Recently, medicinal cannabis programs have been adopted by more than 50 countries (Brazil inclusive) while other countries like Uruguay, Mexico, South Africa, and Canada have their recreational use legalized. Other countries have laws that are more restrictive and only allow the use of certain Cannabis-derived pharmaceuticals which include, Marinol, Sativex, and Epidiolex.

Brazil decided on Tuesday, June 14th, 2022, that cannabis can be cultivated by sick people in a bid to extract its component into oil as a means of treating patients with chronic pain. The case is considered to be domestically important. Personal usage of cannabidiol was contemplated in the decision thereby allowing the cultivation of marijuana only for medical purposes followed by a prescription.

A legal precedent is given to home growers which might lead to more complex legislation using Argentina as a case study where the production of medicinal cannabis and hemp are being carried out legally.

Due to this decision, rules and regulations must be set by the Ministry of Brazilian Health to serve as a guide. This is the main intention of the judges. It was said by Judge Rogério Schietti that the government has refused to take a scientific approach to the issue and this has caused the court to act in that manner. He claimed that the debate against the possibility is proper. It is usually religious, based on false truths, stigmas, and dogmas. He affirmed by saying that moralism and prejudice that slows down the growth of the issue in the judiciary should be stopped.

What he forgot to mention was the fact that the issue has clouded the minds of both the legislators and judges in other countries as well. The concept of patient home grow is an issue that is very controversial almost everywhere. Notwithstanding, this right has fueled the movement of cannabis reform in lots of countries with Canada being the first.

For instance, patients in Germany were deprived of the right to grow their cannabis in 2017 almost immediately after it was allowed by the court decision after the legislature made it legal for medical use. The refusal rate at which insurers failed at covering sick people was recorded as 50% by some analysts made the country consider such legislative changes for further reforms. Nonetheless, Germany is not the only country wrestling with these legal challenges.

Why does it matter?

The medical use of marijuana was legalized in Brazil in 2015, but not until recently, all kinds of domestic cultivation is prevented by the law and all medicines that are cannabis-based must be imported with stern authorization from National Sanitary Surveillance Agency, even though Brazil is presently struggling with ways to proceed with more advance domestic reform.

Brazil became the third country after Uruguay and Columbia to regulate medical marijuana product sales in 2019. The semi-finished products can only be imported by the manufacturers after a special certificate is received from ANVISA. This is because there are still prohibitions on the importation of the whole plant.

In 2022, the cannabis-based drug was approved by ANVISA, Cannabis Sativa Extract Ease Labs, joining the other ten drugs that have been approved by ANVISA  in the same sector. Six of them contain only CBD while the other six are extracted from the whole plant.

Why Home grow is seen as treasonous

Legalized cannabis industries are one of the largest antagonists to home grow. On the commercial side of this discussion are many others including the medical practitioners who strongly oppose home grow. The basis of their arguments was the lack of standards and their introduction to the black market or children.

While these situations were considered not to be ideal, the repeal of rights of chronically sick people, in particular, has always been the answer in any jurisdiction. Furthermore, as the implementation of recreational reform has been a major challenge for some countries in Europe, this is fast becoming a fairly secure half step. This has also been a burning question for some countries like Italy, Luxembourg, and Malta which has not been answered by the debate on recreational reform currently ongoing in Germany.

Looking from an industry’s perspective, human rights deliberately become less active towards profit. This is one of the reasons why constitutional rights are being trumped by commercial ones. This is why the industry lobby directly opposes the right to grow cannabis for either recreational or medical use. This is another reason why the cultivation of plants at home for medical use still remains a crime in many legalized countries. As a result of this, the laws are challenged by patients, not an industry on a case-by-cace basis.

Most people are not willing to be remembered as “cannabis gandis” for attempting to address the awful outcome of being both poor and sick. But the truth is, this is exactly the situation every country which does not allow patient home grow puts their severely sick populace in. Causing a change to this cruel reality is long overdue and already on an international level.

Peradventure the same philosophy would be applied to the topic by Germany which is the next country to experience this on a federal basis. After all, it was said by the government to the former President of the United States, Donald Trump that there are limits to capitalism, when he tried cornering the market on a covid vaccine that is German-made. In Brazil, that principle has just been affirmed by the Superior Court of Justice

Cannabis companies already in business in Brazil

In September 2021, it was confirmed that MediPharm Labs Corp is in partnership with a distributor based in Rio de Janeiro, XLR8 BRAZIL. The delivery services of the company to the biggest medical cannabis market in Latin America would be strengthened by this move.

The product’s authorization would kick start the two-year deal. By it, a wide range of cannabis concentrate formats would be provided by MedPharm Labs for the products that would be formulated by XLR8 BRAZIL.

Bottom line

What do you think of the latest developments in the cannabis space in South America? Is the global cannabis industry trending upward? Let us know your thoughts in the comment section below.

BRAZIL GOES GREEN READ MORE..

BRAZILIAN HEALTH MINISTER WEIGHS IN ON CANNABIS HEALTH EFFECTS!

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BRAZIL FAST TRACKS CANNABIS LEGALIZATION, NOW WHAT?

The Future of Pot According to Economists

In a recent Time article, the publication sat down with a few economists to talk about the future of cannabis from an economy perspective. While I won’t rehash all of the information they spoke about, I will be focusing on some of the points that they mentioned.

Based on all of the information we will gather; we’ll make our own predictions on the future of weed and how the market will likely evolve over the coming years.

As usual, I’ll be quoting directly from “THIS ARTICLE” and will be using italics to communicate this fact. If you’d like to read the whole original article, just click the hyperlink.

The two people being interviewed by Time are Daniel Summers and Robin Goldstein.

Daniel Sumner—who is also a former assistant secretary of economics at the U.S. Department of Agriculture—and Robin Goldstein, who is also the author of a controversial bestselling guide to wine, The Wine Trials. – TIME

As we continue on with this article, I’ll post first the response from one of the economists and then my input on it as a consumer with over 20 years of experience.

How is business now that almost half of Americans can smoke weed legally?

Daniel Sumner: It’s been tough. There’s still a whole lot of illegal weed out there available to that same group of consumers, and most of them choose the illegal product because it’s half the price. Also, they have been consuming the product for the last 20 to 40 years; they’ve been dealing with this guy who knows a guy and they’re reasonably happy with the product.

I support this conclusion wholeheartedly. Most people who have been smoking weed pre-legalization have cheaper hookups from quality sources. Couple this with the fact that “legal weed” is often more expensive – it’s easier to simply continue to buy your own from your own sources, or to even start growing your own weed. The market will always buy from where they receive the “most value” for the “least of their money”.

Why does Legal Cannabis Cost More?

Sumner: To get a license to start with in most states you hire a consultant to help you through the regulation maze. And then you wait. In Vermont [which legalized recreational cannabis in 2018], for example, you’ve hired your consultants, you’ve gotten your venue for your retail store, you’ve purchased a greenhouse or rented one as your cannabis growing facility, and you’re still waiting. It’s been four years. Nobody has got an adult-use weed license in Vermont.

Over regulation has always been a problem. The fact of the matter is that when people try to tie in Social Justice issues, or try to “limit licensing”, they create regulatory problems – that require regulatory staff, which require new training – which takes time. On top of all of this, these new people need to get paid, and of course the buck is passed onto the consumer in the form of taxes…making getting into weed not only complicated, but expensive as well!

Robin Goldstein: In many states, the agencies are understaffed and the process is very lengthy, time-consuming and difficult for people to get through. So it can take years and years and in the meantime, they have investors, they’re burning cash and a lot of people have lost their money just by waiting.

Goldstein’s got a point here. When you make it hard for people to get into business, you make them burn money…when investors see that their money is just being burned away while getting nothing in return, they typically cut their losses. Unless you make it easier for business people to get their hands on cannabis licenses and for regulations to be only “slightly more robust” than that of the illegal market – you’re going to have people still purchasing from the illegal market due to accessibility and high cost in the legal market.

What about customers who wanted to try weed, but didn’t because it was illegal? Is there an influx from this group?

Goldstein: Yes, but it’s a small percentage. In many of these states that have legalized, the penalties weren’t that harsh already for the buyer. People who wanted to try it could try it. Evidence from around the world, from places like the Netherlands that have had forms of legalization well before the U.S., suggests that you don’t see a big increase in the total amount of weed smoking just because you legalize it.

More importantly, “criminality” was a poor deterrent. If criminalizing drugs were effective, we would have seen the end of drug use in 1971, however – if you look at the statistics you can note that not only did criminalizing drugs not stop use – drug use actually increased. Not only increased, it ballooned!

Therefore, it’s not about criminality. People were willing to risk their freedom to experiment, especially if they were relatively sure they were not going to get “busted by the cops”. The fact of the matter is, there aren’t enough police to police individual behavior such as drug use. Therefore, the bare minimum of consumers who used “criminality as an excuse” for not consuming cannabis – would hardly make a dent when compared to the whole market.

So what’s happened to the medical marijuana industry as a result of legalization?

Goldstein: In some states there was legal medical weed for many years and it was more or less unregulated. And now with all these new rules, some of those people are breaking the laws. We don’t think it was the intention of the voters generally to make more weed criminals. [In states where weed is legalized] there’s not really that much reason for people to continue getting their medical recommendations. Once anyone can just walk into a dispensary and buy it, then what’s the reason to pay a doctor to get this recommendation? There have been some states where the medical system has survived, including Colorado, and Massachusetts, because they’ve got much bigger tax exemptions for the medical patients.

The thing about medical marijuana is that it now needs to enter into its second stage of evolution. The first iteration of medical cannabis looks eerily similar to the first iteration of recreational cannabis. This is because the dawn of medical cannabis was birthed through the effort of consumers. They created home remedies, cooked up RSO, made their own extracts.

The Medical Marijuana Industry lacked dosage, consistency in product, quality controls, etc. They weren’t able to isolate certain terpenes and cannabinoids, and they were limited in their delivery mechanisms.

The Medical Marijuana industry as we know it today will eventually morph into something more “biopharmaceutical”. In other words, you won’t be eating your brownies when you take chemo, but would probably have some sort of inhaler or pill you consume. Epidermal patches, capsules, syrups, etc – this is the future of medical cannabis.

More importantly, it’s going to make its exodus from “plants” to “conditions”. In other words, you’ll take a specific combination of cannabinoids to treat specific conditions. Perhaps higher doses in CBD than THC for some conditions, and reversed for others. Eventually for medical cannabis, the doctor will prescribe a specific cannabis medication for the patient to use where dose and quality is unwavering.

They are already utilizing bacterial cannabinoid factories to streamline CBD production and other minor cannabinoids.

Is there not a weed billionaire somewhere?

Sumner: Probably not, but there certainly are weed millionaires. The people that are trying to build it as an ongoing profit-making business—the honest ones—say we’ve got years to go here. Is one of them going to become Amazon? Probably not, but is one of them generating a regular few hundred million dollars a year from a dozen stores scattered around? Probably, yes.

Here, I think we will see a weed billionaire – just not in the current iteration of the marketplace. It is possible that at some point in the future we’ll see a “Starbucks” of weed appear, and perhaps those people who own the cannabis franchise would become billionaires.

But cannabis billionaires will mostly come from mass product appeal. Whoever solves the Cannabis-Infused Drinking riddle, and can create a consistent effect by drinking a can of their “soft drinks” – they might very well become billionaires.

Especially as the global market comes online. As with most other industries, the billionaires will come from their branding. They will come from products with mass appeal. Think Coca Cola, Kit Kat, etc…but for weed products.

What industry is weed most like? Alcohol?

Sumner: There are parallels but there are really big differences as well, partly because weed has been illegal longer than it was legal, and alcohol was legal almost forever and then became illegal for a little while. There are other big differences: you can put a million dollars worth of weed in your station wagon and still have room for the kids. Moving illegal weed around is so easy compared to manufacturing and moving illegal alcohol.

Yes, cannabis is truly in its own category, however I do disagree with the “cannabis was illegal longer than it was legal”. This is a misconception. Cannabis has been legal for a lot longer than it has been illegal – all of history. It wasn’t until 1937 that it first became “illegal” to grow without having a tax stamp.

Yet I also understand the point that there are more illegal growers as a result of the 70 year proh9ibition of cannabis. The fact that it’s still not legal everywhere creates black market incentives. And it’s far simpler to grow weed than it is to make alcohol.

Are you proposing less regulation? There are a lot of people who would argue for more regulation around something that alters brain function.

Sumner: We understand that. But you can [have so many rules that you] make sure that you have this very heavily regulated pure product that no one buys, and all those people buy the illegal product. We’ll let all these kids go out and buy illegal weed and let that industry prosper. For example there’s a rule that says in California, you can’t buy it after 10 p.m., which is when lots of people are just starting to party. Why would you close the legal store at 10 o’clock?

Goldstein: The point certainly isn’t that it should be unregulated completely; no product is unregulated. The point is it’s a cost benefit analysis, every additional rule you put on, you have to ask how much is this going to take away from the legal market and shift to the illegal market, where you don’t have any safety standards at all. Every rule you pass, you need to think about that balancing test.

The fact of the matter is that we do need less regulation to make the legal cannabis market competitive with the illegal marketplace. Kids currently can buy weed without any regulation from the black market. If you legalize (all drugs), provide simple rules and regulations in relation to

1. Who can buy it

2. Quality assurances

3. Where to buy it

As long as you keep prices relatively low compared to street prices – people will opt in for legal over illegal. The question is, what is the percentage markup you can get before a consumer moves to the illegal market.

As a consumer, I’d be willing to pay up to 10%-15% more for legal weed, but the moment you’re hitting 20%+, and with the hyperinflation going on today…I’m either growing or buying from the streets.

Conclusion

At the end of the day, the only way forward is legalization. Over regulation is the new prohibition and we must do everything in our power to keep greedy politicians at bay. If you want to get weed out of the hands of kids, you need to make an actual competitive market place for legal weed to beat out their illegal competitors.

As long as the government continues to legalize cannabis state by state and don’t take a national approach – there will be incentives for black market players to make cash. And this should extend to all drugs.

If you’re a legal adult who owns their own body – you should be able to snort, shoot up or smoke whatever you want…this is what it means to be free. This is what it will take for the cannabis market and other drug markets to become legal, regulated, and to reduce most risks associated with drug use.

The other methods have failed consistently for eight decades.

THE ECONOMY OF CANNABIS, READ MORE…

WHAT ARE THE BENEFITS OF STATE LEGAL MARIJUANA?

Since the launch of the recreational cannabis market, Canadian and U.S. cannabis retailers have continuously discounted product prices over the years due to increasing supply in legalized areas. As it stands, cannabis retailers in both countries have forgone revenues worth billions of dollars.

While many find it easy to blame the recent covid pandemic for the price decline, Raymer has a different theory. Krista Raymer is the founder of Vetrina Group, a cannabis consulting company based in Toronto. She believes the current trend of increased discounting prices is a reflection of the growing number of recreational cannabis products and brands available to retailers.

This has made available to retailers numerous product options and an increased stock of unsold goods, especially at a period when adult-use sales have declined in several markets. In reaction to this, retailers are now dishing out various discounts, markdowns, and promotions to increase sales and reduce stock inventories. This is in a period where entire consumer inflation keeps increasing, having surged by an annual 8.3% in April

Raymer strongly believes this current discounting trend will continue until more data and experience is gathered in the industry. Through this, retailers will be able to make better decisions concerning price, inventories, and product management. So far, the discount offered by retailers on adult-use cannabis sales in nine states combined in the United States has doubled in the last five years. The number which was around 7% in 2017 surged to 15% in 2022 according to Headset, an analytic firm based in Seattle.

The nine states include California, Arizona, Colorado, Massachusetts, Illinois, Nevada, Michigan, Washington, and Oregon.

Retail Cannabis Flower Discounts in the Select U.S. States

Discounts offered by retailers vary from one product to the next, but all product categories have witnessed a huge increase since adult-use sales kicked off across Canada and the United States. One of the many products worth mentioning is the cannabis flower which is the top-selling and most popular product in both countries.

In America, cannabis flower has witnessed an increase in discounting which had reached double-digits in April across several states. In Washington, the overall flower discount reached about 20% in November 2021 and so far has increased to 23% in April of 2022.

Similar to Washington, Neva has also recorded a total flower discount of over 20%. Among the states being monitored, only Massachusetts has relatively low discount rates. The total discount in the state is presently at 2.7%. Even though low, this figure has doubled from what it was in 2018.

Retail cannabis flower discounts in Canada

While cannabis users in can add do not enjoy similar discounts as their counterparts in the United States, discount rates in Canada have also increased over the years. According to available data, overall discounts in all provinces across Canada recorded a surge in discounting rate from 1% in 2019 to 3.4$ in 2022. Among the provinces, Ontario experienced the highest discounting rate which was pegged at 4.1% in 2022.

The next province is Alberta which recorded a 3.8% increase in discounting rate, then comes British Columbia and Saskatchewan with a 2.6% and 2.4% surge in discounting rate. This increase in discounting rate cost cannabis retailers in Canada about 5 million Canadian dollars.

Differences in discount rates between Canada and the United States are influenced by the structure of their supply chains.

In Canada, a larger percentage of the discounting cost is absorbed by cannabis retailers. This is because state-established provincial wholesalers regulate the wholesale prices in most provinces. With this structure, retailers buy cannabis products at a standard price from wholesale and sell at the price best comfortable for them. 

In the United States, cannabis retailers have additional options as regards discounting given they can bank on their ears to absorb some of the cost. Cannabis brands ar able to establish programs where distributed or producers absorb some of the discounting cost to promote their products to more customers

Product growth in Canada.

As cannabis discounting continues to increase with the increase in products available to distributors and retailers in the U.S. and Canada.

For instance, the number of available cannabis products to retailers in Colorado, California, Michigan, Oregon, Washington, and Nevada increased by 80% between 2018 and 2022. Presently, there are about 5,000 cannabis brands manufacturing approximately 190,000 products across the states mentioned in the first quarter of 2022.

Meanwhile, in California, the number of available cannabis products quadrupled in the space of four years with about 40,000 products being sold by retailers in the first quarter of the year. In the first quarter of 2022, Canada had about 10,000 available cannabis products produced by 1,400 brands. This isn’t bad for a country that legalized adult-use cannabis sales in 2019, having just 64 brands producing 500 cannabis products.

However, according to Raymer, discounting itself has its dark side in that it is used as a control to boost SKU’s sales velocity. Although, the challenge here is that one needs to adequately increase the velocity to counteract the discounting cost. Ramer added that if such action can’t be executed consistently, discounting becomes very damaging to the cannabis business and the industry at large. Thi means retailers and distributors have to be very specific with discounting.

Ramer suggests that retailers and distributors come to learn the unintended and intended impacts of discounting and establish a better promotion, discounting, and pricing strategies. She added that there have been some massive transitions in discounting. For instance, discounting a whole category. Rather, retailers need to be more precise with their products when discounting, and the number of products available at any given time for the discount.

Conclusion

The current trend of increased discounting prices is a reflection of the growing number of recreational cannabis products and brands available to retailers. This present trend is said to continue until more data and experience is gathered in the industry. Through this, retailers will be able to make better decisions concerning price, inventories, and product management.

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Despite the risks of cigarette smoking being so well-known, it’s surprising to see that so many people are still smoking these nasty sticks.

According to the CDC, almost 13 in every 100 adults in the United States are current cigarette smokers, which translates to some 30.8 million adults. The illnesses associated with cigarette smoking are all preventable, most especially lung cancer. Tobacco smoking kills 8 million people each year, so why aren’t more people quitting cigarettes?

Well, to be blunt, quitting cigarettes is by no means easy. It contains nicotine, an extremely addictive substance which makes tossing cigarettes out much easier said than done. In fact, many people compare the difficulty quitting cigarettes as the same to an addiction to heroin or cocaine. On top of that, when you do get to quit, the withdrawal symptoms are hellish at best: from headaches to mood swings, irritability, high blood pressure, difficulty sleeping, and extreme urges to smoke, everything about cigarettes is just so difficult to stop.

But are hemp CBD cigarettes the answer?

What Are Hemp Cigarettes?

Hemp cigarettes are just like your regular cigarette, except that it doesn’t contain any nicotine nor tobacco. Instead, it’s made with high CBD strains or industrial hemp. Hemp that is made from the cannabis sativa plant with less than 0.3% THC is legal in the United States, which makes them easy to obtain and it won’t get you high.

CBD or hemp cigarettes are excellent for quitting tobacco because they give you a nicotine-free alternative which will make you feel like you’re smoking a regular cigarette. It also helps to address the oral fixation that accompanies cigarette smoking. But more than simply the oral fixation, there have been numerous studies documenting the success of CBD in treating nicotine addictions among cigarette smokers.

Many find that smoking hemp cigarettes is a fantastic cessation tool – maybe even the best there is out there. In a 2015 study, 24 cigarette smokers were asked to take CBD via inhalation whenever they felt the urge to smoke while a group was given placebo. This went on for one week, after which the researchers found that the people who consumed CBD ended up consuming around 40% less tobacco cigarettes. Given the low success rate of other cessation tools, this was great news after just one week. Meanwhile, those who were given placebo didn’t have any difference in the quantity of cigarettes smoked. Because of this, the study’s authors suggest that CBD is a good candidate for treating nicotine addiction, and is worth a further investigation.

Then in 2020, a 700-person study revealed that 42% of subjects were successful in abstaining from cigarettes when they used CBD. Furthermore, they found that both long and short-term CBD use was effective in stopping especially for those aged 25 to 35. “CBD it seems is 1.2 more effective on young adults than their older counterparts. While around 47% of the participants, aged between 25 and 35, readily abstained from smoking after using CBD for a month,” writes Dr. Ivan Green.

CBD Cuts Cigarette Cues & Addictive Behaviors

One of the hardest parts about quitting cigarettes is the cigarette cues, which are things you find around you that stimulate the trigger to smoke. This can be the urge to smoke a cigarette whenever you normally would, such as first thing in the morning, after a meal, or when you see someone smoking.

In a 2018 study, consuming CBD orally may be successful for helping cigarette smokers experience less triggers since it neutralizes the response to the cues. The study involved 30 tobacco smokers, who were then told that they shouldn’t smoke for 12 hours. They were then given one dose of 800mg CBD oil, while others were given a placebo. After 12 hours, the researchers found that cigarette cues were reduced among those who took the CBD oils. They also had reduced systolic blood pressure.

CBD is also well-known for its relaxing properties, which are effective in treating the anxiety that comes with quitting cigarettes. As it can help calm you down, reaching for a puff is healthier than ever and you can use as much as you need in order to get off the tobacco.

Quit Smoking Today with Hemp CBD Cigarettes

If you’re open to giving it a try, you might be surprised how powerfully effective hemp CBD cigarettes are in quitting tobacco.

This solution might not be what everyone wants or needs, but if the oral fixation and addictive cues is what you struggle with when it comes to quitting, this might help. Hemp cigarettes not only provide you with an authentic cigarette experience, but they are also already rolled for you professionally. They are a natural source of CBD and all its therapeutic properties, plus it isn’t harmful nor addictive.

There are dozens of different hemp cigarettes in the market to choose from. Most of them will likely be made with industrial hemp, but don’t expect the delicious dank smell that marijuana is known for. Before you buy a pack, look for a Certificate of Analysis (COA) from the manufacturer so that you know exactly what goes into each cigarette. Read reviews online, do your research on the ingredients based on the COA report, and buy from reputable brands. There are varying potencies and purities out there, as well as an array of flavors and brands that you may enjoy.

On top of being able to quit smoking cigarettes, hemp cigarettes can also improve your overall mood, sleep, focus, and suppress your cravings.

There’s no reason you shouldn’t try hemp cigarettes today to kick the nasty habit once and for all.

NEED TO QUIT TOBACCO, READ MORE…

HOW CANNABIS USERS ARE QUITTING THEIR TOBACCO HABITS!

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HOW TO USE CBD FROM HEMP TO HELP YOU QUIT SMOKING CIGARETTES!

POLL: 91% OF ADULTS WHO HAVE USED CANNABIS DID SO FOR HEALTH AND WELLNESS PURPOSES

The thought that the majority of cannabis users are chronic stoners is one of the greatest misunderstandings that keep on afflicting the cannabis community. Reefer Madness narratives that persist today, even after legalization in many states has proved otherwise. Nevertheless, there is new research dissipating that ill-informed belief. Its biggest discovery is that a massive majority of adults from 21 years of age and older use marijuana for health and wellness reasons.

CURALEAF’S SURVEY

A new study carried out by Harris Poll in conjunction with Curaleaf Holdings Inc, which is a prominent International manufacturer of consumer cannabis products, discovers that 91% of adults 21 years and above who have ever indulged in marijuana have done it for wellness and health reasons. The results give significant takeaways reflecting the attitude of individuals towards both the preference of holistic wellness and health and cannabis, as 75% of Americans claim that they would rather go for holistic solutions over pharmaceuticals to deal with medical problems when possible, with 62% of people stating that they would rather use marijuana as opposed to pharmaceuticals when dealing with medical problems.

From the online survey conducted with close to 2,000 U.S. adults 21 years and older by the independent pollster, the highest wellness and health purposes Americans have used marijuana include; to reduce anxiety (41%), to help with sleep (49%), to reduce stress (49%), and to relax (51%).

As marijuana legalization keeps on moving in the U.S., manners and beliefs around the use of the cannabis plant are starting to become more conventional and inclusive for consumers and patients who depend on it for various health and wellness requirements. Common health issues range from aiding with stress relief and insomnia to assisting in reducing arthritis and menstrual cramps.

Curaleaf recognizes this transition and growing requirement for marijuana solutions and emphasizes the approachability and accessibility of various products for people who are looking for options for wellness and health requirements. The organization remains a wellness destination having 130 dispensary locations and a variety of marijuana products in several form factors, with an impending wellness line anticipated to kick off later this summer.

Clinical Cannabis Pharmacist for Curaleaf New York, Dr.Stacia Woodcock, said informing consumers on how marijuana can be utilized to benefit daily wellness and health requirements is important to reducing the stigma around the plant and giving consumers more options to best match their lifestyle. She added that there are a lot of ways to safely consume cannabis, and a lot of formulations possess little intoxicating effects.  Various choices of products with different ratios of THC and CBD give customers the chance to consume marijuana in a way that suits their lifestyle and level of comfort.

The study also discovered that 88% of people who have consumed marijuana in addition to or as an alternative to pharmaceutical treatments believe that doing that has enhanced their overall wellness. As a matter of fact, 86% of people who have used cannabis for wellness or health would suggest it to a family member or a friend for medical purposes.

MAJOR USE OF MEDICAL MARIJUANA

The most popular ways for medical marijuana to be used include violent or lasting pain, vomiting and nausea due to cancer treatments (chemotherapy), and severe muscle seizures.

Pain medicine specialist Barth Wilsey, MD, of the University of California Davis Medical Center, says the primary purpose for which people request a prescription is pain. The pain could be from a disease like cancer, headaches, or a long-term condition, like nerve pain or glaucoma.

You can acquire a “marijuana card” if you reside in a state where marijuana for medical use is permitted, and your doctor feels it will benefit you. You’ll be placed on a list that enables you to buy cannabis from a dispensary, which is an approved seller. Physicians may also prescribe medical cannabis to treat  seizure disorders, muscle spasms caused by multiple sclerosis, Crohn’s disease, weight loss, and poor appetite resulting from chronic sicknesses, such as nerve pain or HIV.

The Food and Drug Administration has also authorized THC, which is a crucial component in cannabis, to improve appetite and treat nausea. It is accessible by prescription Cesamet (nabilone), which is used to manage vomiting and nausea resulting from the chemotherapeutic agents employed in cancer treatments. Marinol (dronabinol) is used to manage the vomiting and nausea resulting from the chemotherapeutic agents employed for cancer treatment and to promote appetite in patients with AIDS.

ADDITIONAL USES

IS CANNABIS THE NEW WELLNESS DRUG OF THE MODERN HUMAN?

Israeli Study Finds That Aerosolized Cannabis Is Beneficial For Neuropathy Patients

Neuropathy, also known as nerve damage, can occur from several conditions such as diabetes, cancer, and HIV. It refers to a group of conditions all associated with damaged peripheral nerves and the corresponding symptoms of this issue.

The symptoms of neuropathy can vary depending on its cause, though they generally include a permanent or temporary numbness, high sensitivity to touch, prickling or tingling sensations, paralysis, muscle weakness, impairment to sexual function, and many others. Neuropathy may be treatable depending on how severe it is, though treatments are focused on helping nerves regenerate or recover. Depending on the case, neuropathy may be reversible but other times it isn’t, and it can be notoriously difficult and painful to treat. Patients are often left struggling with chronic pain and uncomfortable tingling.

However, finding effective treatment is critical because this condition robs people of living a normal life.

How Cannabis Can Help

There is increasing evidence that cannabis in various forms can be successful in greatly reducing the symptoms of neuropathy. The latest study has been conducted by Israeli researchers in Haifa, who sought out to assess how aerosolized cannabis delivered through a novel selective dose inhaler worked among patients with chronic pain and neuropathy. The patients took an average of 1.5 mg delta 9 THC for several months.

The researchers found that this treatment was beneficial in reducing pain while also improving quality of life. “Medical cannabis treatment with the Syqe Inhaler demonstrated overall long-term pain reductions, quality of life improvements, and opioid-sparing effects 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-ups in a larger population is warranted to corroborate our findings,” the authors concluded.

Syqe Medical is an Israeli medical company that is responsible for developing the first selective-dose pharmaceutical-grade inhaler for plant medicine in the world.

Another recent study which was published in the Annals of Internal Medicine journal investigated the efficacy of cannabis-related products for chronic pain. Researchers from the Oregon Health and Science University used FDA-approved synthetic cannabis products containing 100% THC: dronabinol and nabilone. They also tested a product called nabiximols, which is a sublingual spray containing equal ratios of THC and CBD, which has had some success in treating neuropathic pain, though it isn’t available in the United States yet.

In another study from 2018, published in the American Journal of Neurology, researchers focused on radicular pain, a form of nerve pain that affects the spine and the legs. They also analyzed the impact of THC on radicular pain on a cohort of 15 men suffering from chronic radicular nerve pain. Women were not included in the study since pain sensitivity in females fluctuates around the time of their menstruation. All men reported medium to high pain levels for more than 6 months.

They were first given 15mg of THC oil on the first visit, which was taken sublingually while 6 were administered with placebo oil. After a week, they returned for a second visit then those who were given placebo were then given THC, and vice versa. The researchers found that THC was effective in reducing pain when compared with the placebo. Pain levels were rated at 53 on average before taking THC which was reduced to an average of 35 after THC, while those in the placebo rated it at 43.

“Pain is a complex experience that involves both the senses and emotions,” explains study’s author Haggai Sharon, MD, of the Tel Aviv Medical Center’s Sagol Brain Institute. “Our study results link pain relief from THC with a reduction in the connections between areas of the brain otherwise heavily connected, suggesting that THC may alleviate pain by disrupting signals between these pain processing pathways.”

“Interestingly, our results also show that the more connected the areas of the brain that process emotion and sensory prior to treatment, the greater the pain relief experienced when taking THC,” Sharon explains. “Larger studies are needed to confirm our findings.”

Cannabidiol (CBD) may also be beneficial for neuropathy. A 2021 study conducted by Pure Green Pharmaceuticals Inc. analyzed the effect of water-soluble CBD sublingual tablets among diabetic patients who had moderate to severe neuropathic pain. These 54 patients suffered from painful peripheral neuropathy on their feet, and they were randomly given either the Pure Green tablets with 20mg of CBD, or a placebo, which they were to take daily for 28 days.

They found that the patients who were given the CBD tablets reported significant reductions in pain levels, compared to the pain group. Additionally, those given CBD also reported improvements in quality of life as well as reductions in anxiety and improvements in sleep quality.

“Achieving clinical and statistical pain relief for these patients in just a few weeks is very gratifying and frankly unexpected. Interestingly, the results of this placebo-controlled trial mirrored those of Pure Green Pharmaceuticals’ open-label pDPN trial where both studies revealed a significant drop in pain scores by approximately 50 percent. Patient safety always comes first and was our primary marker. There were no adverse events in either clinical trial to patients on treatment medication,” explained Dr. Debra Kimless, Pure Green’s Chief Medical Officer and a Board-Certified anesthesiologist.

“A collaborative drug development meeting with the FDA set us on this path and we look forward to returning to FDA and share this data. FDA is keen to relieve patients suffering in this very large patient population, especially since COVID-19 appears to have increased the number of diabetic patients,” added Stephen Goldner, Pure Green Pharmaceuticals CEO, and an FDA expert.

Conclusion

With these promising results, patients with neuropathy are encouraged to speak to their doctors on the possibility of adding cannabis products to their treatment plans.

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