Abstract
There is only one legally-competent authority in the United States (US) that can determine what is and what isn’t medicine – the Food & Drug Administration. In 2018, under US and International statutes, marijuana is not medicine. Individual states have approved the cultivation, sale, and distribution of a Schedule I controlled substance in direct violation of International and U.S. drug control statutes. The current administration of the US allows the daily violation and nullification of 3 International United Nation treaties as well as the US Comprehensive Drug Abuse and Control Act (1970). In a search for nirvana, a growing subculture has emerged that has taken the hallucinogen, Δ9- tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), of the 1960s to “infinity and beyond”. Techniques to “boost” or potentiate the actual THC content of marijuana by agricultural refinement, fertilization, and hybrid cultivation of “home grown” or medical advocate suppliers for the “medicinal marijuana” market has dramatically changed the subjective experience of smoked product. More disturbing is the intentional adulteration of bulk harvested materials (spicing), the development of “kitchen-based” extraction techniques (dabbing), and the processes of dose administrations that have grown almost exponentially over the last decade that sets the stage for a new chimera to drug safety in the US. These cottage industries are poised and waiting for national drug control policies to be further weakened to the point of a public health crisis. While legislators debate the drug control issue, a whole subliminal industry has developed in anticipation of free farming of cannabis, with the intent of delivering hybrid dosing of THC concentrations not believed to be possible just a few years ago.
Highlights
This review is intended to sound the public safety alarm regarding the full ramifications of a statutory “end around” to use the legislative branch of government to approve and declare that marijuana is medicine
Under the Food, Drug & Cosmetic Act, the only legally-competent authority to determine whether any substance is a “medicine” is the executive branch cabinet post position of the Department of Health & Human Services (DHHS), and through a memo of understanding (MOU), the Commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration
While the findings suggested that smoked marijuana and oral THC are efficacious in treating some symptoms of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), the authors cautioned that the overall GRADE of evidence was very low
Summary
This review is intended to sound the public safety alarm regarding the full ramifications of a statutory “end around” to use the legislative branch of government to approve and declare that marijuana is medicine. It is clear to all researchers conducting clinical trials with any compound that the characteristic side effects caused by these substances may render perfect subject blinding extremely difficult In their 2014 literature review, Brunt et al [7] concluded that randomized controlled trials of marijuana and its constituent elements have yielded heterogeneous results and have not yet resulted in practical guidelines for the prescription of cannabis for pain. In their 2016 review of the published literature, Health Canada, the Canadian counterpart to the US FDA, concluded that available evidence comparing patient outcomes following marijuana-based treatments versus placebo appears insufficient to make well-founded conclusions about the clinical advantage and use of these products for the management of chronic neuropathic and non-cancer pain [8]. Such term does not include the mature stalks of such plant, fiber produced from such
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