posted
Not to confuse a political issue with anything so mundane as facts but ...
Compare
quote:WASHINGTON, April 20 — The Food and Drug Administration said Thursday that "no sound scientific studies" supported the medical use of marijuana, contradicting a 1999 review by a panel of highly regarded scientists. (from NY Times a month ago)
versus
quote:Valeant Pharmaceuticals received Food and Drug Administration approval for Cesamet, an oral treatment for chemotherapy-induced nausea and vomiting.
The capsule, which consists of a synthetic cannabinoid drug related to the active ingredient in marijuana, is intended to treat patients who have not responded to traditional medications. (from TheStreet.com).
The Wiki's for Cesamet and THC allow you to compare the structures for yourself.
Guess someone at the FDA screwed up and didn't consult with the White House before approving a cannabinoid as a drug.
Posts: 629 | From: Greenwood, IN | Registered: Dec 2005
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posted
I am so glad you admitted that, Doug4.7. I had the same reaction to the topic line.
Seaboe
-------------------- Education is not the filling of a hard drive, but the lighting of a bulb. -- Yeats via Esprise Me Posts: 5562 | From: Seattle, WA | Registered: Jun 2005
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posted
Not to nitpick, but a synthetic cannabinoid drug and marijuana are not exactly the same. With the synthetic drug, there are many controls in place to deal with purity, strength of dosage, and chemical content. None of which exists in grown marijuana, especially if home-grown.
Saying that an approved synthetic cannabinoid drug is the same as marijuana is like saying that codine cough medicine is the same as cocaine.
-------------------- IIRC, it wasn't the shoe bomber's loud prayers that sparked the takedown by the other passengers; it was that he was trying to light his shoe on fire. Very, very different. Canuckistan Posts: 3694 | From: Arizona | Registered: Aug 2005
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posted
GenYus, some of yours points are valid. However, strict controls on the preparation is not limited to synthetic drugs. There is no reason that the same types of controls couldn't be put in place for marijuana. Besides, if you pick a cultivar then you pretty well define what the activity is.
There are a number of perscription drugs that are obtained from natural sources with pretty minimal processing. For example, Google Premarin. Premarin is a poorly defined, rather minimally purified mixture of natural products. The pharmacological activities of many of the individual components have never been determined. BTW, the name comes from Pregnant Mare Urine.
But back to Cesamet vs. THC (or a cruder whole plant preparation). They are in the same chemical family, interact with the same receptor, agonise/antagonize in the same way, have similar toxicity and ADME profiles and both have clinical data supporting their medical utility.
So, "Saying that an approved synthetic cannabinoid drug is the same as marijuana is like saying that codine cough medicine is the same as cocaine." is a bit hyperbolic. How many studies are there showing medical utility of cocaine?
Posts: 629 | From: Greenwood, IN | Registered: Dec 2005
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quote:Originally posted by jimmy101: GenYus, some of yours points are valid. However, strict controls on the preparation is not limited to synthetic drugs. There is no reason that the same types of controls couldn't be put in place for marijuana. Besides, if you pick a cultivar then you pretty well define what the activity is.
There are a number of perscription drugs that are obtained from natural sources with pretty minimal processing. For example, Google Premarin. Premarin is a poorly defined, rather minimally purified mixture of natural products. The pharmacological activities of many of the individual components have never been determined. BTW, the name comes from Pregnant Mare Urine.
But back to Cesamet vs. THC (or a cruder whole plant preparation). They are in the same chemical family, interact with the same receptor, agonise/antagonize in the same way, have similar toxicity and ADME profiles and both have clinical data supporting their medical utility.
So, "Saying that an approved synthetic cannabinoid drug is the same as marijuana is like saying that codine cough medicine is the same as cocaine." is a bit hyperbolic. How many studies are there showing medical utility of cocaine?
But marijuana has many things in it other than THC. So marijuana and THC, while very closely related and derived from the same source, are not the same thing. So a study showing medical uses for THC (natural or synthetic) is not the same thing as a study showing medical uses for marijuana.
The cocaine/codine analogy was just to point out that even though things may be from the same source, they are not the same thing. I guess I could have used the analogy that there are many studies showing that aspirin is benefitial, but there aren't any studies showing the benefits of willow bark.
-------------------- IIRC, it wasn't the shoe bomber's loud prayers that sparked the takedown by the other passengers; it was that he was trying to light his shoe on fire. Very, very different. Canuckistan Posts: 3694 | From: Arizona | Registered: Aug 2005
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quote:Originally posted by GenYus: Not to nitpick, but (snip) Saying that an approved synthetic cannabinoid drug is the same as marijuana is like saying that codine cough medicine is the same as cocaine.
[Nitpick of your nitpick] Codeine and Cocaine are unrelated. I think you mean comparing, say, codeine and heroin, both of which are derived from the opium poppy. Cocaine is derived from coca leaves. Oh, and there are medical uses for cocaine.[/Nitpick]
posted
No, I thought codine was derived from cocaine.
Anyway..., the point I was trying to make was that just because you have two similar drugs from similar backgrounds doesn't mean that legal uses for one mean there should be legal uses for the other.
-------------------- IIRC, it wasn't the shoe bomber's loud prayers that sparked the takedown by the other passengers; it was that he was trying to light his shoe on fire. Very, very different. Canuckistan Posts: 3694 | From: Arizona | Registered: Aug 2005
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posted
Psst. Nothing new- there has been a product called Marinol for years. Even the (brand) name gives it away.
Posts: 400 | From: Maryland | Registered: Jun 2005
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posted
No one said that there should be legal uses for the other. The problem is that one gov source said there were no medical uses, while the other agency has approved the analogue. Procaine and codeine have been synthesized because they are similar to the natural drugs, that is precisely because they were thought to have similar medical uses to cocaine and heroin, which they did. So the question is, if THC has no medical uses, why does this close analogue have such uses (as procaine and codeine clearly do)? Was it just a concidence? That hardly seems likely since the symptoms it is supposed to relieve are exactly those effects that have been claimed for THC. (It doesn't matter whether other drugs in Marijuana are also effective or not. The point is the one agency was claiming it had no such effects so any evidence of an effect contradicts that claim.)
Posts: 4922 | From: Kyoto, Japan | Registered: Sep 2005
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posted
I should have said medical instead of legal.
Anyway, what I'm trying to say is that the first quote in the OP could be saying that there are no sound studies showing that marijuna has medical uses as marijuana. IOW, rolling a joint and having a toke has not been proven to have medical benefits.
The second quote in the OP is saying that there is a drug derived from one of the chemicals in marijuana that is approved.
My point is that the one is not a direct contradiction of the other since the two have different methods of manufacture as well as different chemical makeup and different methods of dosing. If the quote in the OP was that there were no studies showing that marijuana or any derivates of marijuana had medical benefits, then it would be a contradiction.
For the record, I think marijuana should be legal and regulated like cigarettes and alcohol are. I think the legal age and laws for marijuana should be the same as alcohol.
-------------------- IIRC, it wasn't the shoe bomber's loud prayers that sparked the takedown by the other passengers; it was that he was trying to light his shoe on fire. Very, very different. Canuckistan Posts: 3694 | From: Arizona | Registered: Aug 2005
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posted
I get what you're saying GenYus. Seems reasonable. I do find it a little hard to believe that the smoked leaf deosn't have these effects if THC and it's analogues have this effect and many anecdotes from users claim the smoked leaf has the effect.
I wish someone in power with balls would just go ahead and push through legislation to legalize it, at the very least for medicinal use.
Posts: 4922 | From: Kyoto, Japan | Registered: Sep 2005
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posted
I think it does have the same or similar benefits. In fact, sometimes the smoking is prefered when dealing with a cancer patient if they are so sick that they can't take pills. The reason it isn't legallized is due to the fact that there isn't big money in medical marijuana due to the ease of growing it yourself*.
*And the fact that marijuana smokers forget when election time is.
-------------------- IIRC, it wasn't the shoe bomber's loud prayers that sparked the takedown by the other passengers; it was that he was trying to light his shoe on fire. Very, very different. Canuckistan Posts: 3694 | From: Arizona | Registered: Aug 2005
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