Dr. Lara Huffman is an experienced psychiatrist based in Hayti, in Missouri’s boot heel. She provides medical cannabis recommendations to those who feel it would be of benefit in treating their psychiatric conditions. Huffman was voted “Best Psychiatrist in the Missouri Cannabis Industry” by Greenway’s readers.
She is known for spending time with her clients and establishing a genuine connection with them. Her foundation as a clinician is connecting with her clients and making them feel safe in her care. She considers listening to her clients’ experiences to be an “important source of valid information.”
Huffman graduated from medical school in 2001 and completed three years of psychiatric residency at the University of Arkansas. She spent her final year at the University of Arizona and has experience in acute inpatient psychiatric care, addiction and detox, and general treatment of adults and children.
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As it pertains to cannabis use as a treatment for mental health conditions, Huffman considers herself “enthusiastic about cannabis as a healing agent.”
Huffman says, “I have treated bipolar clients who have successfully managed their moods with cannabis oil. I have had parents, and even probation officers, acknowledge the medicinal value of cannabis in their family members’ or clients’ lives. These same clients may have struggled with prescription medication-induced metabolic syndromes, motor abnormalities, and other chronic and debilitating side effects.”
In response to bits of research claiming cannabis worsens psychiatric conditions, Huffman says patients with schizophrenia should exercise caution with cannabis use. THC causing paranoia is a real issue associated with cannabis use, but Huffman says “a balanced ratio of THC to CBD is a primary way to minimize the paranoia-inducing effects of cannabis.” She says a “basic tenet for all cannabis use in psychiatric clients is to “start low and go slow.” Low doses should be used when beginning cannabis for all psychiatric patients, not just those diagnosed with schizophrenia, in order to see how it affects them.
“As a healer, I am here to help others. I can see with my eyes, and have learned from my many experiences with clients that cannabis can be used as a medicine,” says Huffman. “Truthfully, I hold a lot of anger that it has not been available to people as a medicine for so many years. I consider it a crime that it was withheld from the population when alcohol and tobacco were legal. I feel better about writing a prescription for cannabis than I do a prescription for Seroquel, Xanax, or Adderall. I feel I am doing less harm to cannabis. The Hippocratic Oath says in part, “First, do no harm.”
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