Cannabis + Crohn's

by David Yusefzadeh

I was born in Minneapolis but spent majority of my early life in Kentucky surrounded by outdoor cannabis. You can smell it in the summer mornings behind my parent's old neighborhood. Lots of local outdoor farms grew the plant openly which made it very easy to find in high school.  Cannabis became a major part of my life around my junior year and never left.

I moved back to Minneapolis in 2004 - 2009 and worked in restaurants the entire time while also attending the University of Minnesota. I met lots of wonderful people in the local hospitality world that I'm still friend's with today. Throughout my career in restaurants and hotels I was always surrounded by a massive amount of alcohol and cocaine.  Most of the front of the house wanted to go hard after dinner service but I always wanted to calm down. Cannabis was my go-to after a stressful night at work.

Having adrenaline in your blood for 12 hours a day for over twenty years can take a devastating toll on your body. In 2011 I was diagnosed with Crohn's disease.  My gastroenterologist told me to lower my stress, get more sleep, and he prescribed me multiple medications over the next several years.  None of the medications worked for more than a few months. Each time a medication would fail I would receive the same response from the doctor, "we need to raise the dosage."

In 2016 I moved to Massachusetts and my cousin encouraged me to get a medical marijuana card in order to explore the pain management options for my Crohn's symptoms.  I never considered taking cannabis for actual medical relief prior to his recommendation.  It was always just to calm my brain, to sleep, to be creative.  After visiting dispensaries in Massachusetts I realized that all of the edibles were trash - full of terrible ingredients that I didn’t want to eat so I started making my own edibles and Plant Jam was born. We created an ice cream brand (Cloud Creamery) and started collaborating on chocolate bars and gummies with a few partner brands.

My passion was/is still in the kitchen. Edibles are great but I missed the atmosphere and energy of a dining room full of people enjoying themselves. Over the past nine years I have been cooking with cannabis and experimenting with fermenting, curing, dry aging and various other methods in order to better understand how time and temperature affect cannabinoids.  Most of this cooking has been focused on foods that bring me relief during different meal periods but I wanted to navigate. My partners and I started a dinner series called Sacrilicious (@eatsacrilicious on IG).

Cannabis has completely relieved all of my Crohn's symptoms.  My ulcers in my intestines are gone.  Cannabis research cannot access federal funding.  This research has to be private and/or state specific.  Now we have to figure out a way to encourage the medical community to put research dollars towards establishing protocols that will work for people like me.