Medical marijuana needs more testing
Published 6:00 pm Friday, August 2, 2019
Even though medical marijuana has been legalized in the state of Louisiana and is reportedly becoming available at licensed dispensaries across the state, there are still a lot of unanswered questions surrounding it.
According to the National Institute on Drug Abuse, “The term medical marijuana refers to using the whole, unprocessed marijuana plant or its basic extracts to treat symptoms of illness and other conditions. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has not recognized or approved the marijuana plant as medicine.”
The NIDA recently published paper, “Marijuana as Medicine,” noting, however, that “scientific study of the chemicals in marijuana, called cannabinoids, has led to FDA-approved medications that contain chemicals in pill form. Continued research may lead to more medications.”
The Louisiana Department of Agriculture and Forestry is designated as the state’s lead regulatory agency in the licensure and production of therapeutic marijuana, as well as overseeing the production of medical marijuana to ensure safety of the final product.
The LDAF notes that marijuana remains a classified Schedule 1 controlled substance by the U.S. Department of Justice, Drug Enforcement Administration.
“It is not legal at this time for anyone within the State of Louisiana to grow marijuana for any purpose. Only licensed production facilities will be allowed to grow medical marijuana under Louisiana law. Growing marijuana for any purpose is still illegal under the federal law,” LDAF said.
In addition, recreational marijuana has been legalized in the District of Columbia and 11 states, as of June 2019, which would appear to be a clear violation of federal law.
However, under the Obama administration, two memos were issued that discouraged prosecution in states where it is legalized under state law, but the memos aren’t law and the federal laws can still be enforced.
Also, the FDA “requires carefully conducted studies (clinical trials) in hundreds of thousands of human subjects to determine the benefits and risks of a possible medication. So far, researchers haven’t conducted enough large-scale clinical trials that show the benefits of the marijuana plant (as opposed to its cannabinoid ingredients) outweigh its risks in patients it’s meant to treat,” NIDA says.
The Louisiana law also prohibits marijuana in raw form or smoked. “The acceptable forms are oils, extracts, tinctures, sprays, capsules, pills, solutions, suspension, gelatin-based chewables, lotions, transdermal patches, and suppositories,” LDAF says.
It is obvious that the rush to push medical marijuana and recreational marijuana on society is one huge muddled mess that puts states, doctors, patients, growers and dispensaries in direct conflict with federal law.
For more information about Louisiana’s medical marijuana, check out the LDAF web site. You can can get more on the drug facts from NIDA and about the medical dangers OF marijuana from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
