by Like many captive elephants, Nidia suffered from chronic leg problems. Cracks had formed in the 55-year-old Asian elephant’s paw pads and its toenails had become cracked and ingrown. The painful abscesses persisted for months. Nidia had lost her appetite and was losing weight.
Dr. Quetzalli Hernández, the veterinarian in charge of Nidia’s care at a wildlife park in Mexico, was desperate. He decided to try cannabidiol or CBD, the non-intoxicating therapeutic compound found in cannabis.
For help, Dr. Hernandez reached out to Dr. Mish Castillo, veterinary director of ICAN veterinarians, a company dedicated to veterinary education and research on cannabis in Mexico. As far as Dr. Castillo knew, no one had ever purposely given 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 with a low dose 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. However, it worked.
The first sign that the treatment was effective was when Nidia developed a bad case of the munchies. Within a few days of starting CBD, she went from finishing only a third of her food to virtually all of her food, and sometimes even ate seconds. In five weeks, she had gained 555 pounds.
After Nidia started eating, her behavior changed. “She was always known as the grumpy one; she used to kick doors,” Dr. Castillo said. “Within the first week to 10 days of her treatment, she started leaving her room faster and was less moody.”
Nidia’s abscesses also began to heal, likely as a result of 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 water source in her enclosure, forcing her keepers to give her water in buckets and with hoses. When her condition improved, she began visiting the spring again.
“She continued to improve,” Dr. Castillo said. “She We were surprised that this happened with such a low response dose, which led us to want get this information before veterinarians start overdosing other species using the dog or cat dosage.” Correct dosing comes down to species-specific differences in metabolism and variability between individuals, he added.
