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In reply to the discussion: Casual marijuana use linked to brain changes [View all]RainDog
(28,784 posts)136. There's more research available on cannabis than many FDA-approved drugs
http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/fda-drug-approvals-based-on-varied-data-study-finds/2014/01/21/b12d0712-82be-11e3-8099-9181471f7aaf_story.html
The Food and Drug Administration must bless any new drugs as safe and effective before they wind up in pharmacy aisles or prescribed to patients. But the ways in which the agency arrives at those approvals vary widely in their thoroughness, according to an analysis by researchers at Yale Universitys School of Medicine.
Not all FDA approvals are created equally, said Nicholas Downing, lead author of the study, which examined nearly 200 new drug approvals between 2005 and 2012.
Researchers found broad differences in the data it took to get a thumbs up from FDA. For instance, the agency required that many new drugs prove themselves in large, high-quality clinical trials. But about a third won approval on the basis of a single clinical trial, and many other trials involved small groups of patients and shorter durations. Only about 40 percent of approvals included trials in which the new drug was compared with existing drugs on the market.
The Food and Drug Administration must bless any new drugs as safe and effective before they wind up in pharmacy aisles or prescribed to patients. But the ways in which the agency arrives at those approvals vary widely in their thoroughness, according to an analysis by researchers at Yale Universitys School of Medicine.
Not all FDA approvals are created equally, said Nicholas Downing, lead author of the study, which examined nearly 200 new drug approvals between 2005 and 2012.
Researchers found broad differences in the data it took to get a thumbs up from FDA. For instance, the agency required that many new drugs prove themselves in large, high-quality clinical trials. But about a third won approval on the basis of a single clinical trial, and many other trials involved small groups of patients and shorter durations. Only about 40 percent of approvals included trials in which the new drug was compared with existing drugs on the market.
For cannabis?
20,000 published studies or reviews in the scientific literature referencing the cannabis plant and its cannabinoids, nearly half of which were published within the last five years, according to a keyword search on PubMed Central, the government repository for peer-reviewed scientific research.
Of these, more than 100 are controlled clinical trials assessing the therapeutic efficacy of cannabinoids for a variety of indications.
A 2006 review of 72 of these trials, conducted between the years 1975 and 2004, identifies ten distinct pathologies for which controlled studies on cannabinoids have been published
In fact, a 2008 meta-analysis published in the Journal of the Canadian Medical Association reported that cannabis-based drugs were associated with virtually no elevated incidences of serious adverse side-effects in over 30 years of investigative use.
http://www.suntimes.com/news/otherviews/24615512-452/pot-holds-no-medical-mysteries.html#.U1nRFK1dXQU
Of these, more than 100 are controlled clinical trials assessing the therapeutic efficacy of cannabinoids for a variety of indications.
A 2006 review of 72 of these trials, conducted between the years 1975 and 2004, identifies ten distinct pathologies for which controlled studies on cannabinoids have been published
In fact, a 2008 meta-analysis published in the Journal of the Canadian Medical Association reported that cannabis-based drugs were associated with virtually no elevated incidences of serious adverse side-effects in over 30 years of investigative use.
http://www.suntimes.com/news/otherviews/24615512-452/pot-holds-no-medical-mysteries.html#.U1nRFK1dXQU
At least 10 nations have made cannabis medicine legal for certain conditions (not a synthetic - whole cannabis plant medicine in the form of Sativex). This has been reality since 2010.
Cannabis has been used by humans for religious, health and recreational purposes for more than 5000 years. It was available to humans long before alcohol - it doesn't require processing, such as fermentation, and the history of humans indicates that cannabis spread throughout the world via the migration of humans - not by nature.
It, not alcohol, remains part of the pharmcopeia - yet alcohol is legal while cannabis is not.
This is nothing more than corruption on the part of lawmakers, and part of the history of the Republican Party's attacks on liberal voters - from its inception, through Nixon targeting "Jews, psychiatrists and hippies" by disregarding the opinion of Nixon's appointed judge to recommend policy on the subject - and the judge recommended decriminalization, fwiw, to the current prison industrial complex with sentencing law and LEO policy meant to target minorities.
There's nothing more to discuss about whether or not cannabis should be legal. It should be.
The issue now is how to get rid of any politician who does not recognize this reality.
btw, your statement that more studies are necessary is also one of the tools used by opponents to legalization when they can't argue on the merits of how bad cannabis is because "think of the children" or "it rots the brain" or any of the other arguments put forth.
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What does legality have anything to do with one drug being more destructive than another .... ?
MindMover
Apr 2014
#73
I rec'd your OP not because I agree with the study, but because I agree with this:
scarletwoman
Apr 2014
#10
Actually, no. I quit several times for years because of kids, jobs, schedules, etc.
mountain grammy
Apr 2014
#67
Unless it's that cheap $10/oz crap we used to buy across the border. Then maybe not.
jtuck004
Apr 2014
#19
I remember all the Reader's Digest articles citing a constant stream of studies showing all sorts of
byronius
Apr 2014
#41
Anti pot story brought to you by alcohol companies, bars and other legal death dealers
workinclasszero
Apr 2014
#43
Don't forget the petroleum,cotton and logging industries.They made sure it became illegal in the 1st
judesedit
Apr 2014
#62
I'm sure it's possible that this is true. But it seems minor compared to the side effects of...
DesertDiamond
Apr 2014
#48
That's bs. Pot smokers miss less work, are more productive & get more promotions according to other
judesedit
Apr 2014
#61
I'm surprised that a mainstream outlet actually published Gerdeman's point,
BlancheSplanchnik
Apr 2014
#83
This is just blatant misinformation/exaggeration and is what the prohibitionists want ...
MindMover
Apr 2014
#127