Susan Bro, an agency spokeswoman, said Thursday's statement resulted from a past combined review by federal drug enforcement, regulatory and research agencies that concluded "smoked marijuana has no currently accepted or proven medical use in the United States and is not an approved medical treatment."
Well that takes care of that I guess. At least we can give these sick people a medicine called Marinol, which according to it's official prescribing information:
is indicated for the treatment of:
1. anorexia associated with weight loss in patients with AIDS; and
2. nausea and vomiting associated with cancer chemotherapy in patients who have failed to respond adequately to conventional antiemetic treatments.
Sweet, so it would seem there is no doubt that this Marinol most certainly has a couple currently accepted or proven medical uses in the United States and is an approved medical treatment.
Thing is, when you look at that official prescribing info, you'll also see this:
Dronabinol, the active ingredient in MARINOL® Capsules, is synthetic delta-9-tetrahydrocannabinol (delta-9-THC). Delta-9-tetrahydrocannabinol is also a naturally occurring component of Cannabis sativa L. (Marijuana).
What? also a naturally occurring component of Marijuana? But the Government said marijuana had no currently accepted or proven medical use. They wouldn't.....LIE to us would they?
Well to be fair, the FDA did say that it was smoked marijuana that had no currently accepted or proven medical use, so maybe they meant that if you were sick you should eat it in brownies. More than likely though, they were using what little scientific credibility this administration has left to provide propaganda cover for the absurd war on drugs.
Marinol, by the way, retails at drugstore.com for $310.81 a month at the most common initial dose. Hmmmmm......I wonder.....if protecting the profits of Big Pharma from competition from a naturally occurring weed that pretty much anyone can grow, anywhere, might have anything to do with today's FDA report?
Whatever the motivation, it seems to outweigh any interest in helping to alleviate the suffering of the sick and dying in this case. Your government is at work, but most assuredly not for you.
Read the whole article here.
6 comments:
Make a Marinol nebulizer solution. I wonder if it is a viable option...?
The article mentions a product on the market in Canada called Sativex, which is an inhaled solution of marijuana extract, so I imagine making a nebulizer solution would be an idea. I remember awhile back though, compounding pharmacists who were making their own minoxidil solution getting warning letters from Upjohn saying they were infringing on the patent for Rogaine, so I wonder if making a Marinol nebulizer solution would put you in the cross hairs of whoever holds the patent for either Marinol or Sativex.
Seems like it would be easier to just call off this particular insane battle in the drug wars. Any medical person who says marijuana should remain a schedule I substance at the same time I can go down to the liquor store and buy my favorite scotch (yummmmmm....scotch) either has a political agenda or probably cheated on their licensure examination.
I agree that THC is a great drug for nausea and appetite stimulation, I just think that there has to be a better way to get it in the blood stream than smoking a plant. I guess it would make no difference in a terminal patient, but for those with operable cancers I'd rather there be a better way that wouldn't potentially screw up pulmonary function if they sucessfully fought through their malady and prevailed. Hence, an inhaler or nebulizer would be optimal, IMO.
About Sativex, I thought it was designed for buccal use, did they go ahead and formulate it for inhaltion, too?
You're right about Sativex being designed for buccal use. Intuitively I'd also say you'd probably be right about the inhalation route, but we may never know. It's reported in the November/December issue of Mother Jones magazine that other people have had this idea as well, but surprise! Your government is standing in the way of finding out the answers. From the article:
"he's especially keen on vaporizing, which he thinks may answer concerns about smoking. But he hasn't been able to investigate this hunch. "We can get the FDA to work with us, but we can't get pot from NIDA," says Doblin. "We've been waiting for two years just for a decision on whether they'll sell us 10 grams for our vaporizer study." Doblin thinks that NIDA is "scared of the research. If we prove that it's not true that pot pushes people into schizophrenia or causes lung cancer, if it's not doing the things the government says are the reasons it's bad, then we undercut their credibility."
The article also points out a couple people with interesting histories working to get Sativex on our shelves:
A couple of GW hires indicate that the company is not nearly so apolitical as it claims: John Pastuovic, a campaign spokes- man for George W. Bush in 2000 who was part of an effort to derail medical marijuana legislation in Illinois earlier this year, and Andrea Barthwell, who, as a deputy drug czar from 2002 to 2004, led the campaign to brand medical marijuana as a hoax.
Hmmm...don't suppose the $500 a month Sativex goes for in Canada has anything to do with the party of big business getting on board the bandwagon and muscling out the competition from mother nature?
Draw your own conclusions. Mine is that government policy in this area is a stew of lies, hypocrisy, and callous indifference to human suffering. Pretty much the Bush administration in a nutshell really.
You can read the whole "Mother Jones" article here
Any medical person who says marijuana should remain a schedule I substance at the same time I can go down to the liquor store and buy my favorite scotch (yummmmmm....scotch) either has a political agenda or probably cheated on their licensure examination.
THANK YOU. God, I wish I could say that without being fired.
And I read somewhere that dronabinol is most effective in rectal suppository form. I think that's all that's needed to discourage abuse...
-random CPhT who found this journal and loves it.
In relation to TAPG's comment, there are much better methods. Smoking the plant matter is actually considered to be the LEAST effective method of use. Most people who use marijuana for medicinal purposes (whether they have a prescription for it or not) either vaporize it or eat it. It would be nice to have conclusive scientific information regarding vaporizing but, in the mean time, users tend to be of the opinion that it's easier on the lungs (even if the higher heat can sometimes be a bit hard on the throat) than smoking it and the resulting "high" is more clear-headed. Those of us who prefer the nonpsychoactive route like eating it raw, since the THCa precursor to THC is believed to be anywhere from 60-600 times more effective.
In regards to your comment, drugnazi, NIDA is constantly trying to prevent anyone or anything from undermining its credibility. That credibility was called into question over MDMA a few years back, when it was found that they never tested its serotonin study patients to find out if they had used Ecstasy and had actually given high doses of methamphetamine to the spider monkeys in their "it eats holes in your brain" study. They were quick to cite that it would be unethical to actually administer the substance to human subjects and blamed the MDMA/meth mix up on the provider, then on a "clerical error" after the provider showed paperwork proving they received and filled an order for meth, not MDMA.
Definitely just trying to protect the interest of their Big Pharma lobbyists, who would not otherwise be able to contend with a natural treatment that would cost patients as little as $80 a month (assuming they used a "dub" a week, which seems typical for the medicinal users I've spoken with, for treatment.)
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