Talk to a handful of medical marijuana patients, and you will hear more than one story of using cannabis instead of addictive pain medications or leaving destructive addictions like alcoholism or even methamphetamine behind in favor of medicating their physical and mental illnesses and issues away with this green herb. But does cannabis help your body heal from addiction and the damages that addictive substances can have on your body?

In his 2016 book "The Cannabis Cure" Dr. Cass Ingram describes how the use of a raw cannabis extract can be used to heal the body from both drug addiction as well as the damage from alcoholism. In this same book, Dr. Ingram states that "high THC pot can be highly addictive" and prescribes a treatment of raw hemp and wild oregano oil to treat that addiction as well as addictions to tobacco, alcohol, pain medications and street drugs.

In the last few years, centers in Arizona and California opened up that treat addictions with cannabis. In Maine, a physician advises and teaches about treating addiction with micro-dosing cannabis. What do these physicians know that others do not?

The treatment center, High Sobriety in California poses a harm reduction and substitution standpoint as some of the reasons behind opening a cannabis-inclusive addiction treatment center.

At Blue Door Therapeutics in Scottsdale Arizona, instead of going into their reasons behind offering medical cannabis as a modality that an opioid patient can choose to use in their center to fight their dependence, they include a page of links to the studies behind the use of cannabis to fight opioid addiction and dependence.

Dr. Dustin Sulak of Maine runs a site called healer.com which teaches patients how to microdose their cannabis medication. Dr. Sulak is considered an international expert in the use of cannabis for addiction treatment. He wrote extensively about the modalities and reasons for cannabis treatment published on Project CBD.

All of these experts are echoing what cannabis patients have known for years: Cannabis and hemp can help heal bodies from the destructive effects of opioid pain medication. I have been treated under the care of naturopaths, with cannabis in conjunction with many dietary changes for the effects of almost a decade of prescription opioid pain medication use. I have learned by research in conjunction with trial and error what strains and methods work for my body.

Studies are beginning to show that the use of raw cannabis and hemp in conjunction with other lifestyle changes can effectively treat addiction. Yet, conventional medicine tells us there is no effective treatment for opioid addiction and chronic pain control. Cannabis patients know this to be incorrect. Cannabis is an effective form of chronic pain control. The studies show this and the patients who are choosing it over more debilitating and intoxicating opioid medications.

In strict contrast to stereotypes, most medical cannabis patients want to get out of bed, off of the couch and get on with their lives. Cannabis is the tool that they use to get rid of addictions that are keeping them from continuing with their lives. Cannabis is the medication that many patients are using to regain control of the perception of their pain (it does not stop the pain, but helps to control how much attention you give the pain in your thoughts).

I am excited by the physicians and clinics who are paving the way. Only with global legalization and cultivation of cannabis and hemp will we see an answer to the opioid crisis. Unfortunately, not enough politicians are realizing this concept.

(Edited from a post by the author on 420FriendlyRecovery.com)