”There are too many lives at stake, not to mention scientific integrity and a burgeoning field of medical discovery requiring much freer access to the marijuana plant.” From Huffington Post.
Following a 40-year argument regarding the placement of cannabis as a Schedule I drug; in January the U.S. Court of Appeals, ruled on a petition to reschedule cannabis in the case of AMERICANS FOR SAFE ACCESS (ASA) v. DRUG ENFORCEMENT ADMINISTRATION (DEA). The court ruled that the DEA had not acted arbitrarily and capriciously when it denied ASA’s petition filed nine years prior requesting to remove cannabis as a Schedule I. Schedule I drugs have “no currently accepted medical use in treatment in the United States” and “a lack of accepted safety for use under medical supervision” This classification ranks cannabis as a greater danger than cocaine, morphine or methamphetamine which are all listed as Schedule II drugs with accepted medical uses. The court’s ruling stated “research needed to move marijuana out of Schedule I does not exist.” We respectfully do not agree.
In a 2006 report from the US Dept. of Health and Human Services, the DEA stated that there are no “adequate and well-controlled studies” proving marijuana’s effectiveness. Even though they mentioned a variety of U.S.-based small-to-medium sized randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled studies of smoked cannabis for severe pain, spasticity and wasting syndromes of which all revealed valid medical benefits; they said these were not significant enough. DEA wants Phase III clinical trials — large studies, involving hundreds of subjects, comparing cannabis to placebo in a double-blind, randomized fashion for a specific indication — just like what the FDA wants when approving interstate drug marketing applications. The problem is: studies of that nature have been done and published in peer-reviewed scientific literature. However; the DEA, HHS, nor the Court ever noticed. Large, multicenter, randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled studies involving hundreds of patients in America and abroad that are in some cases lasted a year, have been published in U.S. National Library of Medicine indexed journals showing that cannabis, orally administered in extract form, can treat intractable pain in cancer and improve mobility and symptom control in multiple sclerosis. What is strange and unreasonable is federal agencies chose to ignore these studies due to the fact they have been done primarily in the private pharmaceutical sector where cannabis-infused products are produced, tested and at times conveniently renamed. This smoke and mirrors effect has resulted in rigorous research having practically no bearing on public scientific understanding of the medical use of cannabis.
Cannabis extracts have been made for thousands of years for consumption and the public has a great interest and right to know that these cannabis studies exist and their results should have bearing on how we as a society understand, utilize, value and ultimately classify cannabis.
Therefore; why do the feds not include cannabis resin extract studies when considering cannabis’ evidence base? At times, it is as simple as a name game. Congress’s definition of marijuana (since 1937) has always included any compound, extract or manufactured mixture containing a detectable amount of marijuana resin. If cannabis resin has been extracted and dissolved into a solvent or concentrated, that new substance is still named marijuana, hash, or hash oil and this form of marijuana many times has stricter penalties, like the life sentence penalty currently adopted by Oklahoma in 2011 for first-offense hash production. Millions have been punished due to this full definition of marijuana for possessing or distributing cannabis-infused edibles like brownies or hash oil. Cannabis medicines are concentrated forms of the cannabis plant with cannabis resin as a base.
Cannabis, marijuana’s proper name, is a commonwealth medicinal plant belonging to no government or private entity. Licensed producers of cannabis extracts in the private sector have a distinct and desired wide range of scientific freedom to explore and discover, in a rigorous way, many of the medicinal benefits inherent to marijuana. The government should not ignore the peer-reviewed published evidence about cannabis’ medical abilities which is accumulated in the pharmaceutical sector who enjoys privileged access to cannabis for research and development. Private industry does not have the right to demand that cannabis not be rescheduled based in part on their collected data, which they recently achieved in the UK, presumably to protect company market share and pricing by avoiding competition from future cannabis producers who would be empowered by a rational reclassification of marijuana in federal law. Marijuana should not be off limits for the sake of private patents, monopolies or FDA drug marketing applications.
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