Mammals with the munchies: Healing animals with cannabis

Like many captive elephants, Nidia suffered from chronic foot problems. Cracks had formed in the 55-year-old Asian elephant's foot pads, and her toenails were cracked and ingrown. Painful abscesses lingered for months. Nidia had lost her appetite and was losing weight.

Dr. Quetzalli Hernández, the veterinarian responsible for Nidia's care at a wildlife park in Mexico, was desperate. She decided to try cannabidiol or CBD, the non-intoxicating therapeutic compound found in cannabis.

For help, Dr. Hernández contacted Dr. Mish Castillo, the chief veterinarian of ICAN veterinarians, a company dedicated to veterinary cannabis education and research in Mexico. As far as Dr. Castillo knows, no one deliberately gave medicinal cannabis to an elephant. But he and his colleagues hoped it would reduce Nidia's pain and stimulate her appetite, as they had seen the drug do in cats, dogs and other species.

They started low and eventually settled on a dose of 0.02 milligrams of CBD per pound of Nidia's weight, which she took daily with a piece of fruit. Calibrated by weight, the dose is one-tenth to one-fortieth of what Dr. Castillo gives to dogs or cats. Still, it worked.

The first sign that the treatment was effective was when Nidia developed a severe case of the munchies. Within days of starting CBD, she went from consuming just a third of her food to eating virtually all of it, and sometimes even for seconds. Within five weeks, she had gained 555 pounds.

After Nidia started eating, her behavior changed. “She was always known as the grumpy one – she was always kicking doors,” said Dr. Castillo. “Within the first week to ten days after her treatment, she came out of her stay faster and was less moody.”

Nidia's abscesses also began to heal, likely due to the anti-inflammatory effects of CBD. For months, pain in her feet had prevented the elephant from walking down a small hill to a drinking fountain in her enclosure, requiring her handlers to give her water in buckets and through a hose. When her condition improved, she began to visit the fountain again.

“She kept getting better,” said Dr. Castillo. “We were surprised that this happened with such a low response dose, which made us want to do that extract this information before veterinarians start overdosing other species by using the dog or cat dose.” The right dosage comes down to species-specific differences in metabolism and variability between individuals, he added.