Cannabis: From Pariah to Prescription by Hardcover

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Learn more about tomorrow’s alternative to today’s risk-laden prescription drugs! Cannabis: From Pariah to Prescription reviews the latest research from recent clinical trials with cannabis and cannabinoids outlining their place and future as prescription medicines. This book addresses the road back for cannabis medicines and society’s reacceptance of cannabis as a prescription product. This book offers physicians, patients, scientists, and students a primer on this developing branch of pharmacology and therapeutics and is ideal for use in courses for medicine, psychopharmacology, alternative medicine, health policy, and pharmacology. Cannabis: From Pariah to Prescription assesses the genetics, horticulture, and biochemical processing of cannabis into cannabis-based medicine extracts (CBMEs). The book describes the important advanced technologies used to cultivate the genetically selected medical-grade cannabis cloned strains in glass houses. This book also discusses new advancements in drug delivery alternatives to traditional smoking, including the Advanced Delivery System (ADS) a device that allows delivery of premeasured dosages while remaining secure, tamper-proof, and patient specific. In Cannabis: From Pariah to Prescription, the practical applications of cannabis pharmaceuticals are explored through a wide range of clinical studies, including: a thorough discussion of the latest in documented benefits and side effects when using cannabis, cannabinoids, or CBMEs a tolerability study via multiple administration routes to compare pharmacodynamic effects and pharmacokinetic characteristics a comparative study of the pharmacokinetic profiles administered in various areas of the buccal mucosa as well as an investigation of the pharmacokinetics of CBME administered orally a blind study assessing pharmacokinetic profile of CBME administered sublingually in various ratios of cannabinoids a review of several other recent trials involving CBME, THC, or cannabis a study reviewing the human clinical experience to date employing synthetic cannabinoids or CBME, suggesting future treatment in the areas of obstetrics, gynecology, and pediatrics Cannabis: From Pariah to Prescription provides extensive bibliographies to encourage your examination of previous studies and international literature. Europe remains on the cutting edge of new studies and research on cannabinoids, and much of the data in this book was collected in the United Kingdom. This meticulous resource also contains a list of abbreviations and definitions of terms from GW Pharmaceuticals to make the reading more accessible to a wide variety of readers.

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First reports on groundbreaking cannabis therapeutics, May 02, 2005
By rhynchosaur

This book is a reprint of Journal of Cannabis Therapeutics, Volume 3, Numbers 3 and 4 2003.

It is mostly aimed at making widely available the results of the careful clinical trials of cannabinoid sprays(ie, solutions for spraying in the nose or mouth, not smoke or tablets) in humans done by GW Pharmaceuticals in the UK as a necessary preliminary to putting their groundbreaking products on the market. Russos three excellent articles at the beginning and end provide a contrast to the three very dry but necessary and precise clinical articles.

It is certain that there must be many disease states associated with the endogenous cannabinoids. Russo and GW are the first to to controlled clinical experiments on solutions of cannabidiol and THC together. As I pointed out in my own book on marijuana chemistry 30 years ago, this is critical as CBD is always present in natural marijuana and it modulates the effects of THC. Other researchers have never used them separate or together in a spray form. This is critical as both smoke and pill forms are nearly impossible to control and titrate and this has been a major barrier to medical use. In this way , GW Pharmaceuticals hopes to make a major impact on the medical use of cannabinoids and have entered them into the drug licensing process in many countries as treatments for multiple sclerosis and other problems.

An enormous amount of research is in process on synthetic, marijuana derived and endogenous cannabinoids. This is primarily due to the discovery of the endogenous anandamides and their receptors. There are thousands of compounds that can stimulate and inhibit the activity of CB1 and CB2 receptors and the list of potential therapeutic actions is nearly coextensive with human physiology, behavior and disease. GW has greatly stimulated this field by developing advanced oral applicators which can carefully monitor the dosing and even send the data wirelessly to a central data collection point in a hospital or over the net.

Because of their wide range of actions and extremely low toxicity, it is likely that there will be numerous applications for cannabinoids including many in pediatrics and pregnancy. Of course all this is arriving to the great chagrin of the US and other governments who have long insisted that the cannabinoids were dangerous drugs with no medical use. Many have pointed out that the evidence was quite the contrary and the next few decades will provide ample proof as they enter the mainstream of medicine.

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