Michael Best on Career Reinvention, Cannabis Research, and Learning at 80

Nigel Rawlins

Nigel Rawlins: Michael, welcome to the Wisepreneurs Podcast. Can you tell us something about yourself?

Dr Michael Best: Thanks Nigel. and thank you for inviting me onto this podcast.

Nigel Rawlins: I.

Dr Michael Best: Where am I from? Yes. So I've been in Australia for 74 years, but, yeah, I came from France initially. My parents both grew up in France, but came from elsewhere. Dad from Ukraine and mum from Poland

I came here as a 6-year-old not understanding any English and starting school. And, yeah, I've been here for the rest of the time. So I've lived in Melbourne most of my life.

Nigel Rawlins: And, that's oh, about a hundred kilometers north of where I live anyway, so we we're sort of close. I have to get up there on the train when I get to Melbourne. Now the reason I'm talking to you is because Hazel Edwards contacted me and Hazel was a guest and she said you are one of her hazelnuts.

So tell me something about that and how it is that you're one of her hazelnuts.

Dr Michael Best: All right. Well, I have, a friend who's been working with Hazel before, and, when I told him I was, interested in writing a book, he said, look, you really should speak to Hazel. Yeah, I've been very fortunate to have worked with her for over 12 months now. She mentors and she's published many books herself, and she's an amazing person.

I'm very grateful to her really for, I wanted to write this book, but I feel without her help, I would've been really struggling

Nigel Rawlins: We should have a little talk about, the topic of the book and why that topic and what experience you have to talk about that. So tell me about that.

Dr Michael Best: Right. So the title of my book is The Science Beneath Medicinal Cannabis. So it's a book about medicinal cannabis. especially the big message that I have is that there is a science beneath it. what a lot of people don't realize is that, the medical profession generally do not accept that medicinal cannabis is medicine.

I'll go into that a bit more later, so that patients often can be a bit, you know, thinking that there's just nothing behind what they're doing. They're taking this medicinal cannabis and, they may not realize that there really is some backing and some scientific backing into why it's actually often helping them.

Nigel Rawlins: Well, before we go that much further into there, we should explain what your background is that you are bringing to this, where your knowledge comes from.

Dr Michael Best: So I, I'm an experienced medical practitioner in here. I've, worked, for many years as a GP here in Melbourne. And, I came into the medicinal cannabis world by accident at retirement stage. And I feel very fortunate to have just landed in that situation by accident. So, I've been researching it for about five years and I've worked in the field for about three and a half years altogether before I retired.

Nigel Rawlins: Okay, so what do you mean by three and a half years you've worked in that field?

Dr Michael Best: So, basically what happened is that I retired from my day-to-day general practice as a 70-year-old, and that was, 10 years ago now. And I, started working with one of the big private hospital groups here in Melbourne. Marvelous job. And, the hospital, had a situation where GPs and the specialists worked hand in hand for the rehab department.

So we looked after rehabilitation patients, and I did that for five years before COVID hit. Telehealth had just started and I thought, whoa, that could be really an exciting thing to do. And, I sent out some feelers to some, general practice clinics and got this chap who rang back and started talking about medicinal cannabis.

Talked about the endocannabinoid system, which I'd never heard of before, and I was astounded. I had a lot of time to study during the COVID years because I didn't work for a number of months and I just, devoured everything I could find about medicinal cannabis and the endocannabinoid system.

So by the time I got into the field, I was really ready for it.

Nigel Rawlins: So how long have you been practicing as a GP?

Dr Michael Best: I've been a medical practitioner for over 50 years. the first part of my career was actually in medical administration. So I worked in the medical administration field, both here in Melbourne and in Canberra. I did that for quite a while and, I changed careers and went into full-time, GP work in 1990.

Nigel Rawlins: Now an interesting point you made is that, a lot of medical practitioners don't know much about the endocannabinoid system or medical marijuana. Why is that?

Dr Michael Best: It's a worldwide situation. Medicinal cannabis is incredibly popular around the world. United Nations about three years ago, said 64 countries now have medicinal cannabis legalized. The estimate is that there's about a billion people in the world now living in a jurisdiction where there is medicinal cannabis, but it's still not accepted as medicine by the medical profession.

So for instance, the crazy situation in America where you've got 38 states outta 50 that are legalized for medicinal cannabis, 24 of them have got recreational cannabis there. But the federal government,the FDA, which decides what is medicine and what's not, still regards it as a schedule one drug, which is basically a poison.

So it's incredibly popular all the way throughout America, but the federal government still says no, there's no proof that it's a medicine.

And that's a situation here in Australia as well.

Nigel Rawlins: Well, one of the previous guest, Amy Akon, was on and she talked about menopause. And she was saying that she was surprised how little medical practitioners knew about the up-to-date science. So she did a lot of research and one of the issues, that she was putting forward was that it's very important that we take agency over our own health. In other words, we take some responsibility to have an idea about our own health. What you've just pointed out is that maybe medical practitioners aren't really up with the science about medical cannabis. Can you tell us what is the use of medical

Cannabis? What's it being used for?

Dr Michael Best: Your other question is, is really quite a, a valid one about doctors not really knowing a lot about it. And there there's quite a lot of reasons for that. What it's being used for, the, the main things that patients came to see me for, and it's fairly, fairly standard worldwide is pain initially, chronic pain, and then anxiety and sleeping issues. So those three, those three things are the, the main reasons that people come for. But there's really a lot of other things that it actually can help for and that it's being used for. You know, a few countries, for instance, Israel, who, legalized medicinal cannabis many, many years before Australia,

they've actually been giving their soldiers medicinal cannabis for PTSD, since 2004, so for a long time. It's been used for a lot of things. When we discovered this endocannabinoid system, which is not long ago, it explained why so many people for thousands of years have talked about the effects of cannabis.

Cannabis was used medically in many countries for many years before it was actually a big problem was that it, you know, became a drug, an a narcotic sort of drug and regarded in the same line as heroin basically in America in the 1930s. And since, since that time it's been quite a problem.

Nigel Rawlins: So how does it help with pain and PTSD? What does it actually do to the body?

Dr Michael Best: Fascinating question. This is really what's incredibly fascinated me since I started reading about it, and it's the sort of thing that I'd like to, inspire a few doctors to realize how amazing the system we've got inside us. Every human being on the planet has got a cannabis type system inside us.

This was only discovered in 1988, so it's not a long time ago. And what we've realized now is that the system inside us does just about everything. It's the most extraordinary system. And in particular, it's there to help us to protect against pain. It's there to help us relax. It's there to help us to sleep.

It's there to protect us against infections and against all sorts of other issues as well. So this system that works inside us, the cannabis plant and the medicinal cannabis acts on the system inside us. And that's what we've discovered and the research has been extraordinary in the last 20, 30 years.

Nigel Rawlins: There must be a difference between medicinal cannabis and recreational cannabis? I'm assuming what? What is the difference there before we go into how does it connect?

Dr Michael Best: I'll say that sometimes it's a very, very tricky difference and it's not because in medicinal cannabis we actually use flowers that are very similar to what people will be using for recreational cannabis as part of the treatment. But medicinal cannabis includes oils, different types of things, we have mainly CBD, and THC, the two main things we use and we have balances between those. You've brought up a very interesting question because the difference between recreational cannabis and medicinal cannabis is at the heart of a lot of the issues that are discussed really in this field.

Okay. So basically, you can actually get a tub of medicinal cannabis which has been prepared to pharmaceutical sort of grades, which is very similar to what somebody having recreational cannabis may well have access to. One of the big issues that's actually happened in Australia, and which is part of leading to a lot of the discussions that are happening in Australia with regard to medicinal cannabis at the moment, is that a lot of recreational smokers have actually discovered that they can get it legally now as long as they're using it for a medical purpose. We are seeing many, many more people coming and becoming patients of ours, who have actually been recreational smokers for 30 years, perhaps, that's creating a real issue in the medicinal cannabis field. And I think it's a huge issue, which is explaining a lot of what's actually happening at the moment, because those particular smokers are the ones who use the stronger part of the medicinal cannabis, the THC, and they're used to using it in larger amounts. So it's something that we as doctors had to get used to as we are seeing more and more of them in the field, that it's like we need to be dealing with them a little bit differently. Do we deal with the person who's never had any THC or any medicinal cannabis before?

Nigel Rawlins: I think I was reading somewhere that it's actually quite helpful with the cancer treatment as well.

Dr Michael Best: Been widely used in cancer treatment. It's one of the areas that they've actually done study on that it's accepted, but it's accepted really for a very narrow part of cancer treatment. It's regarded as being helpful for the chemotherapy related nausea associated with cancer treatment.

But there's been a huge amount of research going on, in fact, for cancer patients of different types as well. The regulators who decide what is regarded as an approved drug and what is regarded as an unapproved drug and which is what they regard medicinal cannabis these days.

Those people say that none of the research that's being done is actually proof that medicinal cannabis works. And that's at the heart of what happens with doctors generally, because doctors, you know, quite rightly are looking for evidence-based treatments and the FFDA in America, the TGA in Australia, who decide what is a drug and what's not.

And they say that there isn't actual proof. There's a couple of exceptions, but for us in the everyday world, effectively everything is not approved. What is approved is quite amazing, but it's not really helpful for us for the everyday purpose.

Nigel Rawlins: I guess one of the difficulties that you've just mentioned is the fact that people who are used to taking it recreational think, okay, I'll get onto the medical one and then I don't have to worry about finding a deal or something like that. That might be, I'm assuming, muddying all the waters.

Dr Michael Best: Well, I think so, yes. I mean, I wasn't really looking to, to be, working in a field with people who were dependent on drugs and things like that, in my later years. But I think you do see them more in this field. But I really do feel that having recreational smokers, looking at it medically, I think is great help for them if they're prepared to do it properly.

I think it's doing a great service to Australia to have more people who have been accessing it illegally now able to do something legal and that often those people are the ones who know that it's been helping them for whatever their reasons are. And I've interviewed, some of my patients for the book and as I worked in the field, there were more and more people who had come over from the recreational field.

Who, who were finding that it's useful. In the early days they didn't come, and partly the price of it was different as well. But then as the price gradually came down, it made it more appropriate for them to try it and that they get a lot of benefits from, from doing things legally.

Nigel Rawlins: So are you still prescribing, are you still working as a GP in this area?

Dr Michael Best: No, I retired a bit over a year ago, so, I retired and part of my real focus in retiring was actually to write the book. It was something that I got the feel for and, I had been decreasing the amount of time I was working, before my retirement. But, yeah, I have completely retired now.

Nigel Rawlins: Now one, one of the reasons I, well, there's several reasons I want to talk to you about is one that you're 80 years old and you've taken on quite an intellectual task here to write a book, a scientifically based book about medical marijuana and the Endo Canada book, how you say

end?

Dr Michael Best: Endocannabinoid system.

Yeah.

Nigel Rawlins: well, I can't even say that.

So, basically your motivation now is to write a book. You're not doing this for money, this is for intellectual stimulation, plus you've got a passion to get this message out.

Dr Michael Best: Yeah, yeah, and I guess there, there's a background reason as well in that I have a grandfather who wrote a book many, many years ago in 1930 actually. Which my dad tells me was a bestseller and was translated into about 30 languages. And he's a man who I, I had a great admiration for, but really didn't know him at all.

After we came to Australia, I never met him again. And, I'd always felt that I'd like to write a book and I think the realizing that here was something with a real message that was in an area which is controversial, but after having worked in it I'm just so impressed with what it really is and what it can do.

And I'm aware there's a lot of issues that I think someone who's looking at it from a medical point of view really has something to say.

Nigel Rawlins: And again, I would say that you have the expertise in there, a long medical career of understanding what patients are going through, and then the experience you've had in prescribing it and seeing the results of it so you have a deep expertise about health and wellbeing and how this helps people. So that's quite fascinating.

Dr Michael Best: I was just so impressed with it. Gotta say I, I'd never heard of the endocannabinoid system until 2020 when I spoke to somebody who I didn't know on the other end of the phone talking about it, and I realized afterwards how come, I mean, I've been a doctor for all these years.

How come I knew nothing about this? And the other thing is I'd heard a little bit about medicinal cannabis because in my hospital work, one of the rehab specialists was a pain management specialist who used to bring patients into hospital for ketamine intravenously, which apparently helped a number of his patients.

And he asked me to help him, and I used to be admitting the patients, giving the, medication orders so the nurses could start the treatment. And, his view at that stage, this is 2020, was look I don't know if it works, but, you know, if the patients feel that it helps them, I'm happy for them to have it in hospital, 'cause normally they wouldn't be able to have it while they're in hospital. So, yeah, I spoke to some of those this mysterious oil they were taking and they were telling me quite a few of them were giving me some good reports. So I, I thought, wow, this, this is, this could be interesting when I had the opportunity later to, to get involved with it.

Nigel Rawlins: Now, isn't it fascinating that COVID helped you make this switch into a whole new area, and then the serendipity of talking to somebody took you into an extension of your medical career.

Dr Michael Best: Totally. Yeah. It really was quite amazing 'cause talking to colleagues who aren't in the field, you know, often they'd be saying, Michael does, does this thing work? What is it? And you know, it's just not well known in the medical field at all, in Australia.

I imagine that's a bit different in Canada or America where it's been legalized for so long. By the same token, the specialists there, you know, unless I think what I've often found is specialists were on side, if some of their patients had tried it and talked to them of a good experience.

So that anecdotal, anecdotally, you know, specialists would, would be interested in that. And that's why some neurologists who deal with epilepsy have had experience where some of their patients have used it for seizures and pain management, a few of them have found some of their patients have been helped by it and sleep specialists who've found it.

So people who've had some experience often go, wow, this seems to work and I wonder if there's something in it. And they often get a bit more interested in it, but, in many cases, both GPs and specialists were, were really not happy if their patients were using it.

Nigel Rawlins: Now talking about serendipity, somebody put you onto Hazel Edwards. Hazel Edwards put you onto me. And now we're talking. And interestingly, you know, you talk about, your parents from Ukraine and from Poland. My great grandparents on my mother's side were from the same area. So, let's talk about what it means to write a book at the age of 80. So how long have you been writing this book and what does that involve?

Dr Michael Best: Well, Hazel's been a wonderful task master, but her goal was that I write it in 12 months, so I'm a failure, I'm afraid to her 'cause that's not the case. And I'm taking a bit longer than that. But yeah, I've got most of it done in a way, I'm just not happy with how it is.

I'd like to be writing it differently, but also in order to get a publisher and Hazel has been a help in that regard as well. But, I don't have a publisher, which is going to be an important thing for me to do. so I'm still in the writing stage, just learning a bit more about some of the podcasts that I've been seeing of yours, Nigel, with a few people talking about smart notes and dealing with some, assistance for helping in that regard has really given me a bit of a buzz for doing extra research and knowing where I've got everything. Because I've tended to be someone who's worked with folders, so I've learned things, I've got different folders about things, but it's very hard sometimes to get back to that and access it and find out where everything is and where it all came from. So, I'm really looking forward to doing a little bit more of it.

And, although I'm not a great technology person, I'm actually, I've been putting my efforts into really looking at this technology aspect of taking the notes, filing it, having a place to keep, references somewhere and being able to connect them together.

Nigel Rawlins: Yeah, That was my big issue several years ago when I used to take, I'd read a book and I would take notes and copy out quotes and things like that, and I'd have masses of books and folders like you, but I could never find anything. It was just crazy. So we call that analog, the old pen and paper days.

And now with digital tools and I'm really getting into this stuff too, but I think I'm, I'm way down the rabbit hole. This is, um, technology or apps that are augmenting us. The benefit for you is you, you've got a, a deep knowledge of your topic. So when you're starting to use digital tools, you are able to assess it and evaluate it and know what's important.

And by having it on a digital, and we're talking both got excited about, a program called Obsidian for our note takings that will link to other notes in the documents like a database.

Dr Michael Best: Hmm.

Nigel Rawlins: I'm using a lot of AI now to take a lot of those notes and develop my thoughts on them. I'm now spending probably a couple of hours a day, working through things like that.

There's a chap who's on LinkedIn Luc P Beaudoin, he's a Canadian, talks about cognitively potent tools, software that helps us comprehend and utilize information and develop our intellectual capabilities and our effectiveness. And this is cognitive science now saying to us, these tools are there to help us.

And there you are as an 80-year-old starting to learn how to use Obsidian. Which is the relational database, and you go, oh, this is good, and how have you been learning it? Explain that to me.

Dr Michael Best: I announced that I'm going to university again. I've been on YouTube watching countless videos about different things, which can be a trap. But, I've found the Obsidian to be something very special.

I'm finding Zotero is very helpful for keeping, articles and various things. Again, there's so much to learn on how to use it properly and how to link it properly with Obsidian. I'm just grateful to have it now. And I feel I'm going to learn it a bit more on how to connect it with Obsidian. But even if I don't, it's not a problem because I'm able to click the references by hand in my notes in Obsidian.

Nigel Rawlins: So what we should say is Zotero is, an app that collects your references and some notes about the references as well. So when you're creating the references at the end of your booklet, you've got them all correctly addressed.

Dr Michael Best: Yeah, I look it, it's a very helpful thing. I'm at that stage of the writing at the moment where I'm still doing some more writing with it and I think I'll be redoing quite a bit of what I've done. I've got it pretty well, organized

I believe in terms of what the finished product is gonna look like,

Nigel Rawlins: So would, would you have ever thought that at 80 years of age you'd be going back to, well, we wouldn't bother going to university at our age anymore, but adding to our knowledge through finding what you want to learn online. So exploring the learning for yourself, would you have ever thought that at the age of 80 that you'd be learning something new?

Learning about technology and learning all these things?

Dr Michael Best: I don't think that was part of my story because I felt as if I've been following on technology rather than being someone who's been leading on it. It's amazing to think that I'll be doing this.

And also, I would never have dreamed that I'd be looking at AI I started looking at ChatGPT, in my early days of the book. I would never have thought that I'd be using it to the degree I'm doing at the moment.

Nigel Rawlins: So how are you using ChatGPT?

Dr Michael Best: I've actually gone to Claude as somebody I've heard of, who's been using that. And, yeah, I've been using it a lot more, and I guess what I found was that instead of just asking questions, if I framed, my question, gave some background and also perhaps said, look, you are an investigative journalist and,

you are looking at the medicinal cannabis situation in Melbourne at the moment, what are the main areas that you would see and then I might give a particular request, but I'm also using it for a general overview of things.

Nigel Rawlins: So you're not saying to it, hey, write me my book on cannabis or anything like that you are augmenting yourself with it, I would say that you're working with as a co-pilot. I'd say it's a co-pilot. That's the word.

Dr Michael Best: I think so. And it's astonishing the amount of things it has. For instance, I was asking it about what was happening in the medicinal cannabis world in America, for instance. And, the information it gave me about it was just enormous. The more information I got, the more questions I could ask, the more I could hone in on the things that I was especially interested in.

I just find it extraordinary.

Nigel Rawlins: Now, this is one of the points I try to make a lot more in my writing at the moment, is that with the experience you had, especially the knowledge that you have, you are able to look at the output from the ChatGPTs and Claude. You're able to evaluate it, you've got your knowledge and you can assess whether it's what's called hallucinating.

Like sometimes it writes articles and it, it makes stuff up. And I said to it, I don't know what that is. I want a hypothetical. I don't want you saying that. And, and, and that's what you can do. Unfortunately, there's a lot of younger people who think they can just plug something in and take that, and that's an article and that's where we're, sort of being overwhelmed.

So going back to your learning, how do you choose now? I don't think a lot of people realize when you're older, you really don't have any time. I mean, people wonder like, I'm 70 next year. Well, I'm just interested in doing this, plus I wanna do my walk and I wanna do my strength training, but I wanna write this and I wanna read that,

and I still do some work for clients, quite a bit, actually, this week's been really busy. So, how do you, with your time, how do you decide what you're gonna spend time learning?

Dr Michael Best: No, I don't have an easy answer to that. I mean, I look to put some time aside to do this medicinal cannabis type area. But yeah, finding the way to do some exercise, as you say, for me, it's tennis, finding the time to do some, uh, some singing, which I like to do as well.

And, yeah, it's not an easy one even when I assumed when I was retired, I would have so much time to do things, but, yeah, I do find that, getting into the study and doing the sort of things that I really would like to do more of is it's not all the time. So I don't know how to answer you on that one. I do what I can, I think is the story.

Nigel Rawlins: Do you have a specific time that you work on this or just ad hoc?

Dr Michael Best: No, I don't do a specific time. I look to arrange some time, in the mornings quite often, but, it's not a specific time, no.

Nigel Rawlins: I guess people probably don't understand this, when you're older and you're married and, there are children, you have children, or there's grandchildren around, there's a lot of other demands on your time, plus your own demands. like dinner time, I have to help my wife cook, she demands it.

She's my age. So she's, she's done her bit over time. So, you know, she's not gonna cook for me anymore. I've gotta help. So there's other little demands on her time. Plus, things like shopping,do you get excited about, your learning that you're doing and the writing and how it forms?

Dr Michael Best: I look, I do get excited about it and, yeah, I really, I see this so much to actually, to say, at the moment. And there's so much to learn for me as well in order to say it.

Nigel Rawlins: Michael, would you like to tell us, some of the parts of the book that you're writing?

Dr Michael Best: The big parts of the book are to explain the endocannabinoid system and how big that is, because medicinal cannabis world in the modern era has really come on the tails of the discovery of the endocannabinoid system and this system was discovered purely because of the cannabis plant, even though it's been with us for hundreds of millions of years, so long before the plant came on the earth, but we wanted to find out how does the cannabis plant have its effect on us?

And it took many years to find it, but they finally did find that it's directly relating to a receptor that sits on the wall of cells inside the body. And when they started looking at where these receptors were, I think the people who are looking in the brain for where they, where the receptors were, must have got a shock because it's everywhere.

It's one of the most common receptors of its type in the brain. And it's everywhere in the body as well. So we've just got an amazing system, which is invisible. You can't see it. So it's not like there's an organ somewhere, which is this system. It's basically like the software in the computer.

It's totally invisible, but it does just about everything inside. It's, truly remarkable. it's regarded as something which balances the body and mind. The medical term is called homeostasis, but it's a system which is there to balance us irrespective of what's happening outside.

I mean, that is just the most astonishing thing to imagine. When you look into it the body is made up of all sorts of areas, and this system is enormous in just about every area. I'm especially interested in the brain and in the book I actually look into where the system is in the brain and some of the things that it does.

And I think I've also got a chapter in the book about dinosaurs. And that's to really highlight how ancient the system is inside us. And also to make my point that I believe every dinosaur that walked or flew or swam in the ocean on Earth had a sophisticated endocannabinoid system in them, which is extraordinary.

Nigel Rawlins: It's fascinating, isn't it? that we've evolved from single cells, millions of years ago, and we are this complex body today and it is complex. what I'm hearing is we've been taking all these other medications to deal with pain, but our body responds better to medical cannabis or cannabis, I suppose for those who are self-medicating than we actually realize.

Dr Michael Best: Very much so, yeah, so the system in our body's finely tuned, so it's not like taking a dose of cannabis or medicinal cannabis because that dose that we take lasts for a few hours. Oils last for about eight hours. A smoke of cannabis lasts for three or four hours perhaps, but in our system, we've got a incredibly fine tuned system where a little molecule is created and broken down in seconds, so it's happening all around the body all the time, but in microseconds of action. Whereas if we are smoking or having oil or, taking it in some other way we are actually giving ourselves a dosage that's there for quite a long time.

So it's different from what the body does, but it's doing the same sort of things as what the body does. And certainly pain control and sleep and relaxation are three very important things that it does in the body.

Nigel Rawlins: So basically when we are in pain or anxious we're outta whack, aren't we? We're out of, a normal homeostasis.

Dr Michael Best: There's one researcher in the medicinal cannabis field who did a lot of work and he actually had this as his theory that we've got an endocannabinoid tone that decides if we are in whack, so to speak. And if we've got chronic pain or if we're not sleeping or if we're very anxious that we're out of whack in some way.

Yeah. So I believe there's some truth to it, but it's an area that's still one of the theories, but it really does look like it. And it goes back right through the animal world Nigel, I'm no botanist, but I've actually done a lot of study of the animals because it's extraordinary.

And, we know for instance that all animals with a backbone have a sophisticated endocannabinoid system, including the two main receptors. The animal world that doesn't have a backbone. they usually don't have receptors, but nearly all animals have an endocannabinoid system.

Nearly all. The one group that doesn't have it are the insects, but just about everything else has it, and it's amazing.

Nigel Rawlins: It is fascinating. and, but it is, I don't know if it's a thing that as I get older, I guess we're learning more too. I'm fascinated, about what our bodies can do and what our brains can do. And I guess this is all this mind body connection and I'm very much getting into, the extended mind, the embodied system that our intelligence is not just in our heads, it is in our bodies, which is something you are talking about here, that it looks after its body and the brain.

Dr Michael Best: Absolutely, and I'm fascinated by biochemistry and it's extraordinary. I mean our brain is the most extraordinary organism anyway. It's probably the most complicated living thing in the world, and what it does is amazing. The amount of biochemical reactions that are going on in the brain when you and I are sitting here talking, or if we are just completely still, there's so many biochemical reactions going on every microsecond. It's extraordinary how the brain doesn't heat up and just overheat. And in actual fact, that's one of the big things that's been discovered about the endocannabinoid system is that one of its roles actually happens to be to cool the brain down, so to speak, when it overheats.

Like people with ADHD will often, patients will often say, look, I feel as if my brain is wired. I'm just all over the place. And it, it's interesting that medicinal cannabis seems to be able to help people like that. We can't say it does help because as we are told, there's no actual proof.

But when you work in the field, there's a lot of people who, explain and say, well, it really does help for them.

Nigel Rawlins: And I think that's what we would expect from our medical practitioners, that they have the empathy to work with us, obviously they've gotta be very careful, because otherwise you'd be known as, I guess during COVID, a lot of medical practitioners, who may not have been too happy with the COVID vaccinations, still had to go along with it.

So, I mean, you still have to keep your job, so you can't go straight too far away from the mainstream, can you really?

Dr Michael Best: Well, I think it's how we are brought up as well. We like to see things that are evidence-based and there's actually been thousands of trials with regard to medicinal cannabis. So there's quite a few people who feel that there's a fair bit of, evidence in one way or another, but it's not good enough for the medical world, and I understand that you need to spend millions and millions of dollars to do trials that are really acceptable for medications. And, it's very hard for people to have a patent on things if anybody can grow a medicinal, plant, you've gotta have patents to be prepared to spend huge amounts of money on trials that are going to work for people.

But there's a lot of trials that have been done in the animal world, and so many of them have shown what the endocannabinoid system can do. And it looks very likely that from experience in people who've been using medicinal cannabis for years, that the same sort of thing is there for us as humans.

Nigel Rawlins: Is there something else you'd like to mention that we haven't talked about yet?

Dr Michael Best: I think the regulators have got an important role to play and I'd like to think that they'll be able to do what needs to be done for the industry to help it, and also to make sure that there still is real access for patients to have access to medicinal cannabis in a good way for the medicinal cannabis to flourish.

Nigel Rawlins: That's fantastic. Well, on that note, we've probably come to the end here, are you on LinkedIn or anything like that?

Dr Michael Best: So I am on LinkedIn. Not something I've been using a great deal but I am there on LinkedIn. I'm not working as a practitioner. I've been referring patients back to the clinic where I used to work.

Thank you very much, Michael, for joining me today. Thanks Nigel, and I very much appreciate.