Posted on 12/20/2001 4:46:29 PM PST by getsoutalive
I thought it might be helpful to many of the discussions that keep coming up about cannabis to offer some actual medical information and end the childish rhetoric that is so prevalent in these threads.
I will forgo the legality issue as it is obvious that cannabis is illegal because congress says so. At least that was the finding from the SCOTUS a few months back. When they weighed the medical necessity defense, Clarence Thomas wrote "It is clear from the text of the Act that Congress has made a determination that marijuana has no medical benefits worthy of an exception." Thus cannabis is not medicine because Congress SAYS SO!
Now, it is true that there has not been much research performed on the medical value of cannabis. There are a number of reasons for this. Firstly, there is no money to be made from a plant that can be grown by just about anyone, anywhere in the world. Plus it costs a small fortune to sponsor a drug candidate through the FDA approval process. Secondly, the DEA has complete control of all legal supplies of "research material" and any requests to study medical efficacy have been rejected until very recently. Curiously, they have allowed a number of studies that hoped to prove how terrible the drug is, but we don't hear much about those because, they didn't provide the results the DEA had hoped for.
There are however, two public pharmaceutical companies that are focused exclusively on cannabis and/or synthetic derivatives. The first is Pharmos Corp. They are based in Israel and have US headquarters in NJ. They trade on the NASDAQ under the symbol PARS (PARS homepage ). The second company is GW Pharmaceuticals. They are based in the UK and trade on various European exchanges. So why would two public companies focus all there energy on a plant that "has no medical benefits"? Could it be that our congress is wrong? Lets take a look.
Pharmos has developed compound called Dexanabinol. It is a synthetic variation of THC that has been modified to remove the psychotropic effects. The lead compound is currently in the final phase of trials for its neuroprotective ability in Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI), such as skull fracture from a car accident. It has shown remarkable efficacy in earlier trials and the only side effect observed thus far is a localized rash. Derivatives of this lead compound are in the lab and offer potential benefits for many more indications. A list of these further possibilities is given at the investment site linked below. Neuropathic pain, Multiple Sclerosis, Stroke, Parkinson's Disease and Nerve Gas protection are just a few. This does not mean that it will be effective for all these indications, but it is very promising and quite obviously not a neurotoxin (doesn't burn-out brain cells).
GW Pharmaceuticals is working with whole cannabis and non-smoking delivery of the active compounds of the natural plant. They have developed a sub-lingual spray form of the drug. GW?s studies are focused mainly on pain relief and are also showing great promise.
Dr Willy Notcutt of the East Anglian pilot study said, "The results so far have exceeded what I dared hope for . . . we are seeing 80% of our patients getting good quality benefit from the cannabis." Some were getting almost total pain relief, he said. "We have seen their pain scores go down to zero."
So, is cannabis the next miracle drug? The jury is still out on that question, but there appears to be incredible potential if one is willing to be open minded and do a little homework.
I spend too much time visiting those homes. Cancer is no fun, but I think I would choose it over wasting away not knowing who or where or when I was. Same to be said for a heart attack.
Unless of course you did a chemical anaylsis...
Hmmm.
I've never seen anyone knocked unconscious, let alone rendered into a Hyde, but I have seen brainy people conferring (verrry haltingly) on just where they were, and how they had got there.
Oh man, WHAT?
What what?
Neither. And it doesn't matter anyway. An adult has the right to smoke anything they want.
How about going forward? What if the nerve gas protection turns out to be for real? What if that is the next terrorist attack? What if something a simple as a joint might offer simmilar protection?
Thanks for the informative post. If I may interject, I believe that the reason it has such a long biological half-life is because of its solubility in fats and oils, and thus its enormous apparent volume of distribution. The liver has no problem eliminating it, but if it is sequestered in adipose tissue it will not even reach the hepatocytes, much less be excreted.
-ccm
"Your right to inhale or ingest stupifying substances shall not be infringed ... UNLESS you become a problem, an annoyance or a liability to me or to society ..."
Anyone got any brownies?
Probably not formally prescribe, but certainly many doctors have suggested to their patients that marijuana might be helpful for, among other things, reducing nausea and other side effects from chemo.
The real problem is that drug companies would much rather sell their own 'engineered' product for $100's/month than let a patient use something that could be grown for a tiny fraction of that cost.
Besides, while pot probably isn't as harmless as its proponents claim, the hysteria surrounding it is way overblown. People complain about "today's pot is 100 zillion times more potent than that of 40 years ago", but fail to realize that much of the push for more potent strains has been a result of the drug war. During prohibition, hard liquor was more popular than beer; today, the reverse is true.
The real "problem" with pot is that, were it legal, it could threaten many industries with unwanted competition. Not sure how to solve that 'problem', though...
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