Cannabis Medicinal Infantil

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Con la esperanza de poder ayudar a sus hijos enfermos, tres parejas de padres recurren en última instancia a la marihuana terapéutica.

 

Cannabis medicinal infantil

Publicado en: cannabis medicinal, Ciencia | Etiquetado:, , , ,

French Drug Trial Tested Endocannabinoid Meds, Not Cannabis

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The big health news Friday was that a botched drug trial in France had left four people with “irreversible” brain damage. One man is now brain dead and at least five others have been hospitalized, according to the latest reports.

Before details about the trial drug could be confirmed, AFP, France’s largest news agency, quoted an unnamed source “close to the case” who claimed the painkiller under trial contained cannabis. The story spiraled from there, picked up by panicked news media in France and the U.K. and spreading across the Internet.

RT dubbed the clinical trial “cannabis-laced.” Vice News screamed that “The Drug Trial of a Cannabis Painkiller Has Left One Person Brain Dead.”

Let’s be clear: That’s not true.

Shortly after the news broke, French Health Minister Marisol Touraine began correcting erroneous reports. The drug being tested, she said, contains neither cannabis nor cannabis derivatives.

Developed by the Portuguese pharmaceutical company Bial and tested in France by Biotrial, the drug in question is intended to address mood, anxiety and motor problems linked to neurodegenerative diseases. It works by affecting the endocannabinoid system, a set of brain receptors that cannabis interacts with. But there are other known substances, beyond cannabis, that affect the endocannabinoid system.

Is Your Endocannabinoid System in Balance?

Media outlets quickly revised their headlines and stories, but the damage had been done. When it comes to cannabis, deeply-rooted fears have a tendency to seek out reinforcing evidence, no matter how erroneous that evidence may turn out to be. Pairing “cannabis drug” with “brain damage” creates a sticky meme that’s tough to un-stick.

Here’s the story you’re not hearing. There’s currently a scramble going on among researchers and pharmaceutical companies to develop non-cannabis drugs that affect the endocannabinoid system. FAAH and MAGL inhibitors in particular have shown promise as non-cannabis enzymes that could interact with the endocannabinoid system to produce healing results. Bial’s experimental drug could be part of that effort — or not. We don’t know enough about the trial drug yet to say for sure.

All of this begs the question: Why develop non-cannabis drugs when the plant is already available? One possibility: Proprietary drugs and patents. If you invent it and patent it, you own it. Nobody owns Charlotte’s Web or Harlequin.

La Jolla, California-based Abide Therapeutics, for instance, is developing a small-molecule inhibitor that interacts with the body’s endocannabinoid system and could potentially treat pain and neuroinflammation. (To be clear: Abide has no connection to the news out of France.) You can read more about Abide’s effort here.

We’ll continue to follow the story out of France as it develops, and we’ll also continue to look into developments in endocannabinoid research, both cannabis-related and non-cannabis-related. Stay tuned.

Publicado en: cannabis medicinal, Health, Medical Marihuana, Science | Etiquetado:,

Hemp Derived CBD vs. Cannabis Derived CBD

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Where’s the Difference?

CBD Cannabis y CBD cañamo

Even though most people who experience the cannabis high produced by THC find it to be pleasant and stimulating, for some reason medicine that makes you feel good while getting you well is frowned upon. Enter cannabidiol, commonly referred to as CBD, as a way to obtain the medicinal benefits of cannabis without the THC psychoactive effects making CBD an acceptable gateway drug to the world of cannabis.

CBD is a powerful cannabinoid with research showing it to be effective in reducing cancer cell growth, minimizing seizures and convulsions in children, decreasing inflammation, mitigating pain and providing therapeutic relief for many other ailments. This newfound interest in CBD has led to an explosion of CBD oils made from industrial hemp.

In terms of its molecular structure CBD is CBD is CBD—it’s the same molecule whether the CBD comes from hemp, cannabis or a test tube. Hemp generally has a CBD concentration around 3.5 percent CBD which is pretty low but the concentration of THC is even lower, usually less than 1 percent.  Hemp meets the criteria of being low in THC, but its level of CBD is relatively low especially in comparison to certain cannabis strains, which have significantly higher amount of CBD than industrial hemp.

Whether the CBD comes from hemp or cannabis flowers is not the ultimate factor. The key factor is the process by which the CBD is extracted, concentrated and formulated. Cannabis strains such as Charlotte’s Web, Avidekel and ACDC are low in THC but high in CBD with up to a 20 percent CBD concentration level. By comparison, hemp’s typical 3.5 percent CBD concentration level is rather paltry.

Since the concentration of CBD is low in hemp, it requires large amounts of hemp to produce a small amount of CBD oil. The most efficient and least expensive way to extract the CBD oil is to use solvents, but dangerous solvent residues can remain in the CBD oil. In 2014, Project CBD, a California-based nonprofit dedicated to promoting and publicizing research into the medical uses of CBD, tested several CBD hemp oil products available to the public over the Internet and found significant levels of toxic solvent residues in random samples.

CBD oil extracted from industrial hemp is a thick tar-like substance that needs to be thinned with a compound such as propylene glycol. A widespread additive found in CBD vape oil cartridges, propylene glycol may convert to formaldehyde, a known carcinogen, when heated and inhaled.

Hexane, a solvent frequently used to extract CBDs from hemp, has been found by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to be neurotoxic producing numbness in the extremities, muscular weakness, blurred vision, headache and fatigue, according to a official statement by the EPA.

Even if it is possible to produce solvent-free CBD oil from hemp, there is another problem in that industrial hemp is a bio-accumulator that naturally absorbs toxic substances from the soil. Hemp is such an efficient bio-accumulator that it was used at the Chernobyl Nuclear power plant after the meltdown because it is excellent at sucking up heavy metals and radiation, according to McGraw Hill Education. Great for healing the earth, but not for healing humans.

CBD derivado cannabis y cañamo

“The whole effort to harness CBD from industrial hemp is fraught with challenges that are made more difficult by the fact that fiber hemp plants with high amounts of CBD by dry weight—like the ACDC cannabis strain—are not yet available for industrial grows.”

 

Martin Lee, co-founder and Director of Project CBD, summarizes the problems of obtaining CBD from hemp. “The whole effort to harness CBD from industrial hemp is fraught with challenges that are made more difficult by the fact that fiber hemp plants with high amounts of CBD by dry weight—like the ACDC cannabis strain—are not yet available for industrial grows.”

There are other considerations as well. One of the most important is that CBD by itself does not work as well as CBD in conjunction with THC. In what is known as the entourage effect, the medical efficacy of CBD is enhanced in the presence of THC. The proper ratio of CBD to THC varies from person to person, but as Martin Lee points out “the best ratio of THC to CBD is often the most THC a person can comfortably handle.”

The bottom line is since hemp is so low in THC and other cannabis components, you don’t get much of an entourage effect when you use hemp oil as when you are using oil derived from a CBD-rich cannabis plant.

If certain cannabis flowers are so much better for producing CBD, then why all this fuss over industrial hemp? Rather than anything to do with medical science, it has everything to do with the illegal status of cannabis.

The manufacturers of CBD oil from hemp claim that it is legal to market their products as a dietary supplement even though the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has refused to recognize hemp-derived CBD oil as a dietary supplement. The FDA singled out for criticism CBD oil producers for making unsubstantiated medical claims about treating pain, spasms, cancer and other ailments. The FDA has never approved CBD as a supplement for any kind of medical use.

Under current state medical marijuana laws, the only way a CBD-infused oil product—derived from hemp or cannabis—can be used legally for therapeutic purposes would be for it to be grown, harvested, processed and consumed by a certified patient in a state that has legalized medical cannabis. That is not the case with products made from CBD hemp oil imported from abroad which remain illegal under both federal and state laws.

For many reasons, CBD-rich cannabis is a better source of CBD than industrial hemp. The only reason CBD derived from hemp is gaining any notoriety is as an attempted end-run around federal law. When cannabis prohibition is ended and cannabis is treated like any other agricultural product, CBD will be extracted from the best source of cannabidiol—CBD-rich cannabis. The need to derive CBD from industrial hemp will end.

Source: ireadculture

Publicado en: cannabis medicinal, Health, Hemp, Medical Marihuana | Etiquetado:, , , , , ,

Salvados Asociación os desea Feliz Año 2016

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feliz 2016

Publicado en: cannabis medicinal | Etiquetado:, ,
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Medicina Verde es un nuevo documental, el cual aporta una visión sobre la realidad del cannabis medicinal en Chile. Sigue la historia de la Fundación Daya, una ONG que después de haber recibido la autorización del gobierno, en 2014 estableció la primera plantación legal de cannabis medicinal en Latino América.

Medicina verde documental Chile
¿Puede el cannabis medicinal mejorar la vida de los que padecen enfermedades como cáncer cerebral y epilepsia?
El equipo que ha grabado ‘Medicina Verde: Revolución Chilena del Cannabis Medicinal’ ha seguido por seis meses los progresos del debate sobre la marihuana medicinal en Chile. La película incluye numerosas entrevistas y evidencia pros y contras de la legalización del cannabis para uso médico. Las entrevistas han sido realizadas a políticos y miembros del Congreso Chileno; científicos investigando los efectos de los extracto de cannabis para uso médico; los fundadores y cultivadores de la Fundación Daya y pacientes que se beneficiaron gracias a esta planta.
La película ha sido realizada por Geek Media, dirigida por Diego Estay y producida por Paradise Seeds.

 

Fuente: Cáñamo

Publicado en: cannabis medicinal, Legalización | Etiquetado:, , , , , ,

Can Marijuana Help with Depression?

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cannabis-depression-salvados asociacion

Medical research suggests that cannabis may help improve mood, but users also seem to suffer higher rates of depression.

Marijuana is sometimes referred to as ‘green Prozac’ due to the fact that many users find it helpful in lifting their spirits. But can it actually be an effective treatment for depression?

Interestingly, the idea that cannabis can be used to improve mood goes back hundreds of years. And many people today still agree.

“A lot of people report using cannabis effectively to treat depression,” says Zachary Walsh, an assistant professor of psychology at the University of British Columbia who heads a research lab focused on marijuana and mental health.

But whether cannabis has actually been proven to help with depression can’t be answered with a simple yes or no. The answer is more complicated because there are different types of depression, explains Walsh.

Generally speaking, depression is defined as the feeling of sadness or hopelessness over an extended period of time.

Studies on Marijuana and Depression

For depression that is caused by chronic stress, components of marijuana may be an effective treatment, according to a 2015 study by University of Buffalo scientists. The findings showed that stress caused a decrease in cannabis-like molecules naturally found in the brain, leading to behavior that mimicked depression.

Another study published in 2007 by a team at McGill University showed that administering low doses of THC could work like an antidepressant by increasing serotonin. However, in high dosages, THC decreased serotonin and seemed to worsen depression.

“These findings confirm what has been reported by people who smoke cannabis,” explains Dr. Gabriella Gobbi, who co-authored the McGill study. “Often it produces euphoria, calmness, sociability, but in other circumstances it can produce bad dreams and negative feelings.”

Overall there hasn’t been enough research in the field, Dr. Gobbi says, adding that the type of research needed to confirm whether marijuana can effectively treat depression is quite complex.

“Not only do we have to determine the dose-effect of cannabis on depressive people, but also which kind of cannabinoid may have a positive effect on mood.”

Cannabinoids are a class of molecules found in cannabis, which include THC and CBD. Over 60 different cannabinoids have been identified in marijuana, making it difficult to determine the drug’s overall effect on depression.

Higher Rates of Depression

While medical literature suggests that cannabis can improve mood, studies involving recreational users often show that people who use cannabis are more depressed, says Walsh.

“What those studies have noted is that they can’t really determine what comes first,” he explains. In other words: “Does cannabis cause depression? Do depressed people try to use cannabis to help with depression? Those are questions that are out there.”

An important factor in the answer could be the age of the person consuming cannabis.

According to research conducted by Dr. Gobbi in 2009, daily use of marijuana can cause depression and anxiety in teens.

“Cannabis, when consumed by adolescents, induces depression and anxiety later in adulthood, even if the people did not have any susceptibility for these mental diseases,” she says.

Cannabis vs. Antidepressants

While researchers can’t completely confirm if marijuana is effective for treating depression, Walsh points out that other medicines fall into the same problem.

He says that in some cases, typical antidepressants are no more effective than a placebo and have side effects that may be more severe than those of marijuana.

Dr. Gobbi explains that in order to declare a drug effective for a certain disease, it must go through different stages of clinical trials, which marijuana has not.

“If we want to take a rational approach about medicinal cannabis, we should go through systematic clinical studies and finally determine its efficacy in treating specific diseases and its safety compared to standard antidepressants,” she says.

Walsh agrees that further research should compare cannabis to commonly used antidepressants. “Then I think people can make the choice,” he concludes.

 

Source: Leafscience

Publicado en: Health, Medical Marihuana, Science | Etiquetado:, , , , , , ,

CBD Holds Promise as Child Epilepsy Treatment, Studies Find

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Behind strain names like Charlotte’s Web and Haleigh’s Hope are stories of children whose epileptic seizures were dramatically reduced through medical cannabis. But while evidence so far has been anecdotal, doctors this week are presenting the first scientific studies to back them up.

Cannabidiol_CBD_Epilepsy

At the American Epilepsy Society meeting in Philadelphia, researchers are unveiling the results of trials testing the safety and efficacy of cannabidiol. The findings are largely promising. In the biggest study, the number of seizures went down by about half, on average, among children who completed the trial. Benefits for some continued even after the study was over.

«In the subsequent periods, which are very encouraging, 9 percent of all patients and 13 percent of those with Dravet Syndrome epilepsy were seizure-free,” Dr. Orrin Devinsky, the study’s lead author and a neurologist at the New York University Langone Medical Center, told NPR. «Many have never been seizure-free before.”

The data represent a significant step forward in legitimizing use of cannabis to treat epilepsy, a syndrome that in both children and adults causes debilitating seizures and can be especially difficult to treat. Patients sometimes exhaust traditional anti-seizure medications to no effect.

Despite the findings of CBD’s potential benefit in epilepsy treatment, the study results weren’t all good. In Devinsky’s three-month trial, 16 percent of participants withdrew due to adverse side effects or after deciding the treatment was ineffective. And in a yearlong study of 25 patients, one participant actually experienced more frequent seizures.

Participants in the studies didn’t smoke or vaporize cannabis flowers or concentrates. Rather, they consumed cannabidiol in the form of daily doses of purified extracts that had been derived from cannabis plants.

Parents across the country have turned to high-CBD strains after hearing about their sometimes life-changing benefits. Charlotte’s Web, for example, was developed in 2011 and popularized after it was used successfully to treat epileptic seizures in a Colorado girl, Charlotte Figi. While Figi’s story has encouraged lawmakers in some states to loosen regulations on high-CBD strains, many desperate parents still obtain the drug illegally. And because of a lack of scientific evidence to justify their decision, they often face stigma — not to mention the risk of jail time — for giving their children cannabis.

Until recently, clinical trials involving cannabis have been almost nonexistent. As a federally controlled substance, the drug has been impossible to study except with government approval. But as legalization spreads, information about the efficacy of cannabis in treating various ailments will likely become ever more available.

If you’re not familiar with Charlotte’s Web, watch this video about Charlotte Figi and her family:

VIDEO CHARLOTTE

Source: Leafly

Publicado en: cannabis medicinal, Health, Law, Legalisation, Medical Marihuana | Etiquetado:, , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Mexico’s Government to Consider Marijuana Legalization

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Nearly a month after Mexico’s Supreme Court ruled in favor of the rights of four defendants to cultivate and consume marijuana without legal repercussion, the government has announced that it will take up the issue of nationwide legalization in the next legislative session.

 

Mexico’s Government to Consider Marijuana Legalization

The Associated Press reported earlier this week that Interior Secretary Miguel Angel Osorio Chong has revealed plans to hold a national debate on the concept of bringing the nation out of prohibitionary times. This discussion will include public hearings and a number of forums, some of which will be broadcast over the Internet.

Although Mexico has decriminalized small amounts of marijuana, lawmakers are expected to weigh in on exactly what might be expected in terms of health and public safety under a fully legal rule. The overall goal is to push the prohibitionist mentality into a more progressive thought process and eventually lead the country to support a taxed and regulated marketplace.

Unfortunately, on the heels of this major announcement, Mexico President Enrique Pena Nieto has come out in full force against the issue.

On Wednesday, during a press engagement for a new children’s program, Pena Nieto told the crowd that one of his kids recently asked him if they would soon be able “to light up a joint” in his presence. The president then proceeded to explain that he remains against marijuana legalization because he fears it will destroy the youth of the nation.

“I am not in favor of consuming or legalizing marijuana,” Pena Nieto said. “I am not in favor because it has been proven, demonstrated, that consuming this substance damages the health of children and youths.”

Yet, many supporters of the movement to establish a nationwide cannabis industry have suggested that ending cartel violence should be one of the primary motivations for moving in this direction. However, President Pena Nieto disagrees, arguing that, in no way, would legalization stop the cartels.

“It isn’t valid, and I don’t agree, that this legalization would make it easier to fight organized crime, by reducing the illicit income and profits from this activity,” he said. “That would beg the question, should we put the health of Mexican children and youths at risk in order to combat organized crime?”

What do you think? Could the legalization of cannabis destroy the youth?

 

Source: CannabisNowMagazine

Publicado en: Law, Legalisation, Medical Marihuana | Etiquetado:, , , , , ,

UPyD promete despenalizar el cannabis en España

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UPyD ha presentado ya su programa electoral en el que se incluye la despenalización de la marihuana. No es la primera vez que esta fuerza política del parlamento español habla de regular la situación del cannabis en España.

Su actual líder Andrés Herzog, como la anterior Rosa Díez, se han mostrado partidarios de que esta medida este presente en su programa. UpyD es una formación del centro del arco parlamentario y con su nuevo jefe de filas esperan estar otra vez presentes en la nueva legislatura y si es posible superar los datos anteriores.

Así con la presentación del programa electoral, UpyD pasa a ser otro de los partidos políticos que en España aboga por otro tratamiento por parte de estado con el cannabis.

Publicado en: Law, Marihuana medicinal, regulación del cannabis | Etiquetado:, , ,

Estiman que el cannabis será el cultivo más rentable de Colombia

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La decisión para legalizar el cannabis para uso medicinal en Colombia dependerá de los ajustes que se apliquen al borrador del decreto que está creando el Ejecutivo, texto que se filtró el 13 de noviembre a los medios de comunicación. El ministro de Agricultura, Aurelio Iragorri, informó que el crecimiento del cultivo dependerá de la demanda internacional y de la regulación del Estado.

“El mercado de esos productos tiene un crecimiento exponencial en el mundo, por lo que estoy convencido de que va a jalonar de manera importante la actividad en la economía colombiana. Nosotros fuimos los reyes en la producción ilegal, ahora tenemos la oportunidad en la parte legal”, explicó Iragorri.

Por otro lado, el presidente de la Sociedad de Agricultores de Colombia (SAC), Rafael Mejía, opinó que la propuesta era adecuada y que el país podría convertirse en una potencia para suministrarle al mundo. “La demanda de marihuana ya es muy grande, el reto está en poder mantenerla dentro de las normas para que no se salga del plano de la salud, lo que implica un control muy complejo”, manifestó.

El presidente de DrugScience (formalmente el Comité Científico Independiente sobre Drogas), Jon Gettman, reveló que en Colombia la marihuana estimula más el mercado que el maíz y el trigo juntos (US$30.800 millones). Por lo tanto, es visto como el cultivo más rentable en la actualidad.

El director científico de Cannamedic, Camilo Borrero Martínez, cultiva, procesa y comercializa seis productos derivados del cannabis en su propio laboratorio. “La reglamentación es una oportunidad para grandes y pequeños, para proteger nuestra propiedad intelectual”, determinó Borrero, quien tiene años tramitando los permisos. Su empresa se creó en 2009 y es una de las 15 registradas en el país; sin embargo, lucha para que su producto sea visto como medicinal y no se compare con el del mercado negro.

El profesor de Toxicología de la Universidad Nacional, Jairo Tellez, advirtió que podrían haber problemas si personas naturales manipulan la planta. “Es como pretender producir antibióticos en casa”, dijo. De igual forma, el procuradorAlejandro Ordoñez y el presidente del Congreso, José David Name, desaprobaron la regulación del cannabis porque puede llegar a incentivar el uso recreativo.

Solo este año Colombia exportará US$2.200 millones entre el mercado de flores y el de plátanos. Se estima que si se llega a legalizar la droga, el negocio de la marihuana medicinal podría equivaler a ese comercio

Publicado en: cannabis medicinal, Marihuana medicinal, regulación del cannabis, Uncategorized | Etiquetado:, , , , , , , ,