Edibles
marijuana pain relief cream, Source: http://www.apothecanna.com/

Promotional poster for Apothecanna’s marijuana pain relief creams at Karmaceuticals, a Denver dispensary.

 

As a budtender working in Denver, I get to see lots of different people who have been legally prescribed by a medical doctor to treat their pain with medical marijuana. For those who have trouble sleeping, edibles and heavy indica buds are a great place to start. Patients with psychological disorders tend to really love sativa-leaning medicine.

However for people with chronic body pain, smoking herb and resting won’t always do the trick for relieving discomfort in the limbs and joints.

In addition to working in the MMJ industry, I’m also a red card holder. I first got my card after having a pretty intense foot surgery two years ago. While the surgery helped to ensure that the fracture didn’t get any worse, it certainly wasn’t able to completely erase the trauma and get rid of (and probably caused some) chronic pain. While I feel just fine most days, there are always those nights where I come home after a long day of work and can hardly stand up comfortably. It’s never anything worse than moderate discomfort, but it’s still something that can make my evening pretty unpleasant.

While ice and herb are always good after I’ve started hurting, I typically will try to do a preemptive strike on pain and apply a medicated salve in the morning.

Some people who live with intense pain 24/7 prefer pills and caps filled with both CBD and THC. There are plenty of companies making pills for different uses (from pure pain relief with no psychoactive effects to others that have enough THC to make you feel like you’re trippin’), but I prefer the topical creams for an instant pain relief option.

There are many pain relief creams and anyone who lives in a MMJ state should definitely check them all out and see which one is right for them.

I’m personally a big fan of everything from Apothecanna. Their website actually features pain relief creams that contain no MMJ at all, and while I haven’t tried any myself, the ingredients listed in each cream are very similar to the ingredients in their infused versions. I’ve got to hand it to them: it’s a smart move in you’re already in the business of something that doesn’t have cannabis in it to just start making some other products on the side that do. In addition to being a good business decision to see an emerging market and target it, the fact that their main business is non-MMJ creams is definitely crucial to what makes their stuff so good.

Their calming cream contains THC, CBD, and chamomile; their stimulating formula has THC, CBD, and ginger; and both their general pain cream and its fantastic extra strength version both have arnica (which will do the Bengay thing, just without all the other chemical crap they put into OTC options).

Apothecanna’s medicated creams are only sold in Colorado, and a promotional poster given to us and hanging in the bud room boasts “Skin care so good it’s illegal in 49 states”. It might just be because their headquarters are in Denver and they just haven’t gotten distribution to other states yet, but their website does state “The benefits of topical cannabis are significantly higher when using extractives of known THC & CBD containing cannabis indica plants. These compounds, unfortunately, are regulated heavily both on a state and federal level.”

If you live in a MMJ friendly state (and even if you don’t), maybe it’s time to go tell your local congressman that there is an incredibly effective pain relief medication that DOES help people live happier, more productive lives and that everyone would be much better off if it was just legal.