Show notes
I thoroughly enjoyed having Ruth Fisher, Ph.D., Cannabis researcher, and analyst, Co-Founder of Cann Dynamics, as well as the author of The Medical Cannabis Primer, on TSC Talks! I heard about Ruth’s book from another recent guest, Nikki Lawley and promptly ordered it, and reached out to Ruth for an interview. It’s a phenomenal resource, one that I have on my desk and refer to frequently. Before I launch into the episode notes, here’s a great description of the book written by Dan Larkin, that I found helpful:
“Getting clear, concise, and easy to understand information about cannabis is tough. There are lots of resources, but which ones can you trust? How can you be sure the information isn’t biased? How are you supposed to even understand all the terminology and science? Is it even legal?
All of this becomes doubly important if you’re researching medical cannabis as an alternative to conventional treatments or pharmaceuticals. You or someone you love may have recently been diagnosed with cancer, epilepsy, autism, MS, or PTSD. You may have been dealing with chronic pain. Whatever your personal reason, you deserve access to clear, concise information about medical cannabis….That’s where “The Medical Cannabis Primer” by Ruth D. Fisher, Ph.D. and edited & designed by her brother, A. Arthur Fisher, comes in. They’ve assembled a comprehensive, easy to read compendium of cannabis knowledge that’s full of unbiased information and easy to understand charts, graphs, and images.”
Ruth shares that it was through the process of helping her brother, who was diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis, find adequate treatment, that she ended up researching cannabis. Raised by a father who was a private practice physician, a successful children's eye doctor, and Ruth’s idol, she speaks of his influence, “My dad was also an iconoclast, he didn't take things at face value, just because people said so. He did research in his area of medicine, and he questioned authority. And he encouraged us to do so. He would send us stuff to read a lot. And he would send an article and say, “read this article.!”, I'm like, “Dad, just tell me what it says.” He says, “No, I want you to read it yourself”. And that was always a pain. But at some point, I realized he didn't want to bias, the presentation of the information his view and his perspective. He wanted us to read it for ourselves and develop our own perspective or interpretation on what we thought of it. I always thought that was very interesting. It took me a long time to appreciate that”
Another formative factor Ruth mentions as shaping her life view was graduate school. “ I'm an economist. In economics, you learn that everything is supply and demand. So, you learn how you know all markets are shaped by the forces of supply and demand and you kind of understand things in those terms…. What's really interesting, and it was finally drummed into me that it doesn't matter what the results are. If your data and methodology aren't valid, they're not found, then the results don't matter. They're meaningless. That was really, really important in forming my attitudes about reading research and trying to evaluate whether or not I should consider them to be valid, based on the methodology and the data used. And it really, really impressed upon me the importance of good methodology in order to provide valid results.”
Here are a few quotes from the transcript of our interview highlighting Ruth’s entry into the cannabis industry and her realization that educating herself was necessary, “So I got into cannabis about four or five years ago. My brother started having health problems. And it turns out he was eventually diagnosed with multiple sclerosis. And MS manifests itself differently in different people and the manifestation he gets is pain, a lot of neuropathic pain from different sources. And he was on a lot of different drugs trying to control or manage the...
“Getting clear, concise, and easy to understand information about cannabis is tough. There are lots of resources, but which ones can you trust? How can you be sure the information isn’t biased? How are you supposed to even understand all the terminology and science? Is it even legal?
All of this becomes doubly important if you’re researching medical cannabis as an alternative to conventional treatments or pharmaceuticals. You or someone you love may have recently been diagnosed with cancer, epilepsy, autism, MS, or PTSD. You may have been dealing with chronic pain. Whatever your personal reason, you deserve access to clear, concise information about medical cannabis….That’s where “The Medical Cannabis Primer” by Ruth D. Fisher, Ph.D. and edited & designed by her brother, A. Arthur Fisher, comes in. They’ve assembled a comprehensive, easy to read compendium of cannabis knowledge that’s full of unbiased information and easy to understand charts, graphs, and images.”
Ruth shares that it was through the process of helping her brother, who was diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis, find adequate treatment, that she ended up researching cannabis. Raised by a father who was a private practice physician, a successful children's eye doctor, and Ruth’s idol, she speaks of his influence, “My dad was also an iconoclast, he didn't take things at face value, just because people said so. He did research in his area of medicine, and he questioned authority. And he encouraged us to do so. He would send us stuff to read a lot. And he would send an article and say, “read this article.!”, I'm like, “Dad, just tell me what it says.” He says, “No, I want you to read it yourself”. And that was always a pain. But at some point, I realized he didn't want to bias, the presentation of the information his view and his perspective. He wanted us to read it for ourselves and develop our own perspective or interpretation on what we thought of it. I always thought that was very interesting. It took me a long time to appreciate that”
Another formative factor Ruth mentions as shaping her life view was graduate school. “ I'm an economist. In economics, you learn that everything is supply and demand. So, you learn how you know all markets are shaped by the forces of supply and demand and you kind of understand things in those terms…. What's really interesting, and it was finally drummed into me that it doesn't matter what the results are. If your data and methodology aren't valid, they're not found, then the results don't matter. They're meaningless. That was really, really important in forming my attitudes about reading research and trying to evaluate whether or not I should consider them to be valid, based on the methodology and the data used. And it really, really impressed upon me the importance of good methodology in order to provide valid results.”
Here are a few quotes from the transcript of our interview highlighting Ruth’s entry into the cannabis industry and her realization that educating herself was necessary, “So I got into cannabis about four or five years ago. My brother started having health problems. And it turns out he was eventually diagnosed with multiple sclerosis. And MS manifests itself differently in different people and the manifestation he gets is pain, a lot of neuropathic pain from different sources. And he was on a lot of different drugs trying to control or manage the...
