Federal agency quashes Georgia's plan to let pharmacies sell medical marijuana
Federal agency quashes Georgia's plan to let pharmacies sell medical marijuana
Federal drug officials are warning Georgia to shelve its plans to be the first state to allow pharmacies to dispense medical marijuana.
Federal drug officials are warning Georgia to shelve its plans to be the first state to allow pharmacies to dispense medical marijuana products.
News outlets report that the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration on Nov. 27 warned pharmacies that dispensing medical marijuana violates federal law.
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Until it is seriously studied with results compared to alternatives (not always a placebo) it isn't medicine doesn't belong in a pharmacy. That applies to marijuana just as much as homeopathy (which also doesn't belong in a pharmacy but is there)
Yes I know studies are hard and expensive. I'm also aware of all the other problems of getting FDA approval for products that are not patentable. Those are issues worth fixing and we can debate sometime what a good fix might be. However the process still exists for good reason, calling anything medicine that doesn't follow the process is a lie.
CVS, Walgreens, etc. all sell alcohol. Walmart and Kroger, which have pharmacies, also sell cigarettes.
I'm not seeing the problem with weed as well.
Edit: Come to think of it, I can go to any of those locations today and get CBD products, making this even more ridiculous.
None of them are being recommended by a doctor and sold as medicine.
I smoke a zip a month. But the medical marijuana industry is just a front for recreational in most states. There are a few pain management and seizure studies that are fairly concrete and reproducible but the "it'll cure cancer shit" is mostly unstudied and not reproducible. What weed is currently prescribed for is far from passing any FDA regulations.
Better to drop the bullshit medical side, legalize it recreational, and start taking the medical side seriously instead of lead by norml.
Pharmacists are not doctors and they can make their own recommendations and compounds and can dispense them legally if a prescription is not required. The problem here is it's federally scheduled. If it wasn't, there would be no issue to have pharmacists dispense it.
Great, you smoke a little bit a month. I rely on it to help control my very painful nerve disorder via pain modification. I'd love a controlled dose dispensed by a pharmacist rather than 'put a little bit in the vaporizer and hope it's enough.'
Oh for fucks sake. People like you will never agree enough studies have been performed.
People like this always default to implying marijuana is some mysterious new invention. It's quite hilarious to read living in a state that first passed MMJ laws 28 years ago and even more hilarious when you learn that people have been using it for thousands of years at this point.
The barrier to medical studies has been the Federal Government (DEA) for several decades. They're changing it but slowly.
Since 1968 the only place researchers could legally obtain cannabis for research was from a government lab in Mississippi, and as noted below, they wouldn't even give you any. Researchers who did obtain it noted it was often old, low potency, and generally low quality, making it not very useful.Linked DEA article:
On May 14, 2021, the Drug Enforcement Administration took an important step to increase opportunities for medical and scientific research. DEA is nearing the end of its review of certain marijuana grower applications, thereby allowing it to soon register additional entities authorized to produce marijuana for research purposes. Currently, the National Center for the Development of Natural Products at the University of Mississippi is the only approved supplier of marijuana for research purposes in the United States, and that production has been exclusively for the National Institute on Drug Abuse.
NPR notes:
Yet scientists still aren't allowed to simply use the cannabis sold at state-licensed dispensaries for their clinical research because cannabis remains illegal under federal law.
"We'll see a decade or more of explosive cannabis research and potential new therapies," says Dr. Steve Groff, founder and chairman of Groff North America, one of three companies that has publicly announced it has preliminary approval from the federal government to cultivate cannabis for research.There are many more countries than the us
Huh, I might have heard of that before. Anyway, the US funds 44% of the world's medical research. Europe, 33%, and the situation hasn't been much different there. Canada and China have done some research on it. But my point is that the idea of formally researching medical cannabis isn't something people have just chosen not to do, though it's definitely not a priority for pharma companies.
Many of these places still sell cigarettes. CVS only stopped in the past 5 years... Not all things in pharmacies are medicine or any good for you.
While there are definite medical uses for cannabis, I always felt like the medical movement was both underhanded and dangerous.
It was underhanded because, like you said, there’s not a lot of research into its medical uses and doesn’t belong in a pharmacy. I’ve got a medical card, and my “diagnosis” consisted of me talking to a doctor for five minutes. It does help with my anxiety, but a lot of my usage is recreational.
It was dangerous because once we have medical research it won’t be hard to isolate the chemicals and make a pill, which puts recreational at risk of crackdown.
That already occurred decades ago - there was an Rx pill called Marinol, which was just a capsule with pure THC. It was prescribed to cancer and AIDS patients to encourage hunger and decrease nausea. Patients overwhelmingly preferred regular cannabis for a variety of reasons… one, it takes much longer for oral cannabis to take effect and it’s difficult to get the dosage right. Smoking or vaping is almost instant and you can take as many puffs as desired and judge it in real time. Also, people found the pure THC less effective and pleasant than the plant, which has many other active compounds besides just THC which moderate the effects. Some patients said that Marinol actually caused nausea, which makes sense to anyone who has ever dosed too much on edibles. More research on the other cannabinoids and their interaction is a good idea.
It also doesn't make sense to take an oral medication when you have difficulty with not vomiting.
not a lot of research into its medical uses
Keep talking about shit you don’t understand. These serious medical studies have already been done time and time again even by the us gov themselves. Guess what they found?
You don’t need to be mad. I meant that the prohibition hasn’t let drug companies do research into turning it into pills.
Maybe you should spark one, bro
Pills are one way, but not the prime way, to ingest cannabinoids. Also plant-based medicine has advantages that aren't necessarily found in some stripped down, synthesized, single-action formula. The most popular form for cancer patients now is RSO, which is a whole-plant solvent extract that people eat. It's like a black tar with a dozen different active components.