CBD-only cannabis products for pets are currently legal in all 50 states and a growing number of advocates and individuals are seeking to spread awareness about the potential of cannabis therapies for their pet companions, according to a KPIX 5 report. The support is buoyed by a recent Journal of the American Holistic Veterinary Medical Association study, which purported cannabis as a tool to manage chronic health conditions such as anxiety, cancer, seizures, sleeplessness, arthritis, and behavior issues for pets.
The Milo Foundation, a California non-profit that rescues dogs from high-kill shelters, uses donated Treatibles, a CBD-rich pet chew, to treat animals suffering from injuries and arthritis.
“What we see happen with the dogs is amazing,” Lynne Tingle, the foundation’s founder and director, said in the report. “They go from being, you know, tongue out, stiff, painful … barely able to walk to hopping up on their favorite chair, skipping around the dog park … tails wagging.”
John Blair said he had dug a grave for Pixel, his cancer-stricken 11-year-old German Shepard, and turned to edibles to try and improve her quality of life — she was in pain and unable to eat. Two days later, “she didn’t want to just lay around and wait to die,” he said.
“Suddenly she got life back in her eyes,” Blair said. “She had a little bounce in her step she wanted to go on walks again.”
Blair now sells Treatibles at his hardware store.
Yet, despite the legal status of the CBD-only pet products, the FDA has not explicitly approved its use and neither the SPCA nor PETA support cannabis use for pets due to a lack of research.
“Yeah, there’s no evidence to back it up except the fact that here [Pixel] is … she’s not dead. And she would have been,” Blair said.