The tongue-twisting “pharmaceuticalization” of medical cannabis is a troubling trend we’re seeing in the states still fighting for safe, legal access for patients. This bodes to severely limit the range of medicines available by excluding all proven whole plant forms, and granting near or actual monopolies to drug companies who’ve spent large amounts to create an FDA-approved “cannabinoid product.”

A number of key opponents are also pushing for CBD medicine only laws, even though this will leave states with a limited approach to medical cannabis, excluding the best studied and most proven cannabinoid, THC, at least in any possibly medically significant quantity.

The only company currently able to take full economic advantage of these two trends (which was given a boost from the British government some years back) is GW Pharmaceuticals/Greenwich BioSciences, which is throwing its lobbying weight around in South Dakota (and numerous other states) behind its Epidiolex product as covered in the compelling (and highly detailed) linked article.

Meanwhile, in Utah, while not totally excluding other cannabinoids, the new Cannabinoid Research law (which is notably not “the Medical Cannabis Research” law) limits study to forms less common in already legal states, i.e., prohibits studying smoked or vaporized “products.”

While technically allowing research on THC-containing products, other than those which have a ratio of at least ten parts of CBD to one part of THC (which also limits possible suppliers to a few geared up to provide them), the law allows “full extract” research only when the DEA grants difficult to qualify for permission for low-quality NIDA-provided product to be imported across state lines.

Meanwhile, we want to know whether either of these represent the kind of approaches you would accept for a Utah Medical Cannabis program…??

#MMJ #CBD #Pharma #SDpol #UTpol #GetSerious #TRUCE

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See full article – Big Pharma Wants a Monopoly On One of Weed’s Key Medicinal Compounds