WHOLE PLANT CANNABIS MEDICINE NEEDED ON MARKET

Once upon a time in America medical patients used only whole plants and
plant extracts as medicine but we have come so far in modern medicine that
only "clean" single molecule chemical drugs are used for medicine now,
right? Actually no. In my research I have discovered that today we actually
rely on 7000 modern drugs derived from plants and 70% of anticancer drugs
are not only from plants but from plants from the rain forrest. [source: NPR]

It appears that drug company's distance themselves from the source material
for drugs for many reasons. In Mexico, Shaman have had trouble legally
accessing age old plant cures after showing drug company representatives
how to use the plants for medicine. You see when the drug company patents
the medicines derived from the rain forest plants the indigenous peoples
can only use them via prescription at great expense. I understand in recent
years shaman have wised up to this and ask for a contract up front. Indeed
the cure to diseases that haven't even occurred yet may be in the rain
forest awaiting discovery.

I left you off with a question in my last column, why would a crude oil
based drug fail where a whole plant succeeds? You see the synthetic version
of the so called active ingredient in Cannabis has been quietly sold
legally in the USA since the 1980's but as you know many patients are
risking great hassle from the DEA to use whole home grown Cannabis instead.
There are many reasons why Marinol doesn't work as well as actual Cannabis
in some people.

Cannabis has been used as medicine for thousands of years but it was
actually about 40 years ago that scientists discovered the active
ingredient, THC. Once the active ingredient was located scientists were
then able to see what portions of the brain this chemical effected. In 1988
the CB1 receptor, which is found mainly in the brain, was discovered but
then in 1992 a discovery by a team led by Raphael Mechoulam of Hebrew
University in Jerusalem found the first Cannabinoid neurotransmitter that
is "endogenous"or normally present in the brain, It's an arachidonic acid
derivative, called anandamide named after the Sanskrit term for Bliss.

In 1993 the CB2 receptor, which is found mainly outside the brain, was
discovered. This set the stage for the discovery of an entire basic system
in the human body, the endogenous cannabinoid system!

The CB1 receptor is highly abundant in the brain. According to Steven R.
Childers, a professor of physiology and pharmacology at Wake Forest
University School of Medicine in Winston-Salem, N.C. it's by far the
brain's most common G-protein-coupled receptor, and it even approaches some
of the receptors for excitatory amino acid transmitters, such as glutamate,
in quantity. "Certainly no one would ever have predicted that a receptor
for marijuana would exist in such high quantities in brain," Childers
contends. "We believe there are significant functional consequences to the
large amount of receptors that are there." For example, he explains, "if it
weren't for the fact that there are so many of these receptors in brain,
it's probably likely that cannabis itself would not be an effective drug,"
since D9-THC is such a weak partial agonist. In terms of the distribution
of CB1 receptors, "when you look at an autoradiogram, the thing that really
jumps out at you are motor systems," Childers observes. "Motor systems
throughout the brain are activated by the agonist." This helps to explain
why Cannabis is so successful in the treatment of neurological disorders
such as pain from MS.

Drug warriors like to mention that "marihuana" isn't just THC but consists
of many constituents. These different plant compounds all react with each
other and the combined effect is why one strain of Cannabis may help one
patient feel better where another strain may work better for someone else.

Genetic manipulations that produce these varieties are made through a type
of natural selection called classical or Mendellian Genetics. To my
knowledge there have been absolutely no genetically engineered marijuana
plants created on earth [yet] and recent propaganda that cannabis plants
are "genetically altered and more dangerous than marijuana of decades past"
is a bold faced lie propagated by desperate drug warriors with no grasp of
science.

So what about Marinol? Marinol fails precisely because it isn't Cannabis
but just 1 small fraction of the plants profile. In recent years
cannabidiol (CBD), the other major cannabinoid in Cannabis has been found
important in producing a more balanced medicinal effect in combination with
THC. CBD is especially active in anti-inflammatory effects, which seem to
effect just about every other condition by extension. The effect of taking
Marinol [which lacks CBD] is sometimes to get too high. Patients often
compare the effect with eating to many hashish brownies.

A new product on the horizon called Sativex, produced by a UK firm called
GW, offers an improvement on Marinol in that it is a whole plant extract
liquid mouth spray that is made from the 50/50 combination of two
Mendellian masterpieces, a plant that express's itself mostly in THC and
another that express's itself mostly in CBD. This product is approved for
patient use in Canada and is only a few weeks from market introduction.

In a reaction to this a company named Cannasat has popped up in Canada
which appears to be a company that will attempt to put high quality whole
cannabis grown in Canada, that is more similar to that Cannabis already in
use at patient cooperatives now, on the pharmacy shelves.

Marinol also seems to be getting on the bandwagon with a new spray version
of their product being proposed. It is important to note that Marinol is
not just legal but is the ONLY drug to ever be down graded from schedule 2
to schedule 3 in the US code since the creation of the drugs laws. This was
done because apparently the active ingredient in Cannabis is extremely safe
and effective and not that dangerous.

In recent days GW, makers of Sativex, have gotten into hot water with
medical marijuana activists for distancing themselves from the politically
incorrect alternative to their product a little to aggressively. The LA
Times reports that GW has hired one of the most nefarious mouth foaming
anti medical marijuana drug war fundamentalists, Andrea Barthwell, for
their US team. I guess the thinking was to take advantage of her drug czar
contacts and take political cover behind her anti-marihuana position but
that is like hiding a lamb behind a wolf to protect it from a herd of
sheep. As of this writing GW has been unavailable for comment on the
Barthwell hire. In reading GW's materials on their website they say "we
have consistently maintained that crude herbal cannabis can never meet the
regulatory standards of the FDA". I have spoken with a representative of
the US-FDA just today who says this is false. Apparently there are
provisions within the FDA process for a whole plant medicine to be approved
for medicinal use. I own stock in GW and have great hopes in their product
but I find their anti-marijuana stance hard to swallow.

One thing for sure is that we don't want to find ourselves in the same
situation as the shaman where we no longer can access a plant, which our
folk medicine uses well, but rather have to shell out big bucks for a drug
company prescription alternative. Or even worse face jail for using the
homegrown plant while special plant extracts are sold by prescription to
those with insurance.