[TeachMe]

Leading Scientists Confirm That Cannabis Is Safe And Non-Addictive

in Cannabis,Interesting News,Latest News
A Bold Claim From Professor H.P. Hartung

At a conference at GW Pharmaceutical’s headquarters in Porton Down, Wiltshire, Professor H.P. Hartung, Chair of Neurology at Heinrich-Heine University, Dusseldorf, Germany announced that Sativex, the super strong, concentrated cannabis medicine has “…limited relevant adverse effects and – particularly reassuring – the drug does not appear to lead to withdrawal effects if patients suddenly stop using it.” Full details here.

Sativex is made from high-THC skunk cannabis blended with a high-CBD variety and concentrated into a super strength solution that can be used to treat MS , chronic pain and, scientists believe , many more previously unrelieved conditions.

According to certain Scientific sources super strong, concentrated cannabis is safe. It’s not addictive. It doesn’t cause psychosis. There are virtually no side effects.

A bold and startling statement that is sure to raise some eyebrows, watch this space!

http://www.beckleyfo...-non-addictive/

[Hughie Green]

[Sawney Bean]

uk Leading Scientists Confirm That Cannabis their man made concoction Is Safe And Non-Addictive so lets all line their pockets!



aye aye aye, sativex is safe, but beware the cannabis plant, take any of that and it will send you loopy, they just say what ever suits themselves, arseholes

[bhudika]

He will be joining professor nutt in scientific extradition anytime soon

[compostverte]

It may be more concentrated than the average dealer weed, but surely the dose is actually pretty small ?

Quote

27mg/mi delta-9-tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) and 25mg/mi cannabidiol (CBD).

Assuming 10 percent THC, that would be 0.25 grammes of weed - a couple of small pipe hits ..

Though I have low tolerance so it would be enough to stop me operating machinery ...

[Rastajedi]

I was thinking it would be good to see this in the daily hail but that implies i'd have to read it

[Tevion]

I think its time for a bit of reverse pchsycology folks it works for baccy and drink, if we get some leading experts to err change their minds and all activists start saying it's bad burn all users, we may frighten the government into thinking that their actually doing what the people want which will freak em to fuck out.
Stop using ganja people its baaad for you! Oh and all coppers are honest decent non fuckwitted decent contributers to society who deserve a pay increase.

[chronic1]

Tevion, on 11 April 2012 - 07:38 PM, said:

I think its time for a bit of reverse pchsycology folks it works for baccy and drink, if we get some leading experts to err change their minds and all activists start saying it's bad burn all users, we may frighten the government into thinking that their actually doing what the people want which will freak em to fuck out.
Stop using ganja people its baaad for you! Oh and all coppers are honest decent non fuckwitted decent contributers to society who deserve a pay increase.

Yeh and I love man u

[RSVNera]

Proving:

That ALL governments don't mind you taking drugs, as long as they make them!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Sawney Bean, on 11 April 2012 - 04:03 PM, said:

uk Leading Scientists Confirm That Cannabis their man made concoction Is Safe And Non-Addictive so lets all line their pockets!



aye aye aye, sativex is safe, but beware the cannabis plant, take any of that and it will send you loopy, they just say what ever suits themselves, arseholes

[Arnold Layne]

What a crock of shyte!
We could have told them that, and we did! But they don't believe us.

Anyway, their real message is: Herbal cannabis and hash = BAD, Sativex and any other money spinning crap = GOOD!

Good grief, how long will it take till we realise this? Its all about the money. And the control. Sod healing folks, that is not cost effective! The real cry from The makers of Shittyvex and their Pharma cronies is "Heal our profits!"

[Ishmael]

TeachMe, on 11 April 2012 - 03:49 PM, said:

Sativex is made from high-THC skunk cannabis

So it's safe, but also evil?

[hightime54]

It'll be approved as an antidepressant soon then it can be used to treat all the untold misery that cannabis causes.
Grow weed pharmaceuticals.

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[Myrden]

, this is brilliant.

I really want to get a hold of the magic button that GW seem to have invented that removes all that nasty psychosis stuff from that Killer of Children, known as skunk. They'd make a fortune if they released that to the public, I think.

[FunkyJazzJesus]

this research is about cannabis, sativex is cannabis

[namkha]

interestingly Beckley Foundation seem to have taken the article/post down...

I contacted them with this e-mail:

Dear Staff,

There are some inaccuracies in that description of Sativex in your post "Leading Scientist Confirms Cannabis is Safe and Non-Addictive."

And the argument your writer is putting across suggests he/she hasn't really grasped the (spurious) argument Robin Murray et al. have been using regarding 'skunk' cannabis.

Murray's whole 'skunk psychosis' rationale hinges on that fact that the 'skunk' cannabis available in the UK these days typically contains no CBD - unlike Sativex, or indeed typical hashish such as the Moroccan hashish people in the UK used to smoke - and that this lack of CBD is what increases the risk of psychosis. Never mind that Murray's 'skunk psychosis epidemic' has never shown up in any epidemiological studies. And never mind that according to the gov't's own FSS data 'skunk' (14% THC) has on average only 1.5% more THC than traditional imported grass (12.5% THC, and which also has no CBD) --- such scare-mongering suits the gov't too well!

So, yes, there are two plants involved in making Sativex: one of them is indeed a pure high-THC cultivar (comparable to 'skunk' type hybrids, or traditional Thai or South Indian ganja cultivars). The other is, as said a pure high-CBD one.

Extracts are then made from each plant, which gives you a solution of the cannabinoids and also all the essential oils (terpenoids etc.) from each parent plant. These are then blended together in a roughly 1:1 ratio (49% CBD plant extract to 51% THC plant extract. )

The extracts and the resulting blend are what the gov't want to call CBMs, or a Cannabis Based Medicines - aka CBMEs, or Cannabis Based Medicinal Extracts. Because the cannabinoid content is stable and strictly controlled, that - in the ACMD and Home Offices' view - makes it rational to put CBMEs in Schedule 4, while cannabis itself remains in Schedule 1, for drugs with no recognised medicinal value.

There are deep ironies here. Firstly, the very same stability and control can easily be maintained by anybody who can make a plant cutting (known in the jargon as a 'clone') and has access to gas chromatography to get an accurate reading on cannabinoid content.

But more ironic still is that, as it happens, Moroccan hashish - the cannabis most people were smoking in the UK until the turn of the 21st century - typically shares the 1:1 THC:CBD profile of Sativex. The same is true of hashish from Lebanon and Afghanistan. But this type of cannabis has been driven out of the market by the rise of indoor growing - which is itself in part a response to the gov't's own punitive drug policy. In the last ten years the UK cannabis marketplace has gone from being 80% plus Moroccan hash, to the present 80% plus 'skunk'.

So in effect, having driven Moroccan hashish from the marketplace, the government now wants it to be sold back to us in a tamper-proof container with user-recognition software etc. And meanwhile every other cannabis plant now growing in a field in Morroco or Afghanistan has the very same 'strictly controlled' 1:1 THC:CBD cannabinoid ratio as Sativex (the genes for THC and CBD are co-dominant at the same allele). The mind boggles!

Hope that is of interest and some help!

thanks

Namkha

they wrote back to say:

Thank you for bringing this to our attention Namkah we will amend this accordingly.

I should note that this article is in fact an excerpt from GW Pharmaceuticals Phase III data on efficacy and tolerability of Sativex® in MS spasticity presented at ECTRIMS.

It may be worth sending them this information. We would be extremely interested with there reply.


Phase III data on efficacy and tolerability of Sativex® in MS spasticity presented at ECTRIMS
http://www.gwpharm.c...%20ECTRIMS.aspx

---

anyway, I'm thinking of hassling the ACMD with a few more Freedom of Information requests, now that they've started replying

anybody got any thoughts on that?

I tend to get bogged down in the details when writing these things, and miss the big picture...

e.g. re. the ACMDs Schedule 1/Schedule 4 argument - surely all the stability, control, dosing etc. needed could easily be achieved by somebody able to make clones, and test them with gas chromatography...

i.e. it's only the law which is stopping cannabis in the UK being as safe as it needs to be to meet these criteria...