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Experts Pass The Buck On Regrading Of Cannabis
Greg Hurst & Nigel Hawkes | The Times | 12/12/2005

MINISTERS face a dilemma over the legal status of cannabis after a government review ducked the question of whether it should be reclassified and targeted with renewed priority by police.

The Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs, which has reassessed the Government’s decision of two years ago to downgrade cannabis, has backed away from recommending that cannabis be reclassified from a class C to a class B drug. Its report has been submitted to Charles Clarke, the Home Secretary, and he will reflect on it over the Christmas recess before reaching a decision early next year, according to one of his aides.

The end of the review comes as an inquest opens into the death of a woman who had been taking part in trials of an experimental cannabis-based drug. Rene Anderson, 70, was given Sativex to ease symptoms of diabetic neuropathy, a generalised nerve pain in her hands and feet, Richard Starkie, her family’s solicitor, said yesterday.

Mr Starkie said that Mrs Anderson developed psychosis shortly after taking the drug, but GW Pharmaceuticals, the makers of Sativex, insist that the drug has been “well-tolerated” by patients in extensive trials, and that they were “surprised and disappointed” that Mr Starkie had pre- empted the coroner’s findings.

Mrs Anderson was admitted to the Royal Hallamshire Hospital in Sheffield on March 3 last year, and died ten weeks later after developing pneumonia and kidney failure. Mr Starkie said: “The inquest will look at whether her psychosis was caused by her taking the cannabis-based drug and whether that psychosis then led to her physical decline and death.”

Mrs Anderson’s daughter, Jackie Sadler, said: “We are still in the dark as to how she became so ill and why she died, and none of the medical experts involved has yet been able to answer our questions.”

The drug has not been granted a marketing authorisation by the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency and doctors can prescribe it only on a named- patient basis. There was speculation yesterday that the advisory council has concluded that health risks do not justify the reclassification of cannabis.

Its failure to make a firm re-commendation means that Mr Clarke must take a political decision without the option of simply endorsing the findings of a group of experts. He set up the review weeks before the general election, asking the council to advise him on scientific research into the effects of stronger varieties of “skunk” cannabis. This neutralised political rows over cannabis during the election.

Senior Home Office officials believe that public debate on drugs has become “trapped” on the question of legalisation and would welcome clarity on the status of cannabis, but police chiefs have urged keeping the law as it is and said that, if cannabis is reclassified as a class B drug, its possession should be enforced with a fixed penalty notice in order not to divert police officers’ time.

The original decision to downgrade the classification of cannabis was taken by David Blunkett, the previous Home Secretary, and was again based on a report by the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs. Mr Clarke asked the council to look at the issue again in light of studies into links between the regular use of cannabis and mental illness.

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cb007sax

*Sigh*. Pretty classic scenario, someone dies off a drug that isn't Marijuana, and dies from symptoms completely removed from any cannabis effects.

So she dies of pnemounia and kidney failure, but it's Marijuana's fault? The drug she took was BASED on cannabis, it's not cannabis. We should get rid of painkillers and all kinds of medicinal aides, people DO die from opium. I'm SURE they had all this in mind when the story was written, and they in no way meant to sensationalize it.

TheNewGuy

Now, I don't want to sound cold or overly apathetic or anything, but I still don't understand why something that could help millions of people should be taken off the shelves because one person died from it (sopposedly, and I dont' even believe a THC-based drug had anything to do with this "psychosis" that they speak of). This happens all the time to all kinds of drugs. One person has an allergic reaction to one ingrediant in something than almost nobody else in the world would be allergic to, and its all of a sudden a "public health risk".

I know all life is sopposed to be equal or some crap like that, but it isn't. If you had the choice to save one million people and in some way, either direct or indirect kill one person or save one person and kill a million, what would you do? I would sacrifice that one person to save the million people. Thats a pretty cut and dried example there, but my point is that if even a couple people die from somthing that could potentially save hundreds of thousands or millions, than why ban it? This wouldn't make any sense even if Sativex was the reason that this woman died.

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"Anyway, no drug, not even alcohol, causes the fundamental ills of society. If we're looking for the source of our troubles, we shouldn't test people for drugs, we should test them for stupidity, ignorance, greed and love of power." ~P.J. O'Rourke

khyberkitsune

Most any drug, in any overly-copious amount, can cause psychosis by simply disturbing the chemical balance. Even Asprin and ibuprofen can thin your blood so much that your brain/blood barrier is useless and you get all kinds of things inside your brain that should not be there.

What I'd be thinking about is which chemicals within cannabis were extracted and exactly how they were modified. This will give much more insight into what really happened.

Sadly, now we're in the age of litigation. That's more than any reason for a company to pull a life-saving drug off the shelf. Save one billion, get sued into oblivion by two.

urania3

The BBB is a physical barrier of the blood vessels of the brain and not dependent on the viscosity of your blood.


Here it is from Bayer Canada:

(Tetranabinex® is their trade name for THC and Nabidiolex® is their trade name for CBD).

As they are extracts and not synthesized, Sativex probably also contains everything else that is in the aerial parts of the plant. It is also standardized to a 1.08mg THC : 1mg CBD ratio (as 27mg/ml THC : 25mg/ml CBD).

I also find it interesting that this medication has a "black box" warning that "THC can produce physical and psychological dependence and has the potential for being abused."

The product monograph in PDF format.

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Why is it that we cannot face the simple truth? Religion is at best unsubstantiated superstition. (Massimo Pigliucci)