SILVER SPRING, Md. — By 10:30 a.m., a panel of the Food and Drug Administration’s top regulators had already heard from more than 50 different people, all eager to squeeze their hopes or concerns about CBD, the booming marijuana-adjacent compound companies are suddenly adding to everything from dog food to dietary supplements, into the short speaking time they were granted.
There were mothers claiming marijuana drove their children to suicide, millennial entrepreneurs who struggled for a good answer when regulators asked what effect CBD has in cosmetics, and high-paid industry lawyers pitching well-vetted regulatory frameworks. More than 60 more people were still scheduled to speak.
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They are the ones that released the opioids on us.
sorry, what?
1. you realize that opioids predate the FDA by thousands of years, right?
2. what does a non-psychoactive component of marijuana have to do with opioids?
3. should CBD remain unregulated or should FDA step up and follow its mandate?
If the FDA only seeks scientific data, the many benefits of CBDs (single or as CBD blend) will remain in the in-accessible dark (or the undergroud market) for more decennia = far too long for many who should be legally allowed to benefit NOW. The CBD group is a thus far black-balled power-house that ought to be in a new Category, off of Schedule 1, on its own, for which Epidiolex-type research should not apply or be required. The plant has been used for milennia, tauted for its countless benefits, and the fact that users have better lives with less (chronic) pain / fewer epileptic attacks / greater attention spans / better sleeps / calmer guts / etc, and livers that are still just fine, is not just in the users imagination, and SHOULD speak for itself. Not every merit needs to be exactly quantified by super-defined CBD content – as the current FDA system requires. The FDA should be more creative (= less archaic), with cannabis decriminalized, and in a category on its own, with a different approach to acceptance and use – like with acupuncture, physiotherapy, chiropractic – all hyper beneficial yet not 100% scientifically explained.
As a pharmacy student in The Netherlands I studied this plant, 40 years ago. The FDA has to catch up hard and fast, and not stick to antiquated questioning or systems. The meeting was a first eye-opening step to the realization that this institution must treat the cannabis plant and its merits differently.
I’ve been a systems analyst consultant for Group Health HMO and Insurance models. As both a systems analyst and a patient and a mostly retired old guy with managed pain I am most interested in something I can afford AND is effective AND not damaging. I would be very interested in something that can relieve the pain of CRPS (RSD). And there is the rub. To do me any good I need it soon, before I die from something or another. I can’t wait 20 more years. Part of the problems is that for tracking results one it is necessary to know what you are tracking, especially if there are multiple possible definitions. If there are arbitrarily, 20 different cannabinoids that might be included in various percentages, we need to need to be able to specify each specific item as part of a mix, and with the right data and logic design, the differences will be seen in the wash, or not, which is also important, as well as all the secondary symptoms that appear. Then considering the data as a Monte Carlo simulation some tendencies can be seen. If it irritates the skin that would show up, or maybe who gets irritated skin because they have “pattern X” whereas pattern “Y” gets clear skin. However we figure out if it is any good or not is a different problem than defining the differences between “types” of mixes or something. We data analysts need defined substances even if they are just numbered like CBD1 to CBD20. We are another interested party since Everybody wants to know the results of this brand new methodology that needs to be created for this.