Nursing Trends
Introduction
Obviously, therapists should not conduct sessions while under the influence of any substance. And every mental health professional association has strong ethical guidelines barring therapists or counselors from continuing to practice if they are harmed by substance abuse.
Moreover, physical therapists use marijuana to help in the healing of their patients. They utilize cannabis as a natural pain reliever and inflammation reducer. Cannabis is a natural therapy that has a wide range of health advantages. The globe is experiencing a major healthcare crisis.
For pain management, patients are frequently administered addictive, costly, and hazardous opioids. Meanwhile, medicinal marijuana may be produced at home and does not have the same negative side effects as prescription medications. Cannabis is one of the most often used pain relievers. Cannabis is a natural pain reliever that also decreases inflammation. It’s an all-natural remedy that has a slew of health advantages.
What Are the Signs That Someone Is High?
Red eyes, poor muscular coordination, delayed response times, and a pang of increased hunger are all physical symptoms of marijuana usage. A quick shift in mood from tight to relaxed, as well as acute symptoms of anxiety, panic, and/or hallucinations, might suggest marijuana usage. Marijuana also has a unique odor, which has been compared to skunk. Getting a whiff of this aroma on someone’s clothing or hair might indicate that they’ve recently taken the drug.
Individuals who are high on marijuana may go unnoticed at home, at work, or in other locations where sobriety is the norm.
People who detect a change in someone frequently second-guess their earlier impressions. People may ascribe the troubling behavior to weariness, sickness, or even a bad mood as part of this questioning process.
Weed’s Negative Effects
Marijuana’s short-term effects are also indicators of recent usage. The following are some of the most prevalent physical negative effects of marijuana usage, according to the Foundation for a Drug-Free World:
- Panic or Anxiety
- Muscle and limb coordination issues
- Reaction times and skills that are delayed
- An early burst of energy
- Heart rate has increased.
- Perceptions skewed
- Eyes that are bright red
The High Points of Weed and Physical Therapy
Medicinal marijuana and physical therapy have both been highlighted as viable remedies to the opioid problem, which is a high point of the current trend of utilizing medical marijuana to alleviate pain. Exercise and physical therapy, for instance, have been shown to be useful in the treatment of pain and are becoming a more popular option to the fast fix of pain medication prescription.
Medical marijuana is now being considered a possible answer to the opioid epidemic. According to an article in the Atlantic, weed is becoming more popular as a treatment for acute and chronic pain, and also the addiction that individuals feel during opioid medication.
According to research, painkiller prescriptions and overdose fatalities have begun to drop in jurisdictions where medicinal marijuana is authorized. As President Donald Trump labeled the opioid crisis a national emergency, the healthcare profession as a whole is focusing on finding strategies to minimize opioid prescriptions.
Another advantage of medicinal marijuana from the standpoint of physical therapy is that it has been discovered to have beneficial therapeutic effects on items like:
- Fibromyalgia
- Neuropathic pain is a kind of neuropathic pain.
- Multiple sclerosis (MS) causes spasticity.
- Rheumatoid arthritis and osteoarthritis are two types of arthritis.
- Musculoskeletal discomfort that persists
Will a physician’s license be revoked if he or she uses marijuana recreationally?
If one is using cannabis for medical or recreational purposes, a physician’s ability to practice medicine cannot be harmed. If a physician is under the influence of cannabis or any other restricted substance or alcohol, they endanger their patients, and the Board will investigate any physician who practices medicine while inebriated. If the Board can show that a physician has broken the Medical Practice Act, the punishment can be as severe as license revocation.
Therapists who use marijuana should be mindful of how marijuana affects them and how long it lasts. Even yet, determining what constitutes impairment in the context of our ethical rules may be challenging. Poor concentration, difficulties managing appetite, physical health issues (cancer, heart attack, etc.), and memory impairment are among the most prevalent negative consequences of marijuana use, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The majority of therapists could potentially learn to control at least some of those undesirable consequences. Sleepiness, poor concentration, and memory impairment, on the other hand, tend to have a greater impact on the therapeutic process.
If those impacts are discovered, it appears that therapists have a professional obligation to either limit the influence of marijuana usage on their practice or discontinue offering treatment. These effects may also explain why, even in areas where recreational marijuana use is allowed, employers often maintain the ability to dismiss (or refuse to recruit) employees who fail a drug test because of marijuana usage.
The situation is identical for licensing boards. Boards are unlikely to discipline a therapist only because he or she uses marijuana, as is the situation with alcohol, especially if the usage is legal in the state. However, regardless of whether the drug is allowed to own and used, a licensing board can intervene if the therapist’s work is impeded by substance use, or if the therapist is using it with clients in session.
Most therapists and counselors are unconcerned with having a beer after work or smoking a joint for that matter. However, the instant the effects of either medication become apparent in a session, the therapist is in perilous territory.
What happens to a physician’s license if he or she gets found driving while high on marijuana?
The Medical Board’s objective is to safeguard consumers. The Board would handle this arrest or conviction the same way it handles all other crimes committed by doctors: it would investigate the facts surrounding the arrest/conviction and take necessary measures to safeguard the public.
Final Words
Weed can linger in your system for several days to months after you last used it. The detection window for marijuana is determined by the drug test as well as other criteria such as whether or not you smoke or use marijuana on a regular basis.
