A newsletter about cannabis and cannabinoids as medicine
A much anticipated release of findings of two year scientific assessment of cannabis leaves, the “Critical Review on Cannabis”, was not published as expected on 7 December at the UN headquarters in Vienna during the CND meeting (Commission on Narcotic Drugs). The last assessment by WHO in 1954 fuelled global prohibition under the UN drug control Treaty framework.
Scientific-based recommendations of the WHO to the UN on the therapeutic value and possible harms related to cannabis and cannabis products are likely to put an end to global cannabis prohibition. On 5-7 December, the Commission on Narcotic Drugs of the United Nations is holding the last session where inputs can be provided for a High-Level Session on drug policy in March 2019.
Legalization of cannabis in some form was approved by three more states on 6 November. Michigan voters favoured legalizing recreational-use cannabis, while Utah and Missouri passed propositions on medical cannabis. Michigan already has a law allowing and regulating medical cannabis.
For some patients suffering from bipolar disorder cannabis may result in partial alleviation of symptoms. This is the result of research at the McLean Hospital in Belmont, USA. Twelve patients with bipolar disorder who used cannabis, 18 bipolar patients who did not use the drug, 23 cannabis users and 21 healthy controls completed a neuropsychological battery. Further, participants rated their mood three times daily as well as after each instance of cannabis use over a four-week period.
The IACM Board of Directors would like to invite you to the 10th IACM Conference on Cannabinoids in Medicine 2019. The conference website with the preliminary program will go online early next year.
Medical cannabis will be made available to UK patients via prescription from November on, after a long battle with spotlight on children and other patients whose conditions were eased by the substance. Until now, the drug has been listed in schedule 1 – the strictest schedule possible – under UK law, limiting medical cannabis to be allowed in only exceptional circumstances and requiring a Home Office license.
South Africa’s highest court allows the private use of cannabis, upholding a lower court’s ruling that found the criminalization of cannabis was unconstitutional. Activists who include traditional healers greeted the ruling with loud applause.
The IACM Board of Directors decided to establish a certification process for conferences on the medical use of cannabis to give potential visitors a first orientation and support organises of good conferences. Fortunately, in recent years the number of conferences has increased considerable, however of varying quality and benefit for the participants. To enable all conference organisers to be certified by the IACM the evaluation process will only cost €500-€1000. The bases of the certification is the content, the speakers, the organiser and the website. Applicants may contact the IACM by sending an email to info@cannabis-med.org.
The European Parliament is preparing a resolution on the medical use of cannabis. The draft says among others that “research on medical cannabis has been underfunded and should be properly addressed under the next Framework Programme 9.” It “calls on Member States to encourage increased knowledge among medical professionals regarding the use of such cannabis-based medicine and consider allowing doctors to freely use their professional judgement to prescribe cannabis and cannabisbased medicines to patients with relevant conditions.”
In a large study scientists demonstrated that the legalisation of the medical use of cannabis, improved workplace safety for workers aged 25 to 44. Investigators at the Department of Agricultural Economics and Economics of Montana State University in Bozeman, USA, analysed data of all 50 US states and the District of Columbia for the period 1992 to 2015.
The IACM partner journal Cannabis and Cannabinoid Research will be transitioning to a hybrid publication model in January 2019. “This move will open the door for increased levels of high-quality scholarship dedicated to the scientific, medical, and psychosocial exploration of clinical cannabis, cannabinoids, and endocannabinoids, while giving authors more options during the publication process,” Dr Daniele Piomelli, the editor of the journal, wrote in his announcement.
In order to establish a wider network that will work together toward its aims as mentioned in the statutes, the IACM has nominated ambassadors in different countries around the world. There are both Professional Ambassadors and Patient Ambassadors, as well as Partner Organizations
Switzerland, which permits low potency cannabis with THC concentrations of up to 1 % but bans cannabis with high THC content for recreational use, aims to allow pilot studies on ways to relax its laws, its government said on 4 July. It also proposed making it easier for people to access cannabis for medical use.
Number 1 of the new open-access journal Medical Cannabis and Cannabinoids has just been launched, containing editorial, interviews with board members, research and review articles about basic, pre-clinical and clinical studies, as well as comments. It is a product of Karger Publishers Basel, the official journal of the Swiss Task Force for Cannabinoids in Medicine (STCM), and a new partner journal of the IACM. The Editor-in-Chief is Dr Rudolf Brenneisen, Swiss Academy of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Bern, Switzerland.
70 years after the foundation of the World Health Organisation in 1948 its expert committee on drug dependence has started to analyse the harms and benefits of cannabis for health. Their conclusions are likely to change international laws. The 40th meeting of the ECDD (Expert Committee on Drug Dependence) started with a hearing of patients, doctors and experts in the field. The IACM was invited to participate with a video statement. In addition, representatives of non-governmental organisations, among them Michael Krawitz, patient representative of the IACM, presented an extended written statement.
A bill to allow limited use of cannabis for medical purposes was approved by the interim cabinet. More than just cannabis, the bill would decriminalize consumption of other narcotics including kratom and opium to enable medical research to be conducted – a necessary step toward broader availability for therapeutic uses.
Zimbabweans can now apply for licences to grow cannabis for medical and research purposes, the government said, making Zimbabwe the second country in Africa to legalize cultivation of the plant. Lesotho last year announced the continent’s first license to grow cannabis legally. Until now, it has been illegal to grow, possess or use cannabis in Zimbabwe, with offenders facing up to 12 years in jail.
In a study on 3299 patients with a burn injury cannabis use was associated with lower mortality and shorter hospital stays compared to non-users and users of other drugs. Researchers of the Jaycee Burn Center of North Carolina in Chapel Hill, USA, analysed data of all patients admitted to the centre in 2015.
The implementation of medical cannabis laws in the USA is associated with reduced prescriptions of opioids according two studies published in the journal JAMA Internal Medicine. In the first study researchers of the University of Kentucky in Lexington and Emory University investigated the relationship between cannabis laws and opiate prescriptions in patients enrolled in the Medicaid program, a joint federal and state program that helps with medical costs for some people with limited income and resources. Authors found that, “state implementation of medical marijuana laws was associated with a 5.88 percent lower rate of opioid prescribing. Moreover, the implementation of adult-use marijuana laws, which all occurred in states with existing medical marijuana laws, was associated with a 6.38 percent lower rate of opioid prescribing.”
In a large sample of 9.5 million US patients, who underwent one of five selected procedures in a four-year period cannabis use was associated with a highly decreased probability of mortality compared to no cannabis use. Researchers of Tufts University School of Medicine in Boston analysed a large database, which included patients undergoing hip, knee, and shoulder arthroplasty, spinal fusion, and traumatic femur fracture fixation. 26,416 (0.28%) were identified with a diagnosis of cannabis use disorder.
In July 2017 the Justice and Home Affairs Council adopted recommendations on alternatives to coercive sanctions for drug using offenders. These recommendations were approved within the frame of the EU Action Plan on Drugs 2017-2020 which requests member states to provide alternatives to coercive sanctions for drug using offenders “where appropriate, and in accordance with their legal frameworks.” “In the year 2018 it is appropriate that patients, who according to a recommendation by a physician profit from a treatment with cannabis, are no longer subject to sanctions by justice systems in European countries and worldwide, if they use the drug,” Dr Franjo Grotenhermen, Executive Director of the IACM, commented the Action Plan.
On behalf of the IACM Network Committee, we are happy to announce that the Ambassadorship Program of the IACM has been relaunched. The aim of this program is to create a network of representatives around the world, who on the one side like to get support from the IACM for their work in their country and on the other side would like to support the aims and activities of the IACM. The IACM Board of Directors would like to invite people that are active in this field to apply for becoming an ambassador.
The medical use of cannabis improves performance of tasks testing cognition. This is the result of research by scientists of the McLean Hospital in Belmont, USA. Participants were tested before starting the intake of cannabis and 3 months later. Patients completed the Multi-Source Interference Test (MSIT) while undergoing functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). The MSIT was designed to study normal human cognition and psychiatric pathophysiology.
Cannabis use is not associated with increased risks of respiratory diseases. This is the conclusion of an analysis of 2304 participants, of whom 49% never used cannabis, 43% were former users and 8% were current cannabis users. Results by researchers of the Colorado School of Public Health, USA, were published in the journal Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Diseases.
Cannabis use protected alcohol users from negative consequences of alcohol to the liver, including fatty liver, cirrhosis and liver cancer (hepatocellular carcinoma). This is the result of a working group by scientists of several institutions within the USA, including the University of Massachusetts, the Howard County General Hospital in Colombia, the Hospital and Medical Center in Englewood and the Maimonides Medical Center in Brooklyn. Scientists analysed data from a data base of 319,514 adults with a history of alcohol abuse.
The U.S. Justice Department on 4 January rescinded an Obama administration policy according to which federal authorities in states, which legalised the drug for medical or recreational use, were asked to be reluctant concerning the enforcement of federal laws.