Here’s how Dr. BJ. Sidari can help you get the treatment you need today

By Mimi Vanderhaven

After graduating from Ohio University’s medical school in 1991, an internship at South Pointe Hospital in Warrensville Heights, and a two-year Family Practice residency at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota, Dr. BJ. Sidari had one thing drilled into her: there is no medical use for marijuana.

“We were taught to dismiss marijuana as simply a gateway drug that gives you the munchies,” Dr. Sidari explains. “Our emphasis was on drugs being produced and marketed by the pharmaceutical industry, not on a plant that grows virtually everywhere in the world.”

As a result, in 2015, she voted against Ohio’s Marijuana Legalization Initiative.

But that was before she started doing research.

“I was hearing about medical cannabis stopping seizures, shrinking tumors, and eliminating pain, and I thought this can’t be true. I thought it was ‘fake news.’ But then I saw it happening first hand at a clinic in Toledo. So as soon as it became legal in Ohio, in September 2016, I was one of the first physicians to sign up,” she says.

Dr. Sidari, the founder of Moral Medical Justification, in Willoughby Hills, has her Certificate to Recommend (CTR) from the State Medical Board of Ohio. This means she can recommend medical cannabis to patients with one of 21 qualifying conditions (see list below).

“There is evidence that cannabis can help as many as 400 different conditions, but the State of Ohio has approved its use for only 21 of them,” she says. “If you have a diagnosis from a physician that includes one of these conditions, we can likely help you get the treatment you need.”

Dr. Sidari quotes case after case of patients who have been helped by medical marijuana, including a 35-year-old roofer, who fell three stories to concrete, breaking 40 bones and being placed in a medically-induced coma for a month to heal. Afterward, he was taking 24 prescription tablets, 14 of which were narcotics, to treat his pain and other symptoms. Then—after 90 days on cannabis—his pain was managed, he was back at work, and down to three non-narcotic prescription tablets a day.

“Cannabis can help so many different conditions because it regulates and normalizes CBD receptors in the brain and body,” she explains. “And the brain obviously controls every function in the body.”

Dr. Sidari’s passion for medical cannabis comes directly from the Hippocratic oath she took when she graduated from medical school.

“In front of my family, friends, classmates and the physicians who trained me, I took an oath to do what I know is best, and in many, many cases cannabis is what is best,” she explains. “I made that vow to my current and future patients and to God. I won’t go against my oath. As doctors, we should be recommending cannabis first and artificial drugs second.”

There are countless types and combinations of medical marijuana, including many that produce no psychoactive effects. That is, they don’t make you “high.” Others contain THC which may produce psychoactive effects and are used to treat cancer along with several other conditions.

In Ohio, it is still against the law to smoke marijuana—even medical marijuana—but there are plenty of other delivery methods, depending on your unique condition and lifestyle. These include tinctures, edibles, oils, capsules, pills and topicals.

“Vaping is also an option,” she adds. “It differs from smoking in that it employs at much lower temperatures, is easier on the body, provides more consistent results, and has less impact on the environment, meaning you’re not filling your house with smoke.”

For Dr. Sidari, the bottom line is giving patients back their quality of life. “We want you to be able to enjoy your kids and grandkids and to get you off of your pain meds and stop their terrible side effects.”

The Moral Medical Justification clinic is licensed to recommend medical marijuana and their staff will also provide you with a list of Ohio Medical Marijuana Dispensary locations, including one located just three miles away so you can begin treatment the same day.

Do You Qualify?
Certified physicians like Dr. BJ. Sidari may recommend medical marijuana only for the treatment of a qualifying medical condition. Under Ohio law, all of the following are qualifying medical conditions:

• AIDS
• Alzheimer’s disease
• amyotrophic lateral sclerosis
• cancer
• chronic traumatic encephalopathy
• epilepsy or another seizure disorder
• fibromyalgia
• glaucoma
• hepatitis C
• inflammatory bowel disease, Crohn’s disease, or Ulcerative Colitis
• multiple sclerosis
• pain that is either intractable or chronic and severe
• Parkinson’s disease
• positive status for HIV
• post-traumatic stress disorder
• sickle cell anemia
• spinal cord disease or injury
• Tourette’s syndrome
• traumatic brain injury

Moral Medical Justification is located at 34950 Chardon Road, Building 2, Suite 101, in Willoughby Hills. For more information, please call 440-510-8470. The website is MMJ-Ohio.net.

Dr. Sidari also recommends the following websites for more information: MedicalMarijuana.Ohio.gov, WeedMaps.com and Leafly.com.