Tadhg Stopford: Cannabis science & news

The government seems to want a domestic cannabis industry. I applaud the fact that GPs can now prescribe any cannabis product to any patient for any condition.

That is real progress. The challenge is getting cannabinoids back into the food web. It’s not fair that we can only get access to a small portion of the benefits of hemp through a cartel system - and at huge cost. Funnily enough, the Misuse of Drugs Act is in breach of the single convention of narcotics here because hemp ‘for horticultural use’ is released from all international controls.

Let the government clip our tickets, which is how the system works. Fair enough. Charge us a license fee to grow hemp, like the BBC Television license or trout fishing. But don’t give the ticket book to a cartel - not when the health system is struggling, and we can all grow tickets. Must we always be consumer stock units? Especially when people are literally suffering for lack of tickets. Most can’t get one, or afford it.

Here’s a personal anecdote: What seems like a possible skin cancer started growing like crazy on my temple, but once I put some local hemp balms on it, it started losing layers like jelly. It’s now a quarter the size and still shrinking.

My fair skinned mum (74) also uses these balms and creams, and her hands are now smooth, soft, and skin cancer free. She loves them. So, the question remains; why can’t you grow hemp?

The answer is, it seems, because MedSafe wants to restrict your access to non-monetised health.

MedSafe’s model is that you get sick and go to the doctor to access licensed drugs; the sale of which funds its existence. MedSafe does not appear to have any KPIs to improve our population health, if anything their neo liberal DNA indicates a sicker and more dependent population over time.

If you grow hemp, you can make balms, oil, foods, and tinctures - all sorts of really useful things. That might be why you aren’t supposed to grow hemp/cannabis But you should.

Cannabis Science & News
• ‘Thailand: Cannabis now legal if hemp’ (0.2% THC) AP News 8 Feb 2022.

• ‘Cannabis reduces pain severity by 42-49% based on 131,582 sessions’. Cuttler C, et al. 2022

• ‘CBD reduces consequences of stroke’. Khaksar S, et al. 2022

• ‘CBD rich hemp extracts show anti-cancer effects’. Anceschi L, et al. 2022

• ‘Human ‘endocannabinoid tone’ proposed to explain many chronic ailments’ Davis M.P, 2022

• ‘Cannabinoids block cellular entry of Sars-CoV-2 and variants’ Van Breeman RB, et al. 2022

(TADHG STOPFORD)

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Published 4 March 2022