What You Never Knew About Cannabis with Angel McLellan

Summary

In this episode of the Catapult Effect podcast, host Katie Wrigley speaks with Angel McLellan, a cannabis medicine expert, about the therapeutic potential of cannabis, the endocannabinoid system, and the challenges within the cannabis industry. Angel shares her journey into cannabis medicine, the importance of proper dosing, and the impact of extraction methods on efficacy. They also discuss the role of cannabinoids like THCA and CBDA, particularly in relation to COVID-19, and the need for regulation in the cannabis market. 

In this conversation, Angel McLellan and Katie Wrigley discuss the critical importance of clean cannabis, the challenges of dosage, and the therapeutic potential of cannabis for various health conditions. They emphasize the need for regulations to ensure safety and efficacy in cannabis products, as well as the personal experiences of using cannabis for health improvement. The discussion also touches on the accessibility of cannabis for patients and the hope for healing through proper support and understanding of the endocannabinoid system.

Takeaways

• Cannabis can be used therapeutically to improve quality of life.
• Proper dosing is essential for therapeutic effects without psychoactive side effects.
• Many cannabis products lack appropriate dosing and quality control.
• CBDA and CBG may help block COVID-19 from entering cells.
• Regulations are needed to ensure safe cannabis products.
• The endocannabinoid system plays a vital role in health.
• Patients can heal themselves with proper support.
• Low doses can be more effective than high doses.
• Personal experiences can guide cannabis use.
• Hope exists for those struggling with health issues.

Contact Angel

Other Cannabis Resources

CBDA and CBGA impact on COVID-19

Medical Cannabis Reciprocity for Maine

Resources

• Website
• Learn more about Cognomovement
• Try Cognomovement for yourself!
• Book a call with Katie

Credit: Tom Giovingo, Intro & Outro, Random Voice Guy, Professional ‘Cat‘ Herder

Mixed & Managed: JohnRavenscraft.com

Disclaimer: Katie is not a medical professional and she is not qualified to diagnose any conditions. The advice and information she gives is based on her own experience and research. It does not take the place of medical advice. Always consult a medical professional first before you try anything new.

Transcript

Katie Wrigley (00:00.802)
Welcome back to the Catapult Effect podcast. I have another amazing guest with me today, someone I've had the honor and privilege to work with directly myself. And she is gonna be talking about things you never knew about cannabis. So stay tuned, that's coming right up next. Thank you so much for joining me today. I am your host, Katie Wrigley, and I have with me today the amazing Angel McLellan. Angel has been providing fully tested

pharmaceutical dose cannabis for the people of Maine for over a decade. She works closely with each individual in order to learn what their unique body needs to elicit a therapeutic response from their endocannabinoid receptors. And before I welcome Angel more fully to the show, I'm so excited to have you here today with me, Angel. I wanna just make sure that we are calling out cannabis is not legal in every state or every country where you may be listening to this. Please adhere.

to whatever your local laws are. We're not condoning any illegal activity here, but we do wanna make sure that we're talking about this amazing plant and how it can be really used to help you function on a higher level and that your body is actually meant to receive cannabis. And that is what Angel's gonna be telling us about today. So I want you to understand this isn't about condoning illegal activity. This is about really educating you on a plant that is very misunderstood and very misused.

So with that disclaimer, welcome to the Catapult Effect Podcast, Angel. I'm so excited to get to talk to you in this context today.

Angel McLellan (01:32.755)
Thank you, Katie. I appreciate that. I appreciate the invitation and the opportunity to share this with you and the rest of the world.

Katie Wrigley (01:42.094)
So I wanna start with how did you start to get involved with cannabis and learning the things that you now use to help your patients have a higher quality of life?

Angel McLellan (01:54.291)
So initially, I was providing medical power of attorney services to one gentleman, and he developed cancer. Didn't want to treat it the regular way. His family suggested we take him to a doctor that specialized in cannabis medicine, so we did that. And the doctor gave me a prescription that was very clearly written, five milligrams of THC every night before bed, and then a ramp up protocol. I believe we eventually got him up to 300 milligrams three times a day, which didn't inebriate him in any way. He was able to

get out bed, ambulate to the bathroom, and we eradicated his cancer ultimately. He didn't die of that cancer. And through that process, I learned to dose the cannabis into the capsules for him and to have it tested at the lab to make sure it was the right dose. I was all about documentation. And so I documented the entire thing and the doctors watched me do this and started asking me if I could help other patients, other elderly patients, other compromised patients.

And at first I just said, no, I can't. Back then you had to grow cannabis to be a caregiver and I'm not gonna become a gardener. I garden a little in my backyard. You know, we have some carrots and some lettuce, but I don't grow cannabis plants. And it's such a fine art to grow cannabis plants that I couldn't do in about face and start doing such things. But we found a loophole in the law that allowed me to become a patient.

and donate my excess meds to other patients. And it was perfectly legal to do so back then. And so they issued me a patient card and I took a dosage calculations course online. They found me some caregivers that had extract that the lab tested and gave back to me. And it went from there. Now I have a pharmaceutical compounding facility with a pharmacist on staff and a clean room.

Katie Wrigley (03:45.134)
Amazing and I'm so happy to hear that it eradicated cancer in your first patient you're working with that That's incredible. I love hearing stories like that So the body does have an endo cannabinoid system, correct? Can you explain what that is and how the cannabis plant can work with that?

Angel McLellan (04:01.35)
it does.

Angel McLellan (04:07.453)
Sure. So we have these receptors throughout our body. They're in our central nervous system. They're in our brain. They're in our tissue. And they're charged with keeping us in homeostasis. That's their purpose. And when those are out of whack, typically something is out of whack or something's out of whack. And so those are out of whack, you know, which comes first, the chicken or the egg? not, I don't know the answer to that. I just know that when I meet people who are in any state of disease or distress and we elicit a therapeutic response from their receptor, we watch their bodies get.

Katie Wrigley (04:25.966)
You

Katie Wrigley (04:39.008)
Nice. So what do you mean by therapeutic response? I don't think you're talking about people sitting there puffing a joint and getting high.

Angel McLellan (04:45.595)
No, none of my watch. So what I'm looking for is to use the lowest dose possible that allows us to see subtle change in their systems. And so we work really closely together. We start on very low doses. We talk on the phone once a week and we slowly ramp up until they start reporting. Maybe they've gone over that edge. So it might be they're a little tired. There might be a pressure change in their eyes. They might.

feel a little foggy. There's so many different outcomes to that. don't ever want to tell someone what they're going to feel because then I find they focus on that. They just have to tell me what's different. And usually I hear that edge. So we get to that point where we've gone, we've ramped up the, know, it's the sixth week or the seventh week and they've increased their dose again by one milligram or two milligrams, depending on what we're doing. And they call and say something shifted.

let's go back to last week's dose and see what happens. And that's what we typically do. And then they go back. And then over time, we just watch things right themselves. Our brain is hardwired to heal our body. And it will do so if we support it correctly.

Katie Wrigley (05:54.338)
Yes.

Absolutely. Yeah, that's been my experience of working with you as well. So what are some of the factors, because I want to make sure that I'm staying neutral here and not saying that anything is wrong or bad, but what are some of the factors in the cannabis industry in states where it's legal that may not be playing into therapeutic doses into the endocannabinoid system in the human body?

Angel McLellan (06:24.317)
I think that's a big question. So I think that inability to access appropriate dosing, you if you go into these, I've been into the pot shops all over the country, just out of curiosity. I've gone in and visited many of them when I travel somewhere and there's, and it's legal. I'll look up big ones and go in and ask to see their lab reports and look at their product. and I often find that people don't have low enough doses. They might have a tincture, but I, my experience, people aren't able to access tinctures appropriately. They,

Katie Wrigley (06:48.003)
Mm.

Angel McLellan (06:53.907)
typically are shaky or they squirt too much or their drops, their drop size varies or the tincture is not homogenized appropriately. So it's a higher dose at the bottom than it is at the top. And so we're not getting consistent delivery. When we add extraction processes to that whole factor, I've also found that unless you truly have a full spectrum with fats and waxes intact and chlorophyll and all the things that the plant wants you to have, it doesn't engage correctly. When people use distillate,

Katie Wrigley (07:21.207)
and

Angel McLellan (07:22.737)
I find that they're just getting high. Maybe it's just the edge of high and they're having acute relief. But over time, they have to continue to increase their dose or they have to take a break to reset their receptor system. In 11 years, I've never had someone have to take a break to reset their receptor system because we never go over their therapeutic threshold.

Katie Wrigley (07:45.922)
That's amazing. So you mentioned different extraction methods. So I don't want you to give away your secret sauce there, but what are you doing within the process that you could share that varies from the extraction process that goes into tinctures or gummies or coffee or candy or all the different ways that we see it in the pot shops?

Angel McLellan (08:04.733)
next year.

So don't have a secret sauce. I don't do the extractions myself. But I do dictate with the extractors I work with how I'd like them to appropriately do this. And so it's only ethanol based and we don't strip away. People want, they've moved towards like what they call a clean extract or a distillate extract that you can see through. Clear. I guess that moves better in a vape pen. I'm not exactly sure what their reasoning is.

But for me, I don't want to be able to see through it. I want fats and waxes and chlorophyll intact. And so I have to work directly with the extractors and help them understand that I want them to back their processes up to what they, I'm sure they think is rudimentary extraction processes, early day extraction processes. You we can just wash it with ethanol and then put it in a rotary evaporator and get the ethanol out of it. That's all I need. And then we back off the rest of the ethanol, just get the rest of the ethanol out of there.

And then we're left with this sludge really, that's very hard to work with. I can see why maybe people might not want to work with it. It's sticky and it's, and we don't want to heat it up over and over again, because then we're breaking down terpenes and things that we want to still be in there. So sometimes it's a little bit of a pain, but it's worth it because in the end, I've seen that it makes a difference in how people's bodies respond. So no secret. It's a lot of people call it Rick Simpson oil.

I refuse to say it's... this is a gentleman who put YouTube videos up because he made extractions. I think he started with naptha and I don't even know if that's truly true because I've never really watched a video he's ever made. But really it's just an ethanol extraction. An old-school ethanol extraction.

Katie Wrigley (09:53.46)
And when I was living in Colorado, I actually learned that extraction technique. And you're right. It's time consuming, and it takes time to do it properly. And you're right. It doesn't look pretty at the end. But the way that your medicines deliver these lovely little capsules so you actually aren't dealing with the sticky stuff, it's all confined into the capsule form, which makes that really easy. So some of the terms that we hear

Like you already mentioned distillate and then they also Term like whole plant cannabis like there's like certain brands of edibles You can get that are whole plant cannabis and what you're talking about is whole plant cannabis as well, correct angel

Angel McLellan (10:36.797)
think that what I'm talking about is what most people refer to as full spectrum. But people use that word loosely. I've been to conferences that are national conferences where there's big booth set up with fancy stuff and it says full spectrum such and such and then I start asking questions and that's not what they're selling. Some of these terms are, there's no regulations.

Katie Wrigley (10:41.112)
Okay.

Katie Wrigley (10:55.105)
Hmm.

Angel McLellan (10:59.589)
So they just throw them out there. You we stripped the cannabinoids out of the plant. We put them into this tincture and then we added terpenes. It's a full spectrum. Well, I don't know if that's necessarily true. I mean, sure, these terpenes are likely naturally collected, you know, and then added back in. But is that a full spectrum? I guess. mean, like, pop tarts come with frosting or without.

Katie Wrigley (11:09.111)
Mm.

Katie Wrigley (11:26.702)
I like that analogy. full spectrum by your terms, you already mentioned it has the chlorophyll, it has the fats. So it has all of the elements of the plant and there are other terpenes that are added to it. And I also would love if you would take a moment to explain what a terpene is, if people are like, huh, what's that? Because that may be a new term.

Angel McLellan (11:48.509)
Sure. So terpenes are what make it smell. So oranges have terpenes, pine trees have terpenes, hops have terpenes. All the things you smell have terpenes. All the flowers you smell have terpenes and cannabis is no different. So every different strain has a different odor. And that's because it has a different terpene profile.

Katie Wrigley (11:52.172)
Mmm.

Angel McLellan (12:10.171)
You can purchase terpenes that have been collected. You get linalool from lavender, d-limonene from an orange, apining from a pine tree, nursing from a hops plant. So people collect these naturally, and I think those are great. And sure, I do use terpenes that I purchase.

in certain formulations. So standard THC formulation for a nighttime would have some extra linalool and some extra mercine, maybe a little beta-carafilene, you know, just some things that help push us towards a quieter effect.

Katie Wrigley (12:46.83)
That makes sense. There's a lot of different cannabinoids. THC obviously is the best known cannabinoid. And then there's also CBD. What other variants are there? Like staying probably a little bit higher level here. What are some of the other variants and how would they impact people? And I want to specifically go down a road here from there, but I want to just hear your explanation for that first.

Angel McLellan (13:13.225)
So I think that if I remember correctly, there's over 200 cannabinoids that have been identified. So I don't know that I could sing a song and name them all. I haven't actually done that yet, but it sounds like maybe it would be a fun winter project. But in my refrigerator, I have THCA-based formulas and CBD-based formulas and CBD-A-based formulas and CBG-based formulas, and then all kinds of configurations of those mixed all together.

Katie Wrigley (13:21.934)
You

Angel McLellan (13:41.619)
There's CBN around there out on the market. I have converted THC to CBN back in the early days, but it was a chemical reaction that I realized I'm not a chemist and I should stop doing this before I blow somebody up. It happened once, it was all exciting. It tested out at the lab, everyone was excited and I was like, I'm gonna stop now because this is not my job. So I like to stay in my lane and do my own job. But CBN is just a breakdown of THC that people find sedating.

They were talking about it wanting to explore it. And I said, I'll play with that. So we did it. And then that was the end of that. now I just look for someone who maybe has some old, we stored THC to extract that the THC is already naturally broken down into CBN. And sometimes I can find it and sometimes I can't and I don't rely on it, but the THCA and the CBDA in the CBG are standard.

for my formulations.

Katie Wrigley (14:43.084)
What's the difference between THC, THCA and same question with CBD?

Angel McLellan (14:48.455)
Sure. So the plant naturally produces these acidics. When you have a hemp plant or a cannabis plant, if it's a THC dominant formula, when you test the flower out, it's all THCA. Unless it's been heated, none of it should have converted THC yet. Same thing with the CBD. All the cannabinoid, if you test it out, the flower, the raw flower is going to be the acidic form. And so in the early days, every time I would take a sample to the lab, I would get back a lab report.

And at the bottom it would say something about all the cannabinoids not being converted. And then it would give instructions on how to heat it to convert all of the acidic over to THC or CBD. And I remember asking them, why are these instructions down here? Well, and what I was told was that all the medical journals, all the research that had been done on just THC, so people didn't believe that THC was beneficial. I said, well, I don't think that's true. I think that...

Katie Wrigley (15:43.832)
Mm.

Angel McLellan (15:47.955)
THCA is beneficial and I found that when we have some in the formulas, people's bodies respond better. And lo and behold, eventually they decided to look into that too and found out that the acidic actually do help people. My theory, not a doctor, not a scientist, just a lady, but my theory is that when our liver converts these things, when it goes through our body, and I think that when we have the acidic forms, our body can do with it what it needs to.

what it needs to do with it in a different way than when man messes with it and heats it up first.

Katie Wrigley (16:21.614)
So, if I'm understanding correctly, the THC and the CBD are converted from the A forms of each when going through different heating processes.

Angel McLellan (16:34.629)
Absolutely, this is why people smoke pot.

Katie Wrigley (16:37.575)
got it. Okay.

Angel McLellan (16:38.909)
Put a flame to it.

Yes. And I wish that they would just eat the flour. Just eat the flour, chew on it, swallow it. You'd be so much healthier in the end.

Katie Wrigley (16:51.294)
It's not going to have the same effect, but right.

Angel McLellan (16:53.563)
Sure, you're not gonna get high, but your body's gonna be able to heal itself instead of just acutely treating symptoms over and over and over again.

Katie Wrigley (16:59.479)
Okay.

Katie Wrigley (17:04.3)
Yeah, I did that for decades and I'm really liking the way that you have taught me to use cannabis because I haven't been high in months and I'm sleeping like a baby. And the road that I wanted to go down from the cannabinoids was you've found something really interesting. And again, she's not a doctor, I'm not a doctor. So.

take this as you will, but you found something interesting about CVDA and COVID, and I have directly benefited from your knowledge. Can you explain a little bit about what you found there and how you've been able to help people overcome COVID?

Angel McLellan (17:41.705)
Sure. So back during COVID, I started anecdotally noting that none of my clients were dying. I didn't have any clients who died of COVID. And when people got COVID, they didn't have it as badly as...

other people I was watching around me. And then some science got published that CBDA and CBGA bind to the spike protein and block it from entering the cell. It was super exciting. I love it when the eggheads do these things. So here was the science that corroborated what I was witnessing. And I thought, well, that's really interesting. So I made a formula that's CBDA and CBG and started giving it to people who called who had long COVID and started seeing them feel better. And so...

it's a standard formula that we have now and we ship it all over the United States except for I think there's three states we're not allowed to ship it into but no one's called me from those states so I guess that doesn't matter. So it's just it's been I'd say 99 % of the people get 100 % better. It's a really interesting thing and if the science came out there's a paper you can find it.

Katie Wrigley (18:41.816)
Nice.

Angel McLellan (18:47.219)
I want to say it was the University of Oregon, but I don't ever absorb the details that don't matter. I only absorb the things I need to know. So I needed to know that CBDA and CBGA bind to the spike protein. Well, there we go. Let's do it.

Katie Wrigley (19:02.09)
And so I can actually personally attest to at least in my experience. So we met right when I got my second round of COVID and I did not start feeling better until I started to take the CBDA CBG. I was still taking things from the pot shops, my regular gummies at night and

Angel McLellan (19:09.353)
Mm-hmm.

Katie Wrigley (19:22.164)
I did not start to feel better until I started to take that CBD ACBG. And I think by the next morning, I took one dose that evening when we met. And then by the next morning, I had an appetite again for the first time in a week. And then fast forward a couple months, been watching my resting pulse, which went right through the roof when I had COVID and had not gone down to the baseline yet. And the interesting thing is like your emotions are going to follow.

the physiological responses from your body. Like we know this in position, where our eyes are, head position, like all of this can go into your mood. And so I was finding that I was feeling more stressed because my resting heart rate hadn't gone back down to normal. Meeting with my naturopath again, she's like, oh, that may be COVID remnant. well, that makes sense. Started taking another round of CBD, CBG, and resting pulses back down to normal has been normal.

since I started to take it again and sleeping incredibly well, which we can go into in a moment too, but just wanted to say my personal experience taking it with COVID and even remnants of COVID months after the fact, it's making big physiological differences that are noticeable on my biometric device within a dose or two of taking it. So thank you for that.

Angel McLellan (20:45.075)
Well, you're welcome. That's what I've seen. I think the first person that had active COVID was my best friend's mother. And she was older and unvaccinated and really sick, really sick. Called her daughter and said, I think I'm going to have to go to the hospital and be put on a ventilator. And I said, no, hold on a minute. And I drove over there and I gave them 20 milligram CBD, ACBG capsules. And she called two hours later crying because she stopped coughing.

Katie Wrigley (20:52.43)
Mm.

Katie Wrigley (21:15.082)
Amazing. Amazing. Wow. Yeah, that's on the heel on the tip of going and getting a ventilator to not coughing within hours. That's absolutely incredible.

Angel McLellan (21:16.008)
Yeah.

Angel McLellan (21:28.243)
Part of me thought that has to be psychosomatic in some level, but also, okay, either way. You know, it doesn't matter if it's a placebo effect. I don't know. This is before I had read the science, right? So, so she calls and tells me this and I think, if it's a placebo effect, she feels better. That's great. Then they published the science and I thought, huh, imagine that. There it is.

Katie Wrigley (21:34.486)
Right.

Katie Wrigley (21:42.925)
I

Katie Wrigley (21:51.395)
Yep.

Katie Wrigley (21:57.866)
not a placebo. So you mentioned the patient that you worked with initially who had cancer and went from a five milligram to a 303 times a day, but he wasn't getting high. Can you explain what was happening there that even at that high level of mill, which that's a lot of milligrams for most of us to be consuming, but he could still function. So can you go into a little detail what's happening there, Angel?

Angel McLellan (21:59.069)
Yeah.

Angel McLellan (22:23.529)
Sure. So when we ramp up on THC appropriately, at a nice slow pace, adding a little bit at a time, people don't experience the psychoactive side effects. It's been my experience that people don't experience the psychoactive side effects. I have had people who want to experience the psychoactive side effects and maybe ramp up a little faster. It depends on their situation. Some people, they're dying.

They want to slow it down, but they know they're still going to die. And so they want to escape a little bit. And so we maybe go a little faster or increase a little more than we would. But if, in my experience, if we ramp someone up once a week with small two to five milligram increases, they don't ever feel high. They don't ever get dry mouth. They don't ever have short-term memory loss. It's just a matter of going slow enough and having the patience that it takes.

to do such things.

Katie Wrigley (23:23.202)
That part's not always easy.

Angel McLellan (23:24.913)
It's not. It's not easy when you don't feel well.

Katie Wrigley (23:28.33)
No, definitely not. We want that fixed now. And part of it's we've been trained to think that when we take a bill, it should fix it pretty quickly, which we know that that's more of a management of symptoms when we're looking at pharmaceuticals. Like an antibiotic may actually kill a virus, but a lot of times the medications we're given are actually just managing the symptoms or masking them so that they aren't plaguing you anymore, but it's not fixing things on a deep level. And you're talking about

working within a system that's built into the human body where we are actually helping the body heal by giving it what it needs, which is always going to be a longer process than that quick fix to manage symptoms.

Angel McLellan (24:10.345)
Yeah, it takes patience. And we have been led to believe by society that you go to the doctor, they write something on a piece of paper, you drive that piece of paper to a building, you hand them the piece of paper and they hand you something and you swallow it and you're all better. That's not really how it works. I don't think you're ever all better from swallowing whatever it is that you got from that building that the doctor wrote on the piece of paper. You might be masking symptoms, but you're not all better. If you took it away, it's not all better.

I like to get people to the point where we can take it away and they're all better. That makes me happy.

Katie Wrigley (24:46.894)
Yeah, I'm getting to that point. I'm very excited. I want to see if there were any other questions I wanted to make sure. So I also want to call out some of the, and again, I don't want to have any negative slant on this because I'm a huge fan of the plant. I'm a huge fan of the legalization of it. And I don't want to be negative about anyone that's involved with it.

What are some things or limits that people should be aware of around purchasing cannabis from a pot shop?

Angel McLellan (25:21.597)
Well, in the state of medical cannabis is still unregulated. There's been some hearings lately, I think they were yesterday actually, on instituting regulations in the medical cannabis business here in Maine. And I hope that they pass. I really hope the legislature steps up, that they make this.

something that starts to be tested because there's no requirement at this point. And as a cannabis entrepreneur, I've found that to be like a roller coaster when I try to replace my extracts. When I start to get low, I reach out to the people that I know. They seek out biomass. They run an extraction. I pay $500 to have it all tested and often it fails in some way. Arsenic, lead, pesticides.

Katie Wrigley (26:03.598)
Mm.

Katie Wrigley (26:07.086)
Ew.

Angel McLellan (26:07.273)
You name it mold anything all kinds of things come through in these lab reports and then inevitably I get offered a discount Oh, but we'll give it to you for a dollar gram or three dollars a gram and I say no Thank you. I serve fragile clients and non-detect is that's Those are my those are my parameters. It has to say non-detect or we're not we're not working here and we're gonna find another keep looking keep doing it and It goes out into the market

These extractions that I reject go out into the market because they're legal to sell. And I've had conversations with people and all I keep hearing is it's cost prohibitive for caregivers to be required to test the products for contaminants. And I think who is protecting the people? mean, all that protects is a business. We can't protect businesses in this situation. We need to protect the people.

Katie Wrigley (26:58.478)
Yeah.

Katie Wrigley (27:07.982)
I agree. And if it costs $500 for lab testing, it also makes me wonder how true is that, that that's cost prohibitive because you're going to make a lot more than $500 off of a crop of cannabis.

Angel McLellan (27:22.301)
I would hope so. Right? Yeah.

Katie Wrigley (27:26.36)
So yeah, that kinda, yeah, when I hear that I'm like, mm.

Angel McLellan (27:30.473)
I mean, so it does become cost prohibitive at times. The last batch of THCA I bought, I had to spend $1,500 on testing before I got the actual batch that I think was a $1,500 batch of extract. So it ended up doubling the cost.

Katie Wrigley (27:46.925)
Wow.

Angel McLellan (27:49.755)
of that batch of extract. And so I have to raise my costs sometimes. have to, you my price per milligram sometimes has to go up for certain things. Or I somehow figure out a way to wash it all into the middle and not raise the cost sometimes. It just depends on where we're at with our extraction supply. But this is just something that is a stumbling block. And I think that if they institute regulations, then we won't have this issue anymore.

Katie Wrigley (28:03.052)
Mm.

Angel McLellan (28:17.416)
When I call the extractor and say, okay, I'm ready, we're gonna need another batch of whatever it is we're looking for, whether it's THC or THCA or CBD or CBD or CBG, then when they seek out the biomass, if people are required to only to grow it to the degree that it was required to be clean, then this won't happen anymore. I won't have to continually put out $500 after $500 to try to find a clean.

clean batch of extract.

Katie Wrigley (28:49.294)
That will be wonderful. really hope that passes too. I'm going to keep my eye out for that because that's one I definitely want to vote in favor of having passed when it comes down to us to help make it pass. I am all for that because you're right. People need to run a business but...

you don't want to be doing things that's going to be impacting their health in negative ways. And R-Sick isn't good for anybody as far as I know. Same with lead, same with mold. Like those are things that are going to go against your health big time.

Angel McLellan (29:19.017)
Sure. So what happens if a cancer patient is ingesting pesticides? Is that cannabis helping their cancer? Or are they just layering on more cancer causing?

Katie Wrigley (29:23.15)
Yeah.

Angel McLellan (29:33.897)
pieces of the puzzle. Yeah, it just doesn't, it doesn't sit well with me.

Katie Wrigley (29:38.89)
I agree. yeah, you're getting my brain thinking all these different ways that I hadn't really considered. I figured, I knew what we were going to talk about getting in here. I'm like, it didn't even occur to me until you're like, that's why people smoke a joint. It's like, you light it up and it turns into THC instead of THCA. Instead of eating the flour, that never occurred to me before. But the pesticides in there, that did occur to me.

I know I've picked things up on a time, especially pre-rolls, you can really taste the chemistry because it's all the crap that comes out. And I don't smoke it at all anymore. My body stopped tolerating any kind of heat into the lungs six, seven months ago, I think it was. It's been quite a while now. But when I was still doing that, there were some that I'm like, I'm not touching this again. All I can taste in here is chemical. No, I'm not.

Angel McLellan (30:36.325)
my god.

Katie Wrigley (30:38.094)
I'm not touching this. Like this is not good for me and this is not worth any high that I may get out of it. Like no, no, hard no.

Angel McLellan (30:47.399)
Yeah, well, it's good that your body told you that.

Katie Wrigley (30:50.816)
Yeah, well, I mean, it yelled at me for a long time before I started listening. So we've got a really good relationship now, this mind and body work together. And the more in tune I stay with it, the more peace it gives me. So I really keep that up as much as I can, because life's just a lot easier to live, I found, when you know how to listen to and talk to your body. So I was wondering if we can kind of use the example of what's been happening with me. So I'd reached out to you initially for sleep and then wound up getting COVID at right

Angel McLellan (30:57.497)
You

Angel McLellan (31:03.539)
Mm-hmm.

Katie Wrigley (31:19.948)
right on the heels of that. And in a very short period of time, Angel's helped me really greatly reduce my dose. I'm actually due to step down again this evening, which I'm really excited about. And I never thought I'd be excited to see if I can sleep without cannabis. But like I said earlier, I haven't been high. So I was taking, I had ramped up.

because I used to be at 50 milligrams and I wasn't sleeping and then I went up to 60 and then I went up to 75 and then I just pretty much just caved and was taking 100 milligrams a night and I was taking 60 milligrams of melatonin in order to have some sort of dream state. I know I cringe when I say it now too and to have some sort of dream state with that level of cannabis use and now at the recording of this episode I have no more melatonin.

and I'm down to 10 milligrams at night and gonna be going down to eight tomorrow or tonight because I'm tired again and I'm having a hard time getting going in the morning. So what is happening beneath the surface angel with why I had to ramp up and I know you've touched on this but I wanted to use this example because it's, I mean, 100 milligrams and 60 of melatonin to get less sleep quality.

then I get now on 10 milligrams and no melatonin and I'm walking off of that dose.

Angel McLellan (32:46.183)
Yeah, so initially you were overloading your receptors. You were starting with a dose that was way too high. And this is the issue when people go into these pot shops that there's not a low enough dose. I've found people who can elicit a therapeutic response on one total milligram of cannabinoids. One. And that's it. That's all they need. Whatever seems to have been ailing them is...

Katie Wrigley (32:57.239)
Mm.

Angel McLellan (33:11.177)
90 % better after they swallow one milligram of THC or CBD or a whole, know, there's, it's not just one thing. There's usually a multitude of cannabinoids in there that they won't show up on a test because it's a one milligram capsule. So, you know, it'll only pick up what's mostly in there at that low of a dose. So you were just overloading them. And when you overload them, the system down regulates. And so, you know, you don't have as much available in there. And so continually people need to keep increasing their doses to get the same.

effect that they think they're getting, right? You think it's making you sleep, but really you're just sedating yourself. And so you keep raising the dose, you keep raising the dose. And we stepped you down pretty quickly. I remember you saying to me, I'm really nervous about this. This is actually scaring me that you're telling me to step down as quick as I, as you're saying. But your body didn't want that much. It was clear. It was clear that you were taking way too much. And because we didn't

Katie Wrigley (33:46.423)
Mm.

Katie Wrigley (33:56.029)
yeah.

Katie Wrigley (34:03.36)
No.

Angel McLellan (34:08.189)
just abruptly stop it. You didn't crash. We stepped you down nice and, well, I think I stepped you down pretty aggressively, more aggressively than I would have if you were 80. You I would have gone a lot slower if you were, or if you'd had a lot of complex illness happening, I probably would have got a lot slower, but you're strong, you're healthy. You didn't need to be taking that much for your endocannabinoid receptors to regulate your, you know, to make your circadian rhythm work. You didn't need that much.

Katie Wrigley (34:18.414)
Thank

Angel McLellan (34:38.057)
If you want to sedate yourself, this is what I say to people who call me for sleep. I can sedate you, but I won't. We're gonna let your body do this. We're gonna help your body. We're gonna remind your body that these receptors can make this happen. And we just do it gently. So we stepped you off pretty quick, but not super quick. We gave your body time to adjust to the idea. we're going down. we're going down again. we're going down again. And then we brought in my product.

started you. I don't remember what the transitional dose was though.

Katie Wrigley (35:12.646)
We did gummy and so I was at 100 and then I'd already stepped down to 75 like right before we talked because I was so tired from COVID. I'm like this seems like a good place to start to step down and then we immediately stepped down again to 50 and then 25 and then I think when the gummies got too hard to figure out the dose because they were high dose gummies.

And I was like, okay, I can't even figure out what I'm doing anymore. It's like, all right, let's push those to the side. And then I think you started me with two milligrams, just have my body start to get used to your medicine. But we ramped that up pretty quickly. But I remember there was one place where I was just taking, I think six or eight milligrams of your medicine, sleep quality. It wasn't as great. And you're like, no, keep going, keep going. And then we, ended at 14.

milligrams let my body stay there for a few weeks and then even though I starting to get tired again in the morning we needed to stay there and calibrate and then started walking off a couple weeks ago. But yeah don't remember, I do remember that I threw out the last of the gummies. I think I had one gummy that was left and then I threw out the flower and the other stuff I had because I didn't know anybody else around here that has a med card that I could you know legally gifted to so I just

went to the pot gods in the garbage.

Angel McLellan (36:37.395)
That's okay. Some of it belongs there anyway.

Katie Wrigley (36:38.678)
Yeah. I.

Yeah, and from hearing that, like, I wonder, wonder what went with that. But I'm not, I'm not worried about it. I didn't have all that much left and it was more important to be following the protocol you were giving me because I was responsive to it. And that really taught me some things. I had been working on sleep through cognitive movement for years and I was getting so irritated that I had been able to get everybody else that I worked with to sleep like a baby except me. And I was like,

Oh, actually, no, I can include myself in that. I was just masking it with cannabis. And so I didn't know that I had actually done that until now I know.

Angel McLellan (37:23.485)
Right. Yeah, that your body was responding. That you were doing the right things for it. Except for that gummy. I'm not a fan of gummies. So I never have nice things to say about gummies.

Katie Wrigley (37:27.48)
Yeah.

Yes. Yes, absolutely.

Katie Wrigley (37:39.606)
And I can understand why after my own experience, you know, and much to your point about that one milligram of THC, I even remember you telling me like your body's probably not going to recognize one or two milligrams of THC yet. And when we were playing with the daytime dose with the CBD that I take and you know, the very low dose of THC. And there was one day that I tried to do an extra milligram, just one milligram of THC in the afternoon and the morning.

and I wanted to eat my dang house and I had no energy at all. was like, I never knew one milligram of THC could be that impactful.

Angel McLellan (38:20.827)
It can. So if the lowest dose someone can purchase at a pot shop is five milligrams, I don't even know if that's true. It might be 10, but if five is the lowest dose they can get and four is their therapeutic threshold, they're now overloading their receptors over and over again. And then they're going to need the tens and then they're going to need the fifteens and then they're going to need the twenties. And then eventually they'll find themselves with a hundred milligram gummy every night.

Katie Wrigley (38:37.451)
Hmm

Katie Wrigley (38:44.94)
Yep. Yeah. I think actually, I think five milligram is the lowest you can get. Like if you get the capsules, I think 10 is the lowest. But then if you have edibles, I think, yeah, I think five may be the lowest that I've seen. So.

Angel McLellan (39:00.723)
Hmm. Yeah, I guess I should research that a little bit more, but I just don't put my time into it anymore. Yeah.

Katie Wrigley (39:06.944)
Not understandable. mean, it sounds like you've got more valuable work to do. What are some of the conditions? I want to make sure that we can cover some of the pieces here. So what are some of the conditions that cannabis can help with? We talked about sleep. We've talked about your patient that had a remarkable recovery. We talked about COVID. So what are some other reasons that people come to you?

Angel McLellan (39:28.425)
Sure. No, I believe that last count, I treated over 200 different diagnoses. I don't know that there's a short answer to that. I think that if your body is in any state of disease or distress, then it's likely those receptors aren't functioning correctly on some level and that anybody who's in that state can benefit from.

Katie Wrigley (39:40.344)
Well.

Katie Wrigley (39:49.27)
Makes sense?

Angel McLellan (39:53.574)
a low dose protocol that helps them find their unique threshold that helps those receptors come back online and do their job. Our body can heal itself if we just, if we believe in it and we support it correctly and we eat the right foods and we move ourselves and we drink clean water and we breathe. All these things are important parts of the body getting better. That's not to say somebody born cognitively unique is going to become neurotypical. We're not going to.

We're not going to heal the body to that degree, but I've watched people who are born cognitively unique do things in their lives that people thought they'd never do. So, you know, they definitely make gains. get that neuroplasticity that THC can provide is a beautiful gift. It really can help somebody's brain to grow and make new connections and just be different.

Katie Wrigley (40:30.189)
Nice.

Katie Wrigley (40:46.156)
Yeah, I love that. And that does keep it simple if you're in distress or you have some kind of disease, if you have an endocannabinoid system in your body that you could utilize for more peace and ease.

Angel McLellan (40:58.097)
Yeah, absolutely. If you use it correctly. mean, you can acutely alleviate symptoms. You can. know, people do it. I see people out in the world doing it all the time. And I also can see on their face when they're overloading their receptors. There's clear signs of it. I've wanted to walk up to people in public before and say, excuse me, are you ingesting cannabis? Because I can see it in their face that they're overloading their receptors. But I control myself.

Katie Wrigley (41:01.184)
Yes.

Katie Wrigley (41:20.248)
Yes.

Katie Wrigley (41:25.774)
That's funny. Yeah. Yeah, I can usually it's usually when I'm driving and someone's ten miles below the speed limit. I'm like, are they high? Because it's yeah, not not the best

Angel McLellan (41:37.191)
Well, then you see them bring their vape up to their mouth and you're like, yeah, they are apparently and they're just driving down the road smoking their vape pen. But that always boggles my mind.

Katie Wrigley (41:44.75)
Yeah, yeah, I I The fact that I'm still live at age 50 is kind of proof to me that there's a higher power because I've done so much stupid stuff over the years that like it's really the only explanation I've got Is that there's been someone watching out for me like no not your turn yet Yes, yeah, that's No, you don't want to be high and consuming cannabis

Angel McLellan (42:05.341)
Right.

Katie Wrigley (42:13.678)
who can work with you and in which ways. I wanna make sure that we're really clear with this before we wrap up, Angel.

Angel McLellan (42:19.697)
Sure, so anybody with a medical card in a reciprocal state can visit here in the state of Maine and pick up THC from my facility. People come from all over the country and I have a list, a little list in my office of reciprocal states. I couldn't name them off the top of my head now, but they're there on the side of the printer, taped right up there. People come from really, they call from all over the world. We can ship CB to many places.

There's certain countries we can't ship it into and there's a few states we can't ship it to. But for the most part, no one's called from those places yet. So I've also supported people from a distance in navigating it on their own. If somebody does need THC, we work together and there's an extraction, easy crock-pot extraction process. It's a four day process that I talk them through.

Katie Wrigley (43:01.805)
Mm.

Angel McLellan (43:11.645)
that I have them run through. And it really seems to work for people. We get a full spectrum extraction to some coconut oil. We can't test it. We don't know the dosage, but we started a really low dose and we talk on the phone and it's the same process. We make sure that we find clean flour. I'll call the place where they're going to buy it from and ask all my questions to make sure it passes my muster. And then we go from there. I've never had somebody call me from a distance who hasn't gotten what they needed.

Katie Wrigley (43:16.567)
Nice.

Katie Wrigley (43:41.069)
Nice.

Angel McLellan (43:41.629)
why that is but it's just how it works out. I think people find their way to me because they need to find their way to me and then somehow the universe just makes it all unfold and happen the way it needs to.

Katie Wrigley (43:54.206)
I love that. Yeah, and I agree. Sometimes there's an element of the unknown or inexplicable or miracle, if you call it, that just seems to come in and make it all come together in the ways that we need. I love it when that happens, too. I feel like that's how I got led to you. And I'm so grateful for the introduction because this has been the thing I hadn't been able to conquer on my own that had

Angel McLellan (44:02.204)
Sir.

Katie Wrigley (44:22.414)
gotten to a point where it was sort of plaguing me. And I remember you checking me on some judgmental terms I was using on myself when we first started to work together. And really appreciated those reframes there. And I really want to be, I don't wanna be high. Like if my body is gonna continue to benefit from taking low doses of THC, then great. But if I can sleep without it,

I've got a trip coming up to Norway and next month, oh, next month, yay, that's coming up. And THC is 100 % illegal there. You cannot take it with you and I'm not forfeiting my vacation to sit in a Norwegian jail. Nor do I know enough about their judicial system to have any interest in being there. So I want to go visit the country, not their prison system. And so THC is not coming with me and this used to be a huge...

source of stress for me anytime that I had to go somewhere where I couldn't have THC or back in the days that it was illegal, like trying to sneak it and hoping I didn't get caught or, and again, not condoning anything illegal, just saying I used to not necessarily do everything legally, but now at age 50, I'm not interested in breaking the law and definitely not going into a foreign country. So it's huge peace of mind to me that now I know I can go.

Angel McLellan (45:19.187)
turn.

Angel McLellan (45:26.601)
you

Katie Wrigley (45:44.128)
thoroughly enjoy this vacation. I'm not going to be sleep deprived because I'm confident I'm going to be able to sleep without THC between all the work that I've already done and then your coaching and your guidance around utilizing the plant and how to know when to step off of it. And that's actually how I started to do my step down dose between the guidelines you told me versus like every three day versus maybe five to seven.

is by that fourth night, like if I'm still waking up with fatigue in the morning, I know I'm ready to step down again. And so I stepped down and that was definitely what was happening this morning. like, and the other note with this is that it has locked me into a really solid circadian rhythm. go to bed between nine 30 and 10 every night and wake up between six 30 and seven every day. And I don't need to.

Angel McLellan (46:37.673)
Congratulations.

Katie Wrigley (46:38.88)
Yeah, thank you. And I don't need an alarm clock. I just get up on my own. My body's just done sleeping. Even if I was still a little groggy from being at more than my therapeutic dose, like I still get up at that time. And my aura ring was actually congratulating me on officially being above average with my sleep scores versus the aura community. was like, yeah.

Angel McLellan (47:01.129)
Nice.

Katie Wrigley (47:05.528)
Something I never thought would apply to me from having battled sleep for all of my life until this year really. So thank you for that.

Angel McLellan (47:15.465)
You're welcome. It's fun to watch these things.

Katie Wrigley (47:19.618)
It's fun to experience it too. It really is. Is there anything you want to say to that listener out there who's struggling with some sort of disease or distress right now Angel before we wrap?

Angel McLellan (47:34.045)
Well, I'd just like to say that there's always hope. That you're never stuck where you are. There's always ways to support the body to heal itself. You came hardwired to do so. You just have to learn how to trust it and support it correctly. So don't quit. It's hard when people are in a place where it doesn't seem like you're ever gonna get better. Like you're just gonna keep getting worse. It's not true. You don't have to be there.

Katie Wrigley (48:02.016)
I love that. Thank you. And we'll make sure that you have Angel's website and contact information in the show notes. You can find her at Moby Botanicals, M-O-B-Y botanicals.com. Again, we will link that in the show notes so you can reach directly out to Angel, have a conversation with her and see how she can help you either from a distance if you're in another state with THC and it's too hard for you to get to Maine.

or if you're able to come to our beautiful state with a reciprocal card, or you're in the state of Maine itself and you have a medical card. Those are all people that can be helped by Angel's amazing skills around cannabis. Thank you so much for joining me today, Angel.

Angel McLellan (48:40.499)
Thank you, Katie.

Katie Wrigley (48:42.4)
And thank you to the listener out there who has been hanging into the end of this episode. I know you have a lot of choices of what to listen to out there and I appreciate you taking the time to listen to the show and implementing this advice into your life. And until the next episode, please be well.