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Lothar121

Synthetic Marijuana Returning to Market
Associated Press | LA Times | 05/16/06

WASHINGTON -- Seventeen years after it was withdrawn from U.S. markets, a synthetic version of the active ingredient in marijuana is going back on sale as a prescription treatment for the vomiting and nausea that often accompanies chemotherapy, its manufacturer said Tuesday.

Valeant Pharmaceuticals International hopes to begin selling Cesamet in the next two to three weeks, company president Wes Wheeler said.

The Costa Mesa, Calif. company received Food and Drug Administration approval Monday to resume sales of the drug, which it bought from Eli Lilly and Co. in 2004. Valeant currently sells the drug, also called nabilone, in Canada.

Lilly originally received FDA approval for nabilone in 1985 but withdrew it from the market in 1989 for commercial reasons, Wheeler said. Valeant, since purchasing the drug, has revised its label and updated its manufacturing process, he added.

The drug will compete with Marinol, made by Belgium-based Solvay SA. Marinol, another synthetic version of tetrahydrocannabinol, the active ingredient in marijuana that's more commonly known as THC. It also received FDA approval in 1985.

Synthetic THC acts on the brain like the THC in smoked marijuana, but eliminates having to inhale the otherwise harmful smoke contained in the illegal drug, Valeant said.

Cesamet is a Schedule II drug, meaning it has a high potential for abuse. The 1-milligram tablets are meant to be taken twice daily before cancer patients undergo chemotherapy and up to 48 hours following treatment. Side effects include euphoria, drowsiness, vertigo and dry mouth.

The FDA last month said it does not support the use of marijuana for medical purposes

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reggie_the_dog

"Synthetic THC acts on the brain like the THC in smoked marijuana, but eliminates having to inhale the otherwise harmful smoke contained in the illegal drug, Valeant said.

Cesamet is a Schedule II drug, meaning it has a high potential for abuse. The 1-milligram tablets are meant to be taken twice daily before cancer patients undergo chemotherapy and up to 48 hours following treatment. Side effects include euphoria, drowsiness, vertigo and dry mouth."


vaporizing cannabis to get THC alos eliminates having to inhale the otherwise harmful smoke contained in the illegal drug, MR. Valeant.

And you get the same nice side effects, euphoria, drowsiness etc.

BillieBudd

But...but..but didn't our government, who is looking out for the safety and well being of the populace, just say that marijuana had no medicinal value???
How can this be??? You mean the government is not telling the truth or doesn't know what it is talking about??? Dear Lord, another illusion shattered!!!!

Sec

So it isn't, after all, the THC that is illegal and that the government needs to protect it's citizens from, but the smoke. Tobbacco companies gotta love that viewpoint.

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vladimir

in all honesty, i dont think anyone has ever tried to sell cigarettes as medicine...

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RL in IL

If you go back to the time before the 1950s and do some reasearch, I think you will see a lot of advertisements for tobacco cigarettes saying they are healthy for you.

I know cigarettes were once advertised in radio, TV and print, for an extended period of years, claiming all sorts of health benefits, including helping a sore throat.

If I am not mistaken, before the 1960s, doctors would also tell patients to take up cigarette smoking, and many doctors did smoke tobacco cigarettes themselves. It seems as though tobacco smoking was seen as a healthy thing in the USA for a while.

That is, until the results of research started revealing a horrible nightmare of a truth and put the brakes on it all.

You have to wonder why drug stores, or pharmacies in the U.S. sell tobacco products and accessories. It is a left over artifact of that earlier era when smoking tobacco was considered healthy.

RL in IL

It is definately smoke that makes marijuana dangerous. Even the best quality marijuana smoke, I believe, has that negative potential. The government can allow low-quality marijuana smoke to be used in research to prove how dangerous marijuana can be, and even high quality marijuana smoke can be suspect.

The tobacco companies have tried to take advantage of this fact that less tobacco smoke equals a safer cigarette. They came up with a smokeless tobacco cigarette in the 1990s, which failed because no smoke means you don't taste the cigarette or smell it. They tried in the 2000s to come up with a tobacco cigarette that burned about 3% of the tobacco and create a small amount of smoke for taste. However the public seems to insist with their dollars that old-fashioned tobacco cigarettes which burn with a hot cherry and constantly billow large clouds of smoke are the only type of "real cigarette".

People say, "if there's no smoke, it isn't a real cigarette" or "what's a cigarette if there isn't a bunch of smoke?" or "I smoke cigarettes for the smoke, not for the nicotine buzz".

Well to those I say, if you are smoking tobacco cigarettes for the smoke, there are a lot of other proven legal substances to smoke that will give you a better tasting smoke without the longterm harmful side effects of nicotine - the main ingredient of tobacco that gives the "high" or "buzz", which by the way is certifiably a poison. There are other legal substances to smoke that have been tried, tested, proven, with their own effects, and you all know where to find them online. Why risk with tobacco?

Why smoke at all then? If you are smoking for the smoke, and not just saying that to say it, there are safer legal substances to be smoking than tobacco.

I don't think anyone really smokes for the smoke. Everyone expects to feel something from what they smoke. There's all kinds out there, but, watch out for people who say they are smoking just for the smoke. They'll smoke anything and tell you it is good.

Plainsman1963

Valeant Pharmaceuticals to resume sales of synthetic Cannabis drug.
05-18-06 | EarthTimes.Org | Peter Goodyear

Valeant Pharmaceuticals has received an approval from the US food and drug administration to market its synthetic cannabis drug Cesamet.

According to company president Wes Wheeler, the company hopes to resume sales of Cesamet in next two to three weeks. The drug is already being sold in Canada under the name Nabilone.

The drug, originally manufactured by Eli Lilly and Co., which was bought by Valeant Pharmaceuticals in 2004,was withdrawn from the U.S. markets seventeen years back, due to commercial reasons.

It is used for controlling symptoms like nausea and vomiting in induced by chemotherapy in cancer patients, especially in cases when traditional drugs fail to work. Cesamet, to be taken in two doses, has a longer duration effect compared to other conventional drugs used for curing vomiting and nausea in chemotherapy treatment.

Cesamet is a synthetic version of an active ingredient in Cannabis commonly known as marijuana, which is why it is also known as synthetic marijuana.

Cesamet will be competing with Marinol, which is manufactured by Belgium-based Solvay SA, and is also a synthetic version of tetrahydrocannabinol or THC, an active ingredient in cannabis.

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SnowMinion

FDA: "There is absolutely no medical value in marijuana"

later that day...

FDA: "Yes, we will approve this medicine which contains the main active ingredient in marijuana"

Line of reason? Oh right, politics don't have logic...

-S

oldhead

the RX companies that make the stuff don't want marijuana legal because no one would buy their pills then, Thats why they put so much money into campain funds and lobbists.