While the world is celebrating the recent approval of GW’s Epidiolex by the FDA, we should stop and think, is it a good move or one in the wrong direction. How will this effect the ability to benefit from CBD?
Recently, the FDA (Food and Drug Administration) has approved GW’s CBD based drug, Epidiolex, to treat children as young as two with seizure disorders called Lennox-Gastaut syndrome and Dravet syndrome.
While the acceptance of CBD it is a great victory for the medical cannabis supporters, the CBD industry, might learn that in the long run, GWs entrance to the market will show the way out for many CBD pioneers, unless they will become pharma themselves…
I live in Israel, the world’s most advanced country when it comes to medical cannabis research, where patients have had access to medical cannabis medicines for years, and yet for the most part, accessing these cures is a complete nightmare… Under the flag of radicalization, the Israeli ministry of health is blocking any attempt to provide simple medicine, such as CBD to people in need. In fact, in order to get a medical cannabis license, a patient needs to use “regular” medicine, for over a year and only after he can prove to his doctors that those medicine won’t assist him, he is allowed to be granted the natural, harmless, alternative, cannabis.
Even more, they will force him to take harmful opiates for a long time, get him addicted to this poison and ask him to prove that he has bought and used that ‘remedy’ to even consider his right to use cannabis.
But the story of CBD is the worse one. Everyone agrees that CBD is a great discovery, from the scientists that isolated it in Israel many years ago, to the people using it. Guess where it is illegal to use it freely? Israel! Why? Because the Ministry of Health thinks it is a dangerous medicine, so people shouldn’t have access to it without a proper license (which takes over a year to get, with a very low success rates).
Lately, in the name of ‘medicalization’, the Ministry of Health has made a reform to the medical cannabis program, that is going to cancel over 90% of cannabis strains, just because they demand the CBD:THC ratio be 1:5, 1:10, 1:1 or 1:20 etc. On the way, they have doubled and tripled the price of cannabis, so even people who have the license, can’t afford their medicine.
Why? Because under the flag of ‘medicalization’ everything should be scientifically measured… Otherwise it can’t be sold as pharma.
And it goes and goes and goes…
The bottom line is clear, the moment big pharma was given a door to the industry, it began limiting access to medicine. Even now as we speak, the FDA is preparing warning letters that will put out of business more than 90% of the industry, since we need to follow the same rules as GW. Don’t believe it? Look at what happened in the UK, where companies selling CBD products are avoiding any medical whatsoever claims, and won’t even link to a clinical trial, or scientific website. Their fear of medical claims has turned them to silence.
So what can you do?
First, understand that in the future, CBD products will become either medical or recreational CBD, nothing in between. Know your industry and prepare. If you plan to sell your product as medicine do you homework today, find a good source of GMP approved oil (in Israel only GMP CBD oil is allowed and this will happen elsewhere too, soon) and clean your website from “false claims” saying that CBD is good for you, that CBD helps, that CBD treats… etc. If you can’t prove it, you won’t be able to say it, really soon.
Second, start thinking clinical trials, even if you can’t afford it… and also save some money for lawyers, you will need them.
Third, look upon your CBD marketing efforts, they are now going to change. Cannabis content websites like this one, will remain one of the only ways for the industry to speak out, since big pharma is here and anything not supported by “facts” (their version of which is information coming from their own personally financed studies) is not allowed anymore.
Disclaimer: This is my personal opinion, you have the right not to agree…
