cannabisnews.com: Cannabis As a Prescription Drug





Cannabis As a Prescription Drug
Posted by CN Staff on September 01, 2003 at 18:24:30 PT
By Anja van den Dam and Theo Tamis
Source: Radio Netherlands
The Dutch government has started distributing cannabis as a prescription painkiller to pharmacies to treat chronically ill patients. The Hague had already been turning a blind eye to medicinal cannabis use, but now it's become the world's first government to supply the drug itself, in accordance with United Nations rules on narcotics. Cannabis sativa has been used therapeutically for many centuries. Known to the Chinese as a strong herbal remedy around 5,000 years ago, it was introduced into European medicine in Napoleonic times.
Its pain relieving and sedative effects soon became accepted by Western medical practitioners, who prescribed it on a wide scale. Britain's Queen Victoria is said to have taken cannabis tincture for menstrual pains.Contentious drug Already in the latter half of the 19th century, cannabis use was as controversial as it was widespread, and not only because of its intoxicating effect. Amid doubts about its true medical benefits, cannabis fell out of favour in the 20th century because of lack of standardised preparations and the development of more potent synthetic drugs. Today, some experts warn that sustained cannabis use increases the risk of depression and schizophrenia.These warnings haven't stopped people with cancer, HIV and multiple sclerosis (MS) from taking the drug as a painkiller. The Dutch Health Ministry estimates up to 7,000 people in the Netherlands are using cannabis for medical reasons, buying it in coffee shops. The ministry expects the figure to double now that it's moved to regulate the cannabis supply, making the drug available from pharmacies in pure medical form.Last resort The Hague stresses the supply is in accordance with UN regulations and says doctors should only prescribe cannabis as a final resort: when conventional treatments have been exhausted or if other drugs had side-effects. Production is left to two official suppliers, who grow their cannabis not for coffee shops but exclusively for the government. One of the licences went to James Burton, an American expatriate, who grows his plants in laboratory-style conditions in his well-guarded greenhouse, surrounded by water and guarded by 39 cameras and security staff.Every month, Mr Burton will sell approximately 10 kilos of medical cannabis to the Health Ministry, which in turn packages and labels the drug in small tubs to supply to pharmacies."Each plant is individually numbered," he says, "it has a starting date, an identification number and a pharmacy crop number, so that all the cannabis is recallable and traceable." Mr Burton hails the plant's medical benefits, calling it "a miracle drug, because it works for many, many diseases." He has a special passion for the plant because it saved his eyesight. "All my family members have glaucoma on the male side, caused by a genetic defect, and they're either blind or legally blind. Had I not smoked cannabis at an early age in the military service, I also would have been blind." Research subject As cannabis proved to work where conventional therapy had failed, Mr Burton became a research subject in America, where academic centres and hospitals studied the effects of government-provided cannabis on his eyes. But the tide turned in the early eighties when Ronald Reagan came in as US president on his "just-say-no-to-drugs" policy. All research into medical cannabis was stopped, and James Burton resorted to growing cannabis for his own use. After he was arrested and his house and car impounded, he moved to the Netherlands - "the only place in the world at the time, where you could grow cannabis, and with one of the best eye-hospitals in the world located in Rotterdam."Now after 20 years, Mr Burton has become an official cannabis supplier to the Dutch government. He finds it ironic that in this capacity he'll soon be exporting marijuana into the US for new research purposes. Interview: Traceable: James Burton interviewed by Anja van de Dam, 3´22 http://cgi.omroep.nl/cgi-bin/streams?/rnw/hotspots/can030901.rmSource: Radio NetherlandsAuthor: Anja van den Dam and Theo TamisPublished: September 1, 2003 Copyright: 2003 Radio Netherlands Website: http://www.rnw.nl/URL: http://www.rnw.nl/hotspots/html/can030901.htmlRelated Articles:Netherlands Launches Pharmacy Sales of Cannabishttp://cannabisnews.com/news/thread17204.shtmlDutch Approve Cannabis as Prescription Drughttp://cannabisnews.com/news/thread17203.shtmlMedical Marijuana Sold in the Netherlandshttp://cannabisnews.com/news/thread17201.shtml
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Comment #5 posted by FoM on September 03, 2003 at 13:37:22 PT
News Brief from Wave3.com
Bowling Green Man To Grow Medicinal Marijuana For Netherlands
 
 
 
(BOWLING GREEN, Ky., September 3rd, 2003, 3:30 p.m.) -- On September 1st, the Netherlands became the first country to make marijuana available by prescription, and a man from Bowling Green, Kentucky is one of the first producers of the medical marijuana. Dutch doctors are now allowed to prescribe marijuana to treat pain, nausea and loss of appetite due to cancer HIV or other diseases. James Burton spent a year in prison in the U.S. for his support of and use of medical marijuana. Burton says marijuana kept him from going blind from glaucoma. The Dutch government estimates some 7,000 people in the Netherlands are already using the drug, and that number is expected to double.http://www.wave3.com/Global/story.asp?S=1427707&nav=0RZFHnW1
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Comment #4 posted by FoM on September 02, 2003 at 11:55:32 PT
Web Site of Omega Pharma
http://www.omega-pharma.be/welkom.htmPress Release: http://www.omega-pharma.be/Engels/hoofdFrame.htm
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Comment #3 posted by FoM on September 02, 2003 at 11:50:56 PT
News Brief -- Associated Press
Business - AP Features 
Belgian Drug Distributor Omega Pharma Announces Exclusive Rights To Distribute Marijuana To Dutch Pharmacies Published: September 2, 2003BRUSSELS, Belgium - Belgian Drug distributor Omega Pharma announced Tuesday it had exclusive rights to distribute medicinal marijuana in the Netherlands.  In a press release, Omega Pharma said it would "exclusively distribute medicinal cannabis in all pharmacies ... as from Sept. 1, 2003 onwards." Under a new law, marijuana went on sale Monday at Dutch pharmacies to help bring relief to thousands of patients suffering from cancer, AIDS or multiple sclerosis. Around 7,000 patients will be eligible for prescription marijuana, sold in containers of .16 ounces at most pharmacies. Labeled "Cannabis" and tested by the Dutch Ministry of Health, the drug will be covered by health insurance for the first time under the new legislation. The drug company said its Dutch subsidiary would deliver marijuana products that could easily be traced. "Each lot is completely analyzed on its identity, purity and concentration," it said. The company said on the first day of the marijuana being available, "a few hundred orders" had been delivered. 
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Comment #2 posted by Petard on September 01, 2003 at 20:36:18 PT
I'd still demand
the US give back the home, and auto, and expunge the record, and then I'd sell the US govt. weed at 10 times the rate I'm selling it to the Netherlands if I was Mr. James Burton. I'd also demand written conditions that no member of the Reagan, Bush, Clinton families, however remotely related, benefit in any way from my export nor any treatments derived therefrom. Let them suffer as those they have persecuted have suffered from this day forward, ad infinitum. Maybe that way eventually the gene pool will be rid of genetic defects like them and human beings would no longer be persecuted for the plants they choose.
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Comment #1 posted by FoM on September 01, 2003 at 19:11:35 PT
Interesting article
The U.S. will be receiving some of the Cannabis from Mr. Burton for research. I wonder where the research is going on?
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