News Forum - UN to take high ground on Thailand’s decision to delist cannabis

[Vigo]

18 hours ago, Stevejm said:

Who are these organic eating people that you refer to? Surely you are not trying to apply the old hippy stereotype to the current time. I don’t think weed is carcinogenic when its eaten is it?

Cannabis smoke contains many of the same harmful chemicals found in tobacco smoke.Substances such as hydrogen cynaide and ammonia.  proponents of Cannabis edibles  offer claims of safety, but can't back the claim with clinical evidence.  One can eat tobacco leaf extract and in small amounts won't die, same as for cannabis, but my point is that so many proponents of cannabis as if it is the next miracle  drug, are the first to complain about pharmaceutical products.  The quality of the product isn't guaranteed. There is a reason why  cannabis is still uninsurable, while some drugs such as amphetamines or powerful antipsychotics and pain killers are and that's because there is a  large data base of safety studies on these products, while there is insufficient evidence of cannabis safety putting it in a class that is safer than tobacco.

[Fanta]

11 minutes ago, Vigo said:

insufficient evidence of cannabis safety putting it in a class that is safer than tobacco

I couldn’t be bothered wading through reams of medical & chemical research to disprove your point. I am sure many anti marijuana advocates have already tried to do exactly that in the hope of finding the smoking gun to label marijuana as a dangerous health risk.  All stimulants, intoxicants, drugs are harmful in one way or another. 

[KomanderChicknNugget]

On 6/12/2022 at 7:24 PM, Donald said:

Where were the sanctions after it's unprovoked attacks on sovereign nations ? 

Hegemony has its benefits.

[Vigo]

14 hours ago, Fanta said:

I couldn’t be bothered wading through reams of medical & chemical research to disprove your point. I am sure many anti marijuana advocates have already tried to do exactly that in the hope of finding the smoking gun to label marijuana as a dangerous health risk.  All stimulants, intoxicants, drugs are harmful in one way or another. 

There isn't. Nor is there any clinical evidence to support the use of cannabis. Look,if someone wants to smoke weed, good for them. I don't care unless they operate machinery like a truck. Let's just be honest and transparent  and admit it is because the person is seeking to "trip". Leave the  bogus claims of miracle cures and harmlessness out of it. Alcohol is legal but does tremendous damage to society. There is nothing presented that  shows cannabis won't result in a similar outcome

[Ivo_Shandor]

7 hours ago, Vigo said:

There isn't. Nor is there any clinical evidence to support the use of cannabis. Look,if someone wants to smoke weed, good for them. I don't care unless they operate machinery like a truck. Let's just be honest and transparent  and admit it is because the person is seeking to "trip". Leave the  bogus claims of miracle cures and harmlessness out of it. Alcohol is legal but does tremendous damage to society. There is nothing presented that  shows cannabis won't result in a similar outcome

There are 1322 clinical trials on "cannabis" publicly available for consultation:

https://www.clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/results?cond=&term=cannabis&cntry=&state=&city=&dist=

You can go through and see if any of them support or disprove your opinion.

Edited June 16, 2022 by Ivo_Shandor

[Vigo]

3 hours ago, Ivo_Shandor said:

There are 1322 clinical trials on "cannabis" publicly available for consultation:

https://www.clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/results?cond=&term=cannabis&cntry=&state=&city=&dist=

You can go through and see if any of them support or disprove your opinion.

It is not my opinion. You obviously do not understand what a clinical trial is. Nor do you understand the difference between an approved drug and a commercial product. Alcohol is a legal drug, however, aside from specified medicinal formulations used in manufacturing,  it is regulated and distributed as a commercial product and its dangers are well documented.  

There is a reason why the health authorities in the USA, Europe, Canada, Australia have not approved the marketing applications for cannabis for the treatment of any disease or condition. And that reason is the lack of evidence to support the magical claims of cannabis to treat or to cure the medical condition.  All the clinical trials you reference did not provide the necessary evidence to support the use of cannabis as an appropriate medical treatment. 

 Clinical trials are progressive and going from Phase 0 to Phase 5. The dose in the clinical trials will not necessarily be the dose needed to achieve a desired effect, and that's the key shortcoming of cannabis clinical trials.  Most of the  cannabis clinical trials were  early phases intended to discover if there was  harm in specific circumstances. Others were intended to determine if cannabis was a suitable alternative. Most of the trials offer inclusive conclusions that do not support the use of the products.

For example, a recent review of 18 Eighteen randomized, placebo-controlled trials (and 7 cohort studies  assessed cannabinoids for chronic pain relief. The class of drug failed to deliver relief from chronic pain, but did identify dizziness and fatigue as side effects. The doses needed to achieve results were too high to allow "normal activity".

7 June 2022 -Cannabis-Based Products for Chronic Pain  -A Systematic Review Marian S. McDonagh, PharmD,  Benjamin J. Morasco, PhD,  Jesse Wagner, MA   https://www.acpjournals.org/doi/10.7326/M21-4520

You are confusing the legalization of cannabis with approval as a medical treatment. There are relatively few cannabis related products used for specific treatments  such as the alleviation of nausea following cancer chemotherapy, and these  cannabis products are very much removed from the cannabis one finds at the retail level.  Epidiolex (cannabidiol) is a heavily processed and refined drug. there are 3  synthetic cannabis-related drug products: Marinol (dronabinol), Syndros (dronabinol), and Cesamet (nabilone).

Yes, cannabis can provide some relief to some patients, but the dose needed is just too high to support the general use. That's what never mentioned by the proponents of cannabis. The cannabis products that can be used are  heavily modified and are nothing near conventional marijuana.

Edited June 17, 2022 by Vigo

[Ivo_Shandor]

1 hour ago, Vigo said:

It is not my opinion. You obviously do not understand what a clinical trial is. Nor do you understand the difference between an approved drug and a commercial product.

Well, being working in bio-nano research since 2005, and having reading truckloads of papers and CT on wide themes, inlcuding cannabis, as well as working and producing reports for companies in the field, I think I am more than qualified to know what a CT is, and the difference between approval and commercialization. You should find someone else to patronize on the subject. You were invited to check the existence of clinical trials, and since there are many of them, I doubt you can know on the spot if even 1 of them can support your thesis or not, therefore, since then, yours still remains an opinion (or, if yo prefer a more scientific terminology, unsubstantiated claim). Let alone that even there are zero CTs supporting the use of cannabis, or its derivatives, now, it does not me there will not be any in the future. The beauty of research is that is continuosly going and improving itself

1 hour ago, Vigo said:

There is a reason why the health authorities in the USA, Europe, Canada, Australia have not approved the marketing applications for cannabis for the treatment of any disease or condition.

Hmmm, sure? Here is a list of european countries that has already approved medical cannabis, with year of approval:

(I suppose your cumbersome "marketing applications" refers to licensed people going to licensed pharmacy buying one cannabis product, which is the same of a licensed person, in force of ID or legal age,  going to licensed establishments, in force of their permission to sell, and buy a beer):

United Kingdom - 2018
Netherlands - 2003
Germany - 2016
Poland - 2018
Czech Republic - 2012
Portugal - 2018
Swizerland - 2011
Italy - 2013
North Macedonia - 2016
Greece - 2018
Cyprus - 2018
Austria - 2008
Croatia - 2015

Most of the products (either cannabis oil, or cannabis-derived medicies) are allowed for treating epilepsy,  seizure, cancer-related or AIDS-related pain. Some legislation are strict, some are loose, in some juristictios the medicine must be bought by the patient, in others . Again, you are free to go through each one legislation to see support or rebuttal of your claim.

1 hour ago, Vigo said:

And that reason is the lack of evidence to support the magical claims of cannabis to treat or to cure the medical condition.  All the clinical trials you reference did not provide the necessary evidence to support the use of cannabis as an appropriate medical treatment. 

Luckily, evidence is not everything in science, if you read scientific papers you should now. I doubt you read all those 1322 trials in so small time. Try again.

1 hour ago, Vigo said:

You are confusing the legalization of cannabis with approval as a medical treatment.

sorry, but you put this distinction here, I did not explicitly refer to a derivative or cannabis, or to the plant as a whole, but to "cannabis"as keyword. If you want to discuss semantics, you should find someone else.

1 hour ago, Vigo said:

Epidiolex (cannabidiol) is a heavily processed and refined drug. there are 3  synthetic cannabis-related drug products: Marinol (dronabinol), Syndros (dronabinol), and Cesamet (nabilone).

1 hour ago, Vigo said:

Yes, cannabis can provide some relief to some patients, but the dose needed is just too high to support the general use. That's what never mentioned by the proponents of cannabis. The cannabis products that can be used are  heavily modified and are nothing near conventional marijuana.

Epidiolex is a solution of cannabidiol in water, with some excipients to make it more palatable, at a standardized concentration of 0.1 g/mL (or 0.1 kg/L, if you prefer). Not so different from any kind of drug in solution. Cannabidiol in Epidiolex is exactly the same of the molecule in the plant, from both a structural and a chemical standpoint. CBD is produced via supercritical CO2 treatment of hemp, a common process used for obtaining several plant extracts, which minimize degradation and avoid the use of noxious organic solvents, a very far definition from heavy processing.

Edited June 17, 2022 by Ivo_Shandor

[Stevejm]

2 minutes ago, Ivo_Shandor said:

Well, being working in bio-nano research since 2005, and having reading truckloads of papers and CT on wide them, as well as working and producing reports for companies in the field, I think I am more than qualified to know what a CT is, and that you should find someone else to patronize on the subject. You were invited to check the existence of clinical trials, and since there are many of them, I doubt you can know on the spot if even 1 of them can support your thesis or not, therefore, since then, yours still remains an opinion (or, if yo prefer a more scientific terminology, unsubstantiated claim). Let alone that even there are zero CTs supporting the use of cannabis, or its derivatives, now, it does not me there will not be any in the future. The beauty of research is that is continuosly going and improving itself

Hmmm, sure? Here is a list of european countries that has already approved medical cannabis, with year of approval:

(I suppose your cumbersome "marketing applications" refers to licensed people going to licensed pharmacy buying one cannabis product, which is the same of a licensed person, in force of ID or legal age,  going to licensed establishments, in force of their permission to sell, and buy a beer):

United Kingdom - 2018
Netherlands - 2003
Germany - 2016
Poland - 2018
Czech Republic - 2012
Portugal - 2018
Swizerland - 2011
Italy - 2013
North Macedonia - 2016
Greece - 2018
Cyprus - 2018
Austria - 2008
Croatia - 2015

Most of the products (either cannabis oil, or cannabis-derived medicies) are allowed for treating epilepsy,  seizure, cancer-related or AIDS-related pain. Some legislation are strict, some are loose, in some juristictios the medicine must be bought by the patient, in others . Again, you are free to go through each one legislation to see support or rebuttal of your claim.

Luckily, evidence is not everything in science, if you read scientific papers you should now. I doubt you read all those 1322 trials in so small time. Try again.

sorry, but you put this distinction here, I did not explicitly refer to a derivative or cannabis, or to the plant as a whole, but to "cannabis"as keyword. If you want to discuss semantics, you should find someone else.

Epidiolex is a solution of cannabidiol in water, with some excipients to make it more palatable, at a standardized concentration of 0.1 g/mL (or 0.1 kg/L, if you prefer). Not so different from any kind of drug in solution. Cannabidiol in Epidiolex is exactly the same of the molecule in the plant, from both a structural and a chemical standpoint. CBD is produced via supercritical CO2 treatment of hemp, a common process used for obtaining several plant extracts, which minimize degradation and avoid the use of noxious organic solvents, a very far definition from heavy processing.

That introduced some facts to the conversation didn’t it although I doubt it will make any difference in this case with this person . I seem to remember the UK law was amended to allow medical use after some very high profile cases where parents of children who suffered from very serious forms of epilepsy had to resort to travel to Amsterdam to buy cannabis because it was the only drug that their child responded to and it was unobtainable legally in UK. The fact that they were risking arrest got a lot of publicity and things happened to address it.