut up skullcap, um, and that scutellaria lateral flora, flora. Um, not Baykal Skullcap. That’s one of my favorites. Uh, Kava I like for, uh, whole system, like, relaxation and especially if there’s muscle tension involved. Valerian, you know, Valerian Officinalis, that is the go to for hundreds of years. But there’s about 25 percent of the population that when they take Valerian and it makes them hyped up.
So that’s not for everybody. And hops hops is a central nervous system sedative. So, you know, depending on what, you know, you always have to ask, why aren’t you sleeping and then go from there?
Corinne Tobias: I love it. Thank you. That was just my bonus question. Andrea, you can’t have the mic back because I have another 1.
Thank you so much for that. I really, I think it’s important for us to be thinking about that. Someone just mentioned in the chat that they love the mixtures of different types of plants and like what other plants can you use with cannabis? And that’s something that I’ve been interested in as well.
And like you said, once you start learning about this plant, if you’re not coming at it from the other way, cause I came at it from like other plants first and Valerian first, and then came into cannabis and I was like, Oh, cannabis does a lot. But if you’re coming into it that way, it really is that gateway drug.
Um, my question now is like back to cannabis is about the energetics of medicine. Um, I would love for you to talk a little bit more about that, especially the particulars of homemade medicine versus store bought medicine and what the differences are there.
Tammi Sweet: Great. And you’re going to get my unedited answers so hope that’s what you’re hoping for. Um. The best medicine you have is the medicine you make yourself and by far, and as an herbalist, I teach that, but also every single scientific study that has been done by Western science by the scientists themselves have proven every single time that whole plant extracts are more powerful than isolate.
When we say whole plant, we’re talking whole flower, whole female flower. Um, and it’s anywhere, depending on the study 3 to 330 times more potent than isolated extracts. And so there’s number 1. And there’s the, the science of it, and then there’s how does that person grow their plants? Do they pray with their plants? You know, okay, if we do the physical, what kind of nutrients are they using? Are they using bottle petroleum salt based nutrients, which is going to lower the terpene level? You know, do they have lots of biology in their soil? You can have lots of biology indoor.
It takes a special kind of grower, but it, you know, sun grown, full of biology well, it isn’t always guaranteed that sun grown is going to be full of biology. The last 10 years, the Emerald Cup in the Triangle over in California, the winners have had a 10 milligrams per gram more terpene level than than everybody else.
And the cannabinoid levels are equal. So, you know, finally the mainstream cannabis people are now coming on board of understanding the importance of terpenes. So, if I’m growing myself, I know what I’m doing in my field. I know how I’m interacting with the plants. And people can feel that and it’s the difference between, you know, Budweiser and craft beer, you know, like it’s, it’s small batch and that’s part of like, like, I think everybody should be growing their own plants and making medicine and it’s not that hard.
It’s, it, I will say, because I have a grow course, I can, everybody can grow good medicine. Everybody can grow flowers, plants that are going to get them good tincture and good infused oil. Not everybody can grow good smokable flower. That’s a, a, like, next level up. We, medicine is oral. The best dosing is oral.
So, tincture away. It’s easy. Yeah. Did I answer your question?
Corinne Tobias: Yeah. Sure did. I love it so much. Well, and it changes, it changes your relationship so much. What you’re talking about is you having a connection with that plant from seed typically or clone, you know, to putting it inside of your body. And that absolutely changes the experience.
Andrea Meharg: I was just going to piggyback on that and, and weave back into this whole, it’s a gateway drug to herbalism. At the Cannabis Coaching Institute, we have so many students, we teach them about the different cannabinoids, then they get really excited about like, well, what would happen if I combine like THC with CBG or C or THCA or something.
And so they start to make these beautiful concoctions that are like actually changing lives. We have grads out there who are doing amazing things because they are loving on this medicine and making their own particular blends. Corinne just had an experience with like cleaning out her cannabis pantry and making a salve to beat all salves in the world because there was so much going on in there. Um, we have students who will come through and then they’ll start making their own smokable blends, you know, adding catnip and things like that. So I, I do really think that once you learn how simple it is to grow this beautiful plant and then how simple it is, like you just said, to turn it into medicine, like you have to be involved.
You have to be so excited about it because of that.
Tammi Sweet: Yeah. And you know, and I also want to just say that. And if you’re not growing your own, then find somebody who loves what they do, right? Like, not everybody can grow their own. So, find a grower that you can support them and their family and. And also, like I tell people, think of a beekeeper, the energy of a beekeeper, when you ask them about their bees, they’re all effusive.
They love their bees. That’s how you want someone who’s growing your, your medicine.
Corinne Tobias: I love that. So like, you can still be a part of that second piece. It saves you so much money. It’s still gets your hands on the medicine. And I still believe there’s an energetic component to that as well. Do you feel the same way?
Tammi Sweet: Yes, absolutely. Yeah, I, you know, like, there’s so much that that we don’t know. And, and we shouldn’t know, like we don’t need the science behind if I get some flowers from my friend who grew these flowers, I can feel the love that they put into it and the care that they put in it into it. And I, I will bet money that you don’t like that, I could do that with everybody in a classroom. I could have 2 different sets of flowers that look the same and if people just slow down enough, they can feel the difference.
Andrea Meharg: Does this lend itself to talking more about the Simplars Method of doing dosing?
Can you talk more about that? If you, if you don’t have access to lab testing,
Tammi Sweet: Exactly like lab testing is, um, is an added bonus. There’s a place for it, you know, so the Simplars Method and, and even though I test my tinctures, every person that gets a tincture from me, I look at him and I go, start with a drop 1 drop and my, my standardized tinctures are 20 milligrams per milliliter.
It’s about 0. 6 milligrams per drop, not a, not a super high of each, usually THC and CBD. And I just say, so start with a drop and people are like, really? I’m like, yes, start with a drop because there’s many studies that are showing whole plant extracts are getting results with this drop dosing.
And so why spend more money when you can just get away with a drop and I really feel like to like, okay, so maybe it’ll take you 3 or 4 days to figure out what your dose is for anxiety or pain. I tell people start with a drop, wait 2 hours and check in and see what you’re noticing.
Anxiety and pain are really easy I’m a big fan of like, let’s keep the, the formula really simple and start with a drop. I just had somebody who I did a short consult with and who said I’m getting vape pens from the medical dispensary I’ve got severe pain and I’m anxious. And I was like, okay, well, first of all, let’s get you off the vape pen. I don’t know what’s in that, especially from a dispensary, but let’s get you to oral dosing, you know, and a one to one. And so, you’ve obviously got a pretty high tolerance. She wasn’t willing to do two days of abstinence to reset her tolerance.
So I was like, okay, so instead of you starting with one drop, let’s start you with six drops.
Corinne Tobias: I was about to mention that I know so many people, especially who are in chronic pain flare up or acute pain or acute anxiety or something that feels more severe to them that don’t feel like they can wait that three or four days.
And that patience piece is, is difficult to translate. Like it’ll pay off in the long run at that point. Cause you know, their, their brain is different. Their chemistry brain chemistry is different at that point. Um, so is that the, have you found that to be the solution in terms of when people are like, I just can’t, or.
They take a drop and they say, oh, it doesn’t work now. I’m just going to go back to doing whatever I was doing before.
Tammi Sweet: The way I describe oral dosing versus inhaling, and that could be a vape pen, that could be, you know, just the flower, is that it’s like, it’s like taking, um, simple sugar versus complex carbs and what it does to your insulin insulin level.
So, if you’re oral dosing, you’re going to get the level up in your blood and then every 4 to 6 hours, as it starts to decline, you take another dose. So you maintain those levels. Whereas if you’re inhaling, it’s spiking and dropping, spiking and dropping. And it’s always, you’re going to need more. So what I said to this woman is like, okay, well, we know that cause she also uses her vape pen to sleep.
And so I was like, well, what, how about you try for four days, four to five days up your oral dosing, and then by the fifth day, try to not vape before you go to bed, because she was clear too, I don’t want to be doing this. We need compliance, so we have to work in ways that’s going to help people, you know, and it’s like, I said, what I said to her too was like, look, you always want, you, you know, that works.
You have it as a safety net and try this other thing.
Corinne Tobias: Do you have the same frustration level again that some of us do that someone told her to use a vape pen for what she was dealing with. Right. Someone was like, Hey, here you go. This is a good idea for you.
I don’t know if that was a bud tender in her situation or not, but you know, we hear these stories all the time. Is there frustration for you in that, like in that relationship and is there something that, um, you’d like to see handled differently when it comes to people recommending cannabis right off the bat to a new, new person who needs it?
Tammi Sweet: I’m a little bit older now. And, uh, here’s a great quote from one of my friends, which I love. “My job isn’t to convince, it’s to reveal.” And so I really believe that I wrote the book I do lectures. I say right to someone’s face, inhaling, especially a vape pen, there’s no medicinal benefit. Like the people that should be using a vape pen are people that are in going into surgery or post surgery. If you have anxiety, it’s actually the worst thing you can be doing for yourself because of that peak and trough. So I, I just kind of lay out, here’s the science, here’s my experience with working with people. And then it’s, and it’s how I am as a teacher. It’s like, I put it there and then I don’t look you in the eye.
It’s like, there it is, there’s the information. And now I don’t want it to become a power struggle with me. It’s like, look, I, I’m, I’m sharing with you the best practices that I know of, that I’ve researched, and, and now it’s up to you. I’m 58 years old and I’m getting, you know, to be, become that older woman who’s just like, can be blunt.
What are, what are you doing? Like, we know this doesn’t help. And, I pushed with the publisher they wanted me to dumb that book down and I was like, no, I, I, you know, I, I will have deep dives off the side. I want the science and I actually disagree with you that I actually think people are smarter than you’re giving them credit for.
And so maybe they don’t get it all on the 1st pass, but I wanted that book to be able to go into the homemaker, the home herbalist and into a dispensary. And so, yeah, you’re right. Like, there’s a lot of education and I deal with a canna bros all the time who are trying to explain to me things. Literally, at one point, I was in a dispensary and someone was arguing with me and I pulled out both my books and I go, this is who you’re talking to. There’s a lot of misinformation and we just like this Book Club, right?
Like, what you’re doing is we’re just trying to educate me. Yeah. And it’s going to take a long time and there’s big money behind people not being educated.
Andrea Meharg: This is probably the perfect time to take an ad break and tell you that we run at the Cannabis Coaching Institute, a cannabis educator program where we’re doing exactly this work of trying to get out there and, and explain the science and the woo and the everything behind the plant so that people have actual information that they can use and trust.
We need to keep on just talking about it.
Just keep talking about it. And you know, there’s how many there’s 65 of us here on the call tonight on a Tuesday night to learn about the woo and the science of cannabis. Yeah. You’re also my lady hero. I’m going to walk around with your books and pretend I’m Tammi Sweet from now on. Just so you know, like that’s what I’m doing at all the dispensaries.
Tammi Sweet: Yeah, I went, I went to a couple of them and I tried to talk to people and I was like, here, just take this. You know, I just left it with people. I’m like, here, like it’s worth the 10 bucks that it costs me to give you this book, you know?
Corinne Tobias: I think that there’s something so powerful in that sentence that you just said, which is that there’s a lot of big money behind, like, I mean, they don’t want you to know that. They don’t want bud tenders to be fully trained because they make more money on dabs and vape pens than on someone taking a drop of cannabis medicine or making their own.
Or in places like the state of Washington, where I live, where you can’t grow your own unless you get a medical, you know, recommendation, which is almost impossible. This isn’t by accident that, that people aren’t educated. And this idea that you just posed that, that you believe that people are smarter than, than publishers, or that were, you know, we’re taught to like write it a fourth grade level, dumb it down, make it as easy as possible.
It makes it boring. People don’t want to learn stuff that’s boring. If you’re going to say the same stuff that everybody’s saying over and over again. And so I just wanted to take a moment to appreciate the fact that you approach your work with such complexity and that you make it so interesting and that you don’t just share what we know but I think that thing that you said earlier about, like, we’re not supposed to know everything. Like it’s okay that we don’t know. This obsession with knowing is also not great for, for us when we approach plant medicine. So thank you for that. I really appreciate it. Yeah.
Andrea Meharg: You wrote this book a little while ago. You’re still deep into the cannabis scene. Your grow book came out not too long ago. What’s been exciting or interesting or super angering to you in the field?
What do you want to talk about with people right now in the cannabis space?
Tammi Sweet: I decided that it’s been, I think, 10 years that I’ve been teaching cannabis basics and I gave myself permission. So, in the last month, I, I was at a Women’s Herbal Conference and I came out of the closet a little bit and did a 2 hour class on Plant Spirit Medicine with Cannabis.
, I feel like 10 years was I did my dirt time around teaching the basics. So now it’s like, okay, what’s interesting to me and then 2 weekends ago, I taught a all day workshop on a deep dive into terpenes. And so we spent the day talking about how to get more terpenes, why we want more terpenes, you know, why the plant makes them.
And then we got to since I’m a hemp grower, we went out into the hemp field and I had people interacting with the plants. And then I set up uh, it was probably 15 different cultivars in little jars and I wrote down the name of the terpenes that were predominant in there and they went through.
It was, it was awesome. And I said, hold an intention of what you want to be working with cannabis for and then go through all of these. And I had coffee beans in between the stations and, and, and then said, yeah. Write down your top two and then so and they didn’t have any names and then we went through and then I went and then talked about each cultivar and what it is good for. And then I said how many people got a yes and and almost everybody was like, yep, was right on.
So again, it’s about empowering people. If you’re going to go to a dispensary, I want the bud tender to have experienced that plant. In herbalism we say you cannot, you cannot consult with someone and and recommend a plant that you have not worked with that you have not internally worked with and that’s how I feel about cultivars.
I tell medicine makers, you probably could get away with 3 or 4 different cultivars and you could fill your apothecary and, and work with remedies. For me, right now, what’s exciting is this next layer of depth and it’s the terpenes.
I’m trying to get the number of plants that I’m growing down to a number where I actually could just listen to the plants and do what they tell me.
And I can’t do that with like this year. I had 90 plants, you know, it’s too many. They’re too loud. Too many people that have too many needs. Anyway, so that’s, that’s what’s exciting me.
Andrea Meharg: We always find the same thing that all of us seem to go down our own little rabbit holes.
You know, yours might be terpenes or cannabis spirituality. Um, everybody has their own thing.
Let’s open it up for people here.
We have our lovely Kirstie Chadsey here who is very eager to ask a question. Welcome Kirstie.
Kirstie: Hi guys. It’s so good to see you. Here’s the truth. I’m just going to fan girl out for a minute. Tammi, is, Oh, this is like huge. Love her. She is absolutely the author of my two favorite books in cannabis. Her grow book, if you are interested is amazing.
And I have them all. It’s everything that you need in them. Some. I am a proud member of her grow course this summer and I’ve got some 10 foot monsters out in the backyard. Thanks to Tammi. Oh, watching those terps like a hawk Tammi any day now.
And then shout out to my CCI girls. Andrea and Corinne, my incredible life is thanks to you guys. If you are even remotely thinking about becoming a Certified Coach or educator,
this is the program. These are the
ladies. This is the plate. Tammi. It’s so cool to see you here. It’s so cool to see you here.
Andrea Meharg: If you can believe it, that’s, that’s Kirstie’s energy all the time. She wakes up and that’s where she’s at.
Rukia wants to know how to find out about your next Grow class, Tammi?
Tammi Sweet: I just did my 2024 calendar and the launch of it is going to be the first week of April.
Andrea Meharg: Shannon wants to know what three or four cultivars you’d suggest are the most versatile.
Tammi Sweet: I love the muffin. I love Blueberry Muffin, um, Humboldt Seeds. You can get feminized if you want them, but she does pretty well in our growing environment.
And for anxiety, for help with sleep, for helping with, um, libido, she’s just a rock star. And I usually mix her with a high CBD. And I even break down the CBD varieties into stimulating. I do terpene profiles. I do internal profiles and I find that I love Hawaiian Haze and that’s from Oregon CBD. Um, so there’s the keys to the kingdom that that those 2.
I know that if you buy Humboldt Seeds, Blueberry Muffin, I know you’re getting the Muffin that I grow. I have a really beautiful pain formula, three parts, Blackberry, Kush, one part Deluxe Sugar cane, which you can research that cultivar and find it and Dog Walker. So I do one part Deluxe Sugar Cane, one part Dog Walker, three parts Blackberry.
And that’s my THC component for pain. It’s amazeballs. And then I equal it out with. Usually I like Suverhays from Oregon CBD. I love that. She does really well here. She’s got a little bit more uplifting terpenes. Um, but Oregon CBD, they’ve got beautiful genetics. I love Deluxe Sugarcane for emotional work. So if you want to do some deep journeying, deep dive healing with emotional, psychological work, she’s a beautiful space holder.
And I also want to say right now, I come from an herbalist tradition where my teacher, Rosemary Gladstar, when she first started, uh, there weren’t books everywhere.
This is in the 70s and she came up with this beautiful face cream recipe. And one of the like Bosch and Lohm or one of the health and beauty companies came to her in her early twenties and said, we love this. We’d like to buy it from you for a million dollars. She was like, great. And they said, the only stipulation is you can’t, you can’t share the recipe.
And she said, no, thank you. And then she published a book with the recipe and said, please, everyone use this. And I, and I, and I’m pointing this out to you because I just told you all the remedies of my number one sellers of tincture. And I believe as an herbalist that my job is to repeat the giveaway that the plants do with us.
The plants, we couldn’t be here without the plants. And they, they share their generosity that contributes to my abundance. And, and my job is to put myself out of business, I’ll teach something else, you know, but my job is to share with you so that you are empowered and you’ll go give away. And if I can’t give away medicine, I’m not doing something right.
And so I was at this conference, this woman came up, she’s like, I mean, her friend came up and said, look, so and so is in severe pain and she’s really concerned with the prices. I said, please have her come. And I just gave her medicine. And she was like, this is, I’m really uncomfortable. I said, look, if I I’m not doing right, if I can’t give this to you, there will be other people that pay.
So this is really important that we don’t have proprietary recipes,
it’s just not right. There’s enough. There’s enough for everybody. Okay. Soapbox off.
Corinne Tobias: That’s my favorite soapbox. Share the information. I love it. Thank you so much for sharing all of that with us.
Andrea Meharg: We have a question about end of life for dogs. Can you talk to us about that?
Tammi Sweet: So some of my best herbal medicine is, was with my pets. I tend to find that they don’t really like the tinctures. So, infused oils, and, you know, you just make an infused oil in olive oil, then you can like sneak it in there in their food.
Um, you don’t have to pay millions of dollars for CBD chewies, you know, just make your infused oil . The standard is 150 pound man is what the prescriptions are set for. If it’s pain, for example, right?
If you don’t feel comfortable with the THC component, the CBD component works beautifully. So make it infused oil. And then, you know, my, my dog, she was 65 pounds. She was a big German shepherd and she had arthritis. And I would give her, you know, a dropper full of CBD oil at both meals. And then if she was having an especially sore day, I’d give her that one to one.
I just give her one or two drops. She’s 60 pounds, 65 pounds. Like if I had a little 15 pound, I would try to dilute it. usually end of life it’s the pain, right? They’re in pain, or if they’re anxious, giving them, I would start with CBD. You know, just to see high CBD cannabis.
Andrea Meharg: Thank you so much for that. Um, John wanted you to expand on directly whether CBD increases intraocular eye pressure and I just, I’m just working on this for a class right now and talking to a doctor about it. And there is some research that shows that it does increase intraocular eye pressure. He was talking about how if we’re going to try to use cannabis for glaucoma specifically that we should be trying to get it in an eye drop, like we should be getting it as close to the source as possible as opposed to Putting the CBD or CBG or whatever it is throughout our whole system when we’re trying to just focus on that.
So,
Tammi Sweet: um, yeah, I, I, my concern would be how are you going to get it in there? That’s what
Andrea Meharg: that’s what his concern was. Yeah. But he was like, his point was the research on cannabis for glaucoma is not good enough to be like, yeah, you should definitely be start trying all of these different things for it.
Tammi Sweet: Well, that’s, that’s why I was being really specific about CBG.
And that, and, and, and my story now, this is only one person, but you didn’t hear CBD in the formula.
Andrea Meharg: Wow. John’s already using it. John’s using it as a salve and placing it above and by the eye socket.
Tammi Sweet: This is a perfect example. So the top of the eyelids are very thin skinned. So that’s actually a, like a good idea, like the inside of your arm, the back of your knee, right?
Those are thinner your scrotum, but don’t do it on your scrotum if you have them. Um, but the thin skinned areas, it’s easier to absorb. If I can get it to blood vessels, which it doesn’t necessarily hit the blood, otherwise I’d be lathering myself and I’d be high all the time, right? On my, around my eyes, then it’s going to maybe, like, it’s going to then enter the bloodstream, and it’s going to go to your heart.
Then it’s going to go back out into the system and make it to your eye and the amount that you have to lather on is really high. You’re not putting it on the eye itself. That might be a little bit different. So, I would say you get more bang for your buck if you take it internally. It absorbs into the digestive system, goes to the liver.
Please don’t talk to me about first pass metabolism because it’s a crock of crap. So I take it internally. I absorb it into my digestive system. 25 percent of it makes it to my liver.
Liver will do its first pass metabolism, but only 25 percent is even removed. Then it goes up to the heart, out to the lungs, back to the heart, then to your body. If I inhale it, in one minute, it goes from my lungs, To my heart out to the body back to my heart to the liver. So you get about 1 more minute of of it not going through the liver.
Your medicine’s potent enough as a tincture to not put 95 percent alcohol under your tongue, which burns the shit out of it, right? Take it, in some water, have it get absorbed. So maybe I only do one drop under my tongue and I have to do three drops to get it the same dose. I’m okay with that.
That’s what I’m saying. Like, there is first pass metabolism, but it is not pulling it all out. And in one minute, what you inhaled is hitting your liver anyway. That’s at rest. If you’re moving around, it goes faster. That’s just
Corinne Tobias: take a tincture run. Yeah. Okay. I have a follow up questions too, um, cause I’m really excited.
Somebody talked about acidic cannabinoids. Um, you know, the, the drama of people calling things tinctures, especially in cannabis that are put in MCT oil. Do you have a preference? Um, yeah. Alcohol versus oil. And should we stop calling them tinctures forever? I don’t think
Tammi Sweet: it’s an infused oil. If it’s an oil, it’s a tincture.
If it’s an alcohol, right? That’s just a straight definition. So there’s that, um, I’m an herbalist. Organic olive oil is much cheaper than MCT oil. Organic olive oil is a better extractor. And organic olive oil, people don’t have allergies to like they do MCT oil. When I first started entering in as an herbalist with 20 years experience, and I kept reading everybody’s formula and it was in MCT.
I was like, “Why?”, you know, and and why are. So do people know why. that you buy commercial stuff and it’s in MCT or olive oil? Because they’ve probably extracted inferior material and they’ve got it as an isolate or a distillate which is in its resin oil form so it’s easy to warm that up and put it in oil and and dissolve it.
As an herbalist, it’s much cheaper and much faster to extract it in alcohol. It has to be 95 percent and it, and people go, but it doesn’t taste good. I’m like, it’s, it’s gross. It doesn’t taste good. It’s medicine. It’s not a tasty beverage. You know, people are like, Oh my Charlotte’s Web with chocolate and peppermint, you know, like you can’t dress it up still gross.
And if it doesn’t taste like weed and it doesn’t smell like weed, it’s, it’s not what you want. So then everybody’s like, what about gummies? And I’m like, oh my God, I’m an herbalist. Why do you want me to put it in a gummy? So I wrote a blog. Everybody who tries to buy stuff from me, I, I swear to God, I say this to everybody.
Okay, one ounce bottle of tincture and give you 600 milligrams of THC and 600 milligrams of CBD. Cost you, for me, 40 bucks. If you want that same 600 milligrams in a gummy, you’re now going to pay me to go through all those steps and, and you’re going to have to spend about 150. And they’re like, are they vegan?
No. Are they, you know, sugar free? No, they’re gross. I buy gummies. I do what everybody in the industry does, which is I buy gummies, I melt them, and then I reconstitute them with extract. And, and you know what people do? They’re like, I still want the gummies. I’m like, okay, here you go. I gave you all the information.
It’s much cheaper to do this, but go ahead. They, I know gummies are fun. They’re sexy, whatever. Oh my God.
Corinne Tobias: Oh, I know I have the same thing. Cause I, I love this. I feel like I’m talking to my future self. I feel the exact same curmudgeonly way about all these things that you do. And when I, when I saw the MCT, I was like, everything was proprietary at the time.
Nobody was being an herbalist about it. And so I was like. Somebody knows something that I don’t know. So I was reverse engineering everything that I was finding at the time. But, but your piece about the gummies, there is something about people’s consistency when, even if it tastes gross, if I put it in a candy, they do it and I don’t get it, but they do it.
So like, there is something to it, even though it’s gross. I, I love you so much.
Tammi Sweet: Here’s the thing, my wife. Has chronic pain. She has a knee replacement. She has arthritis. I’ve been teaching this now for, what, I don’t know, 15 years. I have these beautiful remedies. About two years ago, she tried my, uh, it’s a CBD and CBDA one to one.
She tried the gummy and she’s like, Whoa, this works. I was like, Oh my God. So, so now when I’m making gummies. And I’m packaging up the little ones that she likes, the angel wings. She’s always like, um, is there going to be enough for me? I’m like, honey, you will always have your own supply. But it’s hysterical.
She’s an herbalist. She knows better. She’s like, I need my gummies. Okay.
Corinne Tobias: There’s something about it. Someone asked about acidic cannabinoids and that’s my terpenes. Where you guys are all in your terpene land. And I’m like, Talk to me about acidic cannabinoids.
How are you feeling about those? Um, and what have you learned that’s been great.
Tammi Sweet: So the, for me, CBDA um, I said this years ago when I first started teaching, I was like, CBDA is going to be the next one. And now we’re starting to see that the fact that it binds the serotonin receptor 100 times more potently than CBD.
Anybody that’s got a condition where serotonin is involved, we want that CBDA. And so like depression, serotonin related migraines, IBS. Anxiety, pain, even. So my blueberry muffin, Hawaiian haze, that’s my, I call that Pema for anxiety, Pema Chodron. My number two seller is Angel Wings, which is equal parts CBD and CBDA.
And I, I actually refer that more than just straight CBD. Because of that whole set again, we know a lot about serotonin, but there’s a lot we don’t know. So it’s just like, let’s just make sure it’s covered, you know, and for me, the only time I really work with that is when I’m trying to make when I’m trying to keep terpenes in the tincture because I don’t have to decarve it because basically anything that does does, you know, so I have a little I have a little like.
Yeah. Look down on the THCA a little bit, you know, and it’s just like, it’s just my own limitation. I’m like, I’m just going to go with the one that does all the things. Right? CBDA. Absolutely. Love that.
Corinne Tobias: That’s awesome. Yeah. What Andrea was talking about earlier about students at CCI learning about these different things.
I remember when we started having access to CBD and CBG and people started making salves and tinctures and things with those three. And then when Andrea put the lessons in about the acidic cannabinoids, as the science was coming out, people were like, well. What do those do? And, you know, like started formulating things with all six of those in them and like having these incredible, um, responses to that.
Michelle was like, how do you get, let’s get all of these things in the party. It’s incredible and has had incredible results with the, with combining all of those cannabinoids.
So I really, um, I really appreciate you. Andrea, do you have any more questions?
Andrea Meharg: We did have a question about like, when do we have these meetings?
So we’re happy to tell you that book club is back for October, November, December this year, next month at the beginning of the month, we’re going to be reading, um, Waiting to Inhale, which is a phenomenal book about how prohibition has specifically affected certain populations, and what we can do about it, and a way to look at prohibition with like 2023 eyes
and be able to maybe not look at it with even quite so much anger in certain times. So one of the authors of that book will be here as well with us next month. And then Tammi, I think you’re going to come because in December we’re having Stephen Gray, who does Cannabis and spirituality, and he’s coming on to talk to us about one of your favorite subjects.
Corinne Tobias: Tammi, I already put your, your website in the chat several times because people are like, how do I get on this magical list where I can grow with Tammi?
Tammi Sweet: In that, you can go click onto the all all world of cannabis with Tammi kind of thing.
And it’s awesome. Like, I mean, You know, I know it’s me, but it’s like, it’s a lot of free stuff . I haven’t announced it yet to my list, but at the end of this month, I’ll be launching my medicine making course. And I’m also going to be releasing that terpene class that I taught I do a lot of free webinars. I feel like the more people we have educated, the better.
Andrea Meharg: I think I might have to declare you our favorite book club guest yet. Like, our chat was blowing up. I don’t know if you can see all the people, but we have really enjoyed this chat with you. So thank you again so much for coming on here and giving us your time.
Corinne Tobias: Thank you again so much, Tammi. We can’t wait to try to talk you into coming and hanging out with us again.
Tammi Sweet: All right.
