Medical Marijuana's "Catch-22"

Right this is from another member on a different forum www.icmag.com from I.M.B and it goes a lil like this

Regarding the "F.D.A.'s Catch-22 decision"...
Titled:

Inter-Agency Advisory Regarding Claims That Smoked Marijuana Is a Medicine...

pretty funny fellers (political puppets) down there at the F.D.A.
why some politician startled himself awake from a dead sleep with that particular bright idea, why release "the newest validation of the big lie" on April 20th...
If one notices "they" do not refer to marijuana as cannabis, it's proper scientific name, at any time in the F.D.A.'s "420 Propaganda Release"...

IMB :)
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Catch-22:
1.
a. A situation in which a desired outcome or solution is impossible to attain because of a set of inherently illogical rules or conditions
b. The rules or conditions that create such a situation.

2. A situation or predicament characterized by absurdity or senselessness.
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Source:
From the editors of "Scientific American" magazine


Medical Marijuana's Catch-22

...the Food and Drug Administration issued a statement reaffirming its opposition to the medical use of marijuana, declaring that "no sound scientific studies supported medical use of marijuana for treatment in the United States, and no animal or human data supported the safety or efficacy of marijuana for general medical use.
There are alternative FDA-approved medications in existence for treatment of many of the proposed uses of smoked marijuana."

This, despite the existence of a 1999 report by the Institute of Medicine of the National Academy of Sciences, which concluded that marijuana was "moderately well suited for particular conditions, such as chemotherapy-induced nausea and vomiting and AIDS wasting."
As the New York Times notes in its front-page coverage:


Quote:
Dr. John Benson, co-chairman of the Institute of Medicine committee that examined the research into marijuana's effects, said in an interview that the statement on Thursday and the combined review by other agencies were wrong.

The federal government "loves to ignore our report," said Dr. Benson, a professor of internal medicine at the University of Nebraska Medical Center. "They would rather it never happened."

Some scientists and legislators said the agency's statement about marijuana demonstrated that politics had trumped science.



(Forgive a digression: that last paragraph made me laugh.
How many times in recent years have science reporters had to write some version of that sentence?
"Some scientists and legislators said the [WHITE HOUSE/FEDERAL AGENCY]'s statement about [SUBJECT] demonstrated that politics had trumped science" ought to be a Word macro.)

I'm not going to pick a fight with the FDA's need to prevent anyone from circumventing its authority to test and regulate the availability of therapies. I'm also not going to argue about whether medical marijuana programs inevitably ease recreational access to pot, and whether that's a bad thing. (Attention, NORML: please spare me the missives about wondrous, wondrous hemp and its infinite uses.)

What is completely wrong about the FDA's position, however, is that in effect it continues to impede not just the medical use of marijuana but also medical research on marijuana, which could lead to superior therapies that don't involve smoking or getting high at all.

Back in December 2004, SciAm published
"The Brain's Own Marijuana," by Roger A. Nicoll and Bradley N. Alger (you can read the entire text linked at bottom here *).
The article's deck tells the tale: "Research into natural chemicals that mimic marijuana's effects in the brain could help to explain--and suggest treatments for--pain, anxiety, eating disorders, phobias and other conditions." The SA Perspectives that month argued with the tight federal restrictions that limited the advance of that research:

Quote:

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Yet outdated regulations and attitudes thwart legitimate research with marijuana. Indeed, American biomedical researchers can more easily acquire and investigate cocaine. Marijuana is classified as a so-called Schedule 1 drug, alongside LSD and heroin. As such, it is defined as being potentially addictive and having no medical use, which under the circumstances becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Any researcher attempting to study marijuana must obtain it through the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA). The U.S. research crop, grown at a single facility, is regarded as less potent--and therefore less medicinally interesting--than the marijuana often easily available on the street. Thus, the legal supply is a poor vehicle for studying the approximately 60 cannabinoids that might have medical applications.

...

The reasonable course is to make it easier for American researchers to at least examine marijuana for possible medical benefits.
Great Britain, no slacker in the war on drugs, takes this approach: the government has authorized a pharmaceutical firm to grow different strains of marijuana for clinical trials.

This call for marijuana research is not a closet campaign for drug legalization--easing research barriers would not require that marijuana be reclassified, nor would it have any bearing on individual states' decisions to approve limited use of medical marijuana.
As a 1995 editorial in the Journal of the American Medical Association said, "We are not asking readers for immediate agreement with our affirmation that marijuana is medically useful, but we hope they will do more to encourage open and legal exploration of its potential."
After almost a decade of little progress, we reiterate that sentiment.

---

And now we have to reiterate it again.
Medical marijuana is caught in a classic Catch-22 situation:
It is banned because the federal government dismisses the evidence of therapeutic benefit as insufficient.
But because marijuana is banned, scientists can't easily gather more evidence to make the case.
And new drugs based on marijuana are casualties of the same policies.

Meanwhile, patients continue to suffer despite strong evidence that work in this area could lead to better medicines.

How does this seem like a good arrangement?
Seriously, what are the feds smoking?

http://blog.sciam.com/index.php?tit...1&c=1&tb=1&pb=1


Marijuana and Medicine
Assessing the Science Base
Janet E. Joy, Stanley J. Watson, Jr., and
John A. Benson, Jr., Editors
Division of Neuroscience and Behavioral Health
INSTITUTE OF MEDICINE
http://newton.nap.edu/html/marimed/
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*
The Brain's Own Marijuana
Research into natural chemicals that mimic marijuana's effects in the brain
could help to explain--and suggest treatments for--pain, anxiety, eating disorders, phobias and other conditions
http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?ar...0000&sc=I100322
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The phrase Big Lie refers to a propaganda technique which entered mass consciousness with Adolf Hitler's 1925 autobiography Mein Kampf.
In that book Hitler wrote that people came to believe that Germany lost World War I in the field due to a propaganda technique used by Jews who were influential in the German press.
This technique, he believed, consisted of telling a lie so "colossal" that no one would believe anyone "could have the impudence to distort the truth so infamously"....
...

Hitler wrote in his 1925 autobiography Mein Kampf (James Murphy translation, page 134):

All this was inspired by the principle - which is quite true in itself - that in the big lie there is always a certain force of credibility; because the broad masses of a nation are always more easily corrupted in the deeper strata of their emotional nature than consciously or voluntarily; and thus in the primitive simplicity of their minds they more readily fall victims to the big lie than the small lie, since they themselves often tell small lies in little matters but would be ashamed to resort to large-scale falsehoods.
It would never come into their heads to fabricate colossal untruths, and they would not believe that others could have the impudence to distort the truth so infamously.
Even though the facts which prove this to be so may be brought clearly to their minds, they will still doubt and waver and will continue to think that there may be some other explanation.
For the grossly impudent lie always leaves traces behind it, even after it has been nailed down, a fact which is known to all expert liars in this world and to all who conspire together in the art of lying.
These people know only too well how to use falsehood for the basest purposes. ...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_lie

Shalom,
IMB :)
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A BIG LIE FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
April 20, 2006
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Inter-Agency Advisory Regarding Claims That Smoked Marijuana Is a Medicine

Claims have been advanced asserting smoked marijuana has a value in treating various medical conditions.
Some have argued that herbal marijuana is a safe and effective medication and that it should be made available to people who suffer from a number of ailments upon a doctor's recommendation, even though it is not an approved drug.

Marijuana is listed in schedule I of the Controlled Substances Act (CSA), the most restrictive schedule. The Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), which administers the CSA, continues to support that placement and FDA concurred because marijuana met the three criteria for placement in Schedule I under 21 U.S.C. 812(b)(1) (e.g., marijuana has a high potential for abuse, has no currently accepted medical use in treatment in the United States, and has a lack of accepted safety for use under medical supervision). Furthermore, there is currently sound evidence that smoked marijuana is harmful.
A past evaluation by several Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) agencies, including the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) and National Institute for Drug Abuse (NIDA), concluded that no sound scientific studies supported medical use of marijuana for treatment in the United States, and no animal or human data supported the safety or efficacy of marijuana for general medical use.
There are alternative FDA-approved medications in existence for treatment of many of the proposed uses of smoked marijuana.

FDA is the sole Federal agency that approves drug products as safe and effective for intended indications.
The Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic (FD&C) Act requires that new drugs be shown to be safe and effective for their intended use before being marketed in this country.
FDA's drug approval process requires well-controlled clinical trials that provide the necessary scientific data upon which FDA makes its approval and labeling decisions.
If a drug product is to be marketed, disciplined, systematic, scientifically conducted trials are the best means to obtain data to ensure that drug is safe and effective when used as indicated.
Efforts that seek to bypass the FDA drug approval process would not serve the interests of public health because they might expose patients to unsafe and ineffective drug products.
FDA has not approved smoked marijuana for any condition or disease indication.

A growing number of states have passed voter referenda (or legislative actions) making smoked marijuana available for a variety of medical conditions upon a doctor's recommendation.
These measures are inconsistent with efforts to ensure that medications undergo the rigorous scientific scrutiny of the FDA approval process and are proven safe and effective under the standards of the FD&C Act.
Accordingly, FDA, as the federal agency responsible for reviewing the safety and efficacy of drugs, DEA as the federal agency charged with enforcing the CSA, and the Office of National Drug Control Policy, as the federal coordinator of drug control policy, do not support the use of smoked marijuana for medical purposes.


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Smoked marijuana vs. alternative self-titration methods...
Vaporizer...tinctures...baked goods anyone...
I predict that the trade-marked/ patented/ Name brand Cannaboid product "Sativex" is poised to weasel it's way through the back door for conditional approval with it's own apparent ongoing in-house non U.S. based research studies as a scientific basis for it's eventual conditional approval in the U.S...
IMB
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From "Health Canada" website

SATIVEX®
contains Tetranabinex® and Nabidiolex®, extracts of chemically and genetically characterised Cannabis sativa L. plants (hemp plants).

SATIVEX® is provided as a buccal spray in a 5.5 ml vial, with each 100 microlitre spray providing 2.7 mg delta-9-tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) and 2.5 mg cannabidiol (CBD).

Conditional marketing approval was based on a four week clinical trial in patients with multiple sclerosis who had neuropathic pain of at least three months duration.
There was a significant reduction in neuropathic pain as measured by both the Neuropathic Pain Scale and the Numerical Rating Scale (BS-11). Sleep disturbance was also significantly reduced.
...
Dosage and Administration

This medication is administered as a self-titration regimen, with gradual increase in dose as needed and tolerated until satisfactory pain relief is achieved.
During the initial self-titration period, patients may experience adverse effects of intoxication.
These can be used to guide self-titration to establish a satisfactory dosage regime.
Patients should be advised that it might take a week or more to find the optimal dosing level.
The median daily dosage of SATIVEX® in the extension phase of the 4-week clinical trial was 5 sprays per day.
There is limited experience with doses higher than 12 sprays per day.
Some patients may require and may tolerate a higher number of sprays.

the fda and the government will never allow any HERBAL remedies to be used in the place of prescription drugs,for whatever reason because if we started using herbal/vitamin supplements to cure or reduce symptoms of disease,what would happen to big drug companies?the fda will never approve herbal therapy because its cheaper and wont generate as much money as prescription drugs.ill be very surprised if marijuana will be legal for medical reasons or not in my lifetime.marinol is synthetic and doesnt have the same effect as grown marijuana,which we all know is very benificial in pain management/nausea,etc.its my opinion that marinol was created to shut people up.

The big medical companies want you to get hooked on their drugs and slowly kill yourself in the long run. If a person is sick, and they take a "legal" drug to cure their ailment, yet, it makes them even sicker; then what do you call that? I have a special name for it, and it's called, "Orthidox Medical Bullshit". People are allways being told that natural things arn't really good, but the chemicals are better. That's abunch of crap as well. Your body can use natural materials better than it can use sinthetic crap. It's supposed to brake down all of the natural material for use, because that's what your body is made up of. It's not made up of sinthetic fibors and man-made chemicals.