11-29-23 PTL - Flipbook - Page 6
6 A Special Advertising Section of Baltimore Sun Media Group | Wednesday, November 29, 2023
ALTERNATIVE MEDICINE
Benefits of
medical marijuana
Time to update
what we know
By Margit B. Weisgal, Contributing Writer
I
n 2001, Debby Miran was diagnosed with CML – chronic myelogenous leukemia
– a very rare, slowly progressing, and uncommon type of blood-cell cancer that
begins in the bone marrow. It is caused by a point mutation between chromo-
some 9 and 22. Symptoms include exhaustion, weight loss, night sweats and fever.
Then, in 2006, she had a bone marrow
transplant to alleviate and maybe cure the
CML. As a consequence, she had to take antirejection drugs, lost her sense of taste and
smell, and was losing weight at the rate of two
pounds per week.
“Nothing worked,” Miran relates. “I couldn’t
put anything in my mouth. During a conversation with my oncologist about cannabis use,
he said ‘I cannot tell you what to do, but…’
Since I was immuno-compromised, I was
very concerned about quality and purity of
the cannabis. And the only way I could take
it was smoking. I used it for four months and
that was enough to allow me to start eating.
It literally saved my life. Now that I’m off the
anti-rejection drugs, I still don’t eat a lot, but
I’m here.”
The U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration
states, “Marijuana is a Schedule I substance
under the Controlled Substances Act, meaning that it has a high potential for abuse,
no currently accepted medical use in treatment in the United States, and a lack of
accepted safety for use under medical
supervision.” (https://www.dea.gov/documents/2020/2020-06/2020-06-05/marijuanacannabis-fact-sheet) With all that said, as of
this writing, the DEA has not updated its fact
sheets.
What the U.S. Food & Drug Administration
(FDA) has approved is a purified extract of cannabis plants and THC, one of the two predominant chemicals in cannabis, for the treatment
of adverse effects of chemotherapy or AIDS
wasting syndrome. Along with CBD, the other
main chemical, the FDA has approved the two
predominant chemicals found in cannabis for
multiple debilitating health conditions.
The FDA has yet to modify the statement
that there is no accepted medical use – and
that may happen sooner than expected – so
marijuana will remain illegal under Federal
law. It has, however, approved Epidiolex, “an
oral solution of cannabidiol (CBD) that has no
more than 0.1% THC,” as a treatment for two
epilepsy conditions.
On August 29, 2023, the Department of
Health and Human Services (HHS) recommended to the Drug Enforcement Administration
(DEA) that marijuana be rescheduled from
Schedule I to Schedule III under the Controlled
Substances Act (CSA). This recommendation
is based on the FDA’s review of marijuana (as
requested by President Biden in 2022) and
related findings that are not currently available
to the public.
Medical marijuana?
Are you wondering when medical marijuana will be available? You’re not alone.
“It’s complicated,” says Ryan Vandrey,
Ph.D., professor at the Johns Hopkins
University Behavioral Pharmacology Research
Unit (BPRU), focused on human behavioral
pharmacology of cannabis (marijuana). How
often have we heard that?
Vandrey clarifies some of what’s known
so far. “There are many observational studies
that show improvement in health outcomes for
individuals taking cannabis for medicinal purposes, but there are few placebo-controlled
studies, preferably double blind, which are
required for acceptance of a drug or medication. The primary chemical constituents of the
cannabis plant, THC and CBD, have established health benefits. On the plus side, we
have increasing evidence that cannabis can
be helpful for many health conditions, but the
problem is there’s no good guidance to steer
people on exactly what products they should
use, how much, and when for all of these areas
of potential benefit.”
When discussing marijuana and/or cannabis, we are really discussing the two parts of
the cannabis sativa plant that are used for both
medical and recreational marijuana. THC, delta-9-tetrahydrocannabinol, is recommended
for certain conditions, such as advanced AIDS,
and illnesses such as what Miran had, and as
an anti-emetic and an appetite suppressant.
Thus, there is scientific evidence that THC is
beneficial. The other most abundant cannabinoid is CBD, cannabidiol, an oil derived from
the cannabis plant, which also has therapeutic
potential.
Vandrey provides an overview. “What we
don’t yet have – and very much need – is a
regulatory framework, and that’s a huge challenge. The FDA approved gelcaps with THC
in them, but that excludes all the inhalable
forms of cannabis. If you’re like Miran, inhalation has an immediate effect and overcomes
the primary issue in that she could not eat
anything. Swallowing THC takes a lot longer to
have an effect and produces a less predictable
effect compared with inhalation because oral
ingestion is heavily impacted by what else is
in your stomach and metabolism of the drug
that occurs before it gets to the brain. In some