Did anyone watch CNN tonight?

His name escapes me at the moment. Anyway...for those who did see it what do you think about gw pharmaceuticals? I looked them up. They have developed a new medicine for children with severe seizures. Phase 2 clinical trials anticipated this year.

http://www.gwpharm.com/LGS Orphan Designation.aspx

sanjay gupta that's his name!!

GW Pharmaceuticals (Bayer) concerns me. They are a very large company with incredible lobbying capabilities.
Look at how fast they got Sativex approved in Canada.
I don't think you have to be concerned with Monsanto, it's GW that's the one to fear...

My biggest concern is when they start talking about the "entourage effect" of marijuana. You might say, hey hang on they're right, it is the whole plant that produces the best effect. It's a combination of all those different compounds, not just an extraction of one compound. Hard to argue, because most of us believe that, but...
When you listen to them talking about how it takes years and millions of dollars in breeding and research to fine tune a plant to a "perfect" ratio of compounds, that my friends means one thing to my ears. That one thing is called a patent. This company is powerful enough to convince governments that GW has found the "ideal" plant for say epilepsy, the "best" plant for chronic pain etc...Hell they could come up with the "perfect" recreational plant. They can convince the government to mandate that GW strains are the only plants to be used. I don't think I'm being paranoid. I believe this is a real threat.

Think I'm a nutcase? They have the MS Society of Canada convinced that Sativex is a miracle drug, and marijuana is harmful. I kid you not, look up the MS policy.
Look into Epidiolex. Try and figure out how they can get that rammed into clinical trials so quickly after everyone starts hearing about the positive effects that CBD oils have in treating infant epilepsy. It's hardly a new medicine. It's an evil corporate grab. We can make oil from high CBD strains, we don't need GW to do it for us.

There's only one thing worse than a GW patent, and that's a United States Government patent!!!

I have watched and cared for many children during many hundreds of severe seizures. If there is any medication, plant, pill or voodoo dance that would stop epilepsy, any parent would use it in a second. I am glad that GW has created a high CBD medicine for Dravet syndrome and Lennox Gastaut syndrome, even if it is only as an orphan drug currently. These are devastating and life threatening conditions. By creating and validating the medicinal benefits of cannabis for patients in need, they are also helping to foster public acceptance for cannabis. As more people realize the medical benefits, more prohibition laws will fall. This is great news for all patients.

There is!!!!..
.It is called Weed oil. I know quite a few who use oil for their seizures and there is NOTHING that compares!!!! Children as well!!!!

GM only does this for CASH !!! PERIOD!!!..They will patent and make large off sick people. Many have CBD plants already but Im sure you will go on about how mad that idea is.

..congrats on the care you have give.

I think the way they may get that patent is by using only one strain and perfecting that. Leaf is absolutely right...these are the people we need to be worrying about. As soon as I saw that facility the only thing I could think of profit, profit, profit.

MarijeJane said:

I have watched and cared for many children during many hundreds of severe seizures. If there is any medication, plant, pill or voodoo dance that would stop epilepsy, any parent would use it in a second. I am glad that GW has created a high CBD medicine for Dravet syndrome and Lennox Gastaut syndrome, even if it is only as an orphan drug currently. These are devastating and life threatening conditions. By creating and validating the medicinal benefits of cannabis for patients in need, they are also helping to foster public acceptance for cannabis. As more people realize the medical benefits, more prohibition laws will fall. This is great news for all patients.

Click to expand...

GW didn't create anything unique. They made CBD oil, oil that has been made by many, for a long time now.
The validation is already out there....look at the results in Colorado. Unless of course you insist on clinical trials, and if you do then you are part of the problem.
Do you think Sativex helped or hindered our cause?
Did you watch the show?
They are fostering public acceptance for a new drug called Epidiolex not cannabis.
None of us wants to see anyone suffer, especially children, but it burns my ass that GW comes off like a hero when they are doing exactly what we are already doing. With the exception that they will be making million$.
It isn't great news for all patients. Talk to an MS sufferer and ask their opinion.

Joke being that Sativex is a derivative. But sick people are not allowed to have/make derivatives.

What would I consider great news?
If the government would talk to Dr. Gupta.
If the government would drop their retarded schedule 1 classification for marijuana.
If the government would allow CBD oil to be shipped to the people that need it versus families having to move to Colorado.
If the government would relinquish their patent.
If the government would stop pharmaceutical lobbying.
If the government would put more than 6% of funding to study marijuana benefits versus negative effect studies which gets 94% of the funding.

That'd be like admitting the were wrong.

Another line I'm getting tired of hearing is " we don't know what the long term effects are." Do they really know the long term effect of any drug? We hear all the time about drugs being pulled because they weren't what they were made out to be. Ask the guy that started using mj in the 60's how he's feeling and what med problems he's got. I've been using since I was 16, more than half of my life. I think I'm ok other than chronic pain and a bum back, none of which was caused by using marihuana. A new day is dawning, slow as it may be. Once the fear factor is removed, all will be right in the world. People are starting to see the benefits rather than the negatives.

Maybe I didn't make my point clear. GW has created a drug directly from cannabis, specifically a plant with high CBD. If, through clinical trials this drug actually helps, which all of us here know it will, then the medical community and governments will have to acknowledge that there are medical benefits from cannabis. That is why I think this is great news. I am a registered nurse and the only way to convince doctors, hospitals and most patients on the benefits of cannabis is through clinical trials. I agree and know that cannabis is excellent for many conditions, including seizures, MS and a litany more but without documented, evidence based research, it will remain where it is. Currently many in health care look at cannabis the same way they see other alternative health care trends as anecdotal at best. Research is the only way to obtain credibility for cannabis.
Once the medical benefits are documented, it will be hard for any government to deny medicine to people. Hopefully this is the way to legalization. Cannabis should be legal and easy to obtain for anyone that wants or needs it. Yes, I am an LP wanna be but as a patient, an advocate, a parent and a nurse, I believe cannabis should be completely legal.

Who are you trying to fool about this deal.
They took something that has been known about and made something that was made before!!..Trying to make it "THEIRS" for one reason..(underhandedly I might add).
To make cash!!!!!!!!, not help children like you think FIRST and Foremost!
The only fools here are the ones who actually believe they do it to help.
THEY did not invent or discover what they are growing or synthesizing.
You would be a fool to believe their BS.

Sativex is a OIL that was derived from Cannabis. No real mystery there. The point is that it is sold to sick people at five times more its street value. When they can make their own for 20 times less than street value.

MarijeJane...why then after Sativex has been on the market for years does the US Govt still not consider Cannabis as having any medicinal value?
It is still a schedule 1 drug. Sativex has the clinical trial data that the medical and government groups so desperately need to prove it to be worthy.
Sativex didn't do it, so why would Epidiolex?
I don't think you watched the show.
It is pharmaceutical lobbying and massive pressure from the public (loss of votes) that makes the government change policies.
Oh btw....Sativex is still not approved in the US. It can't be for one good reason...they would have to remove cannabis as a schedule 1 drug.
History, money, and politics are also part of the equation. Time to take off the blinders.

And to set the record straight, GW was making CBD-rich extracts before many were. Most cannabis people didn't know (still don't) know about CBD and its true effects. I've heard stoner myth after myth about CBD, but very few people have any first hand experience with true CBD-rich cannabis. When GW started its research and development, they were pretty much alone in what they were doing. Most "medical" dispensaries were only dealing in high THC strains...nobody sold or bothered with anything CBD. It wasn't until 2011 onwards that some US dispensaries started carrying CBD-rich medicine...so GW with Sativex was doing something different before most were.

I was on Sativex in 2010, to help calm down a severe flare-up from my rheum auto-immune disease. I was the first person my doc had prescribed it to, and the first my pharmacy had ever seen, too. It was very effective for me...(more effective than Methotrexate and Prednisone combined...)...I really had to push to get it prescribed, and the doc had to do it off-label (ie: I had to pay full costs). I remember bringing research papers in to my doc to look over...I had to educate him about CBD, as he had never heard about it and what it could do.

Since then, I've sourced and selected CBD-rich strains of cannabis to grow myself, and produce my own medicine, as the cost of Sativex was insane...but it was a helpful medication, where none other were.

I'm not trying to defend a big pharma, as the big pharma route is a money-lined one, and we all know that...but, GW has done something different, by creating a standardized medicine, using whole plant extracts, which could be beneficial to many "non-pot people" as well.

spare US your BS Kine!!! You know jack shit.

Sativex is 2.7mg THC to 2.5mg CBD.
The Canadian Government and MS society recognizes the medicinal benefit of Sativex but not of marijuana (uh huh). The only reason we are allowed medicinal marijuana is because the courts have demanded the government to allow it.
Sativex is not approved in the USA (GW should have consulted Monsanto to see how it's done).
Isreal has been the pioneers and continue to be the leaders in the development of the medicinal benefits of Cannabis. (not in it for the money so lets ignore them)
England (GW) has been the leaders in capitalizing $$$ on the medicinal benefits.
I do agree that a standardized medicine in a spray delivery method is beneficial to non pot people.

It doesn't really matter which big company does what...if not gw then Pfizer you know there all wringing their hands at the possibility. I was certain that I heard some guy talking about the patent the us government has on cannabis? Can anyone confirm this? They know all to well that there are medicinal properties to this plant, I think the problem is there are so many regulatory bodies they have to go through to get it unscheduled. Excuses,excuses. There's still no reason for people to give up their lives to move across country to Colorado for medication for a child. Even writing it sounds ridiculous.

U.S. patent 6630507
Google it.
Blatant hypocrisy.

leaffan said:

U.S. patent 6630507
Google it.
Blatant hypocrisy.

Click to expand...

Is anyone really surprised? Governments lie and talk out of both sides of their faces all the time. Look at Harper...no changes coming to medical marijuan /marijuana unless I'm low in the polls. Complete crap.

gb123 said:

spare US your BS Kine!!! You know jack shit.

Click to expand...

Haha...oh, the little people. Its ok, friend, let it all out. You'll feel better in the morning.