DEA guide reports no marijuana related deaths
The DEA's 2017 Drugs of Abuse guide reported no maruijuana related overdoses.
https://screen.yahoo.com/dea-guide-repo ... 22627.html
http://420intel.com/articles/2017/07/17 ... ted-deaths
News in English 2017
Alueen säännöt
Politiikka ja media
Tämä alue on tarkoitettu kannabis- ja päihdepolitiikasta keskusteluun.
Alue on erittäin tiukasti moderoitu; lue ohjeet ennen kirjoittamista. Alueelle kuulumattomat keskustelut siirretään Tuhkakuppiin.
Kirjoita viestisi asialliseen ulkoasuun. Ylläpidolla on oikeus muuttaa epäasiallisen viestin sisältöä tai poistaa viesti.
Politiikka ja media
Tämä alue on tarkoitettu kannabis- ja päihdepolitiikasta keskusteluun.
Alue on erittäin tiukasti moderoitu; lue ohjeet ennen kirjoittamista. Alueelle kuulumattomat keskustelut siirretään Tuhkakuppiin.
Kirjoita viestisi asialliseen ulkoasuun. Ylläpidolla on oikeus muuttaa epäasiallisen viestin sisältöä tai poistaa viesti.
Re: News in English 2017
What We Do and Don't Know About the Safety of Marijuana in Pregnancy
Marijuana has a healthier image than many other drugs (or, depending on who you ask, alcohol), and it can ease symptoms like nausea that tend to crop up in pregnancy. But we are accumulating evidence that marijuana is probably not a great idea to use if you’re pregnant. In particular, the THC component can affect a baby’s brain in ways that you might not notice until they are older.
If you’re looking for a simple yes/no answer on whether it’s okay to use cannabis in pregnancy, I’ll point you to this categorical no from the American Congress of Obstetricians and Gynecologists. “Although there are limitations to the data on marijuana use during pregnancy...worrisome trends do emerge,” they write. Children who were exposed to marijuana in utero are more likely to have cognitive and behavioral problems later in life. The experts I spoke with absolutely did not recommend smoking weed while you’re pregnant. If you want a yes or no, there’s your no.
But you’re probably reading this because you want to know why it’s a no, and how good the evidence is, and whether there’s any wiggle room for your situation. So here are the details.
Marijuana Affects Brain Development
The best known marijuana chemical is tetrahydrocannabinol (THC). It’s the main psychoactive component, the part that gets you high. THC circulates in your blood, and can cross the placenta, so the fetus is exposed to it too. THC is also fat-soluble, and can end up being incorporated into your body fat. That means that you can still have small amounts of THC circulating in your body even if you haven’t consumed any marijuana lately.
THC can also enter breast milk, and its metabolites end up in baby poop, so if you use marijuana and also breastfeed, your child is exposed to the chemical that way too.
Some of what we know about the biology of marijuana comes from studies where scientists give pure THC to animals like rats. Diana Dow-Edwards, who does animal research on how drugs affect the developing brain, says it’s well established that THC interferes with the way brain cells connect to each other. “This of course is the whole essence of the brain,” she says. “One neuron connects to the next neuron, which connects to the next.” And the more marijuana the brain is exposed to, the greater the effect on those connections.
It’s well established that THC interferes with the way brain cells connect to each other.
Human brain cells develop in a similar way to those in rodents, but we need real-world studies to figure out what this means for us. It’s not ethical to do a randomized controlled trial, because that would involve assigning some women to use marijuana in pregnancy. So instead, studies look at the children of people who decided on their own to use marijuana in pregnancy, and try to figure out whether those children have more problems than children whose mothers did not use marijuana.
Only two of those studies, Dow-Edwards points out, followed children for decades after birth and controlled for factors that might otherwise bias the results. They are the Ottawa Prenatal Prospective Study, begun in 1978, and the Maternal Health Practices and Child Development Study, begun in 1982.
Results from both studies showed that the pregnancies and births went more or less as usual, but as the children got older, they were more likely to show problems with memory, attention, and hyperactivity.
But What About Other Studies?
The evidence from those long-term studies, plus what we know in animals, definitely points toward cannabis having detrimental effects on kids’ brains. But there have been enough studies done on the effects of marijuana in pregnancy that it’s easy to cherry-pick a few with the opposite conclusion.
Publications that are friendly to marijuana tend to ignore the studies above, and instead prefer others like this one done in Jamaica. I asked Dow-Edwards how these studies fit in to the larger body of research, and she pointed out that Jamaican mothers, and the way they use marijuana, are different than what you’d find in a US or Canadian population. In Jamaica, ganja is often consumed as a tea, and this tea contains mainly cannabidiol (CBD) and very little THC. The Jamaican studies were also small, and didn’t follow the babies as they grew up.
Another short-term study with superficially good results is this systematic review that looked at whether marijuana contributed to babies being born early or small. It concluded that “marijuana use during pregnancy is not an independent risk factor for adverse neonatal outcomes[.]” Herb summarized this as: “New study says smoking cannabis while pregnant is OK, as long as it’s in moderation,” which is not at all what the study said.
In fact, the study’s authors concluded that, while marijuana is not as bad for newborns as other drugs, “these data do not imply that marijuana use during pregnancy should be encouraged or condoned.” Pot may not hurt newborns in an obvious way, but it’s the long-term consequences that seem to be serious.
Colorado’s Summary of the Evidence
If only somebody had sorted through all the studies, both short and long term, that offered information about the effects of prenatal marijuana on kids’ health. If only that somebody was from a relatively unbiased source like, oh, let’s say, the public health department of a state that allows both medical and recreational marijuana. That would be nice, right?
You can send your thanks to Colorado’s Retail Marijuana Public Health Advisory Committee, which publishes an annual report on the science behind health and marijuana. The chapter on pregnancy and breastfeeding breaks down what we know according to how strong the evidence is. There are no conclusions that have what they call substantial scientific support, but several are in the moderate evidence category, which they define to mean that “scientific findings support an association between marijuana use and the outcome, but these findings have some limitations.” In other words, the evidence is pretty good but not ironclad. These include:
Attention problems
Decreased IQ scores in young children
Decreased cognitive function
Decreased growth
Then there are some findings with limited evidence, which means that studies support a link but the studies have “significant limitations.” Some of these may turn out to be flukes, but then again they may be real:
Stillbirth
Certain heart defects
Decreased academic ability
Increased depression symptoms
Delinquent behavior
This evidence category also holds some good news: there is limited evidence that prenatal marijuana use is not linked to SIDS.
In the next category, there is insufficient evidence to link marijuana use in pregnancy to psychosis symptoms in adolescence or an increased likelihood that the child will grow up to be more likely to use marijuana themselves. There is also insufficient evidence to link marijuana use during breastfeeding with SIDS.
Finally, there’s another category for mixed evidence, which means that some studies say yes and others say no. Most birth outcomes (preterm birth, low birth weight) fall into this category. You can check out the full report to read about which studies the advisory committee used and how they analyzed them.
Not All Weed Is the Same
Why are these studies all coming to different conclusions? Besides the difficulty of doing a study at all (and getting women to admit that they have used marijuana in pregnancy), there are also a lot of what researchers call confounders. If you use marijuana in pregnancy, you probably aren’t the type to go cold turkey on cigarettes and alcohol either. You might be a different age or income level than moms who quit toking or who never started. And then there’s the question of the weed itself.
When those two long-term studies started, marijuana that you would buy on the street was about 3 percent THC. Today’s cannabis is stronger: 8 percent or more for similar stuff, and then more concentrated products like hashish can be 20 to 30 percent THC. So it’s possible that using marijuana during pregnancy today is more harmful than it was back in the 1980s.
There’s also a lot of variety in what it means to use marijuana. How often do you use it? Do you smoke it, vape it, or eat it? How far along are you in your pregnancy? (Different parts of the brain and nervous system mature at different times. Brain development actually isn’t complete until you’re in your twenties, which means teenagers probably shouldn’t smoke pot, either.)
Marijuana also contains dozens of psychoactive substances, of which THC just happens to be the best studied. We know very little about what the others do. Cannabidiol, or CBD, is another compound that’s credited with a lot of the drug’s medicinal effects, but we don’t know nearly as much about it as we’d like.
Some varieties of cannabis claim to be low in THC and higher in CBD, which sounds like it should be safer, but labels can’t always be trusted. Dr. Larry Wolk, the head of the Colorado public health department, says potency testing isn’t always accurate enough to guarantee exactly what you’re getting. “It’s hard to make any kind of medical statement about [all] marijuana,” he says. “It’s so heterogenous. It’s not like making a medical statement about ibuprofen.”
One last caveat on those high-CBD products: Dow-Edwards points out that “there are no studies done in humans with CBD in [fetal] development. None.”
Risk and Benefit
If marijuana has these risks, or even potential risks, in pregnancy, it seems logical not to smoke it. But women do use marijuana in about 5 percent of pregnancies. Many use it to manage nausea. And anyone living through the months of hell known as hyperemesis gravidarum has a serious risk/benefit calculation to make. Here’s one woman describing her situation to Vice:
The medical term for what I suffered is “hyperemesis gravidarum,” which is a fancy way to say I was throwing up so much that it was a danger to my health and the health of my baby. Marijuana did help. Immensely. I don’t think I would have made it through without cannabis.
That said, excessive marijuana use can also cause its own hyperemesis syndrome, so more pot doesn’t always mean less nausea.
If you have to choose between potentially damaging your future kid’s IQ or attention versus maybe not making it through the pregnancy, that’s a difficult decision that you should work through with a doctor or provider you trust. But Dow-Edwards says she has met people who say their doctor told them that using marijuana is safer than drinking. “That’s just not true,” she says. So it’s important to make sure your provider understands the benefits and the risks.
What We Still Don’t Know
We don’t know if the effects of marijuana in the two long-term studies would be any different with today’s weed.
We don’t know if there are other effects of marijuana that just haven’t been studied yet. It’s hard to get permission to do human studies, and would be downright unethical to compare marijuana against a placebo in pregnant women.
The Colorado report points out that since marijuana was illegal everywhere in the US until 1996, most studies were looking for harms and not positioned to carefully suss out benefits or tradeoffs. “This...introduces both funding bias and publication bias into the body of literature related to marijuana use,” the report notes.
We can’t go back in time to re-start long term studies, but we can support better studies now. Dr. Wolk hopes that eventually, Colorado’s and other states’ health departments will keep careful records of who uses marijuana in pregnancy and what complications they or their children have. So far, that’s not the case.
Finally, we need more data on everything, especially on CBD and on the 80+ other active components in marijuana besides THC. We also don’t even know all the questions we should be asking. Dow-Edwards points out that five years ago we didn’t know whether smoking marijuana can cause lung cancer; now we’re pretty sure it does. There’s still a lot we don’t know.
http://420intel.com/articles/2017/07/07 ... -pregnancy
Marijuana has a healthier image than many other drugs (or, depending on who you ask, alcohol), and it can ease symptoms like nausea that tend to crop up in pregnancy. But we are accumulating evidence that marijuana is probably not a great idea to use if you’re pregnant. In particular, the THC component can affect a baby’s brain in ways that you might not notice until they are older.
If you’re looking for a simple yes/no answer on whether it’s okay to use cannabis in pregnancy, I’ll point you to this categorical no from the American Congress of Obstetricians and Gynecologists. “Although there are limitations to the data on marijuana use during pregnancy...worrisome trends do emerge,” they write. Children who were exposed to marijuana in utero are more likely to have cognitive and behavioral problems later in life. The experts I spoke with absolutely did not recommend smoking weed while you’re pregnant. If you want a yes or no, there’s your no.
But you’re probably reading this because you want to know why it’s a no, and how good the evidence is, and whether there’s any wiggle room for your situation. So here are the details.
Marijuana Affects Brain Development
The best known marijuana chemical is tetrahydrocannabinol (THC). It’s the main psychoactive component, the part that gets you high. THC circulates in your blood, and can cross the placenta, so the fetus is exposed to it too. THC is also fat-soluble, and can end up being incorporated into your body fat. That means that you can still have small amounts of THC circulating in your body even if you haven’t consumed any marijuana lately.
THC can also enter breast milk, and its metabolites end up in baby poop, so if you use marijuana and also breastfeed, your child is exposed to the chemical that way too.
Some of what we know about the biology of marijuana comes from studies where scientists give pure THC to animals like rats. Diana Dow-Edwards, who does animal research on how drugs affect the developing brain, says it’s well established that THC interferes with the way brain cells connect to each other. “This of course is the whole essence of the brain,” she says. “One neuron connects to the next neuron, which connects to the next.” And the more marijuana the brain is exposed to, the greater the effect on those connections.
It’s well established that THC interferes with the way brain cells connect to each other.
Human brain cells develop in a similar way to those in rodents, but we need real-world studies to figure out what this means for us. It’s not ethical to do a randomized controlled trial, because that would involve assigning some women to use marijuana in pregnancy. So instead, studies look at the children of people who decided on their own to use marijuana in pregnancy, and try to figure out whether those children have more problems than children whose mothers did not use marijuana.
Only two of those studies, Dow-Edwards points out, followed children for decades after birth and controlled for factors that might otherwise bias the results. They are the Ottawa Prenatal Prospective Study, begun in 1978, and the Maternal Health Practices and Child Development Study, begun in 1982.
Results from both studies showed that the pregnancies and births went more or less as usual, but as the children got older, they were more likely to show problems with memory, attention, and hyperactivity.
But What About Other Studies?
The evidence from those long-term studies, plus what we know in animals, definitely points toward cannabis having detrimental effects on kids’ brains. But there have been enough studies done on the effects of marijuana in pregnancy that it’s easy to cherry-pick a few with the opposite conclusion.
Publications that are friendly to marijuana tend to ignore the studies above, and instead prefer others like this one done in Jamaica. I asked Dow-Edwards how these studies fit in to the larger body of research, and she pointed out that Jamaican mothers, and the way they use marijuana, are different than what you’d find in a US or Canadian population. In Jamaica, ganja is often consumed as a tea, and this tea contains mainly cannabidiol (CBD) and very little THC. The Jamaican studies were also small, and didn’t follow the babies as they grew up.
Another short-term study with superficially good results is this systematic review that looked at whether marijuana contributed to babies being born early or small. It concluded that “marijuana use during pregnancy is not an independent risk factor for adverse neonatal outcomes[.]” Herb summarized this as: “New study says smoking cannabis while pregnant is OK, as long as it’s in moderation,” which is not at all what the study said.
In fact, the study’s authors concluded that, while marijuana is not as bad for newborns as other drugs, “these data do not imply that marijuana use during pregnancy should be encouraged or condoned.” Pot may not hurt newborns in an obvious way, but it’s the long-term consequences that seem to be serious.
Colorado’s Summary of the Evidence
If only somebody had sorted through all the studies, both short and long term, that offered information about the effects of prenatal marijuana on kids’ health. If only that somebody was from a relatively unbiased source like, oh, let’s say, the public health department of a state that allows both medical and recreational marijuana. That would be nice, right?
You can send your thanks to Colorado’s Retail Marijuana Public Health Advisory Committee, which publishes an annual report on the science behind health and marijuana. The chapter on pregnancy and breastfeeding breaks down what we know according to how strong the evidence is. There are no conclusions that have what they call substantial scientific support, but several are in the moderate evidence category, which they define to mean that “scientific findings support an association between marijuana use and the outcome, but these findings have some limitations.” In other words, the evidence is pretty good but not ironclad. These include:
Attention problems
Decreased IQ scores in young children
Decreased cognitive function
Decreased growth
Then there are some findings with limited evidence, which means that studies support a link but the studies have “significant limitations.” Some of these may turn out to be flukes, but then again they may be real:
Stillbirth
Certain heart defects
Decreased academic ability
Increased depression symptoms
Delinquent behavior
This evidence category also holds some good news: there is limited evidence that prenatal marijuana use is not linked to SIDS.
In the next category, there is insufficient evidence to link marijuana use in pregnancy to psychosis symptoms in adolescence or an increased likelihood that the child will grow up to be more likely to use marijuana themselves. There is also insufficient evidence to link marijuana use during breastfeeding with SIDS.
Finally, there’s another category for mixed evidence, which means that some studies say yes and others say no. Most birth outcomes (preterm birth, low birth weight) fall into this category. You can check out the full report to read about which studies the advisory committee used and how they analyzed them.
Not All Weed Is the Same
Why are these studies all coming to different conclusions? Besides the difficulty of doing a study at all (and getting women to admit that they have used marijuana in pregnancy), there are also a lot of what researchers call confounders. If you use marijuana in pregnancy, you probably aren’t the type to go cold turkey on cigarettes and alcohol either. You might be a different age or income level than moms who quit toking or who never started. And then there’s the question of the weed itself.
When those two long-term studies started, marijuana that you would buy on the street was about 3 percent THC. Today’s cannabis is stronger: 8 percent or more for similar stuff, and then more concentrated products like hashish can be 20 to 30 percent THC. So it’s possible that using marijuana during pregnancy today is more harmful than it was back in the 1980s.
There’s also a lot of variety in what it means to use marijuana. How often do you use it? Do you smoke it, vape it, or eat it? How far along are you in your pregnancy? (Different parts of the brain and nervous system mature at different times. Brain development actually isn’t complete until you’re in your twenties, which means teenagers probably shouldn’t smoke pot, either.)
Marijuana also contains dozens of psychoactive substances, of which THC just happens to be the best studied. We know very little about what the others do. Cannabidiol, or CBD, is another compound that’s credited with a lot of the drug’s medicinal effects, but we don’t know nearly as much about it as we’d like.
Some varieties of cannabis claim to be low in THC and higher in CBD, which sounds like it should be safer, but labels can’t always be trusted. Dr. Larry Wolk, the head of the Colorado public health department, says potency testing isn’t always accurate enough to guarantee exactly what you’re getting. “It’s hard to make any kind of medical statement about [all] marijuana,” he says. “It’s so heterogenous. It’s not like making a medical statement about ibuprofen.”
One last caveat on those high-CBD products: Dow-Edwards points out that “there are no studies done in humans with CBD in [fetal] development. None.”
Risk and Benefit
If marijuana has these risks, or even potential risks, in pregnancy, it seems logical not to smoke it. But women do use marijuana in about 5 percent of pregnancies. Many use it to manage nausea. And anyone living through the months of hell known as hyperemesis gravidarum has a serious risk/benefit calculation to make. Here’s one woman describing her situation to Vice:
The medical term for what I suffered is “hyperemesis gravidarum,” which is a fancy way to say I was throwing up so much that it was a danger to my health and the health of my baby. Marijuana did help. Immensely. I don’t think I would have made it through without cannabis.
That said, excessive marijuana use can also cause its own hyperemesis syndrome, so more pot doesn’t always mean less nausea.
If you have to choose between potentially damaging your future kid’s IQ or attention versus maybe not making it through the pregnancy, that’s a difficult decision that you should work through with a doctor or provider you trust. But Dow-Edwards says she has met people who say their doctor told them that using marijuana is safer than drinking. “That’s just not true,” she says. So it’s important to make sure your provider understands the benefits and the risks.
What We Still Don’t Know
We don’t know if the effects of marijuana in the two long-term studies would be any different with today’s weed.
We don’t know if there are other effects of marijuana that just haven’t been studied yet. It’s hard to get permission to do human studies, and would be downright unethical to compare marijuana against a placebo in pregnant women.
The Colorado report points out that since marijuana was illegal everywhere in the US until 1996, most studies were looking for harms and not positioned to carefully suss out benefits or tradeoffs. “This...introduces both funding bias and publication bias into the body of literature related to marijuana use,” the report notes.
We can’t go back in time to re-start long term studies, but we can support better studies now. Dr. Wolk hopes that eventually, Colorado’s and other states’ health departments will keep careful records of who uses marijuana in pregnancy and what complications they or their children have. So far, that’s not the case.
Finally, we need more data on everything, especially on CBD and on the 80+ other active components in marijuana besides THC. We also don’t even know all the questions we should be asking. Dow-Edwards points out that five years ago we didn’t know whether smoking marijuana can cause lung cancer; now we’re pretty sure it does. There’s still a lot we don’t know.
http://420intel.com/articles/2017/07/07 ... -pregnancy
Re: News in English 2017
Some psychiatrists think cannabis can be considered a psychedelic drug like shrooms — here's why
Marijuana isn't typically thought of as a psychedelic — a drug that produces hallucinations or an apparent expansion of consciousness.
But according to Julie Holland, a psychiatrist with a private practice in New York, some of cannabis' effects are psychedelic in nature.
At a recent conference in London on the science of psychedelics, Holland said that using marijuana may be linked with a phenomenon some psychiatrists refer to as "dehabituation" — the process of looking at something with fresh eyes.
"That can be very helpful in psychiatry," she said.
Several forms of psychotherapy emphasize the idea that troubling situations center around a problem of perspective. By approaching those same scenarios from a new point of view — usually with the help of a therapist — we can fix our thinking and feel better.
Psychiatry and psychedelics share the common Latin root "psyche," or mind, because both are believed to act on it, albeit in different ways. That's one of the reasons that dozens of scientists, including psychiatrists like Holland, are increasingly supportive of the idea that psychedelic drugs might have a place in treating mental illness. Research on using traditional psychedelics like magic mushrooms, LSD, and ayahuasca to treat issues ranging from anxiety and drug addiction to depression has seen a major resurgence in the last few years.
While less of this research has focused on cannabis, Holland still believes the drug has some characteristics that could make it helpful in related ways.
"The thing that I'm interested in with cannabis is how it does this thing where everything old is new again," she said.
To this end, Holland is serving as the medical monitor for a new study launched by the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies (MAPS) that aims to assess whether marijuana could help reduce the symptoms of PTSD in veterans with the disorder.
Marijuana is not classified as a psychedelic, however, and remains in a drug class of its own. It's also a Schedule I substance according to the Drug Enforcement Administration, which makes studying its potential use for mental illness — or any other medical problem — difficult.
The largest and most comprehensive existing report on the science of marijuana concluded that there's still a lot we don't know about how the drug affects the brain. For example, it suggested that people who use cannabis more frequently have an increased risk for developing schizophrenia, social anxiety disorders, and depression (to a lesser extent), but the report could not say whether marijuana plays a role in causing those disorders or if being prone to one simply makes you more likely to use the drug.
"In psychiatry it seems that cannabis is grossly underused and understudied," Holland said.
http://420intel.com/articles/2017/07/06 ... -%E2%80%94
Marijuana isn't typically thought of as a psychedelic — a drug that produces hallucinations or an apparent expansion of consciousness.
But according to Julie Holland, a psychiatrist with a private practice in New York, some of cannabis' effects are psychedelic in nature.
At a recent conference in London on the science of psychedelics, Holland said that using marijuana may be linked with a phenomenon some psychiatrists refer to as "dehabituation" — the process of looking at something with fresh eyes.
"That can be very helpful in psychiatry," she said.
Several forms of psychotherapy emphasize the idea that troubling situations center around a problem of perspective. By approaching those same scenarios from a new point of view — usually with the help of a therapist — we can fix our thinking and feel better.
Psychiatry and psychedelics share the common Latin root "psyche," or mind, because both are believed to act on it, albeit in different ways. That's one of the reasons that dozens of scientists, including psychiatrists like Holland, are increasingly supportive of the idea that psychedelic drugs might have a place in treating mental illness. Research on using traditional psychedelics like magic mushrooms, LSD, and ayahuasca to treat issues ranging from anxiety and drug addiction to depression has seen a major resurgence in the last few years.
While less of this research has focused on cannabis, Holland still believes the drug has some characteristics that could make it helpful in related ways.
"The thing that I'm interested in with cannabis is how it does this thing where everything old is new again," she said.
To this end, Holland is serving as the medical monitor for a new study launched by the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies (MAPS) that aims to assess whether marijuana could help reduce the symptoms of PTSD in veterans with the disorder.
Marijuana is not classified as a psychedelic, however, and remains in a drug class of its own. It's also a Schedule I substance according to the Drug Enforcement Administration, which makes studying its potential use for mental illness — or any other medical problem — difficult.
The largest and most comprehensive existing report on the science of marijuana concluded that there's still a lot we don't know about how the drug affects the brain. For example, it suggested that people who use cannabis more frequently have an increased risk for developing schizophrenia, social anxiety disorders, and depression (to a lesser extent), but the report could not say whether marijuana plays a role in causing those disorders or if being prone to one simply makes you more likely to use the drug.
"In psychiatry it seems that cannabis is grossly underused and understudied," Holland said.
http://420intel.com/articles/2017/07/06 ... -%E2%80%94
Re: News in English 2017
Medical Cannabis: History, Benefits, Use and Effects
Medical marijuana or medical cannabis is a cannabinoid drug that has been synthesized from the cannabis plant for use in medical treatment of patients in many countries around the world. While there are many arguments on the benefits of cannabis in medical applications, the medicine form has not been fully tested for its full potential due to the many restrictions in both production and governmental regulations in the various countries where it has been legalized for use.
Complete medical benefits are not fully clear
There is limited evidence available that the use of medical cannabis can help to reduce nausea and vomiting during chemotherapy treatments for cancer, and can improve the appetites of people with HIV/AIDS. It is also known that it can severely reduce chronic pain and muscles spasms in patients with severe muscular injuries. And while there is some evidence to suggest that the short-term use of cannabis can increase the risk of some minor side effects, the long-term effects are yet unclear. More research still needs to be completed before such quantifiable evidence can be released. However, major concerns among medical practitioners include memory and cognitive problems, the risk of addiction, as the addictive qualities are neither proven nor disproven yet, and the risk of it accidentally being taken by children. The effects on children under 12-years-old are unconfirmed due to restrictions on testing.
How to administer medical cannabis
As a drug, cannabis can be administered in many ways, including using lozenges, dermal patches or oral/dermal sprays, as well as by vaping a synthesized liquid, smoking of the dried buds, eating cannabis-inclusive foods (where the cannabis has been cooked into the food), and ingestion in the form of medical capsules.
History of medical cannabis from past to present
Ancient times
Cannabis has been used throughout history as both medicines and recreational or psychoactive use. Its origins are believed to have been in Taiwan around 10,000 years ago, where hemp seeds were used as food. It is fair to believe that they would also have discovered the medicinal uses of the plant. Pharmacologist and emperor, Shen Nung, wrote a book that included some of the medical benefits of cannabis in 2737BCE, and he recommended the drug for several illnesses and ailments, including gout, rheumatism, constipation, and absentmindedness. Ancient texts from India also confirm the use of cannabis for its psychoactive properties and its use in medical treatment, including as a pain relief during childbirth. And in ancient Egypt and ancient Greece, there is extensive evidence of its use, and was even mentioned in the famed Ebers Papyrus from 1550BCE. In more modern times, there is extensive evidence of its use in medicine right up to the late 18th century.
Throughout history, cannabis has been used for its medicinal properties, and its use is believed to have started over twelve thousand years ago in Asia. With hemp seeds being a natural part of Asian foods, ancient physicians soon discovered that the plant had many other useful properties, especially in the areas of medicines and narcotics. As far back as 2900BCE, there are texts that quote the use of "Ma", the Chinese word for cannabis, as a popular medicine that possessed both yin and yang. In the 27th century BCE, the Emperor Shen Hung wrote of the medicinal properties of cannabis in his works. Considered to be the father of all Chinese medicine, his writings included the fact that cannabis was useful in the treatment of gout, constipation, rheumatism, and forgetfulness.
Chinese women creating medicine from cannabis plants. (herb.co)
In Egypt, in the 12th century BCE, cannabis was a popular medicine for treating glaucoma, inflammation (hemorrhoids) and other ailments, and pollen from the cannabis plant was found in the wrappings of the mummy of King Ramesses II when his tomb was finally opened in 1995. There have also been extensive mentions of its use in several ancient papyri spanning a period of over a thousand years, including the Ebers Papyrus from 1550BCE, the Ramesseum III Papyrus from 1700BCE, the Berling Papyrus, that is dated from around 1300BCE, and the Chester Beatty Medical Papyrus from 1300BCE.
Scripture depicting Ancient Egyptians using cannabis. (herb.co)
In India in around 1000BCE cannabis was used as an anti-phlegmatic and anesthetic, and was administered in milk. India has always had close ties with the use of cannabis as a medicine, and "bhang", the medicinal name for the cannabis plant in India, has long been a regular medicine for many ailments. Ancient Indian text shows that they also used bhang for the treatment of dysentery and sunstroke, as well as to quicken digestions and for other stomach ailments. In around 600BCE, an Indian medical work known as the Ayurvedic treatise of Sushrita Samhita cited cannabis as a cure for leprosy.
On and on throughout history, there have been medical references to the use of cannabis as a healing medicine. In Greece, it was used for earaches and inflammation, and the Greek physician, PedaniusDioscorides, who was a doctor with the Roman Legions, added it to his book entitled De Materia Medica (On Medical Matters) in AD 70, which became the most important medical tome for the next 1500 years. Its medicinal properties are even extolled by the Roman scientist and historian, Pliny the Elder, as being used to "ease cramped joints, gout too and similar violent pain" in his book, Naturalis Historia, in AD 79.
In ancient Persia, the famous polymath, Avicenna, (Ibn Sina)wrote about the medicinal properties of cannabis many times in his works, and his contributions to medicine were hugely influential throughout Europe during the medieval and renaissance period. His texts tell of his use of the whole plant for its medicinal properties, using seeds, roots, and leaves for both internal and topical treatments. His works often refer to it as the "juice of cannabis leaves", and he would mix it with other herbs and plants to make concoctions to treat a range of illnesses. The works of Avicenna were so influential in early western medicine that cannabis was referred to in Brice Bauderon's 17th-century medical work, The Pharmacopoeia of Bauderon, as "Cannabis ex Avicenna".
Modern times
In modern medicine, cannabis has been used regularly to treat muscle spasms, stomach cramps, and general pain since the early part of the 19thcentury. Its introduction to western medicine was attributed to the Irish physician, William Brooke O'Shaughnessy, who was famous for his work in pharmacology, chemistry and his research that led to intravenous therapy. After his return from India, he began the first ever clinical trials into the medicinal benefits of cannabis, using the recipes he had learned from the Ayurvedic physicians. In 1839, he produced the first concise case studies of his treatment of patients suffering from rheumatism, cholera, tetanus, and hydrophobia, which showed that the cannabis tinctures he developed had significant effect on the ailments. And the personal physician of Queen Victoria, Sir Robert Russell, wrote extensive papers on the benefits of cannabis and recommended its use as a tincture in the treatment of dysmenorrhoea (menstrual cramps).
O'Shaughnessy's clinical trials produced results that had many physicians of the time clamoring to try this new "wonder drug", and between 1839 and 1900 over 100 papers were written on the subject, as chemists worked to identify and isolate the active principles of cannabis, a goal not achieved until 1964, by Dr. Raphael Mechoulam. A Professor of Medicinal Chemistry at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, he was the first to identify delta-9-tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), as the main psychoactive component of cannabis. He was also the first to synthesize THC.
In 1850, cannabis was included into the United States Pharmacopeia, the official government authority for all prescription medicines in the U.S. Cannabis was listed as a treatment for numerous illnesses and ailments, including neuralgia, tetanus, typhus, cholera, rabies, dysentery, alcoholism, opiate addiction, anthrax, leprosy, incontinence, gout, convulsive disorders, tonsillitis, insanity, excessive menstrual bleeding, and uterine bleeding. Pharmaceutical companies patented marijuana tinctures which were sold by pharmacists under prescription from doctors. It was removed from the US Pharmacopeia in 1942, finally losing the mantle of being a legitimate medicine.
In the 1970s, cannabis was synthesized for use as a drug in the United States, and approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) under the name Marinol. In 1978, a new program was established in the United States and run by the federal government. The Compassionate Investigational New Drug (CIND)program allowed a small number of people with severe illnesses to use medical marijuana as a treatment. This small group of people was suffering from illnesses that included Multiple Sclerosis, AIDS, Nail-patella Syndrome, Multiple Congenital Cartilaginous Exostoses, and Glaucoma. Of the ten patients that were prescribed with medical cannabis in the group, four are still alive and are still classed as active participants in the program.
In 1990, a senior investigator at the National Institute of Mental Health, discovered a connection between cannabis and certain receptors in the brain. This discovery helped scientists to better understand the effects of cannabinoids, which occur when Cannabis-based THC binds with these cannabinoid receptors in the brain. Cannabinoids (THC and CBD)are the chemical compounds produced from cannabis flowers, which can imitate the natural compounds found in the body, called endocannabinoids. These compounds work to maintain internal stability and health, and mediate communication between cells. Where there is a problem with endocannabinoids, unpleasant symptoms and physical complications can occur, which can be treated by the introduction of THC or CBD to the system.
On November 5, 1996, California became the first state to legalize cannabis for medical use. Proposition 215, as it was known, was an initiative to allow patients and primary caregivers to possess and cultivate cannabis for the treatment of AIDS, cancer, muscular spasticity, migraines, and several other disorders, with a physician's recommendation. But it was not until late in 1998 that three other states approved the use of medical marijuana, with ballots in Alaska, Oregon, and Washington. By the middle of 2014, 23 states plus the District of Columbia had passed laws allowing the use of medical marijuana, with three more states joining after the elections in November 2016.
22 years after its initial inception in 1978, the Compassionate IND program produced its only study on the effects of cannabis treatment on their selected patients in January 2000. The study showed that, despite the cannabis being provided by the government being "a crude mixture of leaf with abundant stem and seed components", there were definite benefits of cannabis medication in those patients. The conclusion of the study stated that "cannabis smoking, even of a crude, low-grade product, provides effective symptomatic relief of pain, muscle spasms, and intraocular pressure elevations" and that "clinical cannabis patients are able to reduce or eliminate other prescription medicines and their accompanying side effects." However, despite this conclusive evidence of the benefits of marijuana in cases such as glaucoma, and the 27 states and districts that have legalized its use for medical purposes, the federal government refuses to change its stance on the medical use of cannabis.
Medical cannabis use in modern society and cultures
Legal status
The legal status of medical cannabis use varies around the world, from illegal to legal, and is dependent on the country in which it is being used. There is no internationally recognized legal status for both medical and recreational use of cannabis, although the number of countries where it is being legalized or decriminalized is continuously growing. As of this time, the countries where the medical use of cannabis or a THC preparation (capsule medication) is legalized are:
Austria
Belgium
Canada
Chile
Colombia
Czech Republic
Finland
Israel
Netherlands
Spain
United Kingdom
Some U.S. states (although it is still illegal under federal law)
The United Nations (UN) Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs (SCND) lists cannabis in Schedule IV, giving it special restrictions. According to Article 2 of the SCND, Schedule IV allows as follows:
"A Party shall, if in its opinion the prevailing conditions in its country render it the most appropriate means of protecting the public health and welfare, prohibit the production, manufacture, export and import of, trade in, possession or use of any such drug except for amounts which may be necessary for medical and scientific research only, including clinical trials therewith to be conducted under or subject to the direct supervision and control of the Party."
This means that the Convention allows individual countries to outlaw cannabis if they so wish, while still allowing its use in research and medical use as they see fit. It also means that any country or state allowing the use of medical marijuana operates a licensing system for all growers, manufacturers, marketers, and distributors. The total volume of cannabis should not exceed that required for their scientific and medical purposes.
Economics
Distribution of cannabis for medical use varies from country to country, and in the U.S., users can either grow it themselves or buy it from listed dispensaries. Vending machines are now being used in some states, and are being planned for use in Canada, and there is even a mobile app where you can order more in the San Francisco area.
As there is no full FDA approval for cannabis medication yet, medical insurance will not cover its cost of purchase for users.This is hoped for in the future if the federal government legalizes its use and it is approved by the FDA.
Recreational use
The recreational use of cannabis is still illegal in many countries around the world, with only a handful allowing it for personal, recreational consumption. However, this list of countries allowing the use of cannabis for medical and recreational purposes is increasing, as the research into the plant's use gets deeper, and the minimal adverse effects are legally recognized.
Brand names
In the U.S. there are only two brand names for medical cannabinoids that are approved by the FDA, the same number as in Canada, and only nine other countries have approved the use of cannabinoids in medications.
Research
There has been a lot of research into the uses and benefits of cannabis the in majority of countries where studies can be conducted. However, there is only limited study on certain aspects and parts of the plant and its properties, and no study of the whole plant has ever been initiated. Despite the new rules within the compliant U.S. states, the nation is not advancing in the study and research of the cannabis plants benefits due to the massive amounts of red tape involved in getting a study off the ground. Approvals are needed from the FDA, the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), and NIDA. Moreover, any other government agency involved in the prohibition or research of cannabis could halt the entire project at any time, especially the government's federal law enforcement agencies.
There is currently ongoing research around the world into the use of cannabis and cannabinoids in the treatment of cancer, dementia, diabetes, epilepsy, glaucoma, Tourette syndrome, and many other conditions. However, the research into its use as a beneficial medical drug is ongoing, and there are yet inconclusive results for the majority of studies.
In cancer, it is believed that the use of cannabis could have positive effects, and laboratory experiments have shown some small amount of anti-cancer effects from cannabinoids. However, there has been no full human trial or clinical study yet, and much of the current "evidence" available on the internet is "misleading" according to Cancer research UK. Nor is there any evidence that using cannabis can help reduce the risk of getting cancer. More research is still needed in these areas.
The same is still also true in cases of dementia, diabetes, epilepsy, and Tourette syndrome, although the studies in the latter have produced very conflicting results. Glaucoma has also been ruled out as a beneficiary of medical cannabis due to the side effects, the short duration of effectiveness, and lack of evidence of any long-term effects.
Studies and research are also ongoing for illnesses such as Huntington's disease, Parkinson's disease, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, bipolar disorder, digestive diseases, and many other illnesses. However, in the case of multiple sclerosis (MS), patients who took the substance orally or as a dermatological spray showed some relief in the normal muscle stiffness, and there is evidence to support it. The American Academy of Neurology - which has previously stated that the scientific evidence to support the use of cannabis in any form as a medicine for treating or alleviating neurological disorders was weak to failing – has published new guidelines on the use of cannabis tablets and sprays for the treatment of MS sufferers.
In psychiatry, studies have shown that cannabinoids such as cannabidiol, have shown high potential in the treatment of several psychiatric conditions, including depression, anxiety, and psychosis.
Marketed cannabis-based drugs
Cannabis elements are now being used in drugs, in the form of Tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) and Cannabidiol (CBD). While THC is the ingredient in cannabis that works on the cannabinoid receptors in the brain, CBD is the part of the plant that produces muscle relaxants, and works on the cannabinoid receptors in the body. These drugs are now available by prescription in the United States:
Sativex – A mouth spray which contains both THC and CBD, and is used in the treatment of MS and moderate to severe pain in cancer patients.
Drobinol/Marinol – A capsule form of synthetic Delta-9 THC, this drug is used as nausea and vomiting treatment in chemotherapy patients, as an appetite stimulant in patients with HIV/AIDS, and as an analgesic for neuropathic pain in MS patients.
Nabilone/Cesamet – A tablet form of wholly synthetic THC-like cannabinoid, it is used primarily to treat nausea and vomiting in chemotherapy patients.
Dexanabinol – A capsule that contains a synthetic form of THC with non-psychotropic properties. It is mainly used as a neuroprotector after heart surgery, and can be used to aid in the processing of memories after a traumatic head injury.
Cannabinor – A synthetic chemical compound of THC, it is used as an anti-inflammatory for the treatment of chronic pain.
Several other drugs are currently in either clinical trials or are still in the research and testing stages.
Medical uses of cannabis and cannabinoids
Medical cannabis has been proven to have several beneficial uses in medicine for the treatment of illnesses and ailments. The evidence in many cases is still undergoing conclusive testing, but studies are showing that its use in the treatment of several major illnesses has a beneficial effect to the patients, as well as treating many of the symptoms of the ailments. Testing for the full potential benefits of marijuana is still ongoing. While many other organizations have varied views on the medical use and legalization of cannabis, the FDA has stated that cannabis "does not meet the criteria for accepted medical use due to lack of evidence regarding safety and the high risk of abuse".
Nausea and vomiting
The use of medical cannabis for chemotherapy patients has been rated as having a significant effect in chemotherapy-induced nausea and vomiting (CINV) produced by the treatment. Studies have shown that cannabinoids can be more effective than traditional medications such as prochlorperazine, promethazine, and metoclopramide in controlling CINV.
HIV/AIDS
The evidence that cannabis can be safely used in the treatment of HIV/AIDS patients for anorexia-associated symptoms is inconclusive and has been tainted by bias, small testing sizes, and the lack of conclusive, long-term data. However, it has been proven that cannabis can improve the appetites of HIV/AIDS patients to the degree where they are more easily able to eat and retain some intake of the energy and nutrients needed.
Pain
The treatment of chronic pain using cannabis has been proven somewhat effective, including neuropathic pain, fibromyalgia, and rheumatoid arthritis. A 2011 study showed that it was generally safe for use for chronic pain relief in the short-term, though there is very weak evidence of the benefits in cancer patients. However, smoked cannabis has shown better results than cannabinoids in reducing chronic, non-cancer pain in the short-term for around 20 percent of sufferers. In January 2017, a report by the U.S. National Academy of Science, Engineering, and Medicine showed there was substantial evidence to prove that cannabis was effective in controlling chronic pain in adults.
Neurological problems
The studies around neuropathic pain relief are not yet clear, especially in severe cases of multiple sclerosis (MS), epilepsy, and motor neurons disease. A combination of cannabinoids with other medications has shown some relief in spasticity though it does not give significant changes in the ailments.
Posttraumatic stress disorder and depression
The evidence that cannabis can help with posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) symptoms is very tentative yet, but a study carried out by the University of Buffalo into the uses of cannabinoids in depression showed that it can stabilize moods and combat severe depression
Parkinson's disease
Research from the Tel Aviv University, in Israel, has shown that cannabis can reduce the pain and tremors of patients suffering from Parkinson's Disease.
Alzheimer's disease
A study produced by the Scripps Institute on the effects of cannabis on Alzheimer's disease patients showed that the use of THC can reduce the progression of the disease. The use of THC can limit the formation of the amyloidal plaques in the brain that cause the illness by inhibiting the enzyme that produces them.
Multiple Sclerosis (MS)
A 2012 study into the benefits of cannabis in MS patients showed that the drug can reduce the painful muscle contractions related to the disease (muscle spasticity) and relieve the pain in the lumbar region caused by the myeloid lesions on the spinal cord.
Glaucoma
As was shown in the report from the Compassionate IND program, which contained four patients with glaucoma, cannabis has the effect of reducing intraocular pressure. More recent studies have shown that, in clinical trials, glaucoma patients experience relief on average within two hours of the administration of oral compounds of THC and CBD.
Adverse effects of cannabis and marijuana use
Medical use
There is still very little conclusive evidence to suggest that cannabis and marijuana use is safe, although the typical adverse effects are not considered serious. The main adverse effects include tiredness, dizziness, cardiovascular, and some minor psychoactive effects. Tolerance to these effects can develop over a period of a few weeks to months, and the amount of cannabis used for standard medical treatments is believed to not cause permanent cognitive impairment in adults. However, long-term use in adolescents should be avoided, as they are more susceptible to impairment.
Recreational use
In the United States, and many other countries around the world, recreational use of cannabis is prohibited and illegal. There are some acute effects that have been shown to appear in regular users who smoke the plant, both on its own and with tobacco. Anxiety, panic attacks, reduced attention spans, loss of memory during intoxication, and minor psychotic episodes are well documented and usually resolve within minutes or hours of use. Reports of extended symptoms have been relatively small in comparison with the 455,000 estimated annual emergency room visits associated with cannabis use. While the use of cannabis must be implicated in the visit to an emergency room, it is often not the main cause of the visit. Most emergency room visits for drugs involves multiple drug abuse, and in 129,000 listed cases, only one was implicated as directly caused by cannabis.
Chronic use
Chronic use of cannabis as a recreational drug may cause severe effects such as bronchitis, subtle impairments in memory and attention, and a cannabis dependency syndrome. In most adults, any cognitive impairment is not persistent, and fades after abstinence from the drug. There have been very limited numbers of studies that have focused on the effects of smoking cannabis on the human respiratory system. While prolonged use can bring on the symptoms of acute bronchitis, it has shown no significant anomalies in lung functions.
Cancer
While cannabis smoke is known to contain over fifty known carcinogens, including nitrosamines, reactive aldehydes, and polycylic hydrocarbons, it is not believed that light to moderate use increases the risk of airway or lung cancer. The risks of pulmonary complications are far lower in cannabis smokers than in cigarette smokers, and the carcinogens are not present when consumed using a vaporizer, in pill form, or when added to foods.
Cardiovascular disease
There is a major amount of suspicion surrounding the contribution of cannabis smoking to cardiovascular disease. In the studies that have been done, mainly outside the U.S., 97% of cases also smoked tobacco, so there was no formal association of cardiovascular disease with cannabis smoking.
Addiction
The use of cannabis does not usually cause withdrawal symptoms in normal users when abstaining, and only 42.2 percent of heavy users showed any signs of withdrawal symptoms when quitting. Symptoms shown were normal symptoms, similar to quitting tobacco, such as cravings, irritability, boredom, anxiety, and sleep problems.
Cognitive effects
The studies in the long-term effects of cannabis on the cognitive functions of adults have provided very conflicting results. Some studies have found no lasting effects on previously long-term users on abstention, while other studies reflect long-term deficits in cognitive functions. These discrepancies may be due to the difference of the users, the heavy and prolonged use, and studies on the use of cannabis by adolescents. A 2003 study on the analysis of the previous studies concluded that there were only modest long-term cognitive effects in a small percentage of the study subjects, and that they were mainly limited to certain aspects of memory and learning in adolescents.
http://420intel.com/articles/2017/07/05 ... nd-effects
Medical marijuana or medical cannabis is a cannabinoid drug that has been synthesized from the cannabis plant for use in medical treatment of patients in many countries around the world. While there are many arguments on the benefits of cannabis in medical applications, the medicine form has not been fully tested for its full potential due to the many restrictions in both production and governmental regulations in the various countries where it has been legalized for use.
Complete medical benefits are not fully clear
There is limited evidence available that the use of medical cannabis can help to reduce nausea and vomiting during chemotherapy treatments for cancer, and can improve the appetites of people with HIV/AIDS. It is also known that it can severely reduce chronic pain and muscles spasms in patients with severe muscular injuries. And while there is some evidence to suggest that the short-term use of cannabis can increase the risk of some minor side effects, the long-term effects are yet unclear. More research still needs to be completed before such quantifiable evidence can be released. However, major concerns among medical practitioners include memory and cognitive problems, the risk of addiction, as the addictive qualities are neither proven nor disproven yet, and the risk of it accidentally being taken by children. The effects on children under 12-years-old are unconfirmed due to restrictions on testing.
How to administer medical cannabis
As a drug, cannabis can be administered in many ways, including using lozenges, dermal patches or oral/dermal sprays, as well as by vaping a synthesized liquid, smoking of the dried buds, eating cannabis-inclusive foods (where the cannabis has been cooked into the food), and ingestion in the form of medical capsules.
History of medical cannabis from past to present
Ancient times
Cannabis has been used throughout history as both medicines and recreational or psychoactive use. Its origins are believed to have been in Taiwan around 10,000 years ago, where hemp seeds were used as food. It is fair to believe that they would also have discovered the medicinal uses of the plant. Pharmacologist and emperor, Shen Nung, wrote a book that included some of the medical benefits of cannabis in 2737BCE, and he recommended the drug for several illnesses and ailments, including gout, rheumatism, constipation, and absentmindedness. Ancient texts from India also confirm the use of cannabis for its psychoactive properties and its use in medical treatment, including as a pain relief during childbirth. And in ancient Egypt and ancient Greece, there is extensive evidence of its use, and was even mentioned in the famed Ebers Papyrus from 1550BCE. In more modern times, there is extensive evidence of its use in medicine right up to the late 18th century.
Throughout history, cannabis has been used for its medicinal properties, and its use is believed to have started over twelve thousand years ago in Asia. With hemp seeds being a natural part of Asian foods, ancient physicians soon discovered that the plant had many other useful properties, especially in the areas of medicines and narcotics. As far back as 2900BCE, there are texts that quote the use of "Ma", the Chinese word for cannabis, as a popular medicine that possessed both yin and yang. In the 27th century BCE, the Emperor Shen Hung wrote of the medicinal properties of cannabis in his works. Considered to be the father of all Chinese medicine, his writings included the fact that cannabis was useful in the treatment of gout, constipation, rheumatism, and forgetfulness.
Chinese women creating medicine from cannabis plants. (herb.co)
In Egypt, in the 12th century BCE, cannabis was a popular medicine for treating glaucoma, inflammation (hemorrhoids) and other ailments, and pollen from the cannabis plant was found in the wrappings of the mummy of King Ramesses II when his tomb was finally opened in 1995. There have also been extensive mentions of its use in several ancient papyri spanning a period of over a thousand years, including the Ebers Papyrus from 1550BCE, the Ramesseum III Papyrus from 1700BCE, the Berling Papyrus, that is dated from around 1300BCE, and the Chester Beatty Medical Papyrus from 1300BCE.
Scripture depicting Ancient Egyptians using cannabis. (herb.co)
In India in around 1000BCE cannabis was used as an anti-phlegmatic and anesthetic, and was administered in milk. India has always had close ties with the use of cannabis as a medicine, and "bhang", the medicinal name for the cannabis plant in India, has long been a regular medicine for many ailments. Ancient Indian text shows that they also used bhang for the treatment of dysentery and sunstroke, as well as to quicken digestions and for other stomach ailments. In around 600BCE, an Indian medical work known as the Ayurvedic treatise of Sushrita Samhita cited cannabis as a cure for leprosy.
On and on throughout history, there have been medical references to the use of cannabis as a healing medicine. In Greece, it was used for earaches and inflammation, and the Greek physician, PedaniusDioscorides, who was a doctor with the Roman Legions, added it to his book entitled De Materia Medica (On Medical Matters) in AD 70, which became the most important medical tome for the next 1500 years. Its medicinal properties are even extolled by the Roman scientist and historian, Pliny the Elder, as being used to "ease cramped joints, gout too and similar violent pain" in his book, Naturalis Historia, in AD 79.
In ancient Persia, the famous polymath, Avicenna, (Ibn Sina)wrote about the medicinal properties of cannabis many times in his works, and his contributions to medicine were hugely influential throughout Europe during the medieval and renaissance period. His texts tell of his use of the whole plant for its medicinal properties, using seeds, roots, and leaves for both internal and topical treatments. His works often refer to it as the "juice of cannabis leaves", and he would mix it with other herbs and plants to make concoctions to treat a range of illnesses. The works of Avicenna were so influential in early western medicine that cannabis was referred to in Brice Bauderon's 17th-century medical work, The Pharmacopoeia of Bauderon, as "Cannabis ex Avicenna".
Modern times
In modern medicine, cannabis has been used regularly to treat muscle spasms, stomach cramps, and general pain since the early part of the 19thcentury. Its introduction to western medicine was attributed to the Irish physician, William Brooke O'Shaughnessy, who was famous for his work in pharmacology, chemistry and his research that led to intravenous therapy. After his return from India, he began the first ever clinical trials into the medicinal benefits of cannabis, using the recipes he had learned from the Ayurvedic physicians. In 1839, he produced the first concise case studies of his treatment of patients suffering from rheumatism, cholera, tetanus, and hydrophobia, which showed that the cannabis tinctures he developed had significant effect on the ailments. And the personal physician of Queen Victoria, Sir Robert Russell, wrote extensive papers on the benefits of cannabis and recommended its use as a tincture in the treatment of dysmenorrhoea (menstrual cramps).
O'Shaughnessy's clinical trials produced results that had many physicians of the time clamoring to try this new "wonder drug", and between 1839 and 1900 over 100 papers were written on the subject, as chemists worked to identify and isolate the active principles of cannabis, a goal not achieved until 1964, by Dr. Raphael Mechoulam. A Professor of Medicinal Chemistry at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, he was the first to identify delta-9-tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), as the main psychoactive component of cannabis. He was also the first to synthesize THC.
In 1850, cannabis was included into the United States Pharmacopeia, the official government authority for all prescription medicines in the U.S. Cannabis was listed as a treatment for numerous illnesses and ailments, including neuralgia, tetanus, typhus, cholera, rabies, dysentery, alcoholism, opiate addiction, anthrax, leprosy, incontinence, gout, convulsive disorders, tonsillitis, insanity, excessive menstrual bleeding, and uterine bleeding. Pharmaceutical companies patented marijuana tinctures which were sold by pharmacists under prescription from doctors. It was removed from the US Pharmacopeia in 1942, finally losing the mantle of being a legitimate medicine.
In the 1970s, cannabis was synthesized for use as a drug in the United States, and approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) under the name Marinol. In 1978, a new program was established in the United States and run by the federal government. The Compassionate Investigational New Drug (CIND)program allowed a small number of people with severe illnesses to use medical marijuana as a treatment. This small group of people was suffering from illnesses that included Multiple Sclerosis, AIDS, Nail-patella Syndrome, Multiple Congenital Cartilaginous Exostoses, and Glaucoma. Of the ten patients that were prescribed with medical cannabis in the group, four are still alive and are still classed as active participants in the program.
In 1990, a senior investigator at the National Institute of Mental Health, discovered a connection between cannabis and certain receptors in the brain. This discovery helped scientists to better understand the effects of cannabinoids, which occur when Cannabis-based THC binds with these cannabinoid receptors in the brain. Cannabinoids (THC and CBD)are the chemical compounds produced from cannabis flowers, which can imitate the natural compounds found in the body, called endocannabinoids. These compounds work to maintain internal stability and health, and mediate communication between cells. Where there is a problem with endocannabinoids, unpleasant symptoms and physical complications can occur, which can be treated by the introduction of THC or CBD to the system.
On November 5, 1996, California became the first state to legalize cannabis for medical use. Proposition 215, as it was known, was an initiative to allow patients and primary caregivers to possess and cultivate cannabis for the treatment of AIDS, cancer, muscular spasticity, migraines, and several other disorders, with a physician's recommendation. But it was not until late in 1998 that three other states approved the use of medical marijuana, with ballots in Alaska, Oregon, and Washington. By the middle of 2014, 23 states plus the District of Columbia had passed laws allowing the use of medical marijuana, with three more states joining after the elections in November 2016.
22 years after its initial inception in 1978, the Compassionate IND program produced its only study on the effects of cannabis treatment on their selected patients in January 2000. The study showed that, despite the cannabis being provided by the government being "a crude mixture of leaf with abundant stem and seed components", there were definite benefits of cannabis medication in those patients. The conclusion of the study stated that "cannabis smoking, even of a crude, low-grade product, provides effective symptomatic relief of pain, muscle spasms, and intraocular pressure elevations" and that "clinical cannabis patients are able to reduce or eliminate other prescription medicines and their accompanying side effects." However, despite this conclusive evidence of the benefits of marijuana in cases such as glaucoma, and the 27 states and districts that have legalized its use for medical purposes, the federal government refuses to change its stance on the medical use of cannabis.
Medical cannabis use in modern society and cultures
Legal status
The legal status of medical cannabis use varies around the world, from illegal to legal, and is dependent on the country in which it is being used. There is no internationally recognized legal status for both medical and recreational use of cannabis, although the number of countries where it is being legalized or decriminalized is continuously growing. As of this time, the countries where the medical use of cannabis or a THC preparation (capsule medication) is legalized are:
Austria
Belgium
Canada
Chile
Colombia
Czech Republic
Finland
Israel
Netherlands
Spain
United Kingdom
Some U.S. states (although it is still illegal under federal law)
The United Nations (UN) Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs (SCND) lists cannabis in Schedule IV, giving it special restrictions. According to Article 2 of the SCND, Schedule IV allows as follows:
"A Party shall, if in its opinion the prevailing conditions in its country render it the most appropriate means of protecting the public health and welfare, prohibit the production, manufacture, export and import of, trade in, possession or use of any such drug except for amounts which may be necessary for medical and scientific research only, including clinical trials therewith to be conducted under or subject to the direct supervision and control of the Party."
This means that the Convention allows individual countries to outlaw cannabis if they so wish, while still allowing its use in research and medical use as they see fit. It also means that any country or state allowing the use of medical marijuana operates a licensing system for all growers, manufacturers, marketers, and distributors. The total volume of cannabis should not exceed that required for their scientific and medical purposes.
Economics
Distribution of cannabis for medical use varies from country to country, and in the U.S., users can either grow it themselves or buy it from listed dispensaries. Vending machines are now being used in some states, and are being planned for use in Canada, and there is even a mobile app where you can order more in the San Francisco area.
As there is no full FDA approval for cannabis medication yet, medical insurance will not cover its cost of purchase for users.This is hoped for in the future if the federal government legalizes its use and it is approved by the FDA.
Recreational use
The recreational use of cannabis is still illegal in many countries around the world, with only a handful allowing it for personal, recreational consumption. However, this list of countries allowing the use of cannabis for medical and recreational purposes is increasing, as the research into the plant's use gets deeper, and the minimal adverse effects are legally recognized.
Brand names
In the U.S. there are only two brand names for medical cannabinoids that are approved by the FDA, the same number as in Canada, and only nine other countries have approved the use of cannabinoids in medications.
Research
There has been a lot of research into the uses and benefits of cannabis the in majority of countries where studies can be conducted. However, there is only limited study on certain aspects and parts of the plant and its properties, and no study of the whole plant has ever been initiated. Despite the new rules within the compliant U.S. states, the nation is not advancing in the study and research of the cannabis plants benefits due to the massive amounts of red tape involved in getting a study off the ground. Approvals are needed from the FDA, the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), and NIDA. Moreover, any other government agency involved in the prohibition or research of cannabis could halt the entire project at any time, especially the government's federal law enforcement agencies.
There is currently ongoing research around the world into the use of cannabis and cannabinoids in the treatment of cancer, dementia, diabetes, epilepsy, glaucoma, Tourette syndrome, and many other conditions. However, the research into its use as a beneficial medical drug is ongoing, and there are yet inconclusive results for the majority of studies.
In cancer, it is believed that the use of cannabis could have positive effects, and laboratory experiments have shown some small amount of anti-cancer effects from cannabinoids. However, there has been no full human trial or clinical study yet, and much of the current "evidence" available on the internet is "misleading" according to Cancer research UK. Nor is there any evidence that using cannabis can help reduce the risk of getting cancer. More research is still needed in these areas.
The same is still also true in cases of dementia, diabetes, epilepsy, and Tourette syndrome, although the studies in the latter have produced very conflicting results. Glaucoma has also been ruled out as a beneficiary of medical cannabis due to the side effects, the short duration of effectiveness, and lack of evidence of any long-term effects.
Studies and research are also ongoing for illnesses such as Huntington's disease, Parkinson's disease, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, bipolar disorder, digestive diseases, and many other illnesses. However, in the case of multiple sclerosis (MS), patients who took the substance orally or as a dermatological spray showed some relief in the normal muscle stiffness, and there is evidence to support it. The American Academy of Neurology - which has previously stated that the scientific evidence to support the use of cannabis in any form as a medicine for treating or alleviating neurological disorders was weak to failing – has published new guidelines on the use of cannabis tablets and sprays for the treatment of MS sufferers.
In psychiatry, studies have shown that cannabinoids such as cannabidiol, have shown high potential in the treatment of several psychiatric conditions, including depression, anxiety, and psychosis.
Marketed cannabis-based drugs
Cannabis elements are now being used in drugs, in the form of Tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) and Cannabidiol (CBD). While THC is the ingredient in cannabis that works on the cannabinoid receptors in the brain, CBD is the part of the plant that produces muscle relaxants, and works on the cannabinoid receptors in the body. These drugs are now available by prescription in the United States:
Sativex – A mouth spray which contains both THC and CBD, and is used in the treatment of MS and moderate to severe pain in cancer patients.
Drobinol/Marinol – A capsule form of synthetic Delta-9 THC, this drug is used as nausea and vomiting treatment in chemotherapy patients, as an appetite stimulant in patients with HIV/AIDS, and as an analgesic for neuropathic pain in MS patients.
Nabilone/Cesamet – A tablet form of wholly synthetic THC-like cannabinoid, it is used primarily to treat nausea and vomiting in chemotherapy patients.
Dexanabinol – A capsule that contains a synthetic form of THC with non-psychotropic properties. It is mainly used as a neuroprotector after heart surgery, and can be used to aid in the processing of memories after a traumatic head injury.
Cannabinor – A synthetic chemical compound of THC, it is used as an anti-inflammatory for the treatment of chronic pain.
Several other drugs are currently in either clinical trials or are still in the research and testing stages.
Medical uses of cannabis and cannabinoids
Medical cannabis has been proven to have several beneficial uses in medicine for the treatment of illnesses and ailments. The evidence in many cases is still undergoing conclusive testing, but studies are showing that its use in the treatment of several major illnesses has a beneficial effect to the patients, as well as treating many of the symptoms of the ailments. Testing for the full potential benefits of marijuana is still ongoing. While many other organizations have varied views on the medical use and legalization of cannabis, the FDA has stated that cannabis "does not meet the criteria for accepted medical use due to lack of evidence regarding safety and the high risk of abuse".
Nausea and vomiting
The use of medical cannabis for chemotherapy patients has been rated as having a significant effect in chemotherapy-induced nausea and vomiting (CINV) produced by the treatment. Studies have shown that cannabinoids can be more effective than traditional medications such as prochlorperazine, promethazine, and metoclopramide in controlling CINV.
HIV/AIDS
The evidence that cannabis can be safely used in the treatment of HIV/AIDS patients for anorexia-associated symptoms is inconclusive and has been tainted by bias, small testing sizes, and the lack of conclusive, long-term data. However, it has been proven that cannabis can improve the appetites of HIV/AIDS patients to the degree where they are more easily able to eat and retain some intake of the energy and nutrients needed.
Pain
The treatment of chronic pain using cannabis has been proven somewhat effective, including neuropathic pain, fibromyalgia, and rheumatoid arthritis. A 2011 study showed that it was generally safe for use for chronic pain relief in the short-term, though there is very weak evidence of the benefits in cancer patients. However, smoked cannabis has shown better results than cannabinoids in reducing chronic, non-cancer pain in the short-term for around 20 percent of sufferers. In January 2017, a report by the U.S. National Academy of Science, Engineering, and Medicine showed there was substantial evidence to prove that cannabis was effective in controlling chronic pain in adults.
Neurological problems
The studies around neuropathic pain relief are not yet clear, especially in severe cases of multiple sclerosis (MS), epilepsy, and motor neurons disease. A combination of cannabinoids with other medications has shown some relief in spasticity though it does not give significant changes in the ailments.
Posttraumatic stress disorder and depression
The evidence that cannabis can help with posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) symptoms is very tentative yet, but a study carried out by the University of Buffalo into the uses of cannabinoids in depression showed that it can stabilize moods and combat severe depression
Parkinson's disease
Research from the Tel Aviv University, in Israel, has shown that cannabis can reduce the pain and tremors of patients suffering from Parkinson's Disease.
Alzheimer's disease
A study produced by the Scripps Institute on the effects of cannabis on Alzheimer's disease patients showed that the use of THC can reduce the progression of the disease. The use of THC can limit the formation of the amyloidal plaques in the brain that cause the illness by inhibiting the enzyme that produces them.
Multiple Sclerosis (MS)
A 2012 study into the benefits of cannabis in MS patients showed that the drug can reduce the painful muscle contractions related to the disease (muscle spasticity) and relieve the pain in the lumbar region caused by the myeloid lesions on the spinal cord.
Glaucoma
As was shown in the report from the Compassionate IND program, which contained four patients with glaucoma, cannabis has the effect of reducing intraocular pressure. More recent studies have shown that, in clinical trials, glaucoma patients experience relief on average within two hours of the administration of oral compounds of THC and CBD.
Adverse effects of cannabis and marijuana use
Medical use
There is still very little conclusive evidence to suggest that cannabis and marijuana use is safe, although the typical adverse effects are not considered serious. The main adverse effects include tiredness, dizziness, cardiovascular, and some minor psychoactive effects. Tolerance to these effects can develop over a period of a few weeks to months, and the amount of cannabis used for standard medical treatments is believed to not cause permanent cognitive impairment in adults. However, long-term use in adolescents should be avoided, as they are more susceptible to impairment.
Recreational use
In the United States, and many other countries around the world, recreational use of cannabis is prohibited and illegal. There are some acute effects that have been shown to appear in regular users who smoke the plant, both on its own and with tobacco. Anxiety, panic attacks, reduced attention spans, loss of memory during intoxication, and minor psychotic episodes are well documented and usually resolve within minutes or hours of use. Reports of extended symptoms have been relatively small in comparison with the 455,000 estimated annual emergency room visits associated with cannabis use. While the use of cannabis must be implicated in the visit to an emergency room, it is often not the main cause of the visit. Most emergency room visits for drugs involves multiple drug abuse, and in 129,000 listed cases, only one was implicated as directly caused by cannabis.
Chronic use
Chronic use of cannabis as a recreational drug may cause severe effects such as bronchitis, subtle impairments in memory and attention, and a cannabis dependency syndrome. In most adults, any cognitive impairment is not persistent, and fades after abstinence from the drug. There have been very limited numbers of studies that have focused on the effects of smoking cannabis on the human respiratory system. While prolonged use can bring on the symptoms of acute bronchitis, it has shown no significant anomalies in lung functions.
Cancer
While cannabis smoke is known to contain over fifty known carcinogens, including nitrosamines, reactive aldehydes, and polycylic hydrocarbons, it is not believed that light to moderate use increases the risk of airway or lung cancer. The risks of pulmonary complications are far lower in cannabis smokers than in cigarette smokers, and the carcinogens are not present when consumed using a vaporizer, in pill form, or when added to foods.
Cardiovascular disease
There is a major amount of suspicion surrounding the contribution of cannabis smoking to cardiovascular disease. In the studies that have been done, mainly outside the U.S., 97% of cases also smoked tobacco, so there was no formal association of cardiovascular disease with cannabis smoking.
Addiction
The use of cannabis does not usually cause withdrawal symptoms in normal users when abstaining, and only 42.2 percent of heavy users showed any signs of withdrawal symptoms when quitting. Symptoms shown were normal symptoms, similar to quitting tobacco, such as cravings, irritability, boredom, anxiety, and sleep problems.
Cognitive effects
The studies in the long-term effects of cannabis on the cognitive functions of adults have provided very conflicting results. Some studies have found no lasting effects on previously long-term users on abstention, while other studies reflect long-term deficits in cognitive functions. These discrepancies may be due to the difference of the users, the heavy and prolonged use, and studies on the use of cannabis by adolescents. A 2003 study on the analysis of the previous studies concluded that there were only modest long-term cognitive effects in a small percentage of the study subjects, and that they were mainly limited to certain aspects of memory and learning in adolescents.
http://420intel.com/articles/2017/07/05 ... nd-effects
Re: News in English 2017
Data show the typical medical marijuana consumer is upscale, insured and physician-diagnosed
With cannabis legalization across multiple states in the U.S. and other countries around the world, there’s been an explosion of research firms looking into the industry. ArcView Market Research became famous for its market-size predictions, Viridian Capital Advisors acquired notoriety for its Cannabis Deal Tracker and Cannabis Stock Index, and New Frontier Data gained a reputation for its extensive (collaborative) reports.
However, few analysts seem to have focused on the consumer-level to the extent that market researchers usually do in other industries. At least, that was the case not too long ago, when Consumer Research Around Cannabis emerged, claiming to be “the only national research firm providing local consumer-level data for the emerging cannabis market.”
Unlike other firms out there, CRAC offers insights into cannabis users’ consumption habits and other non-marijuana-related conducts, like which cars they drive, how much they make per year, how much their house is worth, what kind of insurance they have, etc.
As the data covers more than 85 markets in the U.S. and Canada, picking a topic and geography to hone into was both easy (in terms of options) and difficult (choices are hard). Looking at some of the information and charts shared by Vice President Jeff Stein, a data set caught Benzinga's eye.
The New York Case
About three months ago, the state of New York finally started permitting the prescription of medical marijuana for the treatment of chronic pain, adding the ailment to a short list that previously included only a few other conditions like epilepsy, HIV, AIDS and multiple sclerosis. Following the policy adjustment, CRAC conducted consumer habits studies in the Buffalo and Albany metro areas, concluding that “an estimated 46,668 adults in the heavily populated Buffalo-Niagara Falls metro area listed the ‘treatment of chronic pain’ as an important reason for their purchase of medicinal marijuana.”
Furthermore, CRAC said, “In the smaller Albany-Schenectady-Troy Capital Region, the number was 28,734 adults, totaling over 75,000 people in just those two metros.”
What’s more interesting, though, is the deeper analysis of the responses, which counter-intuitively revealed that these medical cannabis users seeking relief of chronic pain are “upscale, insured, and visit a variety physicians.”
“This target group is also growing due to the recent changes in state laws, representing a business growth opportunity in New York,” a recent report read.
Check out the figures for adults disclosing the use of cannabis for the treatment of chronic pain in three charts – sorted by income, insurance and physicians visited:
Confirming A Trend
Intrigued by the New York state results, Benzinga reached out to CRAC and asked them to share similar information for other markets in order to find out if the trend of medical marijuana users in legal markets being upscale, insured and physician-diagnosed was confirmed.
“We can’t promise this will be the story in every city we look at because people are very different in each part of the country, but we have seen similar results in several other metro areas,” Stein told Benzinga before sharing the additional data. “When we focus on the medical side of cannabis, it does seem to skew upscale, for the most part.”
However, not every market presented this over-indexing.
"We suspect that Phoenix’s large retiree population has something to do with employment info, and in Denver the maturity of the marijuana market may be suppressing some of the indices since usage is much more common," Stein commented. "An index reflects differences versus the average person in a market, so if it is more likely that the average person is using cannabis in Denver, the indexes will be closer to 100."
http://420intel.com/articles/2017/07/04 ... -physician
With cannabis legalization across multiple states in the U.S. and other countries around the world, there’s been an explosion of research firms looking into the industry. ArcView Market Research became famous for its market-size predictions, Viridian Capital Advisors acquired notoriety for its Cannabis Deal Tracker and Cannabis Stock Index, and New Frontier Data gained a reputation for its extensive (collaborative) reports.
However, few analysts seem to have focused on the consumer-level to the extent that market researchers usually do in other industries. At least, that was the case not too long ago, when Consumer Research Around Cannabis emerged, claiming to be “the only national research firm providing local consumer-level data for the emerging cannabis market.”
Unlike other firms out there, CRAC offers insights into cannabis users’ consumption habits and other non-marijuana-related conducts, like which cars they drive, how much they make per year, how much their house is worth, what kind of insurance they have, etc.
As the data covers more than 85 markets in the U.S. and Canada, picking a topic and geography to hone into was both easy (in terms of options) and difficult (choices are hard). Looking at some of the information and charts shared by Vice President Jeff Stein, a data set caught Benzinga's eye.
The New York Case
About three months ago, the state of New York finally started permitting the prescription of medical marijuana for the treatment of chronic pain, adding the ailment to a short list that previously included only a few other conditions like epilepsy, HIV, AIDS and multiple sclerosis. Following the policy adjustment, CRAC conducted consumer habits studies in the Buffalo and Albany metro areas, concluding that “an estimated 46,668 adults in the heavily populated Buffalo-Niagara Falls metro area listed the ‘treatment of chronic pain’ as an important reason for their purchase of medicinal marijuana.”
Furthermore, CRAC said, “In the smaller Albany-Schenectady-Troy Capital Region, the number was 28,734 adults, totaling over 75,000 people in just those two metros.”
What’s more interesting, though, is the deeper analysis of the responses, which counter-intuitively revealed that these medical cannabis users seeking relief of chronic pain are “upscale, insured, and visit a variety physicians.”
“This target group is also growing due to the recent changes in state laws, representing a business growth opportunity in New York,” a recent report read.
Check out the figures for adults disclosing the use of cannabis for the treatment of chronic pain in three charts – sorted by income, insurance and physicians visited:
Confirming A Trend
Intrigued by the New York state results, Benzinga reached out to CRAC and asked them to share similar information for other markets in order to find out if the trend of medical marijuana users in legal markets being upscale, insured and physician-diagnosed was confirmed.
“We can’t promise this will be the story in every city we look at because people are very different in each part of the country, but we have seen similar results in several other metro areas,” Stein told Benzinga before sharing the additional data. “When we focus on the medical side of cannabis, it does seem to skew upscale, for the most part.”
However, not every market presented this over-indexing.
"We suspect that Phoenix’s large retiree population has something to do with employment info, and in Denver the maturity of the marijuana market may be suppressing some of the indices since usage is much more common," Stein commented. "An index reflects differences versus the average person in a market, so if it is more likely that the average person is using cannabis in Denver, the indexes will be closer to 100."
http://420intel.com/articles/2017/07/04 ... -physician
Re: News in English 2017
Why more seniors are requesting cannabis help
Concern about side effects of narcotics and interest in more legal medical choices are leading to more seniors looking into cannabis options.
According to the National Survey of Drug Use and Health, between 2011-14 in Washington
state, the number of people who have used cannabis over the age of 65 increased from 0.9
percent to 2.4 percent.
At Cannabis & Glass, a Spokane retailer, none of the senior customers interviewed wanted to comment due to concerns about marijuana’s lingering social stigma and the current political climate. However the store staff said business from people in their 60s, 70s continues to grow.
“I have a 93-year-old customer that comes in a couple times a week,” said budtender Jacob Falconer. “She uses it for her arthritis because she doesn’t want to use opiates.”
Falconer said many older customers prefer cannabis that’s high in CBD, a molecular compound that doesn’t cause psychoactive reactions – the “high” associated with marijuana – but is believed to reduce pain and anxiety.
“We have this younger lady come in with MS and she swears by it,” he said. “We also get a lot of older people coming in and they don’t know anything about CBD.”
Last year, Washington merged its recreational and medical marijuana systems, which Falconer said may have confused some medical patients, especially more elderly ones. They may have known what they liked and how to get it from a dispensary, but not necessarily the distinctions between CBD and THC, another compound. They also may not have known what to do at the rec stores, or had fears that they can only buy items to make them high.
“I have customers with a plethora of issues that they use cannabis for,” said Nadya Kulinich, another budtender at Cannabis & Glass. “One older lady came in looking for relief for menopause with her friends. She was told that hormones could help her, but didn’t want to go that way — she wanted to go with something more natural instead.”
Neither Kulinich or Falconer have medical training, and only one employee at Cannabis & Glass has medical experience in how to talk about medical marijuana. But they are happy to help customers with their selections and explain the current system.
“We tell customers, ‘We’re not doctors, so we can’t tell you how to use it medically,’ but we can tell them what we’ve researched ourselves, and our own experiences,” Falconer said.
Kulinch has met several customers with damage to their digestive system due to chemotherapy who have found relief with cannabis.
“It makes me feel absolutely ecstatic that older people are able to find an option other than what they‘ve been prescribed,” Kulinich said. “It makes me relieved that people realize there are options out there that are not as damaging and destructive as opioids or other things that they’ve been prescribed.”
A recent study, “The Increasing Use of Cannabis Among Older Americans: A Public
Health Crisis or Viable Policy Alternative?” indicated that cannabis use in senior-aged people may be a viable alternative to prescription medications, including pain relief.
But there are also studies that have opposite conclusions: “The effect of cannabis use on memory function” by Tabea Schoeler and Sagnik Bhattacharyya indicated that long term use of cannabis has been linked to a decrease in memory. Some users can experience anxiety, paranoia, dry mouth, and a range of other minor side effects,
Falconer said “lack of side effects” is a consistent reason why older customers come in.
“They’re already on other medications and a lot of them come in trying to get off those,” he said. “That makes it worthwhile right there.”
http://420intel.com/articles/2017/06/30 ... nabis-help
Concern about side effects of narcotics and interest in more legal medical choices are leading to more seniors looking into cannabis options.
According to the National Survey of Drug Use and Health, between 2011-14 in Washington
state, the number of people who have used cannabis over the age of 65 increased from 0.9
percent to 2.4 percent.
At Cannabis & Glass, a Spokane retailer, none of the senior customers interviewed wanted to comment due to concerns about marijuana’s lingering social stigma and the current political climate. However the store staff said business from people in their 60s, 70s continues to grow.
“I have a 93-year-old customer that comes in a couple times a week,” said budtender Jacob Falconer. “She uses it for her arthritis because she doesn’t want to use opiates.”
Falconer said many older customers prefer cannabis that’s high in CBD, a molecular compound that doesn’t cause psychoactive reactions – the “high” associated with marijuana – but is believed to reduce pain and anxiety.
“We have this younger lady come in with MS and she swears by it,” he said. “We also get a lot of older people coming in and they don’t know anything about CBD.”
Last year, Washington merged its recreational and medical marijuana systems, which Falconer said may have confused some medical patients, especially more elderly ones. They may have known what they liked and how to get it from a dispensary, but not necessarily the distinctions between CBD and THC, another compound. They also may not have known what to do at the rec stores, or had fears that they can only buy items to make them high.
“I have customers with a plethora of issues that they use cannabis for,” said Nadya Kulinich, another budtender at Cannabis & Glass. “One older lady came in looking for relief for menopause with her friends. She was told that hormones could help her, but didn’t want to go that way — she wanted to go with something more natural instead.”
Neither Kulinich or Falconer have medical training, and only one employee at Cannabis & Glass has medical experience in how to talk about medical marijuana. But they are happy to help customers with their selections and explain the current system.
“We tell customers, ‘We’re not doctors, so we can’t tell you how to use it medically,’ but we can tell them what we’ve researched ourselves, and our own experiences,” Falconer said.
Kulinch has met several customers with damage to their digestive system due to chemotherapy who have found relief with cannabis.
“It makes me feel absolutely ecstatic that older people are able to find an option other than what they‘ve been prescribed,” Kulinich said. “It makes me relieved that people realize there are options out there that are not as damaging and destructive as opioids or other things that they’ve been prescribed.”
A recent study, “The Increasing Use of Cannabis Among Older Americans: A Public
Health Crisis or Viable Policy Alternative?” indicated that cannabis use in senior-aged people may be a viable alternative to prescription medications, including pain relief.
But there are also studies that have opposite conclusions: “The effect of cannabis use on memory function” by Tabea Schoeler and Sagnik Bhattacharyya indicated that long term use of cannabis has been linked to a decrease in memory. Some users can experience anxiety, paranoia, dry mouth, and a range of other minor side effects,
Falconer said “lack of side effects” is a consistent reason why older customers come in.
“They’re already on other medications and a lot of them come in trying to get off those,” he said. “That makes it worthwhile right there.”
http://420intel.com/articles/2017/06/30 ... nabis-help
Re: News in English 2017
Marijuana Benefits and Risks: 10 Things to Know
Earlier this month on The Tonight Show, Miley Cyrus told host Jimmy Fallon that she’d quit using marijuana because she had a dream “that I would die during my monologue on SNL for some reason, just get so stoned that I just died.”
The singer quickly added that she knows people don’t typically die from smoking weed. But she also had realistic concerns about her habit, too: She’d been spending too much time sitting at home eating and playing with her pets, Cyrus joked, “and not enough time actually doing really anything.” And while working on her new album, she wanted to make sure her mind was “super clear.”
Cyrus brings up good points about potential negative side effects of the drug. Yet—as medical and recreational marijuana use are becoming increasingly legal across the United States (and illegal use is on the rise too)—studies have shown pot can have benefits for health and well-being, as well.
So what, exactly, are the pros and cons of pot? Health looked at recent research and spoke with several experts about who might want to try it, who should avoid it, and what any marijuana user should know.
It may help with anxiety and PTSD
The relaxing effects of marijuana are well known, so it’s not surprising that a 2016 paper in the journal Clinical Psychology Review concluded that it may have benefits for people with depression, social anxiety, and post-traumatic stress disorder. A recent study published in Drug and Alcohol Dependence also found that a very low dose of THC, one of the main compounds in marijuana, helped people feel less nervous about a public-speaking task.
But it may not be that simple: That dose was equivalent to only a few puffs on a marijuana cigarette, say the study authors. They also found that slightly higher amounts of TCH—anything that would produce even a mild high—actually made anxiety worse. Other research has also suggested that marijuana may be more harmful than helpful for people with certain mental health conditions, like psychosis or bipolar disorder.
The research “indicates cannabinoids could be helpful for people with anxiety,” lead author Emma Childs, PhD, associate professor of psychiatry at the University of Illinois at Chicago, tells Health. But more research is needed, she says, to determine appropriate dosages and delivery methods, and to prevent the opposite effects from happening.
It can relieve chronic pain and nausea
Pain relief is a common use for medical marijuana, and this year the National Academies of Sciences concluded there is indeed good evidence to support this practice. Marijuana products also appear to be effective at calming muscle spasms caused by multiple sclerosis and easing nausea and vomiting due to chemotherapy, the report stated.
The National Academies also determined that there is moderate evidence that cannabis or cannabis-derived products may help people who have trouble sleeping due to sleep apnea, fibromyalgia, or chronic pain.
People with epilepsy may benefit—even kids
In a recent New England Journal of Medicine study, cannabidiol oil—a derivative of marijuana—reduced seizures by 39% in children with Dravet syndrome, a rare form of epilepsy. That was big news for parents who have been using medical marijuana for years, often illegally, to help their kids suffering from this debilitating condition.
The cannabidiol oil used in the study—which will be marketed as Epidiolex if it’s approved by the FDA—won’t make people high, because it doesn’t contain THC. Experts say that results may be riskier and more unpredictable with other marijuana products.
It may be a safer alternative to opioids
Despite Homeland Security Secretary John Kelly’s claim that marijuana is “a potentially dangerous gateway drug,” research suggests that the use of medical marijuana may actually reduce dependence on dangerous prescription painkillers like those fueling the nation’s opioid epidemic.
In a 2016 study in the journal Health Affairs, researchers found that there were 1,826 fewer daily doses of painkillers prescribed per year, on average, in states where medical marijuana was legal compared to states it’s not. And in a review article published this year in Trends in Neuroscience, researchers wrote that cannabinoids may help people recover from opioid addiction. Human trials have been limited because of marijuana’s classification as a Schedule 1 drug—but the authors argue that more studies are urgently needed.
It may have anti-cancer effects, but research is limited
Olivia Newton John uses cannabiodiol oil (along with conventional medicine) to fight her metastatic breast cancer, the actress’s daughter recently revealed. Studies have shown that the oil may inhibit the growth of cancer cells outside of the human body, but there haven’t been any real-life trials to back up these findings.
Last year, Gregory Gerdeman, PhD, assistant professor of biology at Eckerd College, told Time that there have also been anecdotal patient reports and “increasing numbers of legitimate clinical case studies … that all indicate tumor-fighting activities of cannabinoids.” It’s still unknown, however, whether traditional forms of marijuana would be an effective cancer therapy, or what cancer types it might actually work against.
Parents (and expectant parents) should know the risks
As pot use becomes more prevalent, more pregnant women are getting high, according to a 2016 JAMA study—either for recreational use or, sometimes, to treat morning sickness. But evidence suggests that prenatal exposure to marijuana is associated with developmental and health problems in children, including low birth weight, anemia, and impaired impulse control, memory, and attention, the authors wrote. Until more is known for sure, they say women who are pregnant or considering becoming pregnant should be “advised to avoid using marijuana or other cannabinoids.”
Current parents should also use marijuana with caution, University of Washington researchers suggest. Their recent study in Prevention Science found that people tend to cut back on marijuana use once they have kids, but they don’t always quit. That’s concerning, says lead author and research scientist Marina Epstien, PhD, because parental marijuana use is strongly related to children’s use—and children’s use is associated with higher rates of health problems.
“Children watch what their parents do,” Epstein tells Health. “I would encourage parents to be talking to their kids and be clear about expectations for their kids about using or not using marijuana and the amount, especially with their teenagers.”
Heart problems could make it extra risky
In 2014, a study in Forensic Science International documented what German researchers claimed to be the first known deaths directly attributed by intoxication from marijuana. The authors pointed out that, during autopsies, it was discovered that one of the two young men had a serious but undetected heart problem, and that the other had a history of drug and alcohol use.
The researchers concluded that the absolute risk of cannabis-related cardiovascular effects is low, especially for healthy people. But they say that people who are at high risk for heart-related complications should avoid the use of cannabis, since it can have temporary effects on the cardiovascular system.
It’s not safe to use marijuana and drive
A recent study by the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety found that insurance claim rates for motor vehicle accidents from 2012 to 2016 were about 3% higher in states with legalized marijuana than in states without. But other studies have found no such increase in fatal car crashes in states with legalized marijuana, compared to similar states without.
Experts say it’s possible that driving under the influence of marijuana may increase the risk of minor fender benders—but may also reduce rates of alcohol consumption and therefore help prevent more serious, deadly crashes. The bottom line? Driving while stoned may be less dangerous than driving drunk, but it’s still riskier than driving sober.
Weed smoke is still smoke—and still has health risks
The Canadian Research Initiative in Substance Misuse recently published a set of “lower-risk cannabis use guidelines,” aimed at helping people who use marijuana make responsible decisions about their health. (The drug is currently outlawed in Canada, but the country is moving toward legalization.) Among other advice, the guidelines urge people to “avoid smoking burnt cannabis,” which can harm the lungs and respiratory system—especially when combined with tobacco.
They recommend choosing vaporizers or edibles instead, but caution that these methods also come with some risks. And if you do smoke cannabis, the guidelines say, “avoid ‘deep inhalation’ or ‘breath-holding,’” which increase the amount of toxic materials absorbed by the body.
It’s not just lung-health that frequent weed smokers should worry about, either. A recent study in the Journal of Periodontology found that frequent marijuana users were twice as likely as people who didn’t use frequently to have gum disease, even after controlling for other factors such as cigarette smoke. The research didn’t distinguish between methods of marijuana use, but they do point out that smoking is the most common form of recreational use.
For recreational users, less is safer
Canada’s new low-risk guidelines may sum it up best with this statement: “To avoid all risks, do not use cannabis. If you decide to use, you could experience immediate, as well as long-term risks to your health and well-being.” The guidelines also recommend avoiding marijuana use during adolescence, because the later in life people start using the drug, the less likely they are to experience these problems.
Finally, the guidelines recommend adults choose natural cannabis over dangerous synthetic versions, and limit themselves to “occasional use, such as on weekends or one day a week at most.” As Miley pointed out herself, making marijuana a regular habit has been linked not just to health problems, but to social problems as well.
http://420intel.com/articles/2017/06/30 ... hings-know
Earlier this month on The Tonight Show, Miley Cyrus told host Jimmy Fallon that she’d quit using marijuana because she had a dream “that I would die during my monologue on SNL for some reason, just get so stoned that I just died.”
The singer quickly added that she knows people don’t typically die from smoking weed. But she also had realistic concerns about her habit, too: She’d been spending too much time sitting at home eating and playing with her pets, Cyrus joked, “and not enough time actually doing really anything.” And while working on her new album, she wanted to make sure her mind was “super clear.”
Cyrus brings up good points about potential negative side effects of the drug. Yet—as medical and recreational marijuana use are becoming increasingly legal across the United States (and illegal use is on the rise too)—studies have shown pot can have benefits for health and well-being, as well.
So what, exactly, are the pros and cons of pot? Health looked at recent research and spoke with several experts about who might want to try it, who should avoid it, and what any marijuana user should know.
It may help with anxiety and PTSD
The relaxing effects of marijuana are well known, so it’s not surprising that a 2016 paper in the journal Clinical Psychology Review concluded that it may have benefits for people with depression, social anxiety, and post-traumatic stress disorder. A recent study published in Drug and Alcohol Dependence also found that a very low dose of THC, one of the main compounds in marijuana, helped people feel less nervous about a public-speaking task.
But it may not be that simple: That dose was equivalent to only a few puffs on a marijuana cigarette, say the study authors. They also found that slightly higher amounts of TCH—anything that would produce even a mild high—actually made anxiety worse. Other research has also suggested that marijuana may be more harmful than helpful for people with certain mental health conditions, like psychosis or bipolar disorder.
The research “indicates cannabinoids could be helpful for people with anxiety,” lead author Emma Childs, PhD, associate professor of psychiatry at the University of Illinois at Chicago, tells Health. But more research is needed, she says, to determine appropriate dosages and delivery methods, and to prevent the opposite effects from happening.
It can relieve chronic pain and nausea
Pain relief is a common use for medical marijuana, and this year the National Academies of Sciences concluded there is indeed good evidence to support this practice. Marijuana products also appear to be effective at calming muscle spasms caused by multiple sclerosis and easing nausea and vomiting due to chemotherapy, the report stated.
The National Academies also determined that there is moderate evidence that cannabis or cannabis-derived products may help people who have trouble sleeping due to sleep apnea, fibromyalgia, or chronic pain.
People with epilepsy may benefit—even kids
In a recent New England Journal of Medicine study, cannabidiol oil—a derivative of marijuana—reduced seizures by 39% in children with Dravet syndrome, a rare form of epilepsy. That was big news for parents who have been using medical marijuana for years, often illegally, to help their kids suffering from this debilitating condition.
The cannabidiol oil used in the study—which will be marketed as Epidiolex if it’s approved by the FDA—won’t make people high, because it doesn’t contain THC. Experts say that results may be riskier and more unpredictable with other marijuana products.
It may be a safer alternative to opioids
Despite Homeland Security Secretary John Kelly’s claim that marijuana is “a potentially dangerous gateway drug,” research suggests that the use of medical marijuana may actually reduce dependence on dangerous prescription painkillers like those fueling the nation’s opioid epidemic.
In a 2016 study in the journal Health Affairs, researchers found that there were 1,826 fewer daily doses of painkillers prescribed per year, on average, in states where medical marijuana was legal compared to states it’s not. And in a review article published this year in Trends in Neuroscience, researchers wrote that cannabinoids may help people recover from opioid addiction. Human trials have been limited because of marijuana’s classification as a Schedule 1 drug—but the authors argue that more studies are urgently needed.
It may have anti-cancer effects, but research is limited
Olivia Newton John uses cannabiodiol oil (along with conventional medicine) to fight her metastatic breast cancer, the actress’s daughter recently revealed. Studies have shown that the oil may inhibit the growth of cancer cells outside of the human body, but there haven’t been any real-life trials to back up these findings.
Last year, Gregory Gerdeman, PhD, assistant professor of biology at Eckerd College, told Time that there have also been anecdotal patient reports and “increasing numbers of legitimate clinical case studies … that all indicate tumor-fighting activities of cannabinoids.” It’s still unknown, however, whether traditional forms of marijuana would be an effective cancer therapy, or what cancer types it might actually work against.
Parents (and expectant parents) should know the risks
As pot use becomes more prevalent, more pregnant women are getting high, according to a 2016 JAMA study—either for recreational use or, sometimes, to treat morning sickness. But evidence suggests that prenatal exposure to marijuana is associated with developmental and health problems in children, including low birth weight, anemia, and impaired impulse control, memory, and attention, the authors wrote. Until more is known for sure, they say women who are pregnant or considering becoming pregnant should be “advised to avoid using marijuana or other cannabinoids.”
Current parents should also use marijuana with caution, University of Washington researchers suggest. Their recent study in Prevention Science found that people tend to cut back on marijuana use once they have kids, but they don’t always quit. That’s concerning, says lead author and research scientist Marina Epstien, PhD, because parental marijuana use is strongly related to children’s use—and children’s use is associated with higher rates of health problems.
“Children watch what their parents do,” Epstein tells Health. “I would encourage parents to be talking to their kids and be clear about expectations for their kids about using or not using marijuana and the amount, especially with their teenagers.”
Heart problems could make it extra risky
In 2014, a study in Forensic Science International documented what German researchers claimed to be the first known deaths directly attributed by intoxication from marijuana. The authors pointed out that, during autopsies, it was discovered that one of the two young men had a serious but undetected heart problem, and that the other had a history of drug and alcohol use.
The researchers concluded that the absolute risk of cannabis-related cardiovascular effects is low, especially for healthy people. But they say that people who are at high risk for heart-related complications should avoid the use of cannabis, since it can have temporary effects on the cardiovascular system.
It’s not safe to use marijuana and drive
A recent study by the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety found that insurance claim rates for motor vehicle accidents from 2012 to 2016 were about 3% higher in states with legalized marijuana than in states without. But other studies have found no such increase in fatal car crashes in states with legalized marijuana, compared to similar states without.
Experts say it’s possible that driving under the influence of marijuana may increase the risk of minor fender benders—but may also reduce rates of alcohol consumption and therefore help prevent more serious, deadly crashes. The bottom line? Driving while stoned may be less dangerous than driving drunk, but it’s still riskier than driving sober.
Weed smoke is still smoke—and still has health risks
The Canadian Research Initiative in Substance Misuse recently published a set of “lower-risk cannabis use guidelines,” aimed at helping people who use marijuana make responsible decisions about their health. (The drug is currently outlawed in Canada, but the country is moving toward legalization.) Among other advice, the guidelines urge people to “avoid smoking burnt cannabis,” which can harm the lungs and respiratory system—especially when combined with tobacco.
They recommend choosing vaporizers or edibles instead, but caution that these methods also come with some risks. And if you do smoke cannabis, the guidelines say, “avoid ‘deep inhalation’ or ‘breath-holding,’” which increase the amount of toxic materials absorbed by the body.
It’s not just lung-health that frequent weed smokers should worry about, either. A recent study in the Journal of Periodontology found that frequent marijuana users were twice as likely as people who didn’t use frequently to have gum disease, even after controlling for other factors such as cigarette smoke. The research didn’t distinguish between methods of marijuana use, but they do point out that smoking is the most common form of recreational use.
For recreational users, less is safer
Canada’s new low-risk guidelines may sum it up best with this statement: “To avoid all risks, do not use cannabis. If you decide to use, you could experience immediate, as well as long-term risks to your health and well-being.” The guidelines also recommend avoiding marijuana use during adolescence, because the later in life people start using the drug, the less likely they are to experience these problems.
Finally, the guidelines recommend adults choose natural cannabis over dangerous synthetic versions, and limit themselves to “occasional use, such as on weekends or one day a week at most.” As Miley pointed out herself, making marijuana a regular habit has been linked not just to health problems, but to social problems as well.
http://420intel.com/articles/2017/06/30 ... hings-know
Re: News in English 2017
Marijuana Could Help Treat Alzheimer's: Here's How It Would Work
You've probably heard this before.
As early as 2008, several reports, including one published in Molecular Pharmaceutics, began proposing various therapeutic pathways by which cannabinoids could treat Alzheimer’s Disease patients, but none were proven.
In 2014, a group of scientists made a breakthrough. The conclusions of their preclinical study were published in the Journal of Alzheimer’s Disease, under the title “The Potential Therapeutic Effects of THC on Alzheimer's Disease."
Put simply, "the paper argued that therapeutic, low [non-psychoactive] doses of THC (one of the main chemical compounds present in marijuana) could directly bind to a protein called amyloid-beta, preventing its aggregation and thereby slowing down the formation of amyloid-beta plaques around neurons," Dr. Chuanhai Cao, a professor of neurology and pharmacy at the University of South Florida Byrd Institute for Alzheimer’s and lead researcher on the publication, told Benzinga.
Cannabis executive and India Globalization Capital, Inc.(NYSE: IGC) CEO Ram Mukunda said, "In Alzheimer’s Disease, beta-amyloid aggregates into a plaque-like substance that builds around the neurons and disrupts communication between them. So of course, if low-doses of THC can break up those plaques and prevent them from forming in the first place, it's a huge breakthrough.”
Moving Forward
While the results of the aforementioned studies were promising, two issues remained. As one of the co-authors of the 2014 paper warned, “It's important to keep in mind that just because a drug may be effective, doesn’t mean it can be safely used by anyone.” The evidence was still regarded as “anecdotal” by the scientific community, and conducting more thorough research often proved highly challenging due to the illegality of cannabis around the world.
In the past few years, research around cannabis has grown. Diverse clinical trials have begun to show that the side effects of THC and other cannabis compounds are tolerable to most patients and diminish over time. There is trial data showing that, at proper doses, cannabinoids have positive side effects for Alzheimer’s patients, such as a reductions in delusions and mood disorders.
The breakthrough research on the effect of THC for Alzheimer’s patients' cognitive function has also been validated in at least two papers.
One paper, published by the Salk Institute in 2016, directly validated the University of South Florida’s finding that low doses of THC break up amyloid-beta plaques on neurons. Another paper, published this year in Nature, confirmed the therapeutic promise, showing that cognitive function was restored in old mice who were given low doses of THC.
Getting Funded
Not surprisingly, soon after discovering the pathway by which low-dose THC binds to amyloid beta plaques and prevents them from aggregating on neurons, the University of South Florida filed a patent for that mechanism with the title "THC as a Potential Therapeutic Agent for Alzheimer’s Disease."
After months of negotiations with the University of South Florida, India Globalization Capital bought the exclusive rights to the U.S. patent filing, thereby "protecting a potential cannabis-based blockbuster treatment for America’s most expensive disease."
"What IGC is going to do with this patent is take it to clinical trials," Mukunda said. "We have productized it, and there is more than sufficient evidence. So, now we are now talking to several different places to see where we can begin clinical testing on the path to FDA approval."
The company plans to test a few other endpoints for THC and Alzheimer's, setting itself up as the only player with a strategy to take a cannabis-based Alzheimer's drug to market. They're still in need of additional funding.
Other companies like GW Pharmaceuticals PLC- ADR (NASDAQ: GWPH), Zynerba Pharmaceuticals Inc (NASDAQ: ZYNE) and Insys Therapeutics Inc (NASDAQ: INSY) are working on the treatment of other ailments like epilepsy, glaucoma and tumor cells with marijuana.
"[W]e are the only ones working on Alzheimer's,” Mukunda said.
http://420intel.com/articles/2017/06/30 ... would-work
You've probably heard this before.
As early as 2008, several reports, including one published in Molecular Pharmaceutics, began proposing various therapeutic pathways by which cannabinoids could treat Alzheimer’s Disease patients, but none were proven.
In 2014, a group of scientists made a breakthrough. The conclusions of their preclinical study were published in the Journal of Alzheimer’s Disease, under the title “The Potential Therapeutic Effects of THC on Alzheimer's Disease."
Put simply, "the paper argued that therapeutic, low [non-psychoactive] doses of THC (one of the main chemical compounds present in marijuana) could directly bind to a protein called amyloid-beta, preventing its aggregation and thereby slowing down the formation of amyloid-beta plaques around neurons," Dr. Chuanhai Cao, a professor of neurology and pharmacy at the University of South Florida Byrd Institute for Alzheimer’s and lead researcher on the publication, told Benzinga.
Cannabis executive and India Globalization Capital, Inc.(NYSE: IGC) CEO Ram Mukunda said, "In Alzheimer’s Disease, beta-amyloid aggregates into a plaque-like substance that builds around the neurons and disrupts communication between them. So of course, if low-doses of THC can break up those plaques and prevent them from forming in the first place, it's a huge breakthrough.”
Moving Forward
While the results of the aforementioned studies were promising, two issues remained. As one of the co-authors of the 2014 paper warned, “It's important to keep in mind that just because a drug may be effective, doesn’t mean it can be safely used by anyone.” The evidence was still regarded as “anecdotal” by the scientific community, and conducting more thorough research often proved highly challenging due to the illegality of cannabis around the world.
In the past few years, research around cannabis has grown. Diverse clinical trials have begun to show that the side effects of THC and other cannabis compounds are tolerable to most patients and diminish over time. There is trial data showing that, at proper doses, cannabinoids have positive side effects for Alzheimer’s patients, such as a reductions in delusions and mood disorders.
The breakthrough research on the effect of THC for Alzheimer’s patients' cognitive function has also been validated in at least two papers.
One paper, published by the Salk Institute in 2016, directly validated the University of South Florida’s finding that low doses of THC break up amyloid-beta plaques on neurons. Another paper, published this year in Nature, confirmed the therapeutic promise, showing that cognitive function was restored in old mice who were given low doses of THC.
Getting Funded
Not surprisingly, soon after discovering the pathway by which low-dose THC binds to amyloid beta plaques and prevents them from aggregating on neurons, the University of South Florida filed a patent for that mechanism with the title "THC as a Potential Therapeutic Agent for Alzheimer’s Disease."
After months of negotiations with the University of South Florida, India Globalization Capital bought the exclusive rights to the U.S. patent filing, thereby "protecting a potential cannabis-based blockbuster treatment for America’s most expensive disease."
"What IGC is going to do with this patent is take it to clinical trials," Mukunda said. "We have productized it, and there is more than sufficient evidence. So, now we are now talking to several different places to see where we can begin clinical testing on the path to FDA approval."
The company plans to test a few other endpoints for THC and Alzheimer's, setting itself up as the only player with a strategy to take a cannabis-based Alzheimer's drug to market. They're still in need of additional funding.
Other companies like GW Pharmaceuticals PLC- ADR (NASDAQ: GWPH), Zynerba Pharmaceuticals Inc (NASDAQ: ZYNE) and Insys Therapeutics Inc (NASDAQ: INSY) are working on the treatment of other ailments like epilepsy, glaucoma and tumor cells with marijuana.
"[W]e are the only ones working on Alzheimer's,” Mukunda said.
http://420intel.com/articles/2017/06/30 ... would-work
Re: News in English 2017
Cannabis Could Be Better For Migraines Than Pharmaceuticals: Study
Cannabis could be even better at treating migraines than traditionally recommended medications, a new study has found.
Researchers from the Interuniversity Center in Florence, Italy found that pills containing both THC and CBD reduced migraine pain by 43.5 percent. Administration of the drug also led to numerous other benefits, including curbing stomach-aches and muscle pain.
Past studies have found that cannabis combats headaches by going after cells in the body that control pain relief and inflammation.
“This research suggests that compounds found in cannabis are as effective as amitriptyline, a traditional prescription medication used to treat acute painful headaches... This provides promise for people who experience adverse effects from prescription medication,” Ian Hamilton, a lecturer in mental health at the University of York, told MailOnline.
“The analgesic properties of cannabis have been known for some time so this research adds to existing evidence of the potential that cannabis compounds have in the treatment and management of common health problems.”
Researchers recruited 79 sufferers of migraines and cluster headaches for the study. Participants were given an oral dose of a drug containing both cannabis compounds every day for three months. Those with cluster headaches were given a daily 200mg dose of the THC-CBD combination drug or a 25mg dose of the pharmaceutical amitriptyline, while patients with migraines were given 200mg of THC-CBD to take when they experienced acute pain.
It was revealed that the THC-CBD drug was more effective than common medication at curbing the number and severity of cluster headache incidents. Cannabis treatments cut cluster headaches by 40.4 percent, while amitriptyline reduce them by 40.1 percent.
Cannabis was also more effective at treating acute pain caused by migraines, slashing the severity of the pain by 43.5 percent.
“We were able to demonstrate that cannabinoids are an alternative to established treatments in migraine prevention,” said lead researcher Dr. Maria Nicolodi.
“That said, they are only suited for use in the acute treatment of cluster headaches in patients with a history of migraine from childhood on.”
http://420intel.com/articles/2017/06/28 ... cals-study
Cannabis could be even better at treating migraines than traditionally recommended medications, a new study has found.
Researchers from the Interuniversity Center in Florence, Italy found that pills containing both THC and CBD reduced migraine pain by 43.5 percent. Administration of the drug also led to numerous other benefits, including curbing stomach-aches and muscle pain.
Past studies have found that cannabis combats headaches by going after cells in the body that control pain relief and inflammation.
“This research suggests that compounds found in cannabis are as effective as amitriptyline, a traditional prescription medication used to treat acute painful headaches... This provides promise for people who experience adverse effects from prescription medication,” Ian Hamilton, a lecturer in mental health at the University of York, told MailOnline.
“The analgesic properties of cannabis have been known for some time so this research adds to existing evidence of the potential that cannabis compounds have in the treatment and management of common health problems.”
Researchers recruited 79 sufferers of migraines and cluster headaches for the study. Participants were given an oral dose of a drug containing both cannabis compounds every day for three months. Those with cluster headaches were given a daily 200mg dose of the THC-CBD combination drug or a 25mg dose of the pharmaceutical amitriptyline, while patients with migraines were given 200mg of THC-CBD to take when they experienced acute pain.
It was revealed that the THC-CBD drug was more effective than common medication at curbing the number and severity of cluster headache incidents. Cannabis treatments cut cluster headaches by 40.4 percent, while amitriptyline reduce them by 40.1 percent.
Cannabis was also more effective at treating acute pain caused by migraines, slashing the severity of the pain by 43.5 percent.
“We were able to demonstrate that cannabinoids are an alternative to established treatments in migraine prevention,” said lead researcher Dr. Maria Nicolodi.
“That said, they are only suited for use in the acute treatment of cluster headaches in patients with a history of migraine from childhood on.”
http://420intel.com/articles/2017/06/28 ... cals-study
Re: News in English 2017
Canada's Health Agencies Seem To Think Pot's Riskier Than Booze
Treating cannabis as a dangerous and deviant, while treating alcohol as normal and beneficial, is just bad policy and bad advice.
Canada's health and addiction organizations have released new guidelines for cannabis users. Unfortunately their advice is biased against cannabis, and will promote heavier use of the more dangerous drug: alcohol.
Canada's Centre for Addiction and Mental Health recently joined the Centre on Substance Abuse and Addiction to release new "Lower-Risk Cannabis Use Guidelines," which claim to teach people how to use cannabis safely and responsibly. A few years back, they put out similar guidelines for alcohol use.
When we compare their cannabis guidelines with their alcohol guidelines, we see that these health organizations are strangely downplaying the risks of alcohol, while exaggerating the risks of cannabis. The result of this skewed information will be to encourage more people to use alcohol, instead of the safer alternative, cannabis.
Cannabis harms vs. alcohol harms
The cannabis recommendations begin with a lengthy list of all the harms they claim cannabis use can cause. They list off "cognitive, psychomotor and memory impairments; hallucinations and impaired perception; impaired driving and injuries (including fatalities); mental health problems (including psychosis); dependence; pulmonary/bronchial problems; and reproductive problems."
That sounds pretty serious! It seems exaggerated to me, but I guess it's better to err on the side of caution. Besides, I bet their alcohol guidelines really get into detail on all the health and social harms caused by drinking booze!
Umm, no. With alcohol, they just vaguely say "alcohol can harm the way the body and brain develop." And that's it! They don't get into any details about how alcohol use is tied to many kinds of cancer, mental health problems, psychosis, hallucinations, fetal alcohol disorders, liver damage, increased injuries, domestic violence, sexual assault, traffic fatalities, reproductive problems, and a host of other health and social risks.
On their cannabis pamphlet, the list of potential harms is repeated a few times. On the alcohol pamphlet, the risks get half a sentence, and that's it!
Abstinence vs. Regular Use
Let's move on to the actual recommendations. Surely they recognize that cannabis use is safer than alcohol? Sadly, it's quite the opposite.
Their first recommendation on cannabis use is "abstinence." They recommend just saying no and never using cannabis as the only way to protect yourself from any potential harms. According to these "health experts," even a small amount of cannabis is harmful, and should be avoided entirely.
But when it comes to booze, the word "abstain" is never used or even suggested! Sure, they recommend no drinking while pregnant or doing something complicated like driving, but otherwise they never even mention the idea of a booze-free lifestyle. They don't even recommend that minors should abstain from alcohol!
It's as if they think alcohol is an inevitable part of life, while cannabis is a dangerous drug to be avoided. That's just bad advice.
Is this really the message Canada's health agencies are trying to send?
Health benefits and medicine
The alcohol flyer even mentions that "drinking may provide health benefits for certain groups of people," something the cannabis flyer neglects to say.
Cannabis is a legally recognized medicine in Canada, currently being recommended by doctors for a wide range of therapeutic purposes. Yet the flyer makes no mention of any medicinal or health benefits of cannabis, saying only that "these recommendations are mainly aimed at non-medical cannabis use."
Why does the alcohol flyer explain that booze "may provide health benefits" but the cannabis flyer does not? Is this really the message Canada's health agencies are trying to send?
Alcohol's just fine for teens?
The second recommendation for safe cannabis use is abstinence, again! This time for minors and young adults. They explain how the brain is still developing during your early 20s, and say that it's best to "delay taking up cannabis use until later in life."
With alcohol, they give no such advice. With teens and booze, they don't recommend waiting until "later in life" at all! They just say that "teens should speak with their parents about drinking. If they choose to drink, they should do so under parental guidance; never more than 1-2 drinks at a time, and never more than 1-2 times per week." (They don't recommend that teens talk to their parents about their cannabis use, either. Apparently that discussion is only to be held about alcohol.)
Note that this drinking advice is specifically for underage teens. If you're in your "late teens to age 24" they just say you shouldn't exceed the daily and weekly limits.
To be clear, nowhere on the "Low Risk Alcohol Drinking Guidelines" pamphlet do these health agencies specifically recommend that minors abstain from alcohol. They offer no minimum age below which alcohol should not be consumed. Instead, Canada's health and drug agencies recommend that underage teens can drink booze a few times a week, and that adult teens can chug 15 drinks a week, and that's fine. But with cannabis, minors and young adults should always abstain, and there's no call for a family discussion?
Once again, this is just awful advice.
Another version of their alcohol guidelines does recommend that minors should delay drinking, but only until age 17! It says "If you are a child or youth, you should delay drinking until your late teens." Well the "late teens" begins at 17, so they're telling us that it's OK to have a few drinks a week when you're still in grade 11, but if you wait until a year after graduating from college to try a puff of cannabis, then you've still started up too soon? This is absurd advice to be giving.
Finally, with cannabis, they say that if you insist on using it, it's best to use cannabis only once a week. With alcohol, they say three drinks a day is fine, but suggest having "non-drinking days every week." So they're telling people that drinking alcohol five to six days a week is just fine, but using cannabis more than once a week is a serious problem? Once again, this is just awful advice.
Moderation is good, bad advice is dangerous
While encouraging moderation and responsible use towards cannabis is commendable, these guidelines are clearly biased towards alcohol, an approach which is not based in science or best practices.
Messaging around cannabis, alcohol and drug use can encourage abstinence and moderation, that's not a problem. But these guidelines also need to include a reality check, and acknowledge that if anyone is going to choose to use a psychoactive substance, cannabis is by far the safest and most responsible choice. Treating cannabis as a dangerous and deviant, while treating alcohol as normal and beneficial, is just bad policy and bad advice.
http://420intel.com/articles/2017/06/28 ... kier-booze
Treating cannabis as a dangerous and deviant, while treating alcohol as normal and beneficial, is just bad policy and bad advice.
Canada's health and addiction organizations have released new guidelines for cannabis users. Unfortunately their advice is biased against cannabis, and will promote heavier use of the more dangerous drug: alcohol.
Canada's Centre for Addiction and Mental Health recently joined the Centre on Substance Abuse and Addiction to release new "Lower-Risk Cannabis Use Guidelines," which claim to teach people how to use cannabis safely and responsibly. A few years back, they put out similar guidelines for alcohol use.
When we compare their cannabis guidelines with their alcohol guidelines, we see that these health organizations are strangely downplaying the risks of alcohol, while exaggerating the risks of cannabis. The result of this skewed information will be to encourage more people to use alcohol, instead of the safer alternative, cannabis.
Cannabis harms vs. alcohol harms
The cannabis recommendations begin with a lengthy list of all the harms they claim cannabis use can cause. They list off "cognitive, psychomotor and memory impairments; hallucinations and impaired perception; impaired driving and injuries (including fatalities); mental health problems (including psychosis); dependence; pulmonary/bronchial problems; and reproductive problems."
That sounds pretty serious! It seems exaggerated to me, but I guess it's better to err on the side of caution. Besides, I bet their alcohol guidelines really get into detail on all the health and social harms caused by drinking booze!
Umm, no. With alcohol, they just vaguely say "alcohol can harm the way the body and brain develop." And that's it! They don't get into any details about how alcohol use is tied to many kinds of cancer, mental health problems, psychosis, hallucinations, fetal alcohol disorders, liver damage, increased injuries, domestic violence, sexual assault, traffic fatalities, reproductive problems, and a host of other health and social risks.
On their cannabis pamphlet, the list of potential harms is repeated a few times. On the alcohol pamphlet, the risks get half a sentence, and that's it!
Abstinence vs. Regular Use
Let's move on to the actual recommendations. Surely they recognize that cannabis use is safer than alcohol? Sadly, it's quite the opposite.
Their first recommendation on cannabis use is "abstinence." They recommend just saying no and never using cannabis as the only way to protect yourself from any potential harms. According to these "health experts," even a small amount of cannabis is harmful, and should be avoided entirely.
But when it comes to booze, the word "abstain" is never used or even suggested! Sure, they recommend no drinking while pregnant or doing something complicated like driving, but otherwise they never even mention the idea of a booze-free lifestyle. They don't even recommend that minors should abstain from alcohol!
It's as if they think alcohol is an inevitable part of life, while cannabis is a dangerous drug to be avoided. That's just bad advice.
Is this really the message Canada's health agencies are trying to send?
Health benefits and medicine
The alcohol flyer even mentions that "drinking may provide health benefits for certain groups of people," something the cannabis flyer neglects to say.
Cannabis is a legally recognized medicine in Canada, currently being recommended by doctors for a wide range of therapeutic purposes. Yet the flyer makes no mention of any medicinal or health benefits of cannabis, saying only that "these recommendations are mainly aimed at non-medical cannabis use."
Why does the alcohol flyer explain that booze "may provide health benefits" but the cannabis flyer does not? Is this really the message Canada's health agencies are trying to send?
Alcohol's just fine for teens?
The second recommendation for safe cannabis use is abstinence, again! This time for minors and young adults. They explain how the brain is still developing during your early 20s, and say that it's best to "delay taking up cannabis use until later in life."
With alcohol, they give no such advice. With teens and booze, they don't recommend waiting until "later in life" at all! They just say that "teens should speak with their parents about drinking. If they choose to drink, they should do so under parental guidance; never more than 1-2 drinks at a time, and never more than 1-2 times per week." (They don't recommend that teens talk to their parents about their cannabis use, either. Apparently that discussion is only to be held about alcohol.)
Note that this drinking advice is specifically for underage teens. If you're in your "late teens to age 24" they just say you shouldn't exceed the daily and weekly limits.
To be clear, nowhere on the "Low Risk Alcohol Drinking Guidelines" pamphlet do these health agencies specifically recommend that minors abstain from alcohol. They offer no minimum age below which alcohol should not be consumed. Instead, Canada's health and drug agencies recommend that underage teens can drink booze a few times a week, and that adult teens can chug 15 drinks a week, and that's fine. But with cannabis, minors and young adults should always abstain, and there's no call for a family discussion?
Once again, this is just awful advice.
Another version of their alcohol guidelines does recommend that minors should delay drinking, but only until age 17! It says "If you are a child or youth, you should delay drinking until your late teens." Well the "late teens" begins at 17, so they're telling us that it's OK to have a few drinks a week when you're still in grade 11, but if you wait until a year after graduating from college to try a puff of cannabis, then you've still started up too soon? This is absurd advice to be giving.
Finally, with cannabis, they say that if you insist on using it, it's best to use cannabis only once a week. With alcohol, they say three drinks a day is fine, but suggest having "non-drinking days every week." So they're telling people that drinking alcohol five to six days a week is just fine, but using cannabis more than once a week is a serious problem? Once again, this is just awful advice.
Moderation is good, bad advice is dangerous
While encouraging moderation and responsible use towards cannabis is commendable, these guidelines are clearly biased towards alcohol, an approach which is not based in science or best practices.
Messaging around cannabis, alcohol and drug use can encourage abstinence and moderation, that's not a problem. But these guidelines also need to include a reality check, and acknowledge that if anyone is going to choose to use a psychoactive substance, cannabis is by far the safest and most responsible choice. Treating cannabis as a dangerous and deviant, while treating alcohol as normal and beneficial, is just bad policy and bad advice.
http://420intel.com/articles/2017/06/28 ... kier-booze
Re: News in English 2017
Is Italy The Next Frontier For Legal Cannabis?
One of the most interesting, relevant and perhaps shocking places to study cannabis is Italy. Mostly known for other crops like tomato and olive, Italy was actually one of the world’s top cannabis producers in the first half of the 1900’s. Cannabis has served many roles through Italy’s recent history: as a centerpiece of a thriving industry, as an illegally trafficked narcotic, and as a consumable product used both medically and recreationally. Cannabis was widely grown as an industrial crop used in everything from ropes and rigging, to sails for ships, clothing, bedding, and other commercial applications. It was also grown to be consumed recreationally and had thriving domestic and international industries that contributed to trade. North African, Mediterranean, Eastern European, and Western European countries all took part in Italy’s cannabis trade.
The last half of the 20th century saw the growth of synthetic materials that undercut the industrial hemp industry and a wrath of prohibitionist legislation that prevented consumers from the access to recreational cannabis they were used to. As Italy moved into the 21st century a series of new legislative measures from the Italian government over the years have created conflicting approaches that often alternated between heavy and light enforcement. And often with conflicting results.
Twenty-three percent of teenagers between fifteen and 19 admitted to using cannabis, according to Italy’s Department of Antidrug Policies. Police admit to only seizing a fraction of what’s traded illegally. The rest enriches organized crime families, which see an estimated 70 percent of their profits come from drug trafficking. A repercussion of Italy’s geographic location combined with a poorly structured legal cannabis market.
Yet, a legal industry does persist. A shining example can be found in fields near Castiglione d'Otranto, in Apulia. There, young farmers say they prefer to live off their land by growing cannabis rather than seeking higher-paying jobs in cities. The farmers here supply medical marijuana to patients using marijuana to cure their illnesses. As the cannabis culture has shifted globally to a more accepting environment, so to do local associations here advocate for less regulations. Their goal is two-fold. Less regulations would allow cannabis prices to fall, which would not only benefit consumers of medical marijuana, but would also compete with the black market pricing – hurting cartels and mafia families in the process.
“In Italy, while it’s legal to buy marijuana in drugstores with a prescription, too much regulation often leads to spiking prices, and many see the black market or simply growing it themselves as more affordable. Andrea Trisciuoglio, a 38-year-old with multiple sclerosis, had tried different treatments for years; but since he started using marijuana 10 years ago, he’s been able to walk again. Alberico Nobile, 36, affected by quadriplegia since age 15, needs marijuana every other hour. Trisciouglio started an advocacy group LapianTiamo to push for easier access for private medical use and to publicly correct misconceptions of the drug” claims an excerpt from National Geographic.
Despite the spirited and somewhat rebellious farmers of Apulia, most of Italy’s medical marijuana is imported from The Netherlands. It is available from authorized pharmacies for patients holding valid prescriptions. This import model, combined with internal regulations, creates prices of 38 euros per gram – which is almost ten times as much as marijuana bought illegally on the street.
To provide a little more insight into the type of confusion the government helps create, let’s digest just the recent history of Italy’s possession laws. Currently, Cannabis is decriminalized for personal use, so getting caught with a small amount leads to a fine or citation. In 1990, the Iervolino-Vassalli law defined non-criminal penalities for ‘soft’ drugs including cannabis, mirroring todays laws. Then in 1993, the Italian public voted by referendum for the decriminalization of personal possession of all drugs, further softening Italy’s possession laws..
In 2006, the passing of the Fini-Giovanardi law by Berlusconi’s government saw the distinction between hard and soft drugs abandoned (a direction that was clearly against the will of the majority of the public), and the penalties for soft drugs including cannabis increased in line with those for hard drugs such as heroin and cocaine. In 2014, the Constitutional Court found that the Fini-Giovanardi law was unconstitutional, and the law reverted back to the older Iervolino-Vassalli legislation.
Still, recent times have seen a change in the wind for cannabis. A wind that may carry Italy past its ebb-and-flow past into being the first European nation to completely legalize marijuana. In July 2015, 218 Italian lawmakers from several political parties, both right- and left-leaning, signed a bill calling for full legalization of cannabis, allowing for recreational use, retail sales, possession of up to fifteen grams, establishment of social clubs, and cultivation in personal quantities. The bill is arguably the most progressive in the history of Italian drug legislation, and if passed, it would make Italy the second nation after Uruguay to legalize cannabis on a national level in the world.
http://420intel.com/articles/2017/06/27 ... l-cannabis
One of the most interesting, relevant and perhaps shocking places to study cannabis is Italy. Mostly known for other crops like tomato and olive, Italy was actually one of the world’s top cannabis producers in the first half of the 1900’s. Cannabis has served many roles through Italy’s recent history: as a centerpiece of a thriving industry, as an illegally trafficked narcotic, and as a consumable product used both medically and recreationally. Cannabis was widely grown as an industrial crop used in everything from ropes and rigging, to sails for ships, clothing, bedding, and other commercial applications. It was also grown to be consumed recreationally and had thriving domestic and international industries that contributed to trade. North African, Mediterranean, Eastern European, and Western European countries all took part in Italy’s cannabis trade.
The last half of the 20th century saw the growth of synthetic materials that undercut the industrial hemp industry and a wrath of prohibitionist legislation that prevented consumers from the access to recreational cannabis they were used to. As Italy moved into the 21st century a series of new legislative measures from the Italian government over the years have created conflicting approaches that often alternated between heavy and light enforcement. And often with conflicting results.
Twenty-three percent of teenagers between fifteen and 19 admitted to using cannabis, according to Italy’s Department of Antidrug Policies. Police admit to only seizing a fraction of what’s traded illegally. The rest enriches organized crime families, which see an estimated 70 percent of their profits come from drug trafficking. A repercussion of Italy’s geographic location combined with a poorly structured legal cannabis market.
Yet, a legal industry does persist. A shining example can be found in fields near Castiglione d'Otranto, in Apulia. There, young farmers say they prefer to live off their land by growing cannabis rather than seeking higher-paying jobs in cities. The farmers here supply medical marijuana to patients using marijuana to cure their illnesses. As the cannabis culture has shifted globally to a more accepting environment, so to do local associations here advocate for less regulations. Their goal is two-fold. Less regulations would allow cannabis prices to fall, which would not only benefit consumers of medical marijuana, but would also compete with the black market pricing – hurting cartels and mafia families in the process.
“In Italy, while it’s legal to buy marijuana in drugstores with a prescription, too much regulation often leads to spiking prices, and many see the black market or simply growing it themselves as more affordable. Andrea Trisciuoglio, a 38-year-old with multiple sclerosis, had tried different treatments for years; but since he started using marijuana 10 years ago, he’s been able to walk again. Alberico Nobile, 36, affected by quadriplegia since age 15, needs marijuana every other hour. Trisciouglio started an advocacy group LapianTiamo to push for easier access for private medical use and to publicly correct misconceptions of the drug” claims an excerpt from National Geographic.
Despite the spirited and somewhat rebellious farmers of Apulia, most of Italy’s medical marijuana is imported from The Netherlands. It is available from authorized pharmacies for patients holding valid prescriptions. This import model, combined with internal regulations, creates prices of 38 euros per gram – which is almost ten times as much as marijuana bought illegally on the street.
To provide a little more insight into the type of confusion the government helps create, let’s digest just the recent history of Italy’s possession laws. Currently, Cannabis is decriminalized for personal use, so getting caught with a small amount leads to a fine or citation. In 1990, the Iervolino-Vassalli law defined non-criminal penalities for ‘soft’ drugs including cannabis, mirroring todays laws. Then in 1993, the Italian public voted by referendum for the decriminalization of personal possession of all drugs, further softening Italy’s possession laws..
In 2006, the passing of the Fini-Giovanardi law by Berlusconi’s government saw the distinction between hard and soft drugs abandoned (a direction that was clearly against the will of the majority of the public), and the penalties for soft drugs including cannabis increased in line with those for hard drugs such as heroin and cocaine. In 2014, the Constitutional Court found that the Fini-Giovanardi law was unconstitutional, and the law reverted back to the older Iervolino-Vassalli legislation.
Still, recent times have seen a change in the wind for cannabis. A wind that may carry Italy past its ebb-and-flow past into being the first European nation to completely legalize marijuana. In July 2015, 218 Italian lawmakers from several political parties, both right- and left-leaning, signed a bill calling for full legalization of cannabis, allowing for recreational use, retail sales, possession of up to fifteen grams, establishment of social clubs, and cultivation in personal quantities. The bill is arguably the most progressive in the history of Italian drug legislation, and if passed, it would make Italy the second nation after Uruguay to legalize cannabis on a national level in the world.
http://420intel.com/articles/2017/06/27 ... l-cannabis
Re: News in English 2017
ADHS: More women using medical marijuana to treat pain
The number of women using medical marijuana to treat their pain is up drastically over the past five years, according to the Arizona Department of Health Services.
The report says 25 percent of women in 2012 used medical marijuana compared to more than 37 percent as of May of this year.
Wendy Cardona, a stay at home mom of two is looking to treat her chronic pain.
"With the pain that I have, it's hard for me to play with them. I have to pause on them which they don't understand," Cardona said.
She's tried other medications, both over the counter and prescription, but so far nothing has helped. That's why she decided to try medical marijuana.
"So many patients are prescribed opioids and we all know that's a dangerous situation, huge harm potential," Dr. Elaine Burns said.
Dr. Burns, the Director of the Southwest Medical Evaluation Center, says many people have a hard time getting over the stigma of using marijuana to treat medical ailments, especially women.
"People have a hard time jumping over the blurred line and looking at the medical and really looking at it through a filter or medical stand point, a therapeutic standpoint," Dr. Burns said.
But now, more and more women are using medical marijuana to treat their issues.
http://420intel.com/articles/2017/06/26 ... treat-pain
The number of women using medical marijuana to treat their pain is up drastically over the past five years, according to the Arizona Department of Health Services.
The report says 25 percent of women in 2012 used medical marijuana compared to more than 37 percent as of May of this year.
Wendy Cardona, a stay at home mom of two is looking to treat her chronic pain.
"With the pain that I have, it's hard for me to play with them. I have to pause on them which they don't understand," Cardona said.
She's tried other medications, both over the counter and prescription, but so far nothing has helped. That's why she decided to try medical marijuana.
"So many patients are prescribed opioids and we all know that's a dangerous situation, huge harm potential," Dr. Elaine Burns said.
Dr. Burns, the Director of the Southwest Medical Evaluation Center, says many people have a hard time getting over the stigma of using marijuana to treat medical ailments, especially women.
"People have a hard time jumping over the blurred line and looking at the medical and really looking at it through a filter or medical stand point, a therapeutic standpoint," Dr. Burns said.
But now, more and more women are using medical marijuana to treat their issues.
http://420intel.com/articles/2017/06/26 ... treat-pain
Re: News in English 2017
Cannabis Oil cures 3-year-old boy of cancer after doctors gave him 48 hours to live
A young boy by the name of Landon Riddle was diagnosed with Leukemia back in 2012 at just two years old. He was given just a ten percent chance of even making it through the night, but he did.
Landon underwent chemotherapy as most people do and while he lived, he suffered. He was not able to eat for weeks at a time and lost fifty percent of his weight, He was always in pain and his family knew something needed to be done, they just were not quite sure what that was yet.
Aftr looking into many different things his grandmother suggested that they look into cannabis oil treatment. They relocated to Colorado so that they were where the treatment was legal and within days Landon was improving. He was vomiting less and eating, finally. Landon’s mother faced a lot of trouble over this regarding CPS and virtually being forced into a wall on either following through with three years chemotherapy or losing custody of her son. For more on that please click here.
Landon and his mother had to go through a lot to get his treatments exactly how they needed to be, and even now face issues regarding the decision to remove or lower chemotherapy while he is in remission.
Thanks to cannabis oil this precious little boy is now seven years old and has been using cannabis oil since he was two. He was ‘cured’ at age three and has never looked back since. He and his mother are very strong and I believe they will get through anything is thrown their way. Landon is doing fantastic, to hear his mom speak about their story please take the time to watch the video below.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zcjr7c0D3lU
http://420intel.com/articles/2017/06/26 ... hours-live
A young boy by the name of Landon Riddle was diagnosed with Leukemia back in 2012 at just two years old. He was given just a ten percent chance of even making it through the night, but he did.
Landon underwent chemotherapy as most people do and while he lived, he suffered. He was not able to eat for weeks at a time and lost fifty percent of his weight, He was always in pain and his family knew something needed to be done, they just were not quite sure what that was yet.
Aftr looking into many different things his grandmother suggested that they look into cannabis oil treatment. They relocated to Colorado so that they were where the treatment was legal and within days Landon was improving. He was vomiting less and eating, finally. Landon’s mother faced a lot of trouble over this regarding CPS and virtually being forced into a wall on either following through with three years chemotherapy or losing custody of her son. For more on that please click here.
Landon and his mother had to go through a lot to get his treatments exactly how they needed to be, and even now face issues regarding the decision to remove or lower chemotherapy while he is in remission.
Thanks to cannabis oil this precious little boy is now seven years old and has been using cannabis oil since he was two. He was ‘cured’ at age three and has never looked back since. He and his mother are very strong and I believe they will get through anything is thrown their way. Landon is doing fantastic, to hear his mom speak about their story please take the time to watch the video below.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zcjr7c0D3lU
http://420intel.com/articles/2017/06/26 ... hours-live
Re: News in English 2017
Science: Regular consumption of marijuana keeps you fit
An apple a day keeps the doctor away. Here’s a new health-related adage to consider: Regular consumption of marijuana keeps you thin and active.
According to researchers at Oregon Health and Science University, people who use marijuana more than five times per month have a lower body mass index (BMI) than people who do not marijuana.
The researchers concluded:
“Heavy users of cannabis had a lower mean BMI compared to that of never users, with a mean BMI being 26.7 kg/m in heavy users and 28.4 kg/m in never users.”
The study also suggested that people who consume marijuana on a regular basis are more physically activity than those that use it sporadically or not at all.
Of course, this is not the first time scientific studies have reached this conclusion:
A study published last year in the Journal of Mental Health Policy and Economics suggests that regular consumers of cannabis have a lower BMI than those who do not use the drug.
A 2013 study published in the American Journal of Medicine found that cannabis consumers have 16 percent lower levels of fasting insulin and 17 percent lower insulin resistance levels than non-users. The research found “significant associations between marijuana use and smaller waist circumferences.”
And data published in British Medical Journal in 2012 reported that cannabis consumers had a lower prevalence of type 2 diabetes and a lower risk of contracting the disease than did those with no history of cannabis consumption.
In the 2016 study, lead author Isabelle C. Beulaygue from the University of Miami concluded:
“There is a popular belief that people who consume marijuana have the munchies, and so [THEY]are going to eat a lot and gain weight, and we found that it is not necessarily the case.”
Researchers have not identified the reason behind the findings. But some suggest that those who consume cannabis regularly may be able to more easily break down blood sugar, which may help prevent weight gain.
http://420intel.com/articles/2017/06/22 ... ps-you-fit
An apple a day keeps the doctor away. Here’s a new health-related adage to consider: Regular consumption of marijuana keeps you thin and active.
According to researchers at Oregon Health and Science University, people who use marijuana more than five times per month have a lower body mass index (BMI) than people who do not marijuana.
The researchers concluded:
“Heavy users of cannabis had a lower mean BMI compared to that of never users, with a mean BMI being 26.7 kg/m in heavy users and 28.4 kg/m in never users.”
The study also suggested that people who consume marijuana on a regular basis are more physically activity than those that use it sporadically or not at all.
Of course, this is not the first time scientific studies have reached this conclusion:
A study published last year in the Journal of Mental Health Policy and Economics suggests that regular consumers of cannabis have a lower BMI than those who do not use the drug.
A 2013 study published in the American Journal of Medicine found that cannabis consumers have 16 percent lower levels of fasting insulin and 17 percent lower insulin resistance levels than non-users. The research found “significant associations between marijuana use and smaller waist circumferences.”
And data published in British Medical Journal in 2012 reported that cannabis consumers had a lower prevalence of type 2 diabetes and a lower risk of contracting the disease than did those with no history of cannabis consumption.
In the 2016 study, lead author Isabelle C. Beulaygue from the University of Miami concluded:
“There is a popular belief that people who consume marijuana have the munchies, and so [THEY]are going to eat a lot and gain weight, and we found that it is not necessarily the case.”
Researchers have not identified the reason behind the findings. But some suggest that those who consume cannabis regularly may be able to more easily break down blood sugar, which may help prevent weight gain.
http://420intel.com/articles/2017/06/22 ... ps-you-fit
Re: News in English 2017
Could Cannabis Help People With Lung Diseases?
There is much talk in medical circles about the use of medical marijuana (or cannabis) for a variety of chronic illnesses, but could it also benefit those living with chronic lung disease?
Medical marijuana is currently legal in 23 states in the U.S., as well as Washington, D.C., but its use is a contentious issue with as many people for it as are against it.
How could medical marijuana help those living with chronic lung diseases? According to the Lung Institute, medical marijuana has been found useful in reducing inflammation, improving sleep, easing pain, supporting the immune system, and reducing phlegm. However, one of the big issues when it comes to using cannabis if you have a pulmonary disease, is smoking.
Smoking cannabis is harmful to those with lung diseases as there is generally no filter on the “joint” and people tend to inhale deeper, leaving the smoke in the lungs for much longer than cigarettes or other tobacco products. The American Thoracic Society strongly argues against the smoking of marijuana, citing that it can cause large air sacs (bullae) to form in the lungs which could pop and cause lung collapse, ironically this is more likely to happen to marijuana smokers who are younger rather than older (under 45).
However, there are alternatives to smoking. Many people who don’t already smoke but want to get the benefits of medical marijuana choose to either ingest the product through edible items (such as cookies or brownies) or vapor (where the cannabis is heated at a lower temperature than burning which releases the active ingredients into a steam or vapor which can then be inhaled).
Some people may find that medical marijuana offers temporary relief from some of the symptoms of lung disease, but as it also comes with the side effect of getting high, there is a legal, moral and safety dilemma for many.
http://420intel.com/articles/2017/06/21 ... g-diseases
There is much talk in medical circles about the use of medical marijuana (or cannabis) for a variety of chronic illnesses, but could it also benefit those living with chronic lung disease?
Medical marijuana is currently legal in 23 states in the U.S., as well as Washington, D.C., but its use is a contentious issue with as many people for it as are against it.
How could medical marijuana help those living with chronic lung diseases? According to the Lung Institute, medical marijuana has been found useful in reducing inflammation, improving sleep, easing pain, supporting the immune system, and reducing phlegm. However, one of the big issues when it comes to using cannabis if you have a pulmonary disease, is smoking.
Smoking cannabis is harmful to those with lung diseases as there is generally no filter on the “joint” and people tend to inhale deeper, leaving the smoke in the lungs for much longer than cigarettes or other tobacco products. The American Thoracic Society strongly argues against the smoking of marijuana, citing that it can cause large air sacs (bullae) to form in the lungs which could pop and cause lung collapse, ironically this is more likely to happen to marijuana smokers who are younger rather than older (under 45).
However, there are alternatives to smoking. Many people who don’t already smoke but want to get the benefits of medical marijuana choose to either ingest the product through edible items (such as cookies or brownies) or vapor (where the cannabis is heated at a lower temperature than burning which releases the active ingredients into a steam or vapor which can then be inhaled).
Some people may find that medical marijuana offers temporary relief from some of the symptoms of lung disease, but as it also comes with the side effect of getting high, there is a legal, moral and safety dilemma for many.
http://420intel.com/articles/2017/06/21 ... g-diseases
Re: News in English 2017
Would You Try A Marijuana Facial?
Being a pothead is so en vogue right now, probably because it also can be totally healthy. Healthy enough that there's a spa devoted to the plant. Thank god, because we were tired of trying to claim smoking weed is healthy if you use coconut water instead of regular old tap in our bongs (and we were never quite sure if that was actually healthy for you in the first place).
Nature's Root out in Denver, Colorado, is the world's first spa entirely devoted to dank. "Our intentions are set to create hemp-based therapeutic and beauty products that are consciously crafted for you and for the planet," their mission statement maintains. "Hemp can heal the world, and we intend to help people rediscover that restorative power."
Their products are all hemp oil based because they believe hemp has healing properties. Hemp has high amounts of linoleic and linoleic acid which are in fact good for the skin. It fortifies your complexion with moisture and has antiaging benefits. It can even ameliorate psoriasis, injuries, acne, and skin lesions. The spa is vegan and eco-friendly too, so hippies are obviously welcome. They cultivate their weed on their own farms in Colorado to provide for the spa as well as create economic and agricultural growth for farmers and their families. Helping the environment, the economy, and our skin...sounds like a win-win-win, right?
Marijuana is the fasting growing industry on the planet right now that fosters economic and agricultural growth, so it's not surprising that there's a spa devoted to it. Like juicing marijuana, marijuana massages and facials won't get you high. But there's a ton of benefits that come along with these treatments, so it's not like we're put off by the fact that we're not going to be stoned while getting a facial. But if you wanted to get high while getting healthy, there are always these marijuana wellness retreats out in Cali!
http://420intel.com/articles/2017/06/20 ... ana-facial
Being a pothead is so en vogue right now, probably because it also can be totally healthy. Healthy enough that there's a spa devoted to the plant. Thank god, because we were tired of trying to claim smoking weed is healthy if you use coconut water instead of regular old tap in our bongs (and we were never quite sure if that was actually healthy for you in the first place).
Nature's Root out in Denver, Colorado, is the world's first spa entirely devoted to dank. "Our intentions are set to create hemp-based therapeutic and beauty products that are consciously crafted for you and for the planet," their mission statement maintains. "Hemp can heal the world, and we intend to help people rediscover that restorative power."
Their products are all hemp oil based because they believe hemp has healing properties. Hemp has high amounts of linoleic and linoleic acid which are in fact good for the skin. It fortifies your complexion with moisture and has antiaging benefits. It can even ameliorate psoriasis, injuries, acne, and skin lesions. The spa is vegan and eco-friendly too, so hippies are obviously welcome. They cultivate their weed on their own farms in Colorado to provide for the spa as well as create economic and agricultural growth for farmers and their families. Helping the environment, the economy, and our skin...sounds like a win-win-win, right?
Marijuana is the fasting growing industry on the planet right now that fosters economic and agricultural growth, so it's not surprising that there's a spa devoted to it. Like juicing marijuana, marijuana massages and facials won't get you high. But there's a ton of benefits that come along with these treatments, so it's not like we're put off by the fact that we're not going to be stoned while getting a facial. But if you wanted to get high while getting healthy, there are always these marijuana wellness retreats out in Cali!
http://420intel.com/articles/2017/06/20 ... ana-facial
Re: News in English 2017
Can marijuana cure cancer? This company seeks the answer
Is marijuana good medicine for those suffering from cancer? Definitely. Even the federal government agrees that “cannabinoids may have benefits in the treatment of cancer-related side effects.” Can marijuana cure cancer? That answer remains elusive, but there are no clinical studies demonstrating that marijuana will remove cancerous tumors from the body.
CURE Pharmaceutical, a California-based technology company, revealed last month that it will be conducting a groundbreaking clinical study to test whether cannabis can kill or reduce cancerous cells.
The company is partnering with Technion — Israel Institute of Technology, to research whether cannabinoid molecules will attack tumorous cancer cells.
According to Rob Davidson, CURE’s CEO, wants to get beyond treatment and see if there is actually a cure.
“There is strong anecdotal evidence, but we want to put some science into it. First, we’ll do an in vitro study and see the effects on cancer cells. We can get into human trials pretty quickly in Israel,” Davidson said.
About one in four Americans will be diagnosed with cancer sometime in their lives, according to the National Cancer Institute. Nearly every single American has a family member, close friend or coworker who has battled the disease. Last year, an estimated 1,685,210 new cases of cancer were diagnosed in the U.S. and nearly 600,000 died from the disease.
Research clearly demonstrates that cannabis is an excellent medicine for alleviating cancer symptoms, but the U.S. government still classifies the herb as a Schedule I drug — meaning it has a high potential for abuse and no known medical use. This oxymoronic stance stifles research on cannabis as a potential cure for cancer.
Despite the regulatory handcuffs the government places on research, there is anecdotal stories about patients who have eliminated cancer using high-THC cannabis oil. But reputable doctors will steer clear of the term “cure.”
A more accurate statement would be that it had clearly been demonstrated that cannabis has the potential to fight cancers and tumors.
“I think the day will come when it or some cannabinoid derivatives will be demonstrated to have cancer curative powers, but in the meantime, we must be very cautious about what we promise these patients,” said Dr. Lester Grinspoon, Associate Professor Emeritus of Psychiatry at Harvard Medical School and an authority on medicinal marijuana,
A number of small studies of smoked marijuana found that it can be helpful in treating nausea and vomiting from cancer chemotherapy. (UrosPoteko/Getty Images/iStockphoto)
This is where CURE Pharmaceutical comes in. According to the company’s announcement:
CURE has developed a pharmaceutical cannabinoid division to research and develop clinically ready cannabinoid drug formulations and delivery systems for both human and/or animal patients and is developing a global footprint with partners in the U.S., Canada, Israel and Germany, among other markets. The Company has taken a leadership role in optimizing plant base cannabinoids by vertically integrating drug discovery, proprietary extraction technology, genetic-specific cannabinoids research, and drug development.
“We are well-positioned in the pharmaceutical cannabis sector and excited to work within an industry with such a promising future,” said Rob Davidson, CEO of CURE. “Our goal is to bring new cannabinoid molecules to the market through the FDA regulatory process, while utilizing our company’s proprietary delivery technologies to increase efficacy, as well as target unmet needs in traditional pharmaceutical markets that could be disrupted by cannabinoid-based options.”
According To The American Cancer Society:
A number of small studies of smoked marijuana found that it can be helpful in treating nausea and vomiting from cancer chemotherapy.
A few studies have found that inhaled (smoked or vaporized) marijuana can be helpful treatment of neuropathic pain (pain caused by damaged nerves).
Smoked marijuana has also helped improve food intake in HIV patients in studies.
Studies have long shown that people who took marijuana extracts in clinical trials tended to need less pain medicine.
More recently, scientists reported that THC and other cannabinoids such as CBD slow growth and/or cause death in certain types of cancer cells growing in lab dishes. Some animal studies also suggest certain cannabinoids may slow growth and reduce spread of some forms of cancer.
There have been some early clinical trials of cannabinoids in treating cancer in humans and more studies are planned. While the studies so far have shown that cannabinoids can be safe in treating cancer, they do not show that they help control or cure the disease.
http://420intel.com/articles/2017/06/16 ... eks-answer
Is marijuana good medicine for those suffering from cancer? Definitely. Even the federal government agrees that “cannabinoids may have benefits in the treatment of cancer-related side effects.” Can marijuana cure cancer? That answer remains elusive, but there are no clinical studies demonstrating that marijuana will remove cancerous tumors from the body.
CURE Pharmaceutical, a California-based technology company, revealed last month that it will be conducting a groundbreaking clinical study to test whether cannabis can kill or reduce cancerous cells.
The company is partnering with Technion — Israel Institute of Technology, to research whether cannabinoid molecules will attack tumorous cancer cells.
According to Rob Davidson, CURE’s CEO, wants to get beyond treatment and see if there is actually a cure.
“There is strong anecdotal evidence, but we want to put some science into it. First, we’ll do an in vitro study and see the effects on cancer cells. We can get into human trials pretty quickly in Israel,” Davidson said.
About one in four Americans will be diagnosed with cancer sometime in their lives, according to the National Cancer Institute. Nearly every single American has a family member, close friend or coworker who has battled the disease. Last year, an estimated 1,685,210 new cases of cancer were diagnosed in the U.S. and nearly 600,000 died from the disease.
Research clearly demonstrates that cannabis is an excellent medicine for alleviating cancer symptoms, but the U.S. government still classifies the herb as a Schedule I drug — meaning it has a high potential for abuse and no known medical use. This oxymoronic stance stifles research on cannabis as a potential cure for cancer.
Despite the regulatory handcuffs the government places on research, there is anecdotal stories about patients who have eliminated cancer using high-THC cannabis oil. But reputable doctors will steer clear of the term “cure.”
A more accurate statement would be that it had clearly been demonstrated that cannabis has the potential to fight cancers and tumors.
“I think the day will come when it or some cannabinoid derivatives will be demonstrated to have cancer curative powers, but in the meantime, we must be very cautious about what we promise these patients,” said Dr. Lester Grinspoon, Associate Professor Emeritus of Psychiatry at Harvard Medical School and an authority on medicinal marijuana,
A number of small studies of smoked marijuana found that it can be helpful in treating nausea and vomiting from cancer chemotherapy. (UrosPoteko/Getty Images/iStockphoto)
This is where CURE Pharmaceutical comes in. According to the company’s announcement:
CURE has developed a pharmaceutical cannabinoid division to research and develop clinically ready cannabinoid drug formulations and delivery systems for both human and/or animal patients and is developing a global footprint with partners in the U.S., Canada, Israel and Germany, among other markets. The Company has taken a leadership role in optimizing plant base cannabinoids by vertically integrating drug discovery, proprietary extraction technology, genetic-specific cannabinoids research, and drug development.
“We are well-positioned in the pharmaceutical cannabis sector and excited to work within an industry with such a promising future,” said Rob Davidson, CEO of CURE. “Our goal is to bring new cannabinoid molecules to the market through the FDA regulatory process, while utilizing our company’s proprietary delivery technologies to increase efficacy, as well as target unmet needs in traditional pharmaceutical markets that could be disrupted by cannabinoid-based options.”
According To The American Cancer Society:
A number of small studies of smoked marijuana found that it can be helpful in treating nausea and vomiting from cancer chemotherapy.
A few studies have found that inhaled (smoked or vaporized) marijuana can be helpful treatment of neuropathic pain (pain caused by damaged nerves).
Smoked marijuana has also helped improve food intake in HIV patients in studies.
Studies have long shown that people who took marijuana extracts in clinical trials tended to need less pain medicine.
More recently, scientists reported that THC and other cannabinoids such as CBD slow growth and/or cause death in certain types of cancer cells growing in lab dishes. Some animal studies also suggest certain cannabinoids may slow growth and reduce spread of some forms of cancer.
There have been some early clinical trials of cannabinoids in treating cancer in humans and more studies are planned. While the studies so far have shown that cannabinoids can be safe in treating cancer, they do not show that they help control or cure the disease.
http://420intel.com/articles/2017/06/16 ... eks-answer
Re: News in English 2017
Is Smoking Marijuana the Key to Happiness?
Cannabis consumers make more money, spend more time outdoors, volunteer more and are generally more happy about life, according to a study released Thursday. Is smoking marijuana the key to happiness?
According to BDS Analytics, the “well-adjusted lifestyles seen among cannabis consumers serve as a common theme in the findings in the series of reports called ‘Public Attitudes and Actions Towards Legal Cannabis.’ "The data firm conducted the study in California and Colorado. Research is underway in Oregon and Washington.
“Cannabis Consumers Are Happier Campers” was the first installment of BDS Analytics’ Cannabis Wellness Trends, which examines different aspects of public attitudes and actions toward legal cannabis and the market for legal cannabis. The online survey tallied the results of 2,000 adults in the two states with a quota of 1,200 respondents acknowledging marijuana use in the past six months.
“Every time we embark on a study of wellness or health, we have preconceived ideas on what we will find,” Linda Gilbert, managing director of the BDS Consumer Research Division, told The Fresh Toast. “But I was quite surprised by these results. Especially in how the substance is actually used.”
When compared both to people who do not currently use marijuana but are not opposed to using it, and those who are opposed to marijuana, cannabis consumers tend to rank higher on a range of indicators related to personal and social satisfaction.
According to Gilbert’s analysis of the study, most consumption is not social. “The majority of the respondents say they use cannabis for physical, mental and/or emotional wellness. It’s not a group of people getting together and getting high,” she said. “I suspect that will change as legalization becomes more and more prevalent and accepted.”
Gilbert, who has spent 30 years researching health, wellness and nutrition issues, also highlighted the findings that more women are using cannabis than she anticipated.
“In general, women are the gatekeepers of health in most households. And this study suggests that women are embracing cannabis for self-care. Instead of Advil or Aleve, women are turning to cannabis for menstrual cramps,” said Gilbert.
Gilbert suggests that “the cannabis consumer cohort should be of interest to many marketers targeting healthy lifestyle consumers, whether food and beverages, exercise and recreation, community service and more.”
The survey also sheds some light on how legalization has altered usage. Form factors such as topicals, beverages, edibles and vaporization are becoming more popular, especially among women.
“All these new forms have drastically changed the landscape,” Gilbert said. “Cannabis consumers want to live a healthy lifestyle. For some, smoking it is a barrier. It’s just not the stereotypical twentysomething toking up in the basement. Today’s marijuana consumer prefers organic produce, sustainable packaging, and, in general, a more mindful lifestyle.”
http://420intel.com/articles/2017/06/14 ... -happiness
Cannabis consumers make more money, spend more time outdoors, volunteer more and are generally more happy about life, according to a study released Thursday. Is smoking marijuana the key to happiness?
According to BDS Analytics, the “well-adjusted lifestyles seen among cannabis consumers serve as a common theme in the findings in the series of reports called ‘Public Attitudes and Actions Towards Legal Cannabis.’ "The data firm conducted the study in California and Colorado. Research is underway in Oregon and Washington.
“Cannabis Consumers Are Happier Campers” was the first installment of BDS Analytics’ Cannabis Wellness Trends, which examines different aspects of public attitudes and actions toward legal cannabis and the market for legal cannabis. The online survey tallied the results of 2,000 adults in the two states with a quota of 1,200 respondents acknowledging marijuana use in the past six months.
“Every time we embark on a study of wellness or health, we have preconceived ideas on what we will find,” Linda Gilbert, managing director of the BDS Consumer Research Division, told The Fresh Toast. “But I was quite surprised by these results. Especially in how the substance is actually used.”
When compared both to people who do not currently use marijuana but are not opposed to using it, and those who are opposed to marijuana, cannabis consumers tend to rank higher on a range of indicators related to personal and social satisfaction.
According to Gilbert’s analysis of the study, most consumption is not social. “The majority of the respondents say they use cannabis for physical, mental and/or emotional wellness. It’s not a group of people getting together and getting high,” she said. “I suspect that will change as legalization becomes more and more prevalent and accepted.”
Gilbert, who has spent 30 years researching health, wellness and nutrition issues, also highlighted the findings that more women are using cannabis than she anticipated.
“In general, women are the gatekeepers of health in most households. And this study suggests that women are embracing cannabis for self-care. Instead of Advil or Aleve, women are turning to cannabis for menstrual cramps,” said Gilbert.
Gilbert suggests that “the cannabis consumer cohort should be of interest to many marketers targeting healthy lifestyle consumers, whether food and beverages, exercise and recreation, community service and more.”
The survey also sheds some light on how legalization has altered usage. Form factors such as topicals, beverages, edibles and vaporization are becoming more popular, especially among women.
“All these new forms have drastically changed the landscape,” Gilbert said. “Cannabis consumers want to live a healthy lifestyle. For some, smoking it is a barrier. It’s just not the stereotypical twentysomething toking up in the basement. Today’s marijuana consumer prefers organic produce, sustainable packaging, and, in general, a more mindful lifestyle.”
http://420intel.com/articles/2017/06/14 ... -happiness
Re: News in English 2017
Mothers in the Drugs Lab – Women in Peru Treating Their Sick Children with Cannabis
Peru’s president has proposed legalising medicinal marijuana after two women found that cannabis oil helped their seriously ill children.
dental technician and mother of four, Ana Alvarez lives in a flat in Lima that she has converted into a cannabis laboratory. It is, she says, for the love of her son that she has become one of Peru’s leading advocates for liberalising drug laws in the conservative country.
Her mission started out as a desperate search for something to alleviate her son Anthony’s multiple daily seizures. Alvarez ended up turning part of her home into an improvised lab and informal medical practice where patients can be prescribed marijuana derivatives as a palliative for terminal illness, cancer or multiple sclerosis.
Now 17, Anthony suffers from a rare and severe form of epilepsy called Lennox-Gastaut syndrome, as well as tuberous sclerosis, which causes tumours to grow on the brain and other organs.
Fitting up to eight times a day, Anthony last year suffered a psychotic episode that pushed Alvarez, 43, and her family to the brink of despair: a period in which she admitted to having had suicidal thoughts. The cocktail of 17 pharmaceutical drugs she was feeding her son every day seemed to have little or no effect. She was ready to try anything.
“After three days of taking marijuana oil, Anthony started to reconnect with life, he began to socialise, he began to sleep, he began to eat, and little by little he started to recover,” she says. “The change after three days was something extraordinary and from that moment my fight began.”
With another mother who has a similarly afflicted child, she formed Buscando Esperanza (Searching for Hope), which campaigns for medicinal marijuana. Meanwhile, she taught herself how to make cannabis oil using clinical alcohol and buying black market marijuana, which is illegal in Peru in quantities larger than 8g.
Dorothy Santiago, a 29-year-old naval officer, was her co-conspirator. Santiago’s five-year-old son, Rodrigo, has the same clinical condition as Anthony.
Santiago recalls the moment when she accidentally wiped a drop of her son’s medicine on to her face and felt a burning sensation. It jolted her into questioning the mixture of drugs that she dutifully administered to him on a daily basis.
“I said to myself, ‘This is what I have been giving to my son since he was three months old. It does nothing but harm him.’ That was when I decided to stop the conventional medicine and opt for a natural alternative,” she says.
“Rodrigo took cannabis oil and his seizures stopped for two days. He started to eat, he started to sleep. Because he never slept, we could not believe it!
“He began to connect with people. He had never been able to make visual contact with anyone except me,” she adds. “We know this is not a cure but it gives our children quality of life. We want it to be available to other children with the same condition.”
Membership of Buscando Esperanza has grown to more than 200, and many members are attended by Dr Juan Lock in the informal surgery next to Alvarez’s flat.
Using homemade cannabis oil preparations with varying degrees of active ingredients CBD (cannabidiol) or THC (tetrahydrocannabinol), Lock provides palliative care. “We are helping many people with conditions which conventional and pharmaceutical medication could not resolve,” he says, adding that most patients are elderly, with afflictions ranging from arthrosis to terminal cancer.
After a police raid on Alvarez’s flat in February, an outpouring of public sympathy for the women prompted Peru’s president, Pedro Pablo Kuczynski, to propose legalising medicinal marijuana for the “treatment of serious and terminal illnesses”, breaking step with long-standing bans on drug use in Latin America.
However, it is unclear whether the right-wing opposition-dominated Congress would pass a motion decriminalising possession of marijuana for medicinal purposes or allowing it to be imported and sold for medical reasons. An Ipsos poll earlier this year suggested 65% of Peruvians supported the legalisation.
Peru’s leading anti-drugs NGO, Cedro, would only support the use of cannabis oil for children if it contained virtually no THC, the principle mind-altering ingredient found in the plant, said the organisation’s scientific consultant, Dr Alfonso Zavaleta.
“This medication doesn’t yet exist anywhere in the world,” said Zavaleta. While he says that the cannabis oil “seemed to have a palliative effect, reducing the children’s convulsions”, like many scientists he remains concerned about the impact that THC could have on young and developing brains.
With fewer than 300 children in Peru with Anthony’s medical condition, the government could import the synthetic drug when it comes on the market without needing congressional approval, he says.
With three separate bills proposed in Peru on medicinal marijuana – with plans varying from importing synthetic marijuana-derived drugs to allowing cannabis clubs to produce their own – it could take years for them to be untangled from congressional committees before being debated and voted on in the chamber, Zavaleta estimated.
In the meantime, Alvarez continues to use the black market to provide the cannabis she needs to make the oil. The medicinal use is now legal in Colombia, Puerto Rico, Chile and Uruguay, where cannabis is permitted in all its forms.
“We do all this out of love for our children,” Alvarez says. “We are not criminals. We are mothers who are demanding our children’s right to wellbeing.”
http://420intel.com/articles/2017/06/13 ... n-cannabis
Peru’s president has proposed legalising medicinal marijuana after two women found that cannabis oil helped their seriously ill children.
dental technician and mother of four, Ana Alvarez lives in a flat in Lima that she has converted into a cannabis laboratory. It is, she says, for the love of her son that she has become one of Peru’s leading advocates for liberalising drug laws in the conservative country.
Her mission started out as a desperate search for something to alleviate her son Anthony’s multiple daily seizures. Alvarez ended up turning part of her home into an improvised lab and informal medical practice where patients can be prescribed marijuana derivatives as a palliative for terminal illness, cancer or multiple sclerosis.
Now 17, Anthony suffers from a rare and severe form of epilepsy called Lennox-Gastaut syndrome, as well as tuberous sclerosis, which causes tumours to grow on the brain and other organs.
Fitting up to eight times a day, Anthony last year suffered a psychotic episode that pushed Alvarez, 43, and her family to the brink of despair: a period in which she admitted to having had suicidal thoughts. The cocktail of 17 pharmaceutical drugs she was feeding her son every day seemed to have little or no effect. She was ready to try anything.
“After three days of taking marijuana oil, Anthony started to reconnect with life, he began to socialise, he began to sleep, he began to eat, and little by little he started to recover,” she says. “The change after three days was something extraordinary and from that moment my fight began.”
With another mother who has a similarly afflicted child, she formed Buscando Esperanza (Searching for Hope), which campaigns for medicinal marijuana. Meanwhile, she taught herself how to make cannabis oil using clinical alcohol and buying black market marijuana, which is illegal in Peru in quantities larger than 8g.
Dorothy Santiago, a 29-year-old naval officer, was her co-conspirator. Santiago’s five-year-old son, Rodrigo, has the same clinical condition as Anthony.
Santiago recalls the moment when she accidentally wiped a drop of her son’s medicine on to her face and felt a burning sensation. It jolted her into questioning the mixture of drugs that she dutifully administered to him on a daily basis.
“I said to myself, ‘This is what I have been giving to my son since he was three months old. It does nothing but harm him.’ That was when I decided to stop the conventional medicine and opt for a natural alternative,” she says.
“Rodrigo took cannabis oil and his seizures stopped for two days. He started to eat, he started to sleep. Because he never slept, we could not believe it!
“He began to connect with people. He had never been able to make visual contact with anyone except me,” she adds. “We know this is not a cure but it gives our children quality of life. We want it to be available to other children with the same condition.”
Membership of Buscando Esperanza has grown to more than 200, and many members are attended by Dr Juan Lock in the informal surgery next to Alvarez’s flat.
Using homemade cannabis oil preparations with varying degrees of active ingredients CBD (cannabidiol) or THC (tetrahydrocannabinol), Lock provides palliative care. “We are helping many people with conditions which conventional and pharmaceutical medication could not resolve,” he says, adding that most patients are elderly, with afflictions ranging from arthrosis to terminal cancer.
After a police raid on Alvarez’s flat in February, an outpouring of public sympathy for the women prompted Peru’s president, Pedro Pablo Kuczynski, to propose legalising medicinal marijuana for the “treatment of serious and terminal illnesses”, breaking step with long-standing bans on drug use in Latin America.
However, it is unclear whether the right-wing opposition-dominated Congress would pass a motion decriminalising possession of marijuana for medicinal purposes or allowing it to be imported and sold for medical reasons. An Ipsos poll earlier this year suggested 65% of Peruvians supported the legalisation.
Peru’s leading anti-drugs NGO, Cedro, would only support the use of cannabis oil for children if it contained virtually no THC, the principle mind-altering ingredient found in the plant, said the organisation’s scientific consultant, Dr Alfonso Zavaleta.
“This medication doesn’t yet exist anywhere in the world,” said Zavaleta. While he says that the cannabis oil “seemed to have a palliative effect, reducing the children’s convulsions”, like many scientists he remains concerned about the impact that THC could have on young and developing brains.
With fewer than 300 children in Peru with Anthony’s medical condition, the government could import the synthetic drug when it comes on the market without needing congressional approval, he says.
With three separate bills proposed in Peru on medicinal marijuana – with plans varying from importing synthetic marijuana-derived drugs to allowing cannabis clubs to produce their own – it could take years for them to be untangled from congressional committees before being debated and voted on in the chamber, Zavaleta estimated.
In the meantime, Alvarez continues to use the black market to provide the cannabis she needs to make the oil. The medicinal use is now legal in Colombia, Puerto Rico, Chile and Uruguay, where cannabis is permitted in all its forms.
“We do all this out of love for our children,” Alvarez says. “We are not criminals. We are mothers who are demanding our children’s right to wellbeing.”
http://420intel.com/articles/2017/06/13 ... n-cannabis
Re: News in English 2017
Cannabis Does Relieve Stress, but Only at Low Doses
One of the most common claims about cannabis is that it relieves stress and helps one to relax. A new study demonstrates that this may well be true, but only at lower doses. The results are published in Drug and Alcohol Dependence.
Laws on marijuana use for medicinal purposes have changed dramatically over recent years. However, because the drug is a highly regulated category 1 substance, it is difficult to obtain permits to study it.
A group of researchers from the University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC) and the University of Chicago, IL, leaped through the appropriate legislative loops to investigate the effects of tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) - which is the main active ingredient in cannabis - on stress.
They wanted to test the age-old adage that cannabis helps people to relax and can relieve stress. Although many people have heard these claims, there has been little scientific study on the matter.
As Emma Childs, associate professor of psychiatry at the UIC College of Medicine, says, "Very few published studies have looked into the effects of THC on stress, or at the effects of different levels of THC on stress."
Cannabis and stress relief
The team from Chicago set out to investigate cannabis' stress-relieving properties at different doses. In all, 42 healthy volunteers aged between 18 and 40 were studied. All had some experience of cannabis but were not daily users. They were split into three groups:
the low-dose group, who received a capsule containing 7.5 milligrams of THC
the moderate-dose group, who received a capsule containing 12.5 milligrams of THC
the placebo group, who received a capsule containing no THC
Although it is difficult to equate ingested cannabis to smoked cannabis, Prof. Childs says, "The doses used in the study produce effects that are equivalent to only a few puffs of a cannabis cigarette." She goes on to explain the dose choices, saying, "We didn't want to include a much larger dose because we wanted to avoid potential adverse effects or cardiovascular effects that can result from higher doses of THC."
Neither the participants nor the investigators knew what doses had been given to which individuals.
Each participant took part in two 4-hour sessions, which were 5 days apart. They took the capsule, then relaxed for 2 hours, allowing it to enter the bloodstream.
In the first session, the participants had to spend 10 minutes getting ready for a mock job interview. They then had a 5-minute interview with laboratory assistants, who did not offer positive verbal or body language feedback. Next, they were asked to carry out a challenging mathematical task for 5 minutes - a task that, according to Prof. Childs, is "very reliably stress-inducing."
During the participants' second visit to the laboratory, they were asked to talk about their favorite movie or book for 5 minutes, and then to play solitaire for a further 5 minutes.
At the start, during, and after both sets of tasks, participants were asked to rate their stress levels and feelings about the task. Also, throughout the tests, heart rate, blood pressure, and levels of cortisol (a key stress hormone) were measured.
THC and the stress response
As predicted, those who received the low dose of THC reported less stress after the psychosocial test than those given a placebo. Also, their stress levels dropped faster after the test.
However, those receiving the higher dose of THC reported a more negative mood before and during the task. Beforehand, they were more likely to rate the psychosocial task as "challenging" or "threatening."
Also, the moderate-dose group paused more during the mock interview than the placebo group did.
Across all three groups, there were no significant differences measured in blood pressure, cortisol levels, or heart rate before the task, during it, or afterward.
"Our findings provide some support for the common claim that cannabis is used to reduce stress and relieve tension and anxiety.
At the same time, our finding that participants in the higher THC group reported small but significant increases in anxiety and negative mood throughout the test supports the idea that THC can also produce the opposite effect."
Prof. Emma Childs
Although the study is on a relatively small scale, the findings are important because they begin to plug some gaps in our knowledge. Because of regulatory obstacles, investigating cannabis' effects is difficult. But, at the same time, medicinal cannabis use is rising, making research more vital than ever.
With this kind of study, we are always left with more questions than answers. Would the results have been the same if the study had recruited people who smoked cannabis regularly, or people who had never tried cannabis? How would a higher dosage of THC have affected the results? Does inhaling rather than ingesting it make a significant difference? It would also be interesting to know whether the same effect would be seen in other types of stressful task, such as driving a car.
As ever, more research will increase our understanding, as well as either confirm or reject these findings.
http://420intel.com/articles/2017/06/06 ... ow-doses-0
One of the most common claims about cannabis is that it relieves stress and helps one to relax. A new study demonstrates that this may well be true, but only at lower doses. The results are published in Drug and Alcohol Dependence.
Laws on marijuana use for medicinal purposes have changed dramatically over recent years. However, because the drug is a highly regulated category 1 substance, it is difficult to obtain permits to study it.
A group of researchers from the University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC) and the University of Chicago, IL, leaped through the appropriate legislative loops to investigate the effects of tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) - which is the main active ingredient in cannabis - on stress.
They wanted to test the age-old adage that cannabis helps people to relax and can relieve stress. Although many people have heard these claims, there has been little scientific study on the matter.
As Emma Childs, associate professor of psychiatry at the UIC College of Medicine, says, "Very few published studies have looked into the effects of THC on stress, or at the effects of different levels of THC on stress."
Cannabis and stress relief
The team from Chicago set out to investigate cannabis' stress-relieving properties at different doses. In all, 42 healthy volunteers aged between 18 and 40 were studied. All had some experience of cannabis but were not daily users. They were split into three groups:
the low-dose group, who received a capsule containing 7.5 milligrams of THC
the moderate-dose group, who received a capsule containing 12.5 milligrams of THC
the placebo group, who received a capsule containing no THC
Although it is difficult to equate ingested cannabis to smoked cannabis, Prof. Childs says, "The doses used in the study produce effects that are equivalent to only a few puffs of a cannabis cigarette." She goes on to explain the dose choices, saying, "We didn't want to include a much larger dose because we wanted to avoid potential adverse effects or cardiovascular effects that can result from higher doses of THC."
Neither the participants nor the investigators knew what doses had been given to which individuals.
Each participant took part in two 4-hour sessions, which were 5 days apart. They took the capsule, then relaxed for 2 hours, allowing it to enter the bloodstream.
In the first session, the participants had to spend 10 minutes getting ready for a mock job interview. They then had a 5-minute interview with laboratory assistants, who did not offer positive verbal or body language feedback. Next, they were asked to carry out a challenging mathematical task for 5 minutes - a task that, according to Prof. Childs, is "very reliably stress-inducing."
During the participants' second visit to the laboratory, they were asked to talk about their favorite movie or book for 5 minutes, and then to play solitaire for a further 5 minutes.
At the start, during, and after both sets of tasks, participants were asked to rate their stress levels and feelings about the task. Also, throughout the tests, heart rate, blood pressure, and levels of cortisol (a key stress hormone) were measured.
THC and the stress response
As predicted, those who received the low dose of THC reported less stress after the psychosocial test than those given a placebo. Also, their stress levels dropped faster after the test.
However, those receiving the higher dose of THC reported a more negative mood before and during the task. Beforehand, they were more likely to rate the psychosocial task as "challenging" or "threatening."
Also, the moderate-dose group paused more during the mock interview than the placebo group did.
Across all three groups, there were no significant differences measured in blood pressure, cortisol levels, or heart rate before the task, during it, or afterward.
"Our findings provide some support for the common claim that cannabis is used to reduce stress and relieve tension and anxiety.
At the same time, our finding that participants in the higher THC group reported small but significant increases in anxiety and negative mood throughout the test supports the idea that THC can also produce the opposite effect."
Prof. Emma Childs
Although the study is on a relatively small scale, the findings are important because they begin to plug some gaps in our knowledge. Because of regulatory obstacles, investigating cannabis' effects is difficult. But, at the same time, medicinal cannabis use is rising, making research more vital than ever.
With this kind of study, we are always left with more questions than answers. Would the results have been the same if the study had recruited people who smoked cannabis regularly, or people who had never tried cannabis? How would a higher dosage of THC have affected the results? Does inhaling rather than ingesting it make a significant difference? It would also be interesting to know whether the same effect would be seen in other types of stressful task, such as driving a car.
As ever, more research will increase our understanding, as well as either confirm or reject these findings.
http://420intel.com/articles/2017/06/06 ... ow-doses-0
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