What’s in a name? What about cannabis?
On 15th July, the Federation of European Pharmacological Societies Congress began a discussion of the medicinal role of cannabis. It is routinely used for controlling nausea among patients on chemotherapy and for encouraging appetite among AIDS patients. It is now licensed for the control of neuropathic pain in adults suffering from cancer and multiple sclerosis. So medical science has been able to strip away the “unwanted” psychoactive symptoms and use the cannabinoid components to target the specific diseases. Thus, research is now aiming to produce more medications that maintain cannabinoid levels in the affected areas for pain relief and for the control of anxiety and depression. The converse treatments are also working well for dealing with nicotine addiction and obesity. So, medications like acomplia that block the cannabinoid receptors help to reduce addictive behavior and reduce appetite. Acomplia is now a front line treatment for obesity in Europe, second in effectiveness only to the use of gastric bands or surgical bypasses (which reduce weight by an average of 30%). Why is more not heard about these advances? Possibly because of the prejudice that cannabis is a drug that should be banned. It is a shame society cannot see beyond a name to the good results science can produce. By coincidence, the French health authority Afssaps also released new statistics confirming the safety profile of acomplia in relation to depression. People with no history of depression show no adverse symptoms. Others only show an increase in depression at the beginning of a course of treatment.
