The first part of an old stoner tale goes something like this: At a certain point, after habitually using marijuana so many consecutive days, you lose the ability to dream. Your head hits the pillow, and your mind becomes a blank canvas until you rise the next morning.

The second part, meanwhile, regards what happens should you stop smoking weed. Instead of another night of silky blackness, your sleep will roar with vivid color, indescribable scenarios, and intense eruptions of dreamscape. It will be like all the dreams you didn’t have while smoking come rushing back all at once in operatic phantasms.

With growing interest in potential therapeutic uses for cannabis-derived products, researchers at the University of Saskatchewan's Western College of Veterinary Medicine are examining the effects of cannabis extracts in pets.

"What we want to do is administer various doses of cannabis extracts to dogs currently and eventually cats, to see what we find in terms of changes in behaviour or neurological signs or gastral intestinal signs," Dr. Al Chicoine said in an interview.

The department of veterinary biomedical sciences assistant professor is leading the project and a team of three research students and three other veterinarians.

The preliminary portion of the research project started in October.

It seems in today’s health news, everything comes back to the gut. What we eat and the enzymes our body produces to break down our food play an important role in an individual’s health.

From probiotics to diets specifically for health issues, more attention is being paid to the stomach (and its contents) than ever before. And CBD is starting to get attention for its benefits in gut health.

Researchers at Washington State University offered new support this week for claims that cannabis is an effective pain-reliever in a study that used data from the medical marijuana analytics app Strainprint.

The study published in the Journal of Pain found that smoking marijuana can reduce the severity of headaches and migraines by nearly 50% based on real-time data provided by the innovative app.

Strainprint, founded by medical marijuana patient Stephanie Karasick in 2016, collects anonymous patient-reported data on different strains they use to treat their conditions and tracks their results.

While CBD is no penicillin, it can be used as a supplement in fighting flu and cold symptoms.

We’ve reached that time of year when washing hands and avoiding errant sneezing particles is essential. Cases of the common cold usually begin in August, but no one wants to sick in the stretch between Thanksgiving and New Year’s when parties are abundant and work becomes less so.

If you enjoy smoking cannabis, you’re likely aware of the munchies – which is the powerful urge to eat after a smoke sesh. However, what may come as a shock to many is that even smokers who get the munchies regularly are thinner than their counterparts who don’t use cannabis.

The link between cannabis and weight/appetite is not a recent development by any means, with research dating back to 1988 coming from John Hopkins University. The late 80s study found that subjects who smoke cannabis regularly also ate an average of 40% more calories than the non-smoking control group.

A recent study provides very interesting data for those of us who grew up hearing that marijuana lowers sperm count and may even cause atrophy or shrinkage of the testicles.

Infertility is big business. Five billion dollars is spent in the U.S. each year towards helping couples conceive a child. More importantly, infertility creates stress and hardship for the approximately 15% of couples who have trouble conceiving.

With an increase in both legal marijuana in the U.S. and consumer usage of the herb, researchers naturally wanted to know if fertility is reduced among couples in which one or both partners consume. The short answer is no.

A new study suggests cannabis could be a safer and more effective substitute for opioids in the treatment of chronic pain, but can it help fight the opioid crisis?

Researchers at the University of British Columbia and the B.C. Centre on Substance Use conducted over 5,000 interviews with 1,152 people who used heroin and other drugs and reported chronic pain at some point from June 2014 to June 2017. 

The participants were largely from Vancouver's Downtown Eastside, and lead author M-J Milloy said the study aimed to discover "new interventions" that might "lower or address the risk of overdose" in heavy opioid users. 

A team at the University of Saskatchewan is setting the stage for future research into the potential health benefits of cannabis for pets.

While the project is still in its early stages, researchers at the Western College of Veterinary Medicine (WCVM) are looking into whether cannabidiol (CBD), the non-psychoactive chemical in cannabis, could be used as a long-term therapy to treat chronic vomiting in animals. 

In August, a team led by Dr. Al Chicoine and Dr. Kevin Cosford started preliminary work that must occur before any clinical trials can take place. Low doses of a CDB-rich extract were administered to 12 dogs from the WCVM’s teaching population.