Treating Cannabis and Alcohol Addiction with Psychedelic-Assisted Psychotherapy

Join us for a free lunchtime Q&A  on the risks, potential and witnessed results of Psychedlic-Assisted Psychotherapy for treating Addiction:

More about Dr Ocana

His first posting was as medical director of the West Vancouver Addiction day program. During that time it became astonishingly clear how many teens and 20-something year old patients presented with cannabis addiction. This prompted him to take a deep dive into this poorly understood condition. Over the next 15 years he collected data on this group and eventually published a paper in the British Columbia Medical Journal ENTITLED: Cannabis use by adolescents: Practical implications for clinicians.

In that article Dr. Ocana laid out a pattern of use that surprised him and caused quite a stir within the addiction community by proposing that patients with cannabis addiction fell into two subtypes: (1) those who use cannabis Sativa as a stimulant; and (2) those who use cannabis Indica as a mood-stabilizer with anti-anxiety and pain management effects.

Most recently, Dr Ocana left working for a large in-patient Addiction Hospital in Los Angeles and  returned to private practice. He currently sees patients from both LA and Vancouver, of all ages, who seek help to manage their addictions. Not surprisingly, many of these patients often struggle from mental health conditions like depression anxiety, adhd and trauma. Today with the re-emergence of psychedelics as a treatment modality, he is repeatedly surprised how effective psychedelic-assisted psychotherapy can be, despite some risks, when used as part of the overall treatment of this otherwise misunderstood condition.