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Home Grow Europe?

Written by Marguerite Arnold on . Posted in Policy.

Several political initiatives are moving forward in multiple countries that would give European citizens the right to grow their own – what are the opportunities and pitfalls?

Home grow is a controversial topic in the cannabis industry just about everywhere. On one hand, it is the legal loophole that began to establish the industry in places like Canada (and one presumes European countries like Luxembourg). On the other hand, it represents considerable competition to the nascent medical and recreational industry. After all, if people are growing their own, they won’t buy it.

The cost of cannabis, especially for patients who use far more of it than recreational users, is one of the biggest reasons this entire discussion remains politically relevant. This is especially true in places like Germany – where theoretically at least, sick patients should be able to get their meds covered for a co-pay of about $11 a month. Many – if not still the majority of those who should qualify – are not or just falling out of the system altogether.

However, it is clear that the debate has progressed significantly in Europe. Mention home grow even a few years ago in an industry event in Germany and one would be looked at as a dangerous “radical.”

Now the government is again considering the same as Luxembourg and Portugal move towards legalizing limited home grow, Italy has a legal precedent set by its highest court, and Germany tries to figure out how to incorporate this idea into the recreational system they are now holding hearings on. Patient home grow briefly became legal here in 2016 before the medical law was passed in 2017.

How Do Patients Fit In?

One of the most important reasons for legalizing home grow is patient need – especially at a time when most doctors are still not educated about cannabis – and the sickest patients are still struggling with access on the cost front.

However, so far in Europe at least, this is not a discussion that has gotten much traction. Indeed “home grow” has been a topic that is mostly focused on those who want to use the plant for “recreational” purposes. Growing four to five plants in an indoor grow box will not create enough cannabis for patients. It is, however, plenty for the average occasional rec user.

Beyond this, the idea of having legal non-profit patient collectives has not entered the discussion (so far). In Spain the clubs are “non-profit,” but they are not targeted to patients but rather the general cannabis-using public.

However, the reality remains that without some kind of relief, or at least recognition that patients need to not only use more cannabis to manage their conditions, but also grow more, any reform that excludes this reality will continue to put the sickest and most vulnerable people in danger of being criminalized merely for being sick.

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Spain On The Verge Of Medical Reform But Many Questions Remain

Written by Marguerite Arnold on . Posted in Policy.

The Spanish Socialist Workers’ Party introduced a bill to legalize medical cannabis – but many advocates claim it won’t change the status quo

The home of the cannabis club is now considering medical cannabis reform. A bill to legalize medical use was introduced on May 30.

The legislation intends to create access in hospital pharmacies for a limited number of conditions – and further via prescriptions from medical specialists. Beyond this, it will require medical cannabis patient data to be stored at the Spanish Agency of Medicines and Medical Devices (AEMPS).

The Spanish Health Commission is currently debating the bill and is scheduled to approve the bill, plus any amendments they make, by June 23. If the legislation gets through this step successfully, the text of the bill will be delivered to the government who is expected to approve it into law by the end of June.

What Changes?

Spain has cannabis clubs that have developed in the grey areas of the law – much like the coffee shops in Spain. However, as advocates point out, this legislation will do little to draw patients into a legal, regulated medical market. For starters, only three health conditions will be approved for medical cannabis. Flower will not be allowed.

This means that the vast majority of patients will still be left in limbo.

Beyond this, there are no calls to revise the current situation regarding local production. Namely, all cannabis produced under EU GMP regulations must still be exported.

As a result, it is unlikely much will change in Spain (for now).

A Basic Holding Action

One of the great ironies about the Spanish situation is that it is a country where there is actually more “freedom” to access flower cannabis than just about any other European country except Holland. Beyond this, the country has one more GMP cultivation license than Germany – but none of this is slated for use by resident Spaniards.

In effect all this new legislation does is create a tiny window for legal medical cannabis treatments that are too expensive to access for most – along with prohibitive medical bureaucracy that will prevent even legitimate patients from seeing a sympathetic doctor.

The bottom line is that the Spanish government is actually doing the minimum necessary to ensure that it keeps in step with its European partners on the medical front while continuing to push not just medical users but the entire recreational industry into the margins.

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Study Finds That Aerosolized Cannabis Significantly Reduces Pain Levels

Written by Marguerite Arnold on . Posted in Science.

Cannabis inhalers are not necessarily a new technology, however, they are definitely newer than some other consumption methods. It’s an emerging technology in the cannabis space.

Many medical cannabis patients would likely prefer to use an inhaler versus smoking cannabis, and I am sure that many medical professionals would prefer that patients use inhalers as well.

Researchers in Israel recently conducted a study involving a specific type of cannabis inhaler to measure its efficacy on pain among neuropathy patients. Below is more information about it via a news release from NORML:

Haifa, Israel: The administration of aerosolized cannabis via a novel inhaler is associated with long-term pain reductions in patients with neuropathy and other chronic conditions, according to data published in the journal Pain Reports.

Israeli investigators assessed the efficacy of cannabis delivered via a novel metered selective dose inhaler (The Syqe Inhaler) in a cohort of chronic pain patients. The mean daily stable dose used by patients in the study was 1.5 mg of aerosolized delta-9-THC.

Use of the inhaler over a period of several months was associated with reduced pain scores and improvements in patients’ quality of life. Some patients reported mild side-effects (typically dizziness and sleepiness) at the onset of the study, but few participants continued to report these effects throughout the duration of the trial.

Authors concluded: “Medical cannabis treatment with the Syqe Inhaler demonstrated overall long-term pain reduction[s], quality of life improvement[s], and opioid-sparing effect[s] in a cohort of patients with chronic pain, using just a fraction of the amount of MC [medical cannabis] compared with other modes of delivery by inhalation. These outcomes were accompanied by a lower rate of AEs [adverse events] and almost no AE reports during a long-term steady-state follow-up. Additional follow-up in a larger population is warranted to corroborate our findings.”

According to recently compiled survey data, nearly one in three chronic pain patients report using cannabis for treatment management. Among patients in US states where medical cannabis access is permitted, over 60 percent are qualified to use it to treat pain.

Full text of the study, “Long-term effectiveness and safety of medical cannabis administered through the metered-dose Syqe Inhaler,” appears in Pain Reports. Additional information on cannabis and chronic pain is available from NORML.

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Brazilian Superior Court Approves Cannabis Home Grow For Patients

Written by Marguerite Arnold on . Posted in Policy.

The South American country is following a trend increasingly seen in Europe in allowing patients the right to grow cannabis at home

It is not just in Europe where home grow is a la mode these days. Last week, Brazil’s highest court voted to allow home grow and oil extraction after three patients took their case to the Superior Court.

Brazil has moved forward relatively significantly on the cannabis reform front. After allowing GMP production domestically and medical products to be imported into the country, the issue of formal medical reform is now a topic in the pending presidential race.

As a result, the Superior Court’s decision to allow ill patients to grow their own plants and extract oils from them is significant. It means that even if pharmaceutical producers setting up shop to export to the rest of the world never distribute their products domestically, Brazilians with chronic conditions can access cannabis medicines – even if they cannot afford the expensive imports.

This puts the country ahead of others – including many in Europe like Germany – where patient home grow is still a contested and highly controversial topic.

Sustainable Cannabis?

One of the more interesting implications of the home grow decision in Brazil is how the country will regulate this part of the industry. One of the larger problems facing the country right now is rainforest deforestation – including by drug gangs who ship their products internationally. Patient “home grow” might well become a highly unsustainable crop that is grown in conditions that destroy this valuable resource.

Because there is no legislation, only litigated court decisions at this point, further regulatory guidelines on what (and how much) patients can grow without running afoul of drug trafficking charges are going to be a necessity.

The good news is that the majority of presidential candidates are willing to go on record supporting more or less comprehensive medical reform. If the sitting president Jair Bolsonaro loses this election, there is a good chance that his replacement will formalize the court’s decision into formal guidelines.

Beyond this kind of advancement, however, do not look for any radical move on the recreational front – at least not for the next couple of years.

In the meantime, however, patients will be safe from prosecution as the country figures out where it will sit in the internationally legalizing league of cannabis nations.

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Luxembourg Presents Draft Law On Cannabis Legalization

Written by Marguerite Arnold on . Posted in Policy.

Last week, Luxembourg unveiled its draft recreational cannabis bill – but what comes after home grow?

Citing the German government’s decision to move forward on the legalization of cannabis for recreational purposes, the Luxembourg government unveiled its own draft proposal. The bill is intended to create a law allowing every Luxembourgian over the age of 21 the right to use cannabis in private, for recreational purposes.

Adults in Luxembourg will also be allowed to grow up to four plants in their own apartments or houses – but the plants cannot be visible in “public spaces.”

Home grow proposals, however, are at least this summer, starting to open up interesting conversations in countries from Portugal and Italy in the EU to Brazil in Latin America.

Is That All?

Limited home grow is certainly an improvement to the status quo. Currently fines for cannabis use in the public range from 250-2500 euros. The legislation would lower these fines (to no more than 500 euros).

The Minister of Justice however has also described the legislation as the “first stage” of implementing the promise of the liberal-green-social democratic alliance that made the promise to legalize cannabis by 2023.

The second step would, according to government sources, create a national production and supply chain that would also be under government control and auditing.

Home grow, black market, legit market

Getting rid of the organized crime link to the black market is increasingly a reason to legalize cannabis that is showing up in political discourse now all over Europe. Portugal, for example, is also now moving forward with implementing a law that would allow people to grow up to five plants.

The reality is that most people – whether they are patients or casual users, prefer to buy their cannabis commercially. That is why the home grow proposals now floating around Europe are important – but clearly only a precursor to the legit, regulated, and recreational market. The questions about how to implement commercial retail recreational cannabis however is only really beginning – and not just in Luxembourg.

In Canada, where the right to grow at home for medical purposes was established at the Supreme Court level at the turn of the century, patient collectives currently pose the largest threat to the legitimate industry there is. This is why similar developments in Europe will be interesting to watch – especially where medical use is legal but may or may not be covered by insurance.

This is also why, in all probability, home grow for medical use will probably not be decided legislatively but rather through the courts.

Home grow may be politically a la mode right now – but the really hard questions are still being left off the table everywhere.

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Cannabis Inversely Associated With Obesity In Hepatitis C Patients

Written by Frank Schuler on . Posted in Science.

It is estimated that as many as 58 million people suffer from hepatitis C worldwide. The World Health Organization estimates that roughly 1.1 million deaths occurred in 2019 due to hepatitis B and C, and their effects include ‘liver cancer, cirrhosis, and other conditions caused by chronic viral hepatitis.’

Hepatitis C is spread by contact with contaminated blood, such as from sharing needles or from people using unsterile tattoo equipment. Researchers in France recently examined the effects of cannabis use among hepatitis C patients. Below is more information about it via a news release from NORML:

Paris, France: Cannabis use is inversely associated with obesity in patients with chronic hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection, according to data published in the Journal of Cannabis Research.

A team of French researchers assessed the relationship between lifetime cannabis use and obesity in a cohort of over 6,300 HCV patients.

Authors reported, “[F]ormer and, to a greater extent, current cannabis use were consistently associated with smaller waist circumference, lower BMI, and lower risks of overweight, obesity, and central obesity in patients with chronic HCV infection. … To our knowledge, this is the first time that such associations have been highlighted for HCV-infected patients.”

The study’s findings are consistent with those of analyses of other cohorts – such as those here, here, and here - reporting that marijuana use is typically associated with lower BMI and with lower rates of obesity.

Full text of the study, “Cannabis use as a factor of lower corpulence in hepatitis C-infected patients: Results from the ANRS C022 Hepather cohort,” is available in the Journal of Cannabis Research. Additional information on cannabis and HCV is available from NORML.

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Limited U.S. Legalization Continues To Hurt Cartels In Mexico

Written by Johnny Green on . Posted in Policy.

Historically, the United States has served as the largest cannabis market on earth, and for many decades that market was completely illegal. These days, medical and/or adult-use cannabis dispensaries are located in a growing number of states, although cannabis still remains illegal at the federal level. The rising number of state-legal outlets in the U.S. is having a direct, negative impact on cartels in Mexico according to a new report from U.S. Congressional researchers.

Throughout prohibition in the U.S. cannabis smuggled into the country from Mexico largely supplied the unregulated U.S. market. Having lived my entire life on the West Coast of the U.S., and consuming cannabis for nearly 3 decades now, I can personally attest that ‘brickweed’ from Mexico was once very common around here. That is no longer the case.

The Rise Of Safe Access

Cartels in Mexico benefitted greatly from cannabis prohibition in the United States. The cannabis that they smuggled into the United States was awful and was presumably contaminated with all kinds of nasty stuff. Unfortunately, for many consumers and patients, it was all that was available. That started to change drastically in 1996 when California became the first state to legalize cannabis for medical use in the U.S.

Once California passed a medical cannabis measure, it opened the floodgates to other states following suit, almost all of which created safe, legal access to cannabis in some manner. Every dispensary and delivery service that opened up at the state level, especially in the Western United States, diverted money to state-licensed cannabis outlets that would have otherwise likely gone to cartel operations.

The shift in consumer purchasing habits further accelerated in 2014 when Colorado and Washington State launched adult-use cannabis sales. With state medical programs, patients had to be registered in order to frequent dispensaries. Now that consumers of legal age from all over the country (and the world for that matter) can make legal purchases of regulated products through licensed outlets there’s literally no good reason for people to ever purchase cartel cannabis ever again, hence the drop in cannabis revenue for cartels.

Proof Of Concept

Many valid reasons exist regarding why cannabis should be legalized, with a popular one being to defund cartels. Cartels have caused so much misery over so many years, and any dollar that can be prevented from going their way is always a good thing. Legalization in the United States is proving to be extremely successful on that front, as demonstrated by the latest Congressional report.

Cartels still smuggle cannabis into the U.S., and still set up illegal grows on public lands in the U.S. However, that business model is becoming less viable with every passing year as consumers continue to migrate towards legal options. Imagine when cannabis is legal nationwide in the United States. Obviously, once all consumers and patients in every state can go the legal route, there will be no room for cartel cannabis in the country, assuming that regulations are sensible and prices are at least somewhat competitive.

Just as legalization will continue to succeed in the United States, so too will it succeed elsewhere, and in the process, eliminate cartel cannabis worldwide. When cannabis is illegal, cartels will fill the void. After all, consumers and patients don’t refrain from consuming cannabis just because it is illegal. They will continue to seek out sources for cannabis, and cartels will always be willing to meet the demand. The more that the legal cannabis industry is allowed to operate the more it can directly address the cartel cannabis issue, and when that happens, everyone wins (except for the cartels).

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Thailand’s National Cannabis Cultivation Program Is Off To A Strong Start

Written by Johnny Green on . Posted in Policy.

On June 9th, just a little over a week ago, Thailand embarked on a new cannabis public policy journey when it implemented its new national cannabis laws, and with it, launched a nationwide program in which households can sign up to cultivate low-THC cannabis.

The new cultivation program is the first of its kind on the entire planet, and it has proven to be so popular that on the first day that people could sign up for the cultivation program the government app used to sign households up crashed. Apparently, the app received over 9 million applications on just the first day alone.

As of the morning of June 12th, just three days after the launch of Thailand’s cultivation program, over 650,000 households had already signed up and received notifications to cultivate cannabis. It’s a truly historic time in Thailand, and I reached out to Mr. Wisan Potprasat, President of the River Khwae Herbal Therapeutic Center, for his take on what is going on in Thailand.

Mr. Potprasat is the President of the River Khwae Herbal Therapeutic Center (RHTC), President of Community Enterprise Network of Western Herbal Alliances, and the CEO Cannabis Medical Industrial Estate Association of Thailand. Below is what he had to say:

For more than 88 years, the cultivation and consumption of cannabis in Thailand has been banned by law, although cannabis has played a very important role in traditional Thai medicine in the past.

Many specific cannabis strains seemed to have been lost and it was not possible to carry out research and studies on cannabis breeding over this long period of time.

In recent years, the Thai government has understood that cannabis does more good than harm and so they began to gradually adapt the laws. This opened the way for domestic farmers to create a new income opportunity. In addition, cannabis can be used again in traditional Thai medicine and as a basis for new medicines for the population. On July 9th, a new law came into force that allows the possession, cultivation and consumption of cannabis under certain conditions (THC content must be below 0,2%). Thailand is the first country in South-East Asia that does such a big step in its laws. This important milestone finally decriminalizes the handling of cannabis for private individuals. This will help establish a healthy relationship with the plant that has been cultivated for generations.

As soon as Thailand changed the law in 2018 and allowed to use cannabis for medical purposes, we at RHTC started rediscovering the ancient Thai cannabis strains and bringing them back to Thailand. Luckily, many varieties were rediscovered in neighboring countries, where they “survived” in private gardens for several decades. From the beginning it was important to us to build up a network with local farmers in order to rebuild the Thai cannabis industry together with them. We impart knowledge about the cultivation of cannabis and use modern technology to ensure sustainable cultivation with zero waste and pollution. The perfect climatic conditions in Thailand together with the irrepressible diligence and drive of our young growers ensure that we have now become the largest cannabis producer in Asia. The gradual opening up of laws by the Thai government has enabled us to re-cultivate the ancient cannabis strains of Thailand and it makes as very proud that in the meantime we can offer the best quality in the world.

In the future, of course, further steps and changes in the law will be necessary to further simplify the cultivation, processing and, in particular, trading of cannabis and its products. There are already wider draft laws on cannabis control being discussed in the Thai parliament. However, thanks to the Thai government’s constant and determined legal steps in the right direction, we have already achieved a major lead compared to the rest of the world.

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Cancer Patients Reduced Prescriptions, Improved Symptoms After Long-Term Cannabis Use

Written by Frank Schuler on . Posted in Science.

If you have battled cancer, or know someone that has, then you are completely aware of how awful of a condition it can be. To make matters worse, many of the current treatments for cancer come with a number of terrible side effects.

The cannabis plant has helped many cancer patients over many years in various ways, and according to a recent study in Israel, it is associated with reduced prescriptions and improvements in symptoms. Below is more information about it via a news release from NORML:

Haifa, Israel: The use of cannabis products over a six-month period is associated with statistical improvements in cancer-related symptoms as well as significant reductions in subjects’ use of prescription painkillers, according to longitudinal data published in the journal Frontiers in Pain Research.

Israeli researchers assessed the long-term use of cannabis in a cohort of several hundred oncology patients.

Consistent with studies of other patient cohorts, cannabis use was associated with symptom mitigation, improved quality of life, and reduced prescription drug use. Among those participants who completed the trial, nearly half ceased their use of analgesics.

Authors concluded: “The main finding of the current study is that most cancer comorbid symptoms improved significantly during six months of MC [medical cannabis] treatment. … Additionally, we found that MC treatment in cancer patients was well tolerated and safe. … In conclusion, this prospective, comprehensive and large-scale cohort demonstrated an overall mild to modest long-term statistical improvement of all investigated measures including pain, associated symptoms and, importantly, reduction in opioid (and other analgesics) use.”

Full text of the study, “The effectiveness and safety of medical cannabis for treating cancer related symptoms in oncology patients,” appears inFrontiers in Pain Research. Additional information is available from the NORML fact sheet, “Relationship Between Marijuana and Opioids.”