Women in Cannabis | Martha Monetemayor Q&A

By Antonio DeRose

Certified Nutritional Consultant Martha Montemayor founded Healthy Choices Unlimited, a medical cannabis evaluation clinic with locations across Colorado, in 2012. The next year, Sanjay Gupta’s “Weed” program aired on CNN. People from all over the world called her clinic asking about using cannabis to help sick children. Then hospitals started calling her saying “Help! All these parents are calling asking us about medical marijuana, but we don’t know anything about it.” Montemayor started speaking at hospitals. There, she discovered a huge knowledge gap: the average hospital doctor knew less about cannabis than the average teenager did. While speaking at Denver Health, a neurologist held up a research paper Montemayor had passed around and asked, “Do you think I could talk to this Raphael Mechoulam guy?” Since she already had Dr. Mechoulam’s contact information in Israel, she replied “Yeah, I think I can arrange that.” And the Marijuana for Medical Professionals Conference was born.

In 2014, Montemayor founded Cannabis Clinicians Colorado, a non-profit professional society dedicated to supporting health professionals and medical marijuana professionals through education and research. She and BFF, Sarara Corva, have now produced over 50 hours of Continuing Medical Education (CME) certified learning through their Marijuana for Medical Professionals – known as MJ for MDs – conferences. This year, MJ for MDs is going international with a CME program at the CannAmerica conference in Uruguay in August 2019. She’s also curating an online learning program with Green Flower Academy. CCC’s first IRB-approved research study on retired athletes and CBD is currently underway in Denver, CO and Miami, FL with former Buffalo Bills linebacker-turned-MD, Dr. Hervé Damas. Look for results to come out this fall.

We recently had the pleasure of speaking with Martha about her journey through healthcare and cannabis, and here’s what she had to tell us...

WHAT ARE YOU DOING IN THE INDUSTRY RIGHT NOW? Well, Healthy Choices Unlimited, the for-profit medical cannabis evaluation clinic that pays the bills, is still going strong. Since 2012, we’ve helped over 20,000 people join the Colorado Medical Marijuana Registry. The non-profit I’m director of, Cannabis Clinicians Colorado, has the next MJ for MDs conference coming up in Uruguay at the end of August, 2019 and is working on an IRB-approved study on CBD and quality of life in retired athletes. The research is really exciting. It’s an unfunded pilot study on 5 different forms of donated CBD products. We want to see if quality of life improves in the areas of pain, sleep, and mood as collected by the MB Clinical phone app. We want to see if one route of administration is better than another and if results are dose-dependent. We’re using the WAVi quick EEG brain scan at each visit and the Roberto 6-minute cognition test for objective markers. Former pro boxer Mike Tyson, of the Tyson Ranch, donated the money for supplies and travel for the study; all the people are volunteers. Our lead physician is Hervé Damas, MD of Miami, Florida. We’re hoping to get enough data from the pilot to launch a full 2-year study with public and private funding.

HOW DID YOU GET STARTED IN YOUR MEDICAL CAREER? I’m a serial entrepreneur. In 1998, I sold an international satellite systems integrator company I had helped found years before and moved to Denver. I walked into an acupuncture clinic looking for help for migraines, and the old guy at the front desk could not use the computer well enough to check me out. So, I offered to help him. I was the business manager there for 10 years. By the time I left, I had learned enough from the practitioner to take the certified nutritional consultants’ exam. And I was now business manager for a bunch of other clinics as well. I started in cannabis April 1, 2010, as GM for a medical clinic that also did medical marijuana evaluations. Two years later, I started Healthy Choices Unlimited.

WHAT LED YOU TO GET INVOLVED IN THE CANNABIS INDUSTRY? I was already familiar with cannabis as medicine, as both my high school roommate and my ex-husband suffered from epilepsy. Both used cannabis with some success to control seizures and stop pain and nausea following a grand mal. My ex actually applied for a Colorado medical marijuana registry card in 2001, the first year you could. But at that time, you had to get your meds from your friendly neighborhood drug dealer, so the quality and consistency varied widely. Starting the dispensary system in 2009 has been a boon to patients and a mountain of new information for the health professionals that care for them.

WHAT DO YOU HOPE TO ACHIEVE MOVING FORWARD? CCC’s mission is furthering cannabis medicine through education, research, and responsible patient care. My dream is to someday have a foundation for CCC so we can fund a “consumer reports of cannabis” type research center for unbiased studies on things like pharmacokinetics of different routes of administration. I’m also working on an online physician training course with Green Flower Media to help more health professionals learn about a plant that as many as half of their patients have tried. Bridging that learning gap remains the main focus of the group.

WHAT ADVICE DO YOU HAVE FOR OTHER WOMEN WANTING TO GET INVOLVED IN THE MEDICAL COMMUNITY? Gosh, that’s a tough one. I never went to college, save a single junior college accounting course in 1988, when I started the satellite networking company. (Somebody had to do the books.) I never believed college, much less medical school, was in my reach, as my father died when I was very young, so we grew up poor. That belief held me back. So, what I would say is to believe your dreams are possible, no matter what. Do not let self-limiting beliefs hold you back. Confidence covers a myriad of flaws.