Synthetic THC and CBD are once again in the news. The spotlight is on GW Pharmaceuticals in a recent article in Bloomberg Businessweek, a pharmaceutical compnay that is literally “betting the farm” on developing cannabis-based pharmaceutical drugs. Cannabis-based tinctures and oils are already medically prescribed to patients with health issues like epileptic seizures and to mitigate cancer treatment side-effects. But these are just some of the ailments for which CBD is being studied:
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Diabetes, though, is just one of many diseases that GW is taking aim at. It’s developing a pot-based medication to treat inflammation in ulcerative colitis, and is working with Otsuka Pharmaceutical (4578:JP) of Japan on a drug that could treat epilepsy. The company also is carrying out further studies on the MS drug Sativex that could lead to its use for treating pain in cancer patients.
The benefits of cannabis are not limited to THC. In fact, the research that GW Pharmaceuticals is conducting has nothing to do with the psychoactive compound:
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And no, patients taking these medicines won’t get a buzz. Of an estimated 60 chemical compounds in marijuana, only one will get you high. GW is working with the other 59.
Read the full article on Bloomberg Businessweek here. A database of CBD studies may be found at PubMed, a service of the National Institutes of Health.
