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The high cost of Biogen’s newly approved and controversial treatment will be compounded by a misguided Medicare policy that incentivizes doctors to prescribe the priciest medicines.

Disclaimer:This article was originally published on The Fresh Toast. The views expressed in this article solely belong to the author.

It is easy to understand why everyone is desperate for anything that will help with Alzheimer’s Disease. Patients and their families dread its relentless onslaught. Consequently, there was tremendous pressure for the FDA to approve Aduhelm (aducanumab), by Biogen and Eisai.

However, its approval was met with widespread criticism because it is both expensive, with an expected annual price tag of $56,000, but of limited effectiveness.

Aducanumab is taken as an infusion administered in a doctor’s office for one hour every four weeks. That might be difficult for a patients suffering from agitation who might not understand why they are there.

The high cost of Biogen’s newly approved and controversial treatment will be compounded by a misguided Medicare policy that incentivizes doctors to prescribe the priciest medicines.

Scientists in New Zealand are planning to run a Lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD) micro-dosing trial with late-stage cancer patients to see if the drug improves their quality of life.

Dr. Lisa Reynolds, the Director of the Postgraduate Diploma in Health Psychology at the University of Auckland, will lead the trial.

“The research I’ve seen so far suggests that psychedelics such as LSD might have the potential to improve quality of life, reduce fear of death, reduce anxiety and depression, increase spirituality,” Dr. Reynolds told Radio New Zealand. “There’s a whole lot of early-stage findings that are pretty compelling.”

The University first announced the trial in May. The study seeks to understand if micro-dosing LSD holds similar benefits to large doses, which have shown to significantly reduce psychological distress in advanced patients, but can also lead to ‘bad trips.’

The micro-doses will not lead to altered perceptions and may hold similar benefits in reducing anxiety, depression and existential distress.

A syndrome that appears to affect some regular users of cannabis is making headlines again  – “scromiting”. So, what is it?

The USA’s NBC news is reporting the case of a young man who presented to hospital 11 times for the same issue: severe vomiting that lasted for hours accompanied by screaming. The teen was a cannabis user.

Scenarios such as this among heavy cannabis users are apparently becoming increasingly common and the condition has a name – Cannabinoid Hyperemesis Syndrome, or CHS. It shares many clinical similarities with cyclic vomiting syndrome (CVS). But more recently it has gained a new name – “scromiting”; which is a portmanteau of screaming and vomiting.

Since we first reported on it back in 2017, aside from the screaming aspect there doesn’t appear to be a lot of new information – but there have been a couple of deaths attributed to CHS. Relief from the condition may be gained by hot baths or showers, but it appears the only “cure” is cessation of cannabis use. Recovery is usually within 2 weeks of stopping use and if the patient takes it up again, symptoms often return.

This is not a new syndrome – there are references to it going back as far as 2004. But what has changed a lot since then is marijuana becoming increasingly potent and accessible for both medicinal and recreational purposes – particularly in the USA.

Multiple sclerosis is both a neurological disease (affecting the nerves) and an autoimmune disease (affecting the immune system).

Common symptoms of multiple sclerosis include, but are not limited to: fatigue, pain, vision loss, and degrading coordination.

Symptoms of the condition and the severity and duration involved vary from patient to patient. Some multiple sclerosis patients experience mild symptoms and many, sadly, experience extreme symptoms and are completely debilitated.

It is estimated that nearly 3 million people suffer from multiple sclerosis worldwide. Fortunately for those patients, a set of studies have found that cannabis may help.

Improved Bladder Symptoms

One symptom of multiple sclerosis that is particularly problematic is bladder disorder. As many as 80% of multiple sclerosis patients experience bladder disorder.

The industry for medical cannabis for pets is magically blossoming. The number of dogs and/or cats parents looking into the use of cannabis for their pets is growing each day.

Each day, at least one parent walks into a dispensary to enquire about the perfect CBD products for their pets, while a significant number of these parents are actively researching the testing policies, right ingredients, and consumer stories related to the use of medical cannabis for dogs and cats.

As more pet owners are being drawn into the cannabis world for pets, more companies are springing up to meet the increased demand for medical marijuana for pets. These businesses are selling CBD oils, capsules, topical and other treats that appeal to dogs and cats. Many of these products are developed with dog-safe or cat-safe ingredients. Coconut oil is an example of such an ingredient.

Is it safe?

Like humans, pets also get sick. Studies show that CBD is a potential treatment for managing ailments in cats and dogs.

Marijuana plants have a lot of different cannabinoids, the two major compounds, THC and CBD offer a wealth of therapeutic benefits, most of which have not been fully researched.

On June 8th, a commission formed between the NFL and the league’s players’ union, announced that it would award up to $1 million in grants for researchers to investigate the therapeutic potential of marijuana, CBD, and other alternatives to opioids for treating pain.

The cannabis industry has long looked to major league sports as a hallmark for revenue comparison. At the end of the day, major league sports are mainstream businesses. On average, the NFL generates $15-$18 billion annually. The cannabis industry in the United States alone has far surpassed that benchmark.

What the NFL says about cannabis matters. The NFL’s awarding of $1 million in research grants to investigate the therapeutic potential of cannabinoids echoes Amazon’s recent announcement nudging the federal government to get its act together.

The cannabis industry has long looked to major league sports as a hallmark for hitting a revenue ... [+]

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Degenerative disc disease is a general term used to describe a range of spinal conditions. It comes with both physical and psychological factors.

There are several spinal conditions, and thanks to the evolving medical systems around the world, medical marijuana has been incorporated into the recommended drugs for these conditions in some countries.

Research shows that cannabinoids might play a vital role in treating the mental stress and physical injuries that come along with degenerative disc conditions.

What Is Degenerative Disc Disease?

DDD refers to a group of spinal illnesses that results in the degeneration/degradation of the spinal discs. These intervertebral discs are found in all major areas of the human spine. From the cervical to the thoracic, and the lumbar region.

Photo by Ake via rawpixel.com

A small Canadian survey has found the majority of participants experienced benefits from medical cannabis for certain conditions after 6 weeks of use.

Carried out by University of British Columbia researchers, the survey involved 214 mainly male patients; with the majority over 50 years of age. Among these patients, the most frequently reported conditions were:

Overall, 60% of the medical cannabis cohort reported improvements in their conditions.

Significant improvements were found in relation to recurrent pain, PTSD, and sleep disorders after 6 weeks of medical cannabis use. However, the findings in related to arthritis and other rheumatic disorders were described as “complex”.

They also pointed out while “real-world evidence” hasn’t been utilised by regulatory bodies, changes in public policy surrounding cannabis should occur to reflect patient reported efficacy from such studies, due to the unique way medical cannabis has made its way to legalisation.

Medical marijuana patients in Louisiana will now be able to buy the smokable flower form of the drug under a new state law.

Gov. John Bel Edwards recently signed House Bill 391. It passed the state House of Representatives, 75-18, earlier this month and was approved, 23-14, by the state Senate in late May.

The measure allows approved patients to buy 2.5 ounces of marijuana leaf every two weeks from one of the state’s nine medical marijuana pharmacies. Previously, patients could only get non-smokable forms of the drug, such as gummies, ointments and inhalers.

The new law takes effect Jan. 1, 2022, and both of the state’s licensed medical marijuana growers have said they would have smokable marijuana for purchase on that date.

Louisiana lawmakers approved the medical marijuana program in 2015 and products became available to patients in 2019.

In recent years, the number of states that have approved cannabis for both medicinal and recreational use has grown substantially. Yet many doctors are still reluctant to endorse cannabis as a treatment for various ailments — and with good reason.

One group, the International Association for the Study of Pain (IASP), issued a statement in February 2021 saying, “There is not enough high-quality human clinical safety and efficacy evidence to allow IASP to endorse the general use of cannabis and cannabinoids for pain at this time.”

To get a better understanding of why the IASP issued the statement and what the group is looking for in the future, we spoke to psychologist Judith Scheman, PhD.

Who is the IASP and what did they do?

Made up of over 7,000 pain specialists from 125 countries, the IASP is the primary organization for pain specialists in the world. “The IASP is very interested in finding the best and safest way of helping patients manage pain,” says Dr. Scheman.

As the availability of cannabis increased thanks to legalization efforts, the IASP recognized the need to assess the risks and benefits of using it to treat pain. A systematic overview of cannabis and cannabinoids was especially important in light of the opioid epidemic of the last few decades.

U.S. researchers say there’s simply not enough information available yet to determine if using cannabis does or does not influence brain development or functioning in adolescents and young people with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD).

That conclusion is part of a detailed new review published last week in the July/August issue of Harvard Review of Psychiatry.

“[T]he evidence to date does not clearly support either an addictive effect or an interaction — whether protective or harmful — with cannabis use,” write Dr. Philip Cawkwell of the Stanford University School of Medicine and his study colleagues.

Getting more confident about conclusions either one way or the other demands additional research “to clarify possible effects of cannabis on brain structure, function and behaviour in young people with ADHD,” according to Wolters Kluwer Health, which publishes the journal.

Trying to pin down the combined effects of cannabis use and ADHD in adolescence, investigators looked at 11 studies that assessed any type of neurodevelopmental outcome in the age group who did or did not use weed.

Insomniacs who received nightly sublingual administration of a cannabinoid extract managed to get more and better sleep, suggests a new Australian study.

Investigators found that the extract was “well-tolerated and improves insomnia symptoms and sleep quality in individuals with chronic insomnia symptoms,” notes a study abstract, published online this month in Sleep.

Participants included those who had been experiencing chronic insomnia symptoms for at least three months. They received either the extract or a placebo over a two-week period.

Comparing the effects of the extract to a placebo, researchers considered self-reports from participants, measurements of sleep onset latency, wake after sleep onset, total sleep time and sleep efficiency, and self-reports of sleep quality and feeling rested upon waking. One person did not finish the study.

The remaining participants, the vast majority of whom were female, did not report any serious adverse outcomes. There were, however, 40 mild, non-serious, adverse events — 36 of those involving subjects being administered the extract — “with all but one resolving overnight or soon after waking,” the study abstract reports.

Following the Florida Supreme Court upholding the state’s seed-to-sale medical marijuana model, the Department of Health is preparing to issue 15 new treatment center licenses.

Those involved in the industry believe the expansion will increase competition and benefit patients, but some lawmakers doubt whether the new players will actually make a dent on cost and availability.

There are more than 575,000 medical marijuana patients in Florida and the ever growing number has opened the door for 15 new MMTC licenses.

Once the patient count hits 600,000, a total of 19 licenses will be available.

“This frankly doubles the size of the industry,” said Jeff Sharkey with the Medical Marijuana Business Association.

A combination of inflammatory cytokines in the blood and regular cannabis use, or use at a young age, can increase the chances of developing psychiatric disorders, researchers have demonstrated.

A first-of-its-kind study by researchers at the University of São Paulo‘s Ribeirão Preto Medical School (FMRP-USP) in Brazil found that individuals exposed to a combination of these two factors – the presence of pro-inflammatory cytokines in the blood and cannabis use (either daily or during adolescence) – are more likely to suffer from psychosis than those who are exposed to neither or to only one. According to the authors, the study provides “the first clinical evidence that immune dysregulation modifies the cannabis-psychosis association.”

The study was part of a project conducted by the European Network of National Schizophrenia Networks Studying Gene-Environment Interactions (EU-GEI), a consortium of research centres in 13 countries, including Brazil. An article published in The Lancet Psychiatry by the consortium in 2019 showed that daily cannabis use increased the likelihood of suffering from a psychotic disorder threefold.

The article has been published in the journal Psychological Medicine.

Cannabis use and body functioning

In the more recent study, the researchers analysed data for 409 people aged 16 to 64, including patients experiencing their first psychotic episode and community-based controls. The sample was drawn from the populations of Ribeirão Preto and 25 other cities in the region. The variables analysed included cannabis use frequency (daily, not daily, or never), duration (five years or less), and onset age (in adolescence or later).

While ibuprofen is very effective, it carries several risk factors that affect quite a significant number of users. Side effects after using CBD, however, are rare.

Pain is a natural and unavoidable occurrence in the human body. It is one of the body’s responses to self-healing. But, sometimes it gets too much and painkillers have to come into the picture.

Ibuprofen is one of the most effective drugs for alleviating chronic pain symptoms from things like headaches, toothaches, and backaches. More than 50% of the American population has used ibuprofen at one point or another. Unfortunately, it sometimes comes with side effects like ulcers, etc.

Photo by Elsa Olofsson via Unsplash

Now, with the newly tested and proven therapeutic qualities of the cannabidiol (CBD) compound, one is left to assume that it may be an effective alternative to treating pain. But, CBD has not been approved for medical use yet.

In a new study, a group of international researchers investigated whether adolescent cannabis use has any effect on cortical thickness in the brains of teenagers.

Very few studies have looked at the link between cannabis use in adolescents and its impact on neurodevelopment, and although studies in animal models have pointed towards altered neurodevelopment with lasting behavioral effects with early cannabis use, studies in humans have provided conflicting results.

Now, reporting in the journal JAMA Psychiatry, researchers show that cannabis use during youth might be associated with changes in neurodevelopment – specifically, the thinning of cortical regions rich in cannabinoid 1 receptors (CB1 receptors).

In the study, the researchers used longitudinal neuroimaging and behavioral data (self-reported) from the IMAGEN study data set and investigated 2,223 school children from 8 different European regions who were all approximately 14 years of age.

Out of that cohort, the authors identified 799 participants (450 Female and 349 Male) that had not used cannabis at a baseline of roughly 14 years. They were followed up after a five-year period to determine changes in their cannabis use habits during adolescence while having Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) data of their brains available. 

Medical cannabis offers benefits for many different ailments, and one of the predominant ones in medical literature is connected to sleep. Which part of the plant is responsible for this? It looks like cannabinoid CBN might be partially responsible, at least in conjunction with other elements of the plant. CBN sleep products are already becoming quite popular.

Delta-8 THC is a great reminder that not all THCs are created equally. Whereas delta-9 THC is known for causing anxiety in some users, and leading to couch-locking effects, delta-8 does neither of these things. This provides a better option for those disenfranchised with the anxiety and heaviness of delta-9. If you’re looking to switch up your THC, give our collection of Delta-8 THC deals a look-thru, and we’ll ship you out your products ASAP.

What is CBN?

We’re all pretty aware of what the cannabis plant is at this point. We’re all pretty aware, whether we agree with the statements or not, that there is a growing body of medical research in support of the positive benefits of marijuana for a number of different medical issues, as well as for recreational purposes. By now, most of us are even aware that the US designates higher-THC cannabis as marijuana, and lower-THC cannabis as hemp, with a cutoff line at .3% THC to make the designation.

When looking into the plant closer, we can designate different effects of the plant to different molecules like THC, CBD, and limonene. We know there are cannabinoids, terpenes, flavonoids, and other plant constituents, some of which are useful, and some of which we aren’t as concerned with. THC, of course, is the main psychoactive component, with a Schedule I spot in the Controlled Substances list of the US, while also being in Schedule I of both the Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs, and the Convention on Psychotropic Substances.

THC isn’t the only psychoactive compound though. Not only does delta-9 THC oxidize to form another version of THC called delta-8, but there are other cannabinoids – albeit showing up in very small quantities – that also have psychoactive properties, and one of these is CBN, or cannabinol.

In recent years, many people have woken up to the benefits of cannabis, and all of the different ways in which it can help people to deal with stress, and relax in their daily life. However, there is a balance to be struck.

People might find that certain sativa strains help them, while other people focus on indica strains. Usually, people will want to find a strain of marijuana that is high in CBD, but go too far in with THC and you will probably find that you are provoking more of a “fight or flight” response, and therefore find that cannabis is not the most effective way that you can manage and reduce stress.

In this guide, we’re exploring what the studies say regarding cannabis and stress management.

Microdosing Could Be Key

It helps to understand that the two main impacting compounds in cannabis are CBD and THC. They can be found in different amounts in different strains, depending on whether you opt for sativa or indica or other hybrid strains.

CBD tends to have a very positive effect on the body as it binds to the body’s serotonin receptors to help your mood in general, but too much can make you feel sleepy.

A new analysis by Australian researchers has concluded that there is “little evidence” to justify treating medical cannabis patients differently than those who take other potentially intoxicating prescription medications and get behind the wheel.

Published online in the International Journal of Drug Policy, a team of researchers led by the University of Melbourne’s Daniel Perkins examined regulatory approaches used to mitigate potential road safety risks from the use of “impairing prescription medicines and illicit drugs.”

“Road safety risks associated with medicinal cannabis appear similar or lower than numerous other potentially impairing prescription medications,” the investigators write.

Medical cannabis users have long faced issues when it comes to driving, especially since THC can be detected for days or weeks after any acute impairment has ended. In 2019, a Nova Scotia woman even launched a constitutional challenge after she was arrested for impaired driving during a roadside test more than six hours after she had consumed her medication.

The authors speculate the fear of medical cannabis users on the road, and the subsequent legislation,  stems from the legal status and social stigma of cannabis, as opposed to an elevated safety threat.