SAM Oregon

This past week the DEA has announced that it will ease up on restrictions for Cannabidiol (CBD) research. This is good news for the medical community and no so good news for the legalization community.

Marijuana, which is a schedule 1 drug, has been touted as a medical miracle by the legalization groups getting these ballot initiatives through. Currently the science is extremely inconclusive in determining the medicinal value of marijuana, despite these claims by legalizers. As a whole there is currently no science to back up the medicinal value of the plant, but a few components have show promise. With the recent news of the Epidiolex trials this change in policy from the DEA is really big.

Under the previous policy researchers would have to register their research with the DEA and also the FDA. If the trial being run required more CBD after the start of the trial the researchers would have to file another request with the DEA to acquire the addition resources to finish the trial. Now with this new policy they will not have to file another request with the DEA.

Now like I stated in the opening, this is good news for the Medical Community. If we can prove the efficacy of CBD's, then that is just one more weapon to fight the diseases that it will be approved for. The current trials being run or for Epilepsy, but we could see more trials in the near future with the news from the DEA. Anything from Cancer, Tourette Syndrome, Epilepsy, plus numerous other conditions that have been claimed to been helped by marijuana. So far we've only had a bunch of personal testimony and no science. It will be interesting to see how these trials end up.

Now the bad news for the legalizers. Every ballot initiative from Colorado to Oregon has played the "Medicinal" card. Saying that if you legalize it then you would be giving hundreds of thousands of people access to their medicine. As I explained earlier the science just doesn't back up the medicinal claims. 23 states, including Washington DC, have legalized Medical Marijuana despite the lack of science. That's what happens when you put a medical issue on the ballot and let layman determine somethings medicinal value. In most of those states a "Patient", and I use that term very loosely, can go into a Medical Marijuana dispensary to buy their drug. Since Marijuana is a schedule 1 drug you can not get it at a pharmacy because it cannot be prescribed by a Doctor. Wait, now that last part is where the bad news comes in. If these trials go through the FDA trials and get approved then we will be able to get Doctors to prescribe CBD medications which will then be allowed to be sold through a proper pharmacy with people who are properly trained in dispensing medications. So essentially these new trials will kill the current medical marijuana programs throughout each state. With pharmacies taking over the dispensing of CBD drugs we will no longer need these Medical Marijuana dispensaries and their ill trained Bud Tenders".