Introduction
I’m an Acupuncturist and Herbalist. I’ve lived and worked in the San Francisco Bay Area since 1984. Over the course of my medical practice, I’ve worked with many people who have suffered in a great variety of ways. Since no two of them have been the same, I’ve treated each one as an individual, in his or her own way, one person at a time. This personal attention has been one of the keynotes of my clinical success over the years.

Even though I treat each person as an individual, my years of clinical experience have shown me that there’s a unique pattern of suffering among a special group of people. These people are long-time marijuana users.

Dispelling the Mystery

Many, many people who have used marijuana for a long time have come to see me in my clinical practice. Very few of them have come to me because they use marijuana. Most of them have come for other reasons. Yet each one of them has expressed, sooner or later, a certain curiosity, mystery and fear that has plagued them.

They wonder if using marijuana is harming them in some way. Most of them suspect that it is, but they don’t know how.

In this article, I’m going to introduce you to the short and long-term effects of using marijuana from the perspective of Traditional Chinese Medicine. I’ll also give you some helpful guidelines on how to balance these effects. The article has several layers of depth. This one is the simplest. If you want to learn more about any of the subjects in more detail, click on the link at the end of each section.

What Happens When You Take Marijuana

The Chinese name for marijuana tells its whole story. Its name is Huo Ma, Fire Hemp. The Chinese call marijuana Huo Ma because of its Fiery nature. Marijuana starts a Fire inside of you when you take it. That Fire will take a definite progression through your body and psyche if you expose yourself to it over and over again.

Here’s the progression.

1. Marijuana harms your Lung System by drying up your Fluid Metabolism from the level of the Lungs. It damages your Thin Fluids and degenerates your Lungs’ ability to distribute Thin Fluids throughout your entire body. Marijuana coats your Lungs with Hot Poisons, which toxifies them and the rest of your body over time. Marijuana damages your Lung Yin and with it the foundation of the Yin of the rest of your body. Marijuana radically depletes your Qi, confuses and devitalizes your Immune System and will tend to damage first the most compromised and constitutionally deficient areas of your body and psyche. (more)
   
   
2. Marijuana harms your Digestive System by drying up your digestive fluids and your production of appropriate digestive enzymes. It alters the flow of nutrients into and out of your blood stream, creates Pathogenic Heat in your digestion, and confuses the function of your ‘Middle Jiao’, or overall digestive abilities. (more)
   
   
3. Marijuana slowly poisons your entire body by creating low-level inflammation and filling you with its toxic, Hot Poisonous nature. (more)
   
   
4. Marijuana damages your Heart and Blood Systems by stagnating, heating, depleting and poisoning your Blood. (more)
   
   
5. Marijuana damages your Liver System by congesting your Liver with Hot Poison, heating your Liver up and damaging your Liver Blood. (more)
   
   
6. Marijuana damages your Kidney and Jing Sexual Essence Systems by devastating your Kidney Qi, Yin and Yang, depleting and depolarizing your Jing Sexual Essence and confusing, provoking and exhausting your natural sexual functions.(more)
   
   
7. Marijuana damages your Shen, or Spirit by depleting and drying out your Blood and memory. It alters both the structure and function of your Brain and Nervous System. Marijuana develops a parasitic relationship with you. It creates Phlegm that ‘Mists’ your orifices, which confuses and confounds your perceptions in an ever-degrading negative feedback loop. (more)
   

1. We need to balance the damage marijuana does to your Qi, Lung and Immune Systems. In order to accomplish this, we need to wake up your fluid metabolism from the level of the Lungs, generate Thin Fluids at the level of your Lungs, clean Hot Poison from your Lungs, nourish Lung Yin, tonify your Qi, fortify your immune system and supply you with some kind of super-adaptogen that has the function of automatically going to where you most need it to fill up the ‘holes’ in your Qi.
   
   
2. We need to address the damage marijuana does to your Digestive System. We need to give you something to wake up your digestion and stimulate your digestive fluids and production of digestive enzymes. We need to clear Heat from your digestion and resolve the confusion that marijuana creates in your Middle Jiao.
   
   
3. We need to clean Hot Poison from every level of your body. We need to do something that begins with clearing out the lowest levels of inflammation throughout your body and works up to cleaning out all of marijuana’s Hot Poison. This should be done on both systemic and local levels. We can do this in part by opening your Water System, which will also help to resolve stagnant fluids and the creation of Phlegm. It should also happen by a mild descending of marijuana’s Hot Poisons and its by-products through your Intestines. This will further activate your Lung System and wake up your basis of forming and circulating fresh True Yang energy throughout your body.
   
   
4. We need to address the damage marijuana does to your Heart and Blood Systems. To do this, we need to activate your Blood to get it out of its stagnation and wake up your memory. We need to clear Heat from your Blood, tonify it and clean accumulated Hot Poisons from your vessels.
   
   
5. We need to support your Liver System.
   We need to create a scenario that will open, clear Heat from and protect your Liver System from sustaining any further damage. We need to rebuild your Liver Blood.
   
   
6. We need to nourish your Kidney and Jing Sexual Essence Systems.
   We can do this by nourishing your Kidney Qi and Yin, gently supporting the birth of your Kidney Yang, nourishing, supporting, generating and repolarizing your Jing Sexual Essence and addressing any sexual dysfunctions the marijuana may have created for you.
   
   
7. We need to help you restore your Shen. To do this, we need to support your Brain and Nervous Systems, nourish your Shen, do what we can to bring back your memory, address the parasitic quality of the relationship you have with marijuana, and resolve any Phlegm that may be misting your orifices.
   
   

HDP9 is a patent-pending herbal formula that I developed over years of working with people who have issues of chronic marijuana use. Let’s place the qualities of marijuana and HDP9 side by side:

Summary

Many people who use marijuana have come to me over the years. Sooner or later, each of these people have asked the same question: Is it OK to take marijuana?

They ask me as if they want me to tell them it’s OK to get high and to assure them that they’re not going to suffer any consequences from doing it. I want to be truthful with you. Any habit will have a long-term effect on you and your health.

Everything in life has rewards and consequences. You’re the one that needs to know who you are, where you are and what you want to do with your life. There’s nothing wrong with you if you choose to use marijuana. It’s just a fact that marijuana has side effects that come from its very nature. These side effects will influence you in very specific and predictable ways over time if you use marijuana on an ongoing basis. This process has nothing to do with the rightness or wrongness of what you’re doing. It’s not a punishment. It’s a physical law playing itself out.

Now you know the nature of marijuana. You also know many of the details of what it can do to you if you expose yourself to it. From the perspective of Traditional Chinese Medicine it’s possible to take specific actions that will balance the nature of marijuana and its side effects. This balance takes place on a biological level with the precision of a mathematical equation.

HDP9 is a substance that can balance the equation. Will HDP9 heal you from the damaging effects of using marijuana? I can’t say. What I can say is that according to the principles of one of the world’s oldest, most respected and effective medical systems, HDP9 can help balance marijuana’s Hot and Toxic nature.

Taking HDP9, getting plenty of rest, eating well and exercising your brain and body are all positive steps you can take on your journey of healing. Working with intelligence toward your healing means taking many small steps along the right path. Whatever steps you take, I hope these words will help you discover that path for yourself.

These statements have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug administration. HDP9 is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure or prevent any disease.