Check this out. A friend’s grandfather was half crippled with arthritis (inflammation score/CRP:28), but a cannabis medicine (CBD and THC) reduced that by 26 points. Now he can dance, dig, build, garden.
But, ADHB says, “There is no strong justification for its use in rheumatologic conditions... cannabis-based medications will not be prescribed (in ADHB).”
I think this is a bad call, and an abuse of the profession’s responsibility to patients. Thanks to ACC and our ‘no fault’ system, doctors enjoy zero liability for the addictions, harms and deaths caused by the dangerous pharmaceuticals prescribed daily.
The least they owe us is every possible beneficial treatment. Especially when DHBs are struggling with increasing patient numbers suffering from chronic conditions. To not prescribe CBD for pain and inflammation makes zero sense, because the evidence is strong, both anecdotally and scientifically.
Here’s a 19-year-old paper on the subject: www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC16904
There’s lots more recent work to show its effectiveness. (Not to mention my friend’s granddad’s experience, and the fact the US Government patented CBD in 2003 as an anti inflammatory, neuro protectant, and more – www.patents.google.com/patent/US6630507B1/en
Nonsensically, another excuse for not prescribing cannabis is that “lessons from the opioid epidemic should be taken into account to avoid a cannabis crisis.”
This is ignorant, incompetent or cowardly thinking for the following reasons:
1. The hemp plant can provide both CBD and THC for arthritis treatments.
2. There is no current solution for arthritis.
3. Hemp is not addictive or psychoactive.
4. Neither hemp nor ‘marijuana’ are addictive in the way opioids are.
5. Neither hemp nor ‘marijuana’ can kill, like opioids do.
6. Repeat: there is no current solution for arthritis.
7. Weed was successfully used to treat arthritis in Western medicine from 1839.
So, if we want to improve life for our parents and grandparents, we should get ADHB past its mental block about cannabis-based products.
Because our body makes and needs cannabinoids to be well, many conditions can potentially benefit. By prescribing these safe medicines at DHB level, we can quickly collect the evidence the profession requires to further ‘prescribe with confidence’.
But until we can educate and motivate ADHB, uptake will be slow. However, a sitting ADHB board member nominated me because her MS-related pain and fatigue has been reduced with hemp. Patients are wise to the facts.
That’s why I’m standing for ADHB, because the Hemp Foundation has educated 650+ medical professionals in this field, with over 90% approval for our objectives. Informed GPs recognise we can save ourselves a lot of pain and money if we are smart.
We just need more people to start standing up, like Helen Clark and Paddy Gower have. As Professor Fischer at Auckland Medical School says, “Rugby is much more dangerous than cannabis”, and rugby can’t treat illnesses.
I think it’s time ADHB prescribed hemp medicine, so vote Hemp Foundation if you agree. (Tadhg Stopford)
Fun facts:
In Italy, legal hemp has reduced pharmaceutical sales by 11% in some categories.
In September, MPI prohibited the popular ‘No Promises’ range of New Zealand hemp oils and balms from sale. (Despite NZHB being fully licensed producers of legal industrial hemp products.)
They were being used by mothers, children, grandparents and animals for pain, anxiety, fatigue, arthritis, epilepsy, sleep and more. They cost only $38 versus the high cost of some prescribed medications.
The ACVM rules ‘justifying’ it lack scientific reason and appear anti-competitive in nature. New Zealand regulators appear captured by big pharma, and vulnerable to informed scrutiny.
What is contemporary is not always best. It’s time to bring herbal medicine back.
#ponsonby #ponsonbynews #iloveponsonby #loveponsonby #hernebay #jervoisroad #tadhgstopford #hemp #cannabis #Cbd #Thc