Why Big Pharma Would Love Cannabis Being a Schedule 2 Drug

How to Magically give Cannabis Medical Value according to the Federal Government

Drug Companies Would Love Cannabis Changed to a Schedule 2 Drug from CannabisNet on Vimeo.

For decades now the Federal government has been very clear about cannabis – “It has a high potential for abuse and NO ACCEPTED MEDICAL VALUE”.

Obviously, people have become aware that this statement is not just inherently inaccurate, it’s actually dangerous as it is keeping life-saving medicine out of the hands of people.

Despite the fact that the FDA has approved synthetic versions of THC as medicine, it still holds fast to the idea that cannabis has no medical value – this despite that the FDA approved drugs have claimed the lives of patients in the past.

Nonetheless, GW Pharmaceuticals is on the verge of having a CBD derivative approved by the FDA. What this would mean on a federal level is that cannabis would suddenly have “accepted medical value”. As a result, this would directly impact the Schedule-I classification of cannabis under the federal government.

Even though this is “good news”, it does show us how magic works within the federal government.

For decades, people have been treating their conditions with cannabis. Of course, there weren’t any approved drug trials to test the efficacy of cannabis, yet we have seen plenty of anecdotal evidence to affirm the efficacy of the plant.

The difference between the drug (Epidiolex) and the synthetic THC (Marinol) is that Epidiolex will actually be plant-based medicine and not created in a lab.

The ruling, which is supposed to come by the end of June this year, would effectively force the federal government to accept the medical value of cannabis.

Now of course, we know that the US owns patents on the medical properties of cannabinoids, however a ruling by the FDA would mean that the government officially recognizes the medical value of cannabis. No longer would the classification of cannabis be justified under a Schedule I ruling.

If the FDA does rule in favor of the drug, which as of now seems to be like it’s going to happen since the clinical trials showed that the CBD based medicine worked roughly 40% better than the placebo, it could be the beginning of cannabis classification.

However, this is where I’m scared.

Most people would be ecstatic over the idea of cannabis being re-classified but if this is the case, it’s most likely that cannabis would go to a Schedule II classification. What Schedule II would do is make it incredibly hard for non-pharmaceutical companies to legally sell cannabis products as the requirements within the Schedule II category is quite expensive. Most local businesses wouldn’t be able to legally sell due to the fact that they wouldn’t be able to comply with the strict rules within the Schedule II category.

Ideally, we’d want no classification – just like alcohol and tobacco, however if we had to choose a Schedule III or even lower would be ideal. If we do see a Schedule II ruling, it would be a massive attempt by the pharmaceutical industry to hijack the progress we have made with cannabis over the years mainly due to budgetary restraints.

Furthermore, there is a difference between consuming a CBD only product as opposed to the entire cannabis plant.

When you consume cannabinoids in conjunction with all the cannabinoids found within the cannabis plant, a peculiar thing occurs – they work together. This is called the entourage effect or the net effect, where the cannabinoids complement each other to be more efficient in treating diseases and conditions.

While CBD only products aren’t bad, under a Schedule II classification we could be limited to pharmaceutical grade cannabinoids, which are isolated per specific drug. This means we are missing out on the entourage effect of the cannabinoids found within cannabis.

Nonetheless, it’s funny [not ha ha funny, more like ‘what’s that smell’ funny] that if a pharmaceutical company presents cannabis in a processed pill form, the FDA is more inclined to rule that cannabis has medical value as when it is offered in its raw form.

To be honest, cannabis in its raw form should be classified as a vegetable as it should become an intricate part of our diets in order to maintain homeostasis and improve our overall health.

Nonetheless, the move by GW pharmaceuticals is a step in the right direction. You can’t blame a pharmaceutical company for wanting to jump into the game of the medical marijuana, especially since hundreds if not thousands of new drugs can be developed if the plant is properly researched.

We’ll have to wait and see what happens this year as we approach the June deadline. I’ll report back on this story again once I know more, but for now…this could be the year the Federal government finally admits that cannabis does indeed, have a lot of medical value.

Fingers crossed folks, fingers crossed.

Drug Companies Would Love Cannabis Changed to a Schedule 2 Drug from CannabisNet on Vimeo.