Why Big Pharma's Cannabis Patent-Able Pill Is Already Killing People

Why Cannabis synthesizing have serious risks

By: Sophia Akram  |@mssophiaakram

 on 28th January 2016 @ 2.45pm

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There are serious risks involved in recreating these drugs and cannabis has not had the same lethal effects

There’s a reason why smoking the herb makes you feel good and it’s not just because you’re high!

Medical evidence has found that our bodies are able to synthesise endocannabinoids. Endocannabinoids are the chemical compounds that activate the same receptors as delta-9-tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), the active component of marijuana /Cannabis.

Marijuana is popular and known for its ‘psychoactive’ effects. It’s these effects that new research has shown to be effective in treating various conditions like cancer or post-traumatic stress disorder. Late night munchies are actually a useful side effect for cancer patients for whom an increase in appetite is crucial to their recovery. It doesn’t just mellow you out, it decreases anxiety, an often debilitating problem and can be a relief to chronic pain sufferers. 

Obviously large pharmaceutical companies like Big Pharma want to patent this but you can’t patent a natural herb – its not their patch to claim. Instead they are trying to come up with a chemical alternative that has the same effect and to patent it. In order to shut out the competition, they lobby the state to keep Cannabis illegal.

However, trying to synthesis Cannabis in this way has been done before, for example by Solvay Pharmaceuticals with its Marinol drug and has been done with fatal results.

Bial, for example using Biotrial to test a drug, which was a synthetic ECS stimulant and replicated the effects of cannabis, was responsible for a death in the University Hospital of Rennes in France as clinical trials for the drug went through Phase 1.

There are serious risks involved in recreating these drugs and cannabis has not had the same lethal effects so trying to cash in on the effects at the behest of safer alternatives is greedy and corrupt.

One company has already managed to sell their version of the marijuana pill - MMJ PhytoTech – an Australian company that has manufactured it in Switzerland and registered it in Germany.

They have used CBD/ cannabidoid to make the capsules, not THC, which causes the psychological effects of Cannabis. The CBD should help ease pain and side effects associated with various ailments including cancer and neurological diseases.

This is the trend of things to come, either that or users will give up traditional medicine altogether in favour of a toke every now and then.

In the US already, cannabis is getting legalised, it being legal for medical purposes in 20 states and for recreational purposes in two states.  A recent survey taken by the Centre for Addictions Research of BC, found that 80 percent of Americans are trading in the ‘pills for pot’. Even further research has found that this will result in fewer deaths and a 25 percent decrease in death rates have signified this.

It may just be time for Big Pharma and other questionably moral drug giants to take a pill on this one in any case as the results speak for themselves.