The niche market of medicinal cannabis for man’s best friends has begun to grow, thanks to recent developments on the human side of the medicinal cannabis industry.
In the last few years, companies dedicated to getting your dog, cat, and other pet’s medicinal cannabis have sprung up in both the United States and Canada. While ignorant pot smokers/pet owners have been blowing smoke in their pet’s faces for far too long, giving pets specially designed cannabis based medications is a fairly new phenomenon.
Thanks to decades of anecdotal evidence and a growing library of peer-reviewed science backing up the medicinal properties of cannabis, the idea of treating pets suffering from similar illnesses with medicinal cannabis was a logical next step.
However, there is a difference between a “logical next step” and research-backed science. One issue is that even in states with legalized medicinal cannabis, veterinarians haven’t been granted the same freedoms as physicians have. That means you won’t be receiving any medicinal cannabis prescribed from a veterinarian, but you still can get buy it directly from producers and from shops specialized in helping your pets.
There have been studies examining the medicinal effects of cannabis on animals, the earliest of which date back to 1899. Since then scientists have learned that all animals have endo-cannabinoid systems, dogs and cats included. This means that the medicinal effects of cannabis’ two most abundant cannabinoids, THC and CBD, may have a comparable effect on some animals as they do on humans.
Businesses and pet owners have targeted CBD in particular, as a key component of medicinal medication for pets, partially thanks to its less potent psychoactive effects. While the science isn’t conclusive just yet, there have been some promising studies, as well as huge amounts of anecdotal evidence from pet owners, some from veterinarians themselves, that suggest medicinal cannabis may help ease a sick pet’s suffering.
