Welcome to Living in the Weeds, a series that explores the experiences of neurodivergent people who consume cannabis.
In today’s episode, Lucy and Jessica talk to Cate Osborn, a neurodivergence educator and advocate. She’s better known as “Catieosaurus” on all corners of the internet.
Cate talks about:
- The impact of her late ADHD diagnosis and how it spurred her to become an educator and advocate
- Her first cannabis experience and how it made her “feel” her neurodivergency more
- Her challenges as an educator with the “mixed bag of cannabis research” for neurodivergent people
- Why we need more research on alternative cannabinoids for people with neurodivergence
- How edibles have helped her improve her sleep and why people with ADHD are typically poor sleepers
- Sex, ADHD, and how cannabis can help with connecting brain and body
- The importance of educating yourself on the different types of cannabis (smoking, edibles, topicals, tinctures, and different cannabinoids)
- Situations where cannabis won’t help, like dealing with time blindness
Join Cate’s Community: https://catieosaurus.com/
Want to start tracking your cannabis consumption? Grab Lucy’s Tracking Journals here and save 10% with code CANNABISWRITER at checkout.
Why I Love This Episode of Living in the Weeds
If you’re neurodivergent online, you’ve probably come across Cate Osborn in the past few years. Her TikTok and Instagram channels have exploded, thanks to her education around neurodivergence as an ongoing, life-long condition, not just one that affects you “in school or sending emails.”
The Challenges of Cannabis Education
Cate kicks off our conversation by prefacing it with the challenges around the “mixed bag of cannabis research” as an educator. Cannabis doesn’t work for every person, and won’t work for every neurodivergent person – but why exactly that is, we still don’t know. It’s an important point to make – nothing is a panacea.
Cate then goes into the challenges of educating her audience on cannabis, especially on cannabinoids. THC is the main focus of most scientific studies, but it’s not necessarily the cannabinoid that will be the most helpful for everyone. Since science has yet to provide any guides for neurodivergent people, we’re left to our own devices to trial and error. This is frustrating and a bad experience can turn someone off from cannabis forever. There are so many options for people, it can be confusing,
Navigating not just which cannabinoids you’re consuming (THC, CBD, CBG, CBN) but also how you’re dosing (smoking or non-smoking), how much you’re dosing (sized in milligrams), and when you’re dosing (morning, afternoon, or evening)
Neurodivergence, Poor Sleep, & Edibles
Cate also talks about how she’s found benefits in edibles for improving sleep. According to her, around 90% of people with ADHD have some issue with sleep, whether it’s the inability to fall asleep or staying asleep. 70% of people with ADHD can suffer from delayed sleep phase syndrome, where it can take up to three hours longer to fall asleep. Improving sleep is one of the main reasons most people cite for turning to cannabis, and this is no different for the neurodivergent population.
Edibles work particularly well for sleep because of the delayed onset and the length of the effects. It can take 60 – 90 minutes for an edible to kick in, and it can last for 6 – 8 hours, and even up to 12 hours for high doses. This can make them an ideal administration method for people who want to sleep better.
I love that Cate brought this up because I’ve recommended edibles for sleep to several people in my life who are historically poor sleepers (usually ADHD related.) It’s easy to dose when you can pop a gummy at the start of your bedtime routine and have it kick in when you’re snuggling under the covers.
I also like edibles because less is more. Smoking hits you instantly, but most edibles must be processed in the liver before you start to feel the effects. This processing converts the THC into another molecule (11-hydroxy-THC for you science nerds) that can feel twice as strong as THC proper. So you can take 2.5 mg or 5. mg of a gummy and feel the full effects, whereas 2.5 mg of a joint may not feel like much.
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