Creature Comfort

One LA vet says MMJ can be used to treat your pet’s cancer

It is normally a bad idea to give your pet medication of any kind—including cannabis—because such drugs weren’t formulated for animals. However, when a veterinarian recommends something to help your dog or cat, the professional opinion may be a good thing to follow. Consider the following:

Dr. Douglas Kramer is a professional veterinarian working in the greater Los Angeles area. As the chief medical officer for Vet Guru, an animal veterinary center that offers all-natural, holistic treatments for pet health care, he isn’t afraid to prescribe medical cannabis to animals that need it.

According to Dr. Kramer, more pet owners are doing this.

When his own dog, Nikita, was suffering from cancer, Dr. Kramer decided to try using the plant to treat her symptoms after learning more about the subject. “Several of my patients suggested that I try it,” he said. “I learned how to create a tincture after reading several herbal therapy books.”

When it comes to medical research, modern science will routinely experiment with dogs and cats long before they get to humans.

“A lot of the research materials I’ve come across on the medical benefits of cannabis are from previous clinical trials that involved animals,” he says. Dr. Kramer has since prescribed the same tincture formula for pet owners who prefer an all-natural cure to the alternatives. Does he believe that medical cannabis is better than conventional pharmaceuticals?

“I wouldn’t use the word ‘superior,’ because we don’t have a complete study on the side effects of medical cannabis,” he says. Dr. Kramer believes that although mainstream medications are trustworthy because of the research that has gone into them, they are just examples of several options. “With a full spectrum of choices, including cannabis, you can treat a wider range of symptoms,” he says.

Dr. Kramer has been impressed by what he’s seen in his years of recommending cannabis tinctures for the animals he treats. “The results have been overwhelmingly positive, especially with the oils. I’ve been studying a lot of material on how cannabis tinctures have been successfully used to treat skin cancer,” he says. “A lot of anecdotal evidence indicates that topical cannabis oil might promote necrosis in tumors.”

While he believes that medical cannabis can be a good option under certain circumstances, Dr. Kramer understands that most other veterinarians would probably hesitate to opt for a treatment that is so controversial.

“I’ve faced a lot of negativity,” he says. “Most vets have only seen the worst-case scenarios, when a pet gets sick from cannabis. They haven’t seen the good cases that I have.”

Other professionals in the same field like what they see, and are interested in what medical cannabis can do for the pets they deal with in their own practice, Dr. Kramer says. “I’m getting a lot of emails from other veterinarians . . . I believe they might be quietly suggesting cannabis for their own patients, but they don’t want to get too vocal about it so that they can avoid potential lawsuits.”

While most of his clientele are sober, middle-class individuals who would probably never try cannabis themselves, when it comes to their pets they will use anything that works, regardless of the taboo, Dr. Kramer reveals. “I just lay the options on the table. Very conservative people become open-minded when they see that their pet is sick and suffering.”

www.vetguru.com

In Sickness and in Health

As we reported last month, if your pet isn’t sick—keep your MMJ away from them. “Serious, long-term health consequences and fatalities from marijuana intoxication are essentially unheard of,” Eric Barchas, a San Francisco veterinarian says. “But pets that are exposed to marijuana may display anxiety and are prone to ‘bad trips.’”