(Photo: Army Medicine/Flickr)
As medical marijuana receives more attention, pet owners are starting to consider if it can help their furry friends too.
Dr. Katherine Kramer, a veterinarian with B.C.’s Vancouver Animal Wellness Hospital, says the topic is becoming “more and more popular.” Just two years ago, pet owners would ask about marijuana just once a year. These days, she gets asked at least once a week.
In Canada and the U.S., cannabis is not considered a veterinary medicine according to official guidelines. Dr. Robin Downing, a top animal pain specialist in the U.S., tells The Denver Post “there’s more we don’t know about this therapy than we do know.”
But even though veterinarians can’t officially prescribe marijuana, Dr. Kramer says she can, and sometimes will, recommend it in her practice.
Indeed, acceptance of marijuana as a medicine seems to be just beginning for pets and people. The main barrier – for both – is a lack of research.
But there’s enough science to explain how it works, and it turns out pets and people share something in common.
The main pathways for marijuana’s effect are cannabinoid receptors, Dr. Kramer explains. “Dogs and cats have that like people, which is why we’re starting to use it medicinally for them.”
Risks For Pets
Marijuana may hold promise as a medicine, but there is also an increasing amount of research suggesting accidental pet poisonings are on the rise. Dr. Kramer says she’s aware of the research as well as the risks it can pose for pets.
For example, Dr. Kramer explains that sudden incontinence in dogs is considered “pathognomonic” for marijuana toxicity. That means “if you have a dog that’s acting stoned and they’re incontinent, chances are 100:1 that it’s going to be marijuana ingestion.”
“It’s usually because of the way it works, it just relaxes everything. It does work on them a bit different.”
While rarely fatal, pets can easily be overwhelmed by marijuana’s effects due to their size. Dogs are also allergic to chocolate, which makes marijuana brownies a double threat.
Rise In Poisonings
According to The Pet Poison Hotline, which accepts calls from U.S. and Canada, poisoning cases have doubled in the past five years.
A study by Veterinary Emergency and Critical Care Society also found a sharp rise in marijuana poisoning cases at two Colorado animal hospitals between 2005 and 2010, reports the MailOnline.
But despite practicing in the marijuana-friendly city of Vancouver, Dr. Kramer says she isn’t quite convinced about the increase in poisonings.
“I’m not quite sure if it’s true or not, because in my experience, I’m not seeing that. That being said, being in Vancouver, we’re the number one city apparently in North America for accidental marijuana ingestion.”
Common household items, such as antifreeze and Tylenol, can be more fatal to pets. Also, an increase in marijuana poisonings doesn’t mean it happens that often.
Out of the 180,000 animal poisoning cases handled by The Animal Poison Control Center last year, only 320 calls were about marijuana. That’s a 50% increase over 2009, reports TIME.
Medical Use – Not The Problem
While veterinarians may not see eye-to-eye on the overall risk of marijuana, most seem to agree that poisonings are a result of careless pet owners failing to hide their stash rather than a side effect of cannabis treatment.
Likewise, Dr. Kramer says she gets asked a lot about whether she thinks medical use of marijuana increases the risk of poisonings. She says she doesn’t.
“We don’t have a lot of patients on it, but the people I find that are using it in their pets for medical reasons are very cautious about how they’re using it.”
In fact, Dr. Kramer explains that certain parts of marijuana can even offer medical benefits without the high.
“If we use part of the cannabinoids that are involved with the plant, we get great benefits. It’s the THC that’s the part that makes them stoned.”
Most medical products used in pets rely not on THC, says Dr. Kramer, but a chemical in cannabis called CBD (cannabidiol).
CBD is non-psychoactive, and has become increasingly popular in the development of medical marijuana for people as well.
Source Leaf Science
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