Tadhg Stopford: Hemp - better than the Mediterranean diet...

Hello neighbours, how are you? I hope you're not feeling too anxious in these trying times.

If you are, perhaps try some hemp extracts, or even just some plain old Mary Jane. Personally, I’ve found hemp extracts to be a quiet oasis of calm, an understated blessing because, although rich in CBDs, they are low in THC. So there's no haze to your day.

Many hemp CBDs are anxiolytic, pain reducing, and more. They are also potent antioxidants and anti-inflammatories. We naturally make CBDs (cannabinoids) inside our body, and they occur widely in food plants too.

But they are most abundant in hemp; aka Cannabis Sativa (sativa means 'cultivated'); Hemp/Cannabis is humanity's oldest and most sacred food crop.

The most well known hemp CBD is actually called CBD (Cannabidiol). According to the WHO, it has “no scope for abuse”. It also has a ludicrously broad range of therapeutic benefits, from anxiety, through pain, cancer, and psychosis. But it’s just one of more 180+ Hemp CBDs.

Hemp CBDs interact with our cannabinoid system in the same way that Mediterranean foods do (Mediterranean foods have small amounts of similar molecules). i.e. as powerfully protective antioxidants, anti inflammatories, and much much more.

Ponsonby’s own Medical Cannabis Company, (MedLeaf) pioneered affordable medical cannabis access for patients and provides a third of the patient population with CBD oils and THC flower/bud.

I know these guys, and they have performed heroically, in the face of a mercilessly uninformed, unsympathetic, (and apparently conflicted) regulator - (MedSafe).

Despite its rhetoric, this Labour government is needlessly destroying not just this patient centered company, but two thirds of New Zealand's current medical cannabis supply chain. By 1 October all of their existing products must be destroyed.

Previously CBD products have been acceptable if they had no more than 2% THC; but now Medsafe has banned all products that do not meet the most unneccessary standards in the world, despite NO ADVERSE HEALTH EVENTS REPORTED SINCE THE MARKET OPENED IN 2017. Their talk of 'safe and legal' makes zero sense to anyone who understands this field. The question must be asked: are patients being protected or exploited?

In 2016 Food Safety Aus NZ (FSANZ) proposed that CBD rich hemp become a legal food as it is throughout the EU, UK, USA, and much of the world. But this sensible health proposal was trashed by MedSafe.

OIAs show that MedSafe's goal was to ensure “therapeutic goods” were not available to the public as food, unless rendered “sub-therapeutic” by stripping the CBDs out. This is a mind boggling fact. The Ministry of Health's medicines regulator opposed a food that could benefit the public's health. Is that a conflict of interest, or just the way our public service/government works?

Irritatingly enough, no politician seems to want to know about this failure of public service in one of our most important, and expensive ministries. Now, in 2021, New Zealand's most affordable products are being pushed out of the market, meaning that our most vulnerable people will have to pay more. Or maybe your taxes will subsidise overpriced medicines?

Food is medicine. Why did MedSafe oppose natural hemp, and fortified foods? I think Pharma takes care of itself, and we should take care of each other.

Write into Ponsonby News and tell me, what you think. (Tadhg Stopford)

www.thehempfoundation.org.nz

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Published 3 September 2021