If Pure THC Pills are FDA-Approved, What's the Big Deal About Marijuana Potency?
NY Daily News reports that incoming CDC Chief Thomas Freidman is "in favor of developing a synthetic marijuana spray to be used for medicinal purposes." That's good news, I suppose, but what really caught my attention about the story was its repetition of the bizarre and wildly false assertion that synthetic THC doesn’t get you high:
Marinol is prescribed for treating vomiting in chemotherapy patients and other uses. It provides relief, not a high.
Says who? The first thing anyone who's ever taken Marinol will tell you is that the stuff gets you blasted for several hours. In fact, that's one of the primary reason patients prefer the herbal alternative. With marijuana, you can control your dose more effectively to achieve the desired effect. The spray was developed for the exact same reason, thus by suggesting that Marinol doesn’t get you high, the NY Daily News completely misses the point of why a spray even exists. It's ridiculous.
We've heard this crap before and I just don’t understand why anyone would struggle with the concept that a pure THC pill would make you high as hell. I suppose it's a convenient claim for pharmaceutical execs trying to separate their product from its controversial context and it's certainly convenient for drug warriors desperately endeavoring to explain why one is medicine and the other is poison. But it's bullshit and it shouldn’t take a scientist to deduce that you will not remain sober after swallowing concentrated THC. That's like saying heroin gets you high but synthetic opiates don't.
Hilariously, there's a side column of "relevant articles" on the page with the top item titled Marijuana Potency Higher Than Ever. We're actually supposed to be intrigued and perhaps alarmed by the fact that domestic marijuana potency now averages 10% THC, meanwhile the FDA has long approved a 100% THC pill that's proven to be completely safe in every way, except that some people think it's a little too strong and want weed instead.
It's amazing the lengths some people will take to rationalize the mindless paradox of arresting medical marijuana patients while simultaneously trying to sell them potent THC pills.
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Synthetic Verses Natural THC Products
Comment posted by Giordano on Fri, 05/29/2009 - 6:57pmIf CDC Chief Thomas Friedman is in favor of developing a “synthetic” marijuana spray for medicinal purposes, he should visit medical marijuana dispensaries in California where a marijuana spray extracted from cannabis is already available to patients.
Synthesizing THC is both complicated and prohibitively expensive, and you end up with the very same chemical in the end. One difference is that a synthesis is likely to be performed in a sophisticated pharmaceutical manufacturing facility or laboratory, while an extraction of THC from cannabis can be done with relatively inexpensive chemical apparatus by anyone with a minimal knowledge of chemistry and the procedures.
Also, a pure THC preparation may not be sufficient for the needs of a medical patient. Medical cannabis patients often choose their medicine based on the relative concentrations of THC and cannabidiol, with THC-predominant pot (sativa) being chosen for ailments such as depression, and with cannabidiol-predominant pot (indica) chosen as a sleep aid, etc. Inhaling the drug makes it very easy to regulate the needed dosage, making initial concentrations irrelevant.
Since there are roughly sixty other cannabinol compounds in marijuana, there is speculation that these compounds can act synergistically or in league with THC to treat specific or rare medical symptoms. Researching this synergy makes the research exponentially more labor intensive with each cannabinol that is added to the mix, especially if different ratios of combinations are necessary for a desired medical result.
Marijuana bypasses this problem by offering the patient a complete spectrum of cannabinol compounds whose overall effects can be quickly determined simply by smoking the plant material and observing the results. With natural cannabis there is no need to wait forever for the feds to start doing serious medical research on cannabinols, something they appear to have little or no desire to do anyway.
Giordano