Pot-based prescription drug could receive FDA approval

[DreamSmoker]

A British pharmaceutic firm is completing clinical trials of a drug derived directly from marijuana and hopes to receive approval to market it from the Food and Drug Administration by the end of 2013.

The drug, which contains both THC and cannabidiol, has already been approved in Canada, New Zealand, and several European countries to relieve muscle spasms associated with multiple sclerosis. In the US, however, it would be sold to relieve cancer pain.

The FDA began approving drugs based on synthetic equivalents of the active ingredients in marijuana in 1985, but this would be the first drug derived from the plant itself. This is significant because, as the Associated Press points out, “The U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration categorizes pot as a dangerous drug with no medical value, but the availability of a chemically similar prescription drug could increase pressure on the federal government to revisit its position.”

http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2012/01/22/pot-based-prescription-drug-could-receive-fda-approval/

[dixiegrrrrl]

1. Using a medicinal plant in its natural form vs. synthetic form makes a huge difference.

As studies have shown, using the whole natural cannabis provides multiple natural elements which work holistically in the body.

Big pharma likes to extract one or 2 parts of a plant to create and market, ignoring the synergistic aspect of the whole plant.

[RainDog]

2. "derived from cannabis" is really misleading

Sativex isn't "derived from cannabis." IT IS CANNABIS.

It's not a "chemically-similar" prescription drug. IT IS CANNABIS.

there's a post in this forum about Sativex. There's a video excerpt from BBC Horizon that goes to a GW Pharma warehouse in Great Britain that shows how Sativex is made. The process is NO DIFFERENT than the way growers in CA, etc. grow cannabis for dispensaries.

The only diff. is that, like Rick Simpson's cannabis oil, Sativex is suspended in alcohol and reduced to make it more concentrated than cannabis in its vegetative state.

It appears that our news media needs to be more exact in its wording to avoid misconceptions that want to pretend Sativex is anything other than whole-plant cannabis.

The irony, too, is that Sativex is, essentially, the same tinctures that were sold here and used by doctors until cannabis prohibition in the late 1930s. I guess the news media has to pretend it's something else so that the hypocrisy of this issue is obscured somewhat.