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The Daily Signal
The Dirty
Little Secret Pot Pushers Don’t Want You to Know About
Cully Stimson & Alexandra Seymour
August 04, 2016
States have passed so-called “medical marijuana” laws under the theory
that pot has medicinal benefits that can’t be produced by other, legal
means.
But what if there was a Food and Drug Administration-approved drug that
gave you all the benefits of the active ingredients in marijuana, such
as tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) or cannabidiol?
What if that drug had been rigorously tested through clinical trials to
make sure that it worked as promised, was properly dosed, and had no
unanticipated side effects?
And what if you could get that lawful drug from your doctor in pill or
liquid form?
Would it surprise you to know there already are three FDA-approved THC
drugs and that at least five more are on the way? We suspect so,
because the pot pushers—those that push smoked and edible marijuana as
“medicine”—don’t want you to know about these safe alternatives.
Some of those FDA-approved drugs have been around since the 1980s.
That’s right—the dirty little secret they hide from you is that you
don’t have to smoke marijuana, eat it in a brownie, or chew it in a
marijuana-laced gummy bear to reap the medicinal benefits of THC.
The three FDA-approved drugs are Marinol, Cesamet, and Syndros. Drugs
like Syndros show great promise for countering today’s dangerous
“medical marijuana” movement.
In early July, the FDA approved Syndros as the first orally
administered liquid form of THC. Like Marinol, the original oral
cannabinoid to gain FDA approval in 1985, Syndros treats anorexia
associated with weight loss in patients with AIDS, as well as nausea
and vomiting caused by cancer chemotherapy.
Epidiolex is one drug currently on the FDA fast track. According to a
recent press release from GW Pharmaceuticals, a study of 171 randomized
patients suffering from Lennox-Gastaut and Dravet syndromes found that
Epidiolex decreased seizure occurrence, was relatively well tolerated
among patients, and generated no unexpected adverse effects.
Other cannabinoid-based medications on the international market today
include Cesamet, another synthetic drug that treats nausea and vomiting
stemming from chemotherapy; Cannador, which is currently used in Europe
and has demonstrated potential to relieve multiple sclerosis symptoms
and postoperative pain management; and Sativex, another GW
Pharmaceuticals drug on the FDA fast track that treats spasticity
caused by multiple sclerosis.
Since these are all medical cannabinoids, they do not require smoking.
They are also safer to use because levels of THC can be monitored.
Knowing these safer alternatives exist, ask yourself: Why? Why have the
pot pushers kept this secret and why don’t they want you to know this?
“The medicinal marijuana system in this country has become a bad joke,
an affront to the concept of safe and reliable medicine, defying the
standards that we have come to expect from the medical establishment,”
Dr. Kevin Sabet, former senior adviser to President Barack Obama’s drug
policy office, wrote in his book, “Reefer Sanity: Seven Great Myths
About Marijuana.”
We can thank Ed Rosenthal and Richard Cowan for creating the current
public perception of the so-called “medical marijuana” marketplace.
In a video filmed many years ago, which we highlighted in this 2010
blog post, Rosenthal (former editor of High Times magazine) and Cowan
(former director of NORML—the National Organization for the Reform of
Marijuana Law) joked about the nationwide “scam” they started. They
realized that if they convinced enough people that smoking marijuana
was “medical marijuana,” that would be the beginning of a movement
toward full legalization.
“Once there’s medical access, if we continue to do what we have to do
and we will, then we’ll get full legalization,” Cowan explained.
“I have to tell you that I also use marijuana medically,” Rosenthal
joked. “I have a latent glaucoma which has never been diagnosed, and
the reason why its never been diagnosed is because I’ve been treating
it.”
But, according to Rosenthal, pleasure trumps any medicinal benefit he
should derive from marijuana anyway.
“There is a reason why I do use it,” he said. “And that’s because I
like to get high. Marijuana is fun.”
Sabet acknowledges that THC has potential therapeutic effects, but
these do not come from smoking pot. (We don’t light any of our
FDA-approved medicine on fire and smoke it, after all).
With the average strength of marijuana being five to six times what it
was in the 1960s and 70s, the repercussions of marijuana and legalizing
it are more evident than before. Some of these include higher risks of
motor vehicle accidents, heart attacks, and impaired immune systems and
short-term memories. Evidently, the pot pushers don’t want you to know
this truth.
“America is being sold a false dichotomy: ‘We can either stick to our
current failed policies, or we can try a ‘new approach’ with
legalization,” Sabet said. “Sadly, this kind of black-and-white
thinking conceals the fact that there are better, more effective ways
than either legalization or incarceration to deal with this complex
issue.”
Cannabinoid-based drugs are better alternatives because they reap the
benefits of marijuana’s therapeutic components safely, as well as have
the potential to become FDA approved if they aren’t already.
So the next time a pot pusher encourages a state to enact so-called
“medical marijuana” laws, or goes for full legalization in violation of
federal law, ask them: Why are they pushing an unsafe, untested product
instead of pushing FDA-approved THC?
Read this and other articles at The Daily Signal
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