Article 1:

Weed vs Opioids: Which Is Better For Pain?

An opioid is a class of prescription painkillers that are derived from the poppy plant. The poppy plant is used to make
narcotics like heroin and opium. Common opioid painkillers include morphine, Vicodin, Percocet (oxycodone),
OxyContin (hydrocodone) and Zohydro (high-dose hydrocodone).
Opioid painkillers are some of the most common drugs prescribed today. They are prescribed in a variety of instances to
help patients manage moderate to severe pain. Some situations that you might be treated with opioids include:
 Post-surgery
 Treatment of chronic pain after an accident
 Pain management for cancer patients
 Treatment of chronic pain due to herniated disks in the back, etc.
There are several major side effects for prescription opioids. It’s not uncommon for people to experience gastrointestinal
issues like constipation, nausea and vomiting while taking any type of opiate. But, the primary and most profound issue
with taking prescription opioids is addiction, dependence, and overdose.
Because opioids are so similar to heroin (they’re made of the same stuff and work in the same way), it’s become a little
too common for former opioid patients to make the jump to heroin if their prescriptions are discontinued. In fact,
according to Al Jazeera, an estimated 4 in 5 heroin users were once prescribed opioid pain relievers.
Steeply rising overdose are another major concern. Dr. Jeanmarie Perrone, an advisor on the American FDA committee
for opiate drug Zohydro, tells “Fault Lines” just how prevalent opioid overdoses have become:
The overdose rate, which might have been 1 or 2 a month in our emergency department, is now more like 3, or 4, or 5, if
not more than that, in a 24 hour period.
For the record, Dr. Perrone and the majority of the FDA Advisory Committee on the drug rejected the approval of
Zohydro, but the FDA decided the drug was good to go on the market anyway. Zohydro is now the most powerful opioid
available for doctors to prescribe. After much criticism, the manufacturers of the drug released an abuse-resistant version.
Marijuana and opioids prevent pain in different ways. Opioids straight up block pain signals in your brain. Let’s say you
accidentally cut yourself. Nerves around the site of the injury send signals to your brain telling it that part of your body
has been hurt. Once your brain receives these signals, it releases certain chemicals that effectively notify you that you’ve
been hurt. This is what it means to feel pain.
When you take a prescription opioid, it blocks the neurotransmitters in your brain that inform you that you’re hurt. This
takes your pain away by preventing you from feeling it. This is why opioids work so well post-surgery.
The pain-blocking mechanisms of marijuana are less understood. For starters, components in cannabis work with
the endocannabinoid system AND the opioid system. The endocannabinoid system interacts with parts of the opioid
system, but taking prescription opioids does not engage the endocannabinoid system in the way that consuming marijuana
does. According to recent research, this may enable compounds in marijuana to:
 Reduce inflammation that causes pain all over your body
 Trigger the release of feel-good endorphins
 Reduce the buildup of fluids at injury sites
 Block pain signals in the brain in a similar manner to opioids
 Act as a muscle relaxer by opening up tense blood vessels
 Inhibit neuropathic pain
Very simply explained, marijuana and opioids do similar things in the brain when it comes to blocking pain signals and
making you feel good. But, cannabinoids like CBN, CBC, and THC also work systemically to reduce inflammation and
help relax damaged tissues throughout the body.
Marijuana’s pain-fighting abilities are also confirmed by a Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA)
report published last year. After examining 28 studies on chronic pain, JAMA found that:
“The average number of patients who reported a reduction in pain of at least 30% was greater with cannabinoids than with
placebo.”
Some studies have also suggested that cannabis helps patients cope with some of the gastrointestinal side effects of
prescription painkillers and methadone.
Depending on the type of pain you have and the type of weed you’re smoking, you may find that cannabis works
miraculously for some types of pain, but doesn’t work well for others. This is why some researchers are studying
the tandem use of low-dose opioids and marijuana. Using both opiates and marijuana allows patients experiencing acute
or chronic pain to take a much lower dose of opioids to manage their symptoms. This reduces the risk of overdose.
One 2012 study published in the Journal of Psychoactive Drugs found that marijuana can prevent the development of
tolerance to opioids as well as mitigate difficult to manage withdrawal symptoms. Tolerance is one of the main reasons
why people continue to take higher and higher doses of prescription painkillers. Painful withdrawal symptoms may also
be one of the reasons people seek out dangerous alternatives to opiates when they are no longer receiving a doctor’s
prescription.
This is strong evidence that marijuana may help fight serious opioid addictions.
This research is backed by the fact that the mere presence of marijuana dispensaries in a state has been shown to reduce
substance abuse admissions in medical facilities by 15-35%. In fact, another 2014 study published in JAMA found that
rates of opiate overdose decreased by 24.8% in states that allowed medical marijuana.
Opioids are often the first line of action against chronic pain. There is no doubt that they are effective and provide much-
needed relief, but in many cases, prescribing them as the number one line of defense is over the top. In 2014 alone, opioid
and heroin overdoses claimed around 20,000 lives in the U.S. For Canadian patients (the second largest consumer group
of prescription painkillers), opioid overdose contributed to half of all overdose deaths nationwide.
How many deaths has marijuana produced? None. We need safer, alternative pain relievers. Simple as that.
Have you had any experience with opioid pain relievers? Do you feel like marijuana is helpful for fighting your chronic
pain? Share your experience with us on social media or in the comments section below! We’d love to hear what you have
to say.
Article 2
Medical Cannabis Better Than Prescription Pills?
Everyone who looks into the effects of medical marijuana knows how beneficial it can be for many medical conditions.
From chronic pain to nausea to multiple sclerosis to epilepsy, medical marijuana saves lives everyday. Pharmaceutical
drugs are known for saving lives, too. But they are also known for coming with some dangerous side-effects, some of
which can lead to overdose and death.
On the one hand, some medical conditions require particularly effective prescription drugs for successful treatment. On
the other hand, some medical conditions respond better to alternative treatment with medical cannabis. The following
are five medical conditions that respond better to cannabis treatment than prescription pills.
Five Medical Diseases That Respond Better to Medical Marijuana Than Prescription Drugs
1. Cancer
Although there is still debate amongst doctors, research has shown marijuana effectively kills cancer cells. By inhibiting
the growth of cancer tumors, cannabinoidsattack the cancer cells and attack the gene responsible for the uncontrolled cell
growth. Although medical marijuana is not the ultimate solution to curing cancer, and we would never recommend
forgoing cancer treatment to only smoke cannabis, scientists see positive results from using cannabis to slow the growth
of abnormal cells and tumors.
2. Epilepsy
Epilepsy is a medical condition that can negatively affect any person’s quality of life. For children especially, epilepsy
and seizure disorders can lead to dangerous side-effects. The side effects of epilepsy medications are also problematic,
leading to loss of appetite, depression and chronic fatigue for children and adults alike. Aside from reading about the
promising research into the effects of cannabis to treat epilepsy, check out just one of the many videos showing how
cannabis helps save the lives of children with epilepsy.
3. Fibromyalgia
To no avail of pharmaceutical companies, medical marijuana is better at treating the symptoms of fibromyalgia than all of
the leading prescription pills used for this condition. Many patients report the “very effective” results from medical
cannabis that won’t be found with prescription drugs like Cymbalta. Learn more about Fibromyalgia and cannabis here.
4. Multiple Sclerosis
Patients who suffer from multiple sclerosis are often left using powerful prescription drugs with dangerous side-effects.
The reason prescription medications for multiple sclerosis (MS) are so dangerous is because they are created to block
white blood cells, which are the very cells used to protect the body from infection and disease. Medical marijuana has
been shown to effectively relieve symptoms associated with MS, like pain, sleeping problems, and spasticity, while not
blocking white blood cells from protecting the body.
5. ADHD/ ADD
Typical ADD/ADHD medications are given to children starting at a young age and often lead to problems with addiction
and drug abuse later in life. These types of medication are also sold on the streets as a form of speed. To reduce the risk of
drug dependency and addiction and avoid giving our kids speed-like substances, alternative treatments like medical
marijuana have been shown to be effective at calming the overstimulated mind without the dangerous side-effects.
Medical Marijuana vs. Prescription Pills
Pharmaceutical companies don’t like the medical marijuana industry poaching on their patients. But the truth is medical
marijuana is providing some of these patients more benefit and less risk than any prescription drug they’ve taken. As the
medical marijuana industry continues to grow and more research is finally being performed on the medical effects of
medical cannabis, more patients will ultimately get access to a medicinal plant that’s been helping people for centuries
before prohibition took over.
Article 3
Is Medical Marijuana Better Than Prescription Pills?
People with California medical marijuana cards have been reporting that cannabis is a safe and effective treatment for the
symptoms of AIDS, cancer, multiple sclerosis, chronic pain, epilepsy, glaucoma, anxiety disorder, depression, and
insomnia.
Not only is medical cannabis showing a great ability to ease the painful symptoms of disease, but it is also showing
potential for actually improving health and functionality in its users. Research from the University of Nottingham in the
United Kingdom has found that cannabinoids, the chemical compounds found in cannabis, can help to reduce brain
damage and improve neurological functioning following a stroke. Another study, from the National Cancer Institute,
found that cannabinoids may have a protective effect against the development of certain types of tumors.
The use of medical marijuana has no known severe side-effects. A Canadian study conducted on 215 patients with chronic
pain found that after using medical marijuana for one year, patients “had no greater risk than non-users (control group) to
experience serious adverse events”. Many people have been using their cannabis card for years and have reported no ill
effects, and only positive, life-enhancing results.
Prescription painkillers, on the other hand, seem to be doing a lot of damage to a lot of people.
Prescription painkillers can have a number of adverse side-effects that can lead to severe health complications for users.
People have reported side-effects such as liver spots, severe headaches, and bleeding gums. Opioid painkillers can lead to
chronic constipation, which can lead to colon cancer down the line.
A 2008 study showed that the common symptoms associated with opioid-based prescription painkillers include “sedation,
dizziness, nausea, vomiting, constipation, physical dependence, tolerance, and respiratory depression”. It went on to say
that, “Physical dependence and addiction are clinical concerns that may prevent proper prescribing and in turn inadequate
pain management. Less common side effects may include delayed gastric emptying, hyperalgesia, immunologic and
hormonal dysfunction, muscle rigidity, and myoclonus.” That’s quite a list of negatives!
A recent study has shown that opioid drugs used to relieve pain in cancer patients may stimulate the growth and spread of
tumors.
The physical effects of using your California medical card certainly seem to be safer than asking your doctor to prescribe
painkillers.
Prescription painkillers can have much worse side-effects than medical marijuana.
Addiction is another major issue. American citizens make up 5% of the world’s population, yet they consume 75% of the
world’s prescription drugs. Prescription painkillers can be highly addictive. They are often derived from the same sources
as other highly addictive drugs such as heroin and morphine. They are frequently abused by adults and teenagers alike.
54.2% of pain pills in the US are obtained free from a friend or relative.
Tolerance to prescription painkillers tends to build up quickly, so people need to take more and more to get the same
effect. The Center for Disease Control and Prevention has declared that prescription drug abuse in the USA is an
epidemic. As of 2010, an estimated 52 million Americans over the age of 12 use prescription drugs for non-medical
purposes.
Experts believe that the rise in heroin use could be in part due to prescription painkiller abuse. When people become
hooked on prescription painkillers, but then can’t get a hold of any, they often turn to heroin. So those people who
peddle the old myth that marijuana is a ‘gateway drug’ should be leveling that accusation at prescription painkillers,
which have a great deal more in common with harmful and illegal drugs like heroin than cannabis does.
Medical marijuana has proved to be a much more effective remedy than prescription painkillers in a lot of cases.
Medical cannabis is non-addictive, and there is no evidence that you need to constantly up your dosage due to developing
a tolerance to it. People use their California marijuana card for years at the same levels without needing to up the dose.
With the number of people addicted to painkillers increasing year on year, it seems that medical marijuana could provide
a valuable and safe treatment alternative.
Both medical cannabis and prescription painkillers have potential psychoactive side effects, but the long-term effects of
cannabis use seem to be much safer. Studies show that long term opiate use can lead to decreased brain function. Whereas
most strains of cannabis, particularly low THC/high CBD strains, appear to have little to no effect on cognitive function at
all. So for people suffering from chronic pain, your 420 card could offer similar relief to a prescription painkiller but
without the negative effects of long-term opiate use on cognitive function.
Deaths caused by prescription drug overdose outnumber deaths caused by heroin and cocaine combined. Every 19
minutes someone dies in the United States of a prescription drug overdose. 17,000 people die of prescription pill
overdoses per year. There are zero recorded deaths related to cannabis overdose. Ever. This is a big difference!
The legalization of the mm card may be a big factor in a 25% decrease in opiate-related deaths in the states that have
legalized mmj so far. That’s a 25% reduction in deaths caused by pain pills, heroin, and morphine.
Pain medication should make your quality of life better, but it seems that a lot of current prescription painkillers in fact
make people’s lives worse. Taking prescription pain-pills can lead to physical dependence and chronic, life-threatening
side effects. Medical marijuana is very effective at relieving pain, and is less dangerous than opiates.
So it seems that getting yourself a California medical marijuana card may well be a better option than using prescription
pills.
Article 4
Prescription Painkiller Deaths Fall Almost 25% in Medical Marijuana States
August 26, 2014 - By Amanda Reiman and Tamar Todd
A study that recently appeared in the Journal of the American Medical Association shows a significant decrease in opiate
overdoses in states that have adopted and implemented medical marijuana laws compared to states that have not.
The authors showed that although opiate overdoses rose in states without medical marijuana laws during 2009-2010, they
dropped by approximately 25 percent in states with medical marijuana laws during that same period. While these data
cannot show a causal relationship between the passage of medical marijuana laws and a decrease in opiate overdoses, they
are consistent what medical marijuana patients have been saying for years, that they are consciously choosing medical
cannabis over pharmaceutical drugs.
The finding of this study has important policy implications that demand a closer examination of the possible expansive
benefits of medical marijuana laws to both individual and public health as well as what components of those laws make
them more or less effective at improving overall health.
Many of the headlines about this study stated that overdose deaths were significantly reduced in the 23 states that allow
access to medical marijuana. In fact, the study only evaluated 10 of the 23 states—those states with laws that were
implemented between 1999 and 2010: Alaska, Colorado, Hawaii, Maine, Michigan, Montana, Nevada, New Mexico,
Rhode Island, and Vermont.
These state medical marijuana laws all have features in common in addition to their time of implementation that are not
true of all the state medical marijuana laws: They all allow patients and caregivers to cultivate marijuana for medicinal
use ensuring patients continued access to marijuana. They all allow for marijuana to be used for a significant number of
medical conditions. They all allow for medical marijuana to treat and manage pain. They all allow patients to access to
the whole plant, to marijuana containing both THC and CBD, and to ingest marijuana through a variety of methods,
including smoking and vaporizing.
By comparison, many of the states that have adopted medical marijuana laws more recently—Illinois, Minnesota, New
York—have taken much more restrictive approaches that severely limit the number of patients eligible for the programs,
the ability of those patients to access marijuana, and the types of marijuana those patients may use, and even the ways that
patients may ingest marijuana.
Concerns about increasing access to marijuana may have driven some of these more restrictive states to take such a
limited approach. However, we may eventually discover that it is increased access to marijuana by a larger number of
patients that is the driver of a number of health benefits beyond what was contemplated when the medical marijuana laws
were originally designed.
What this groundbreaking study shows that there has been a significant reduction in overdose death in states that have
adopted robust medical marijuana laws with comprehensive patient access. Whether the same positive benefit will bear
out in states with much more restrictive medical marijuana laws remains to be seen.
The findings of this new study are not surprising. They are consistent with previous research findings that marijuana and
opiates work well together to relieve pain, and that the use of marijuana allows patients to use less opiates, reducing their
risk of overdose. Patients have been reporting this behavior for years.
A 2009 study of 350 medical cannabis patients found that nearly three-fourths of them reported using marijuana as a
substitute for prescription drugs, with better symptom management and less risk of withdrawal as the primary reasons.
These results have been replicated with several thousand patients, and the results were the same.
While these data cannot show that access to medical marijuana causes a reduction in opiate overdoses, we do know that
medical marijuana patients are engaging in substitution and that rates of opiate overdoses fell in states with medical
marijuana laws that provide a significant number of patients with meaningful access to marijuana.
With prescription drug overdoses now the number one cause of accidental death in the U.S., that is nothing to scoff at.
Amanda Reiman is the manager of marijuana law and policy for the Drug Policy Alliance. Tamar Todd is the director of
marijuana law and policy for the Drug Policy Alliance.
Article 5
Science Shows Marijuana Is Much Safer Than Prescription Drugs
Many prescription drugs are known to be dangerous. Pharmaceuticals in general are among the leading causes of death in
the US, and some drugs have killed tens of thousands of individuals. The painkiller Vioxx is one classic example that
killed over 60,000 before being pulled off the market. According to Dr. Margaret Gedde, MD, PhD, owner and founder of
Gedde Whole Health and the Clinicians’ Institute of Cannabis Medicine, you don’t have to look far to find research
confirming that cannabis is safer and less toxic than many prescription drugs.
This includes liver and kidney toxicity, gastrointestinal damage, nerve damage, and of course death. Moreover,
cannabinoids often work when pharmaceutical drugs fail, so not only is cannabis safer but it’s typically more effective.
Besides treating intractable seizures, one of the strongest areas of research regarding marijuana’s health benefits is pain
control.
In 2010, the Center for Medical Cannabis Research (CMCR) released a report10 on 14 clinical studies about the use of
marijuana for pain, most of which were FDA-approved, double-blind, and placebo-controlled. The report revealed that
marijuana not only controls pain, but in many cases it does so better than pharmaceutical alternatives.
If you compare prescription painkillers (opiates) to marijuana, marijuana is much safer. Opioid painkillers can lead to
slowed respiration and death if an excess is taken — and the risks are compounded if you add alcohol to the equation. By
contrast, cannabis overdose cannot kill you because there are no cannabinoid receptors in your brain stem, the region of
your brain that controls your heartbeat and respiration.
The statistics speak for themselves. In 2010, prescription painkillers were responsible for 16,600 deaths, and painkiller
overdoses claimed more women’s lives than cocaine and heroine combined. In the CDC’s Public Health Reports
study,11 prescription drugs were involved in fatal car crashes at three times the rate of marijuana. In states where medical
marijuana is legal, overdose deaths from opioids like morphine, oxycodone, and heroin decreased by an average of 20
percent after one year, 25 percent after two years and up to 33 percent by years five and six.
As noted by Dr. Gedde:
“There’s an ongoing death rate from use of pain medications as prescribed. So, even as prescribed, they’re highly
dangerous and they are open to abuse. As far as medications used in the pediatric population to control seizures, there
are also severe toxicities to organs. Many of them are very sedating. The children become unable to function or really to
interact because of the sedating effects. Other medications have a side effect of rage and behavioral problems.
Unprovoked rage is actually a known side effect of some of the anti-seizure medications. Cannabis and in particular
cannabidiol has none of these issues. No toxicities. The main side effect of cannabidiol is sleepiness. As a child gets
accustomed to it, that does wear off and the child can be very alert and functional on the cannabis oil once they have
worked into the dosing. Once you put them against each other, there really is no comparison in terms of safety.”
Article 6
Cannabis As Medicine
Dr. Frankel initially learned about medical cannabis through glaucoma trials and cancer work performed at UCLA in the
‘70s and early ‘80s.
“I’ve always seen it as a medicine,” he says. “Eventually, I got interested in it. I thought my tool box was getting too
small for typical issues with patients related to anxiety, pain, or the common issues where we just had inadequate
medications.
“I saw the cannabinoid future was something that was bright. Seven years ago, I kind of picked up my formal white coat
and sprayed a little green on it…”
Green Bridge Medical is his professional corporation where he sees patients, performs research, and provides physician
and patient education and outreach. For all its benefits, using cannabis in lieu of other medicines has many challenges.
“It’s a complicated process, as a physician in particular, working inside the medical system, to work outside the medical
system to make these dose-consistent extracts available.”
Many may find the idea of medical cannabis abhorrent or somehow “wrong,” as we’ve been indoctrinated to view
marijuana as a dangerous gateway drug that will lead you down a path of illicit drug use.
Many fail to realize that prescription drugs actually have FAR greater potential to turn you into “a junkie.” Legal drug
addiction is also taking lives in record numbers. In the UK, one million people are addicted to over-the-counter (OTC) and
prescription painkillers and tranquilizers.
That’s significantly more than the number addicted to illegal drugs. In the U.S., there were four times more deaths among
women from prescription painkiller overdose than for cocaine and heroin deaths combined in 2010.
Pharmaceuticals in general are among the leading causes of death in the U.S., and some medicines have killed tens of
thousands of individuals. The painkiller Vioxx is one classic example, which killed over 60,000 before being pulled off
the market.
The diabetes drug Avandia is another, and most recently, a study estimated that in a five-year span, some 800,000 people
in Europe were killed from inappropriate use of beta-blockers in non-cardiac surgery patients. Deaths attributed to
cannabis barely registers in comparison.
“I think that any intervention, regardless of how benign (I would say in my 35 years of medical experience, cannabis
should be considered a benign substance overall), there are potential uses and abuses,” Dr. Frankel says.
“For me, we’re just talking about the real solid indications. The issue of abuse and neglect is there, but I think it’s
relatively small. I think the claim that it is a gateway drug has been pretty soundly proven not to be correct.
“Even if cannabis to some extent is a gateway drug (which I do not believe it is), even if it is, it should be legalized to
protect the gateway [drug] issue, because legalization opens up communication.”
What’s The Difference Between Medical And Non-Medical Marijuana?
According to Dr. Frankel, cannabis has been cultivated in Northern Europe since before the last Ice Age. Even back then,
there were two very distinct groups of strains. One is cannabis; the other is hemp. There’s plenty of confusion about the
similarities and differences between these two plants. While they are subspecies of the same plant species, they look very
different, and are extremely different in ways that really matter when it comes to medicinal use.
The thing they have in common is that they both contain cannabidiol (CBD), which has medicinal properties.
The amount of CBD however, differs greatly between the two. Dosing, therefore, is dramatically different where you to
try to use hemp in lieu of cannabis, as the latter, cannabis, is up to 100-fold more potent. Another difference that appears
to matter in terms of its usefulness as medicine relates to differing terpene profiles. Hemp contains very little of these
valuable medicinal compounds.
Lastly, there’s the tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) content. THC is the psychoactive component of marijuana; it’s the
molecule that makes you feel “stoned.” (While cannabidiol (CBD) also has certain psychoactive properties, it does NOT
produce a high.) By legal definition, hemp cannot have more than 0.3 percent tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) in it. So to
summarize:
• Hemp has less value for medicinal uses, as it only contains about four percent CBD and lacks many of the medicinal
terpenes and flavonoids. It also contains less than 0.3 percent THC, which means it cannot produce a high or get you
stoned. However, for many disease processes, THC is very much indicated and required. So, for many disease processes,
CBD alone has much less value.
• Cannabis is potent medicine courtesy of high amounts (about 10-20 percent) of CBD, critical levels of medicinal
terpenes, and flavonoids, as well as THC in varying ratios for various diseases. The higher the THC, the more pronounced
its psychoactive effects
How Marijuana Got A Bad Rap
“What happened in the ’60s and ’70s was that due to desires for psychedelia, the changes in the war in Vietnam, and the
War on Drugs with Nixon, the types of strains that were available and the demand for psychedelia changed. Before we
knew it, CBD
— due to a lack of ‘stoniness’ — was bred out of the plant,” Dr. Frankel explains.
As a result of growers breeding out the all-important CBD, marijuana became known primarily as a plant that gets you
high. Its original medicinal properties and uses largely fell by the wayside. Things are changing however.
“Five years ago, California Physicians, and other groups around the world, didn’t really know if we would find CBD-rich
strains anymore, but we have. Now there’s many different varieties of it. We keep bringing back new CBD rich strains
every month or two. These plants genes’ haven’t seen the light of day for God knows how long.”
CBD is currently a Schedule 1 controlled substance, which means:
 The drug or other substance has a high potential for abuse.
 The drug or other substance has no currently accepted medical use in treatment in the U.S.
 There is a lack of accepted safety for use of the drug or other substance under medical supervision.
There’s no doubt that CBD needs to be rescheduled, as each of these three points are blatantly wrong. Dr. Frankel actually
thinks cannabis should be de-scheduled altogether, as a plant really does not belong on any schedule of a controlled
substance.
“How could we have a plant on a schedule? What if it’s an all-THC plant? What if it’s an all-CBD? What if we find some
other psychoactivity? If you take the Physicians’ Desk Reference (PDR) and look at every product, none of them looks like
a plant to me. This is the only plant, and it’s not just one medicine. One entry with one data ID or MDI cannot be applied
for cannabis. For example, we’re actually right now making different medicines with cannabis plants based upon harvest
time.
“As the plants mature, the flowers get darker and darker. There’s a traditional time when you’re just supposed to pick
them. Of course, what we’ve done is we picked them at different times in large amounts, ground them all together so we
can get very representative samples, and see what happens in the last few weeks of flowering. The medicine changes a lot
in the last three weeks. You can make more sedating medicine by letting it just stay on the vine three weeks longer. Even
how long you let it grow makes it a very different medicine, a noticeably different medicine,” he says.
Who’s A Good Candidate For Medical Cannabis?
In his medical practice, Dr. Frankel treats a wide variety of patients with medical cannabis, which has become his
specialty. Despite the many claims of cannabis performing miracles, he’s reluctant to think of it as a cure for anything.
Occasionally, however, patients will experience very dramatic results. For example, he has seen tumors virtually
disappear in some patients using no other therapy except taking 40 to 60 milligrams of cannabinoids a day. The most
common thing he sees in cancer patients, however, are tumors shrinking, or a metastasis disappearing. Sometimes tumors
will shrink or vanish, only to reemerge in other areas, months later, and then shrink or vanish again… Other common
ailments being treated with cannabis include:
 Mood disorders
 Pain disorders
 Degenerative neurological disorders such as dystonia
 Multiple sclerosis
 Parkinson’s disease
 PTSD
 Seizure Disorders
He recounts how two dystonia patients with severe myofascial spasms were able to return to normal life after taking two
milligrams of whole-plant CBD three times a day for a little more than one week. This is quite astounding, considering
each of them had spent more than a decade undergoing neurosurgeries and taking multiple medications.
Dr. Frankel is very focused on trying to develop accurate dose-consistent medicine. The Patient Access Centers he
consults with create a diverse collection of dose-consistent oral-buccal sprays. He also believes it’s very important to open
up and start talking about dosing — what works, what doesn’t. It is his belief that some patients, in large part due to lack
of education about the medicine, may be taking 10, or even 100 times higher dosage than is really needed to treat their
ailment. Unfortunately, many doctors in this still highly controversial field are afraid to recommend dosages, for fear of
the repercussions.
“There’s this false notion (I think I can very safely say it’s false) that doctors cannot recommend dosage because of this
federal [law against] aiding and abetting with cannabis. It’s not true. It’s just not true,” he says. “There are no
[cannabis] medications that we dose by body weight. We now have about 120 kids with seizure disorder, and if you look
at the surveys, across the board, the average dose is 37 milligrams [of whole-plant CBD] per day, and there’s no
relationship with body size.”
How Can You Obtain Medical Cannabis?
In states where medicinal marijuana is legal, such as California, you can join a collective, which is a legal entity
consisting of a group of patients that can grow and share cannabis medicines with each other. By signing up as a member,
you gain the right to grow and share your medicine. Dr. Frankel explains:
“A patient or a human being 18 and over or with a parent’s consent in California can get a medical cannabis card
recommendation letter if they or any physician or doctor of osteopathic medicine (D.O.) agree. It doesn’t have to be for
any specific condition. In other states, it’s very, specified. In California, there are 12 conditions listed, but then it says ‘or
any condition agreed upon by the doctor and patient,’ which kind of opens it up quite a bit.
“[With your medical cannabis card], you have the authority to go to whatever collective you want and pretty much select
what medicine you want. Now, that is exactly what the good, the bad, and the ugly is. I love free choice, but we need free
choice with education. There’s virtually zero education going on in the collectives. I mean, there are random places here
and there that make an effort but it’s really minimal.”
When cannabis is inhaled, smoked, or vaporized, its effects are rapid and short-lasting. Orally, it’s the most unpredictable
and delayed. When ingesting it, it can take up to two hours to take effect, but if dosed appropriately, you can achieve
once-a-day dosing with an edible medicine.
When smoked, as little as 10 mg of CBD acts as a major appetite suppressor. CBD is also an excellent painkiller,
particularly for tooth pain when the cannabis oil is applied sublingually or directly onto the tooth. Cannabis oil can also
help heal sunburn overnight. CBD is also very effective for anxiety disorders. Just a couple of milligrams of whole-plant
CBD can effectively subdue anxiety without causing any kind of mental deficiency or high.
In fact, to determine how much THC in an oral dose would be required to get high, they made liquid edibles with 5mg,
10mg, and 20mg of THC. The lowest dose, 5mg, did not produce a high. The upper two — 10 and 20 mg — did. Taking
50-100 mg of oral THC could get you into serious trouble. Paranoia is the most common side effect. Overdosing can also
produce nausea and vomiting.
More Information
A British pharmaceutical company called GW Pharmaceuticals has a cannabis product that is distributed in Canada and
five other countries. It’s a 1:1 CBD-THC whole plant extract. “It’s a very good medicine,” Dr. Frankel says. “But it’s
expensive. That’s the problem with pharmaceutical [companies].” Dr. Frankel also consults with various states that are
interested in growing medicinal CBD, i.e. cannabis with a high CBD content and hemp-level (extremely low) THC. He
even gives the CBD seeds away.
“I make the offer: if any governor in the 50 states wants, absolutely free — as long as I can do it legally — any of these
high-ratio CBD strains, I can make it happen. No cost,” he says.
“This is one of the important points I’d to emphasize: I think we’re going to find ultimately that CBD is a nutritional
supplement for everybody. I think we were all using [cannabis] 100 years ago… I think then, if they had hemp for food,
there was CBD in it. Again, I wasn’t there, but my guess is that everybody had CBD in their diet up until 100 years ago or
so. CBD appears in some of the newest data to help protect your DNA epigenetic layer. That’s important stuff for all of
the toxins that we have in our environment. I think we have more toxins now, and we’re missing one of the major
protectants that we used to use for this. That’s a double whammy.”
Article 7
Physician claims prescription drugs worse than marijuana
Two doctors stood on opposing sides as the Illinois Senate was preparing to vote on legalizing medical marijuana.

Dr. Dora Dixie, an addiction specialist from Chicago, argues that marijuana is highly addictive. Dr. David Walters, a Mt.
Vernon physician who has been diagnosed with esophageal cancer and given 11 to 13 months to live, says most
prescription drugs have more harmful side effects.

The Senate committee last week passed the House bill on medical marijuana with a 10 to 5 vote, sending the bill to the
Senate floor for debate.

Opponents contend marijuana should not be considered medicine. Supporters counter marijuana is less harmful and
addictive than prescription drugs such as Vicodin, OxyContin and morphine.

After undergoing numerous treatments over the last six months, Walters told the Senate committee that prescription drugs
he formerly used were not as efficient as marijuana.

“Specifically since my diagnosis I’ve been prescribed narcotic medications including Bentinol morphine, Hydrocodone
and OxyContin. It’s my opinion that each of these medications has greater abuse potential than marijuana,” he said.

During his testimony, Walters noted prescription drugs are more likely to impair one’s ability to operate machinery and
prohibit patients from performing daily functions. In addition, they carry a high overdose rate.

“As previously mentioned, the individual patients who comprise the future club of medical marijuana users are in general
a desperately ill crowd and, trust me, you don’t want to join this club. But I hope that you will have the compassion to
make this intervention available to those who need it,” he said.

On the opposing side, Dixie, a physician for the Cook County Bureau of Health, immediate past regional director for the
American Society of Addiction Medicine and a past president of the Illinois Society of Addiction Medicine, argued her
experience in working with individuals who battle addiction is one of the reasons she does not support medical
marijuana.

“Science should drive the practice of medicine, not legislatures,” she said.

Dixie said she has not been given enough medical evidence to make her support the use marijuana. She said most
medicines go through three phases of testing, including testing for adverse reactions, testing for effectiveness and testing
for interactions with other drugs.

Who is going to educate physicians on the drug and how will doctors be supervised?, she asked. She said in all of the
testimony and arguments she has heard, none of these issues have been addressed.

Sen. William Haine, D-Alton, the chief Senate sponsor, said the legislation would impose the toughest regulations on the
use of medicinal marijuana.

Haine said keeping marijuana away from young and healthy people is a priority.

“Many of these fears are based upon experiences of California and, secondarily, Colorado. We’ve made the bill
completely different from those states and ours is very tightly controlled,” he said.

Haine said he will fight amendments to the bill because amendments could delay passage.

“We can speculate ourselves into all kinds of fears about abuse, but if that was the case, we wouldn’t allow OxyContin,
Vicodin and all other prescription drugs. They’re abused more widely and more lethally than marijuana would ever be. No
one has died of an overdose of marijuana that I know of ever. But they’ve died from OxyContin, Vicodin and all these
other drugs that are legal.”