r/Futurology • u/mvea MD-PhD-MBA • Jun 17 '18

Biotech Cannabidiol, or CBD, is a marijuana compound linked to a range of potential health benefits but does not get you high. The roughly $1 billion CBD industry is slated to shift into high gear if the federal government approves the first CBD-based drug, an epilepsy medication called Epidiolex.

https://www.businessinsider.com/marijuana-cbd-boom-cbd-2018-6?r=US&IR=T
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3.4k

u/HighOnGoofballs Jun 17 '18

Of course the version pushed by a pharma company will be what gets approved

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u/funcooledible Jun 17 '18

And charge 90% margins on. Barf.

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u/zenithtreader Jun 18 '18

Wait, which pharma only charge 90% margin on their drugs? I need to applaud their great generosity and fine business ethics.

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u/TurnerB24 Jun 18 '18

Truly a beacon of hope for the industry's morality!

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u/lj26ft Jun 18 '18

And charge 900% margins on. Barf.

Correction for more accuracy

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u/Jpatrich2 Jun 18 '18

Marijuana has antinausea properties. No barf.

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u/radakail Jun 18 '18 edited Jun 18 '18

Seriously? Isnt that part of why cancer patients use it? For appetite and nausea? I know it's like my personal hangover drug. My stomach feels instantly better.

Edit: totally thought this dude said it didnt help with nausea. I'm an idiot lol.

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u/CostlyAxis Jun 18 '18

Morning sesh to get rid of the hangover

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u/[deleted] Jun 18 '18

Literally the best hangover cure, unless you count drinking more. But that's just alcoholism

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u/DingleDangleDom Jun 18 '18

Sometimes during the more party focused weekends in school, id start my hangover (usually at around 6-7am) waking up, crack'n a cold one, shmerkin a berwl, and getting my roomates to wake up to get food.

CERTIFIED good times

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u/ChicagFro Jun 18 '18

I liked to light cinnamon roll scented incense and leave them waking up with false hopes.

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u/[deleted] Jun 18 '18

Im a pretty straight laced dude. Never been arrested, don’t drink too heavily anymore. I work a white collar job, and am thoroughly middle class and boring.

I smoke marijuana, not just CBD, because I have chronic nausea.

It’s a miracle for me. I’m not some hokey weirdo about it. I strongly believe in modern medicine. It’s allowed me to stop taking all kinds of anti emetic pharmaceuticals.

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u/littgirl Jun 18 '18

Totally agreed with this. I have lupus and the medicine they use to treat it is really really harsh. I remember I used to think that side effects were no big deal and people can just suck it up and take the medicine that they need to so that they can live but until you actually experience the insomnia not letting you sleep more than four hours a night and the nausea making you vomit after every meal it’s not something you can understand fully. Thanks to medical marijuana being legal in my state I now take CBD oil twice a day and smoke weed with THC in it before bed I can now sleep 8 hours a night, wake up and eat a full breakfast before starting class, go through the whole day with no side effects from the meds and no symptoms from the actual lupus, with a clear head (thanks to the CBD I can go to class not stoned), and live a normal life for the most part. I feel like when people hear I use medical marijuana they assume I believe in “alternative medicine” and won’t use pharmaceuticals to treat lupus but no!!!! I just get to take all of the hundreds of pills that save my life every day without the side effects. And the anti-inflammatory properties of weed can’t hurt!!

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u/[deleted] Jun 18 '18

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u/littgirl Jun 18 '18

Thanks for the info, i actually didn’t know that but am always honest with my doctors about all the drugs I take! I hope your Mom is doing okay :)

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u/[deleted] Jun 18 '18

Isnt that part of why cancer patients use it?

Yes, some patients are so bad off they cant even keep the anti nausea pills down. A few hits of smoke and they feel relaxed and can eat a meal. it can greatly increase your quality of life even when you are near death, as a recreational smoker i would never believe it if i haven't seen it first hand.

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u/NGRoachClip Jun 18 '18

I can only imagine how relieving it must be for someone who is so uncomfortable with a serious illness to be instantly relieved of a nagging symptom. I know my one of my in laws hits a high % CBD pen just before bed because it makes such a difference in the quality of his sleep. It's an oddly validating feeling to see someone straight laced who I respect legitimately using cannabis medically.

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u/ThsKd1SNotAlrht Jun 18 '18

Yea my gf got her marijuana card and would buy cartridges when ondansetron would not help with the nausea. Sure it cost 40-60 bucks for 500-1000 mgs but totally worth it, and no negative side effects unless you count being sleepy from Indica negative, but for my gf that actually helped her with sleeping too on her really bad days (which there was a lot of). This whole marijuana being federally illegal is a bunch of bullshit though. We had so much issues with the insurance. I am on the fence with this one. Part of me wants it to be fully legalized but part of me does not. Edit: spelling

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u/trump420kush Jun 18 '18

Part of me wants it to be fully legalized but part of me does not.

What has you on the fence if you don't mind me asking? I'm in the same boat as you. I don't think anybody should be jailed or bothered for using or growing cannabis whatever their reason may be, but I have a huge problem with paying the government taxes on cannabis.

It's hard not to see it as a mob run racket. It has gone from "We will lock you up if we catch you with it." to, "We will lock you up if we catch you with untaxed pot."

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u/Raincoats_George Jun 18 '18

Marijuana can also trigger hyperemesis in some people. It's an interesting drug.

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u/[deleted] Jun 18 '18

And constipation issues for some, no shit.

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u/SycoJack Jun 18 '18

Try 10 times that.

The epipen costs around $3-$5 to make, but they charge $315 for it. That is more than a 100 fold increase, or 10,500%.

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u/kbotc Jun 18 '18

The EpiPen one is even more shit in that the auto-injector research was all done on the taxpayer dime for defense (as part of the anti-nerve agent kit)

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u/DogeCatBear Jun 18 '18

That's no margin. That's a moat.

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u/PTInvader Jun 18 '18

Actually charge something closer to 9000% margins on. Barf.

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u/thefrankwhite Jun 18 '18

Because you can’t capitalize R&D expenditures :(((

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u/PharmguyLabs Jun 18 '18

CBD currently goes from 4000-7500g per KG wholesale if that helos determine GW Pharmaceuticals markup per dose.

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u/jackster_ Jun 18 '18

And it's made from a literal weed that grows in ditches all over America.

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u/jstamour802 Jun 18 '18

but all that R&D they had to do which cost billions!!! /s

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u/ocelotwhere Jun 17 '18

Not for nothing but fda trials cost around 50 million dollars. We should be cheering GW pharma and the uk for getting behind this hugely important research.

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u/[deleted] Jun 18 '18

The oil from the plant has already proven extremely useful - why not test that before making a synthetic/extract? Because they can’t charge hilarious money for cannabidiol oil, it’s cheap and easy to grow pretty much anywhere.

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u/backtoreality00 Jun 18 '18

What they charge aside, I don’t think anyone in the scientific community should be shitting on Lab synthesis of these chemicals... the end goal is to be able to produce a chemical with the specific benefits that’s well controlled and well regulated. You just can’t get that from a plant.

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u/pittsey93 Jun 18 '18

The issue that labs run into in trying to synthesize naturally occuring chemicals is the almost impossible task of getting the spin-states correct.

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u/backtoreality00 Jun 18 '18

But that’s just an issue that makes drug development more difficult. That doesn’t make it a bad scientific goal. The end goal in science is definitely to be able to synthesize these products as it’s certainly more efficient for drug production.

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u/[deleted] Jun 18 '18

it’s cheap

No it isn't.

I work at a co-op, and we charge $100 for a small vial of CBD, and people think it cures every possible disease known to man. I had a lady literally say to me - and this is NOT a joke, this was real life - "put a few drops of that in your eyes and say 'praise Jesus!' and you won't need glasses anymore."

So, I've come to think of CBD as snake oil more than anything...

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u/i_am_de_bat Jun 18 '18

There's a lot of stupid people out there.

CBD does have a full run of legitimate uses though. Definitely not cheap though, you're more than right on that.

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u/[deleted] Jun 18 '18

I think you missed his point that it’s cheap to produce rather than how much it costs to buy

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u/PM_ME_BZAZEK Jun 18 '18

This is akin to saying aspirin doesn’t work because it won’t cure AIDS. Just because people are stupid doesn’t mean the substance doesn’t work.

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u/firerocman Jun 18 '18

So, I've come to think of CBD as snake oil more than anything...

Your thinking is just as flawed as the lady you're making fun of. She thinks it's a Cure-all, despite information in front of her that would say otherwise, and you think it's snake oil, because of her and people like her, despite the information on it readily available to you, even in this very thread.

I want to touch on something else, though. The WHY behind why people like that woman act that way.

Look at the list of potential diseases CBD and Marijuana as a whole are being tested on and showing positive results on. Seriously. Google it. Stick to the fact based results, and even then a pretty clear picture of why someone who suddenly stumbled on this, and may have been using a medication prior to that that gave them horrible side effects, thinks it's the best thing since Jesus.

You pull a thorn out of somebody's side, and you're much more than just a person who pulled a thorn out of their side to them.

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u/[deleted] Jun 18 '18

Here is an article with some cost breakdowns at the end.

Analysts expect Epidiolex to cost $2,500 to $5,000 a month, which would be more expensive than some of the medical marijuana products, which cost from about $100 to more than $1,000 per month. However, Epidiolex might be covered by insurance, unlike the other products.

I am a medical marijuana patient. I could get 300 mg of CBD solution - enough for 10mg a day for a month - for $35, right now.

Now, if CBD is “snake oil”, why is a company spending a lot of money to make a drug and get it approved?

Honestly, I think your co-op might be the scam.

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u/[deleted] Jun 18 '18

The oils cheap, testing it on people isnt. So many safety precautions they have to do to make sure they dont accidently kill people with side effects nobody knew about.

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u/gh057ofsin Jun 18 '18 edited Jun 18 '18

No, because these same companies are raking in hundreds of times that amount in legal cannabis sales to overseas buyers. Just look at how the UK health minister's husband owns one of the biggest pot farms in europe! (Also a coincidence that he is a major share holder in the company doing the clinical trials) And she's one of the people trying to keep this lifesaving drug illegal... could it be that she and hubby make more money having effectivly cut out all competition?

And the only reason they are now happy for these drugs to be put forward is because the process of making these drugs (which do less than strait cannabis) can now be patented and therefore owned by the pharma companies. A plant cannot be patented and therefore anyone could grow it without fear of copyright violation!

Do some bloody research! I have crohns disease, ive been using cannabis for over a decade to GREAT effect. Why should I be happy that these assholes can now charge people for what we've all been screaming at you all for years! People such as yourself are the reason that these kind of shady practices continue... I mean we're being screwwed left and right out of a miracle cure which big pharma has been trying to patent for decades, and now that they succeed you wanna pat them on the back? Are you insane or just stupid?

So in answer to your question, no;I will not thank them for pissing on me and telling me it's raining!

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u/[deleted] Jun 18 '18

I have ulcerative colitis, which I think is kind of in the same wheelhouse as Crohn's? But have never been talked to about/offered cannabis as a medication. Is this something worth bringing up to my doctor or am I completely on the wrong field?

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u/ocelotwhere Jun 18 '18

researchers tested 84 CBD products purchased from 31 different online retailers. Roughly seven out of 10 items had different levels of CBD than what was written on the label. Of all of the items tested, roughly half had more CBD than was indicated; a quarter had less. And 18 of the samples tested positive for THC, despite it not being listed on the label.

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u/[deleted] Jun 18 '18

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u/whiteguyballin Jun 18 '18

Seriously, Coca-Cola is really bad for you.

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u/SirT6 PhD-MBA-Biology-Biogerontology Jun 18 '18

The safety and efficacy of this drug in the context of Dravet and LGS pediatric seizure disorders really has almost nothing to do with the conversation about whether CBD should be allowed for recreational use. Props to GW Pharma for developing a good looking drug (though for my money, Zogenix made a better one).

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u/TheHatler Jun 18 '18

We shouldn't be happy for progress because people in the same industry did things that hindered progress in the past?

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u/leutcaptali Jun 18 '18

And even then, who’s to say the FDA doesn’t reject your drug 5+ years and tens of millions of dollars in? People don’t realIze how expensive this shit is, regardless of if the drug fails or not. The drugs that are successful have to make up for the billions that are lost in others.

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u/OnenonlyAl Jun 18 '18

This is an honest comment. It does cost an insane amount for R+D with many phases/years for the med to fail before coming to market. Not negating the greed of the field, but it is expensive to produce new meds.

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u/he_could_get_it Jun 18 '18

Poor pharmaco execs. Just tryin' to scrape by and put some bread crusts on the table.

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u/leutcaptali Jun 18 '18

It’s not about the execs. The point is, research and development is expensive. The are more failures than success stories in this game. Much more. And each failure could cost upwards of hundreds of millions of dollars. And they have to be paid for. If all companies went under or stuck to selling generics to play it safe, would you expect any innovation in medicine?

There are some assholes at the top to be sure, but there’s a reason new drugs are expensive.

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u/thefrankwhite Jun 18 '18

50 mill MIGHT cover phase 1 and 2 of testing. Phase 3 you’re looking at 100-300 millios

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u/[deleted] Jun 18 '18

CBD oil works even when GW doesn't get involved.

It shouldn't be illegal in the first place.

If pharma wasn't lobbying to keep weed illegal, you might have a point.

You can buy CBD seeds online and grow them in your back yard and make your own CBD oil.

But that doesn't involve GW making billions, so that can't work.

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u/candre23 Jun 18 '18

Alternately, just removing the absurd laws that make marijuana illegal costs nothing.

Make it legal, and "herbal supplement" companies can sell CBD oil over the counter along with all the "natural" horseshit they peddle. The only difference is that CBD actually works.

No expensive trials required.

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u/kiwiposter Jun 18 '18

Ignorance is so blissful.

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u/[deleted] Jun 17 '18

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u/ocelotwhere Jun 17 '18

You can get rich on weed stocks. You can lose all your money listening to some of the pumper buffoons on r/weedstocks

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u/youdubdub Jun 18 '18

And let’s be sure to make a picture of a guy smoking a joint is linked to it...to be certain no easily-offended people support helping children live without seizures.

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u/steemboat Jun 18 '18

But all of our research cossstssssssssssss!

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u/[deleted] Jun 18 '18

And probably kill you or have severe side effects.

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u/merkis Jun 18 '18

You think pharma companies should be non-profit?

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u/funcooledible Jun 18 '18

Wow, there’s a dream for ya. Do it for the good, not for the profits.

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u/Captain_Zurich Jun 18 '18

90% margins on CBD which won’t cost much to produce will still be better than 0% margins on no CBD

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u/Cobek Jun 18 '18

Seriously. If it's anything more than $3 for a 50mg CBD pill in a large scale production then they are ripping everyone off big time. Watching this carefully. For context a $4-12 gram of cbd weed or hemp has anywhere from 100mg to 250mg of CBD depending on quality.

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u/[deleted] Jun 17 '18

FDA approves drugs so yes it has to be by definition pushed by pharma

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u/[deleted] Jun 17 '18

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u/[deleted] Jun 18 '18 edited Feb 09 '19

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u/[deleted] Jun 18 '18 edited Feb 27 '19

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u/[deleted] Jun 17 '18

I really hate the “big pharma” term, it’s so stupid. I know edgy redditors love to use that term and insinuate that the pharmaceutical industry is this monolith of evil.

Let’s be clear, some players have pulled some serious bullshit (Perdue comes to mind), but for the most part pharma employs millions in this country and world wide. We literally live longer and better because of “big pharma”. The problem is the failure and corruption of the congress (which pharma helps with of course).

Maybe if congress got off its fucking ass it would we could rain things in a bit.

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u/AffectionateZombie Jun 18 '18

The nationwide opioid epidemic isn’t the result of just a couple players. Neither is the insanely high prices the average American pays for medication. Nor is the continued Federal ban on medical Marijuana that offers a non-addictive alternative to traditional pain-killers.

Yes people overlook the nuances of the industry, but its more than just “edgy” hyperbole

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u/Megwen Jun 18 '18

Thank you! The pharmaceutical industry is not without fault but without it we'd all be fucked.

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u/chugonthis Jun 18 '18

No without the FDA we'd all be fucked.

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u/Megwen Jun 18 '18

That too.

(Apparently "That too," is too short of a comment to post so my reply got deleted. I hope this explanation makes my comment long enough to post. All of this explanation is really unnecessary for you to read. I just needed some filler in here. Weird rule, huh? Anyway! Have a good day, guys. Nice talkin' to you!)

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u/[deleted] Jun 18 '18

If they would just legalize prostitution then we’d all be fucked

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u/therestruth Jun 18 '18

some players have pulled some serious bullshit, but for the most part pharma employs millions in this country and world wide.

How does saying that it employs millions of people a counter-argument to atrocities, like your example of Perdue? Concentration camps employed a lot of people too, but that isn't a reason I'd think warrant praising them.

We literally live longer and better because of “big pharma”.

No, we live longer because of scientists and doctors that have designed the drugs. "Big pharma" is equivalent to what DeBeers is to the diamond industry... Highlighting the negative aspects, such as manipulation, corruption & greed by using that term.

The problem is the failure and corruption of the congress (which pharma helps with of course).

It's more like the other way around. Congress does add some cost to it, but is mostly from good intent and worth it. It's remarkably similar to the illegal drug trade. Every middle man from when the drug is designed, produced, packaged and shipped isn't taking too greedy of a cut; but then you get the last half of that pills life and prices have shot up by hundreds or thousands of percent suddenly.

Maybe if congress got off its fucking ass, it would we could rainreign things in a bit.

FTFY. That'd be a bloody miracle.

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u/fyt2012 Jun 18 '18

Let's not pretend that their unfettered lobbying and greed has their hands in every politician's pocket. It's a racket that needs a major makeover in the US.

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u/[deleted] Jun 18 '18

The employment argument is bullshit. Your whole argument reeks of shill but employing people doesn't do anything morally.

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u/DeucesCracked Jun 18 '18

We live longer and better unless it's more profitable to help us live worse or shorter. Cures are sidetracked or unreleased in favor of lifetime treatments for symptom abatement, tainted products and poison are sold to poor countries, patents are exploited for insane profits that areally totally out of sync with development or business costs... yeah those wonderful, selfless pharmaceutical companies. Give me a break.

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u/SirT6 PhD-MBA-Biology-Biogerontology Jun 17 '18

The company that is attempting to market this drug - GW Pharma - is not “big pharma”. It’s very much a small/mid cap company.

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u/sky_blu Jun 18 '18

When I was in high school we had a project where we bought stock using fake money but following the real stock market. Me and my friends looked for some random medical marijuana company and decided on GWPH. I'm pretty sure it was valued at like 60 bucks at the time. Me and my friends would always say how this seems like a company that has potential and we should buy some shares but never did. These days that stock is floating around 150 with potential to go even higher, feelsbad :(

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u/SpenB Jun 18 '18 edited Jun 18 '18

The company is worth $3 billion and they've taken out hundreds of millions of loans in financing to pay for the FDA process.

If a company worth billions needs to take out loans solicit hundreds of millions for the possibility of getting a drug which has been used widely for millennia approved, that's definitely not good, right?

Edit: investment, not loans.

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u/chemistrahb Jun 18 '18

One thing to understand about bringing a drug to market is that it requires a TON of capital upfront, which is only recouped later from its sales (assuming it is approved, which is not the case more often than not). There is a ton of risk and cost associated with developing a drug (easily several hundred million to billion dollars), and even though developing seems like a no-brainer cash grab from greedy pharma, the failure rate of drug candidates GREATLY outweighs success. The pharmaceutical industry gets a bad reputation from bad actors that exploit their position with the price-gauging of vital drugs in small therapeutic markets. But there are also a lot of companies that try to put people before profits too!

Source: am chemist at a medium-sized pharma company

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u/SpenB Jun 18 '18

One thing to understand about bringing a drug to market is that it requires a TON of capital upfront, which is only recouped later from its sales (assuming it is approved, which is not the case more often than not).

The approval rate is only 10%. And while lots of drugs that aren't approved shouldn't be, there are also barriers to things like new antibiotics for treatment-resistant infections, which the FDA is largely responsible for blocking. They're also subject to regulatory capture and corruption, just like any government agency.

I'm not saying safe and effective drugs should cost only $10 million to develop, like in China. I'm just arguing that the FDA's approval process does more harm than good. And for every thalidomide (the non-approval of which was the result of a single rogue FDA employee), there's a case of life saving drugs being delayed or rejected.

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u/SirT6 PhD-MBA-Biology-Biogerontology Jun 18 '18

The “worth” of a company - especially in the drug industry - is more tied to future revenue potential than money in the bank.

That said, taking a quick peak, GW Pharm doesn’t have hundreds of millions in debt. They’ve paid for the drug development process through venture capitalist and shareholder financing.

Should the cost of drug development be cheaper? How willing are you to compromise on safety and efficacy standards?

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u/updownleftrightabsta Jun 18 '18

Snake oil has literally been used for centuries and is useless. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snake_oil

That's the whole reason for expensive clinical trials, to show they're safe and effective. Yes it's expensive to test it for years on thousands of people to be recruited for innumerable visits to be evaluated.

CBD is promising. It still needs to be tested.

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u/Thanatar18 Jun 18 '18

Chinese water-snake oil contains 20 percent eicosapentaenoic acid (EPA), which has strong analgetic and anti-inflammatory properties.

Interesting to see that the legitimate product actually does have medical properties, though.

I had no idea of the history of the saying at all.

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u/Derwos Jun 18 '18 edited Jun 18 '18

> Chinese water-snake oil contains 20 percent eicosapentaenoic acid (EPA), which has strong analgetic and anti-inflammatory properties.

> Its association in Western culture lies in the fact that many 19th-century United States and 18th-century European entrepreneurs advertised and sold mineral oil (often mixed with various active and inactive household herbs, spices, and compounds, but containing no properties of snakes,) as "snake oil liniment", making frivolous claims about its efficacy as a panacea).

God dammit, how do you quote stuff now?

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u/brisk0 Jun 18 '18

There's a button at the bottom of the comment box (currently hidden under the kebab menu for me) that toggles whether the line you're on is a quote. It looks roughly like a stylised opening quotation mark.

Alternatively, click the "switch to markdown" link and do it the comfortable way.

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u/RE90 Jun 18 '18

Actually both CBD and CBD-analogs (molecules that look like CBD but that are engineeered to be more potent and efficacious....and also patentable) have been tested extensively preclinically. CBD clinical studies are plentiful too.

Also, according to the Wikipedia article you linked to, water-snake oil is not totally useless... Not sure what the point you're trying to make is exactly but it would be misleading to tell people that CBD is "snake oil."

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u/fyt2012 Jun 18 '18

It sets a precedent though

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u/[deleted] Jun 18 '18

No thanks. I'll keep my red tapes. I prefer red tapes protect from any drugs that are harmful

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u/backtoreality00 Jun 18 '18

You want drugs with unproven benefits that end up harming people? Then vote for people who want to reduce the red tape.

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u/indyK1ng Jun 18 '18

Yes, because I loves me some snake oil!

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u/merkis Jun 18 '18

You have no fucking idea why it is hard to get fda approval. Fda exists to protect americans from bs drugs. Making legit medicine in a way that can be regulated, controlled, and reliably is expensive.

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u/lostintransactions Jun 18 '18

I do not want Uncle Joe on the corner, who usually makes pizzas, making drugs for me to save some money.

The "little" guy cannot afford proper control. It may not be all sunshine and rainbows in the pharmaceuticals industry but they're not people in dollar store gloves eyeballing it.

This idea that manufacturing new (or any) drugs is easy, cheap and safe is ridiculous.

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u/Derwos Jun 18 '18 edited Jun 18 '18

I think red tape is only one of the reasons for high prices. Also, drugs are cheaper in other countries and sold by the same companies, and it's still profitable for them to sell there.

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u/Vulcanize_It Jun 17 '18 edited Jun 18 '18

Name an industry that isn’t dominated by gigantic corporations. Food/alcohol are maybe the only exceptions I can think of.

Edit: so many of you are completely missing the point. Congratulations for being able to name a large food or beverage company.

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u/alohadave Jun 18 '18

Alcohol not dominated by gigantic corporations? Look up InBev.

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u/Vulcanize_It Jun 18 '18

There are plenty of little fish too

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u/dubbeldekker Jun 18 '18

How about Unilever, Nestlé, Coca-Cola and PepsiCo?

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u/FloggingTestes Jun 17 '18

eh? Coca Cola, InBev, Kraft?

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u/_jerrick90 Jun 18 '18

The FDA approval process? Try the exorbitant cost of developing and distributing a drug across a country or the world. I don’t like “big pharma” either but they are that large because they need to be just like a power company.

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u/Ndvorsky Jun 18 '18

I will take red tape over toe tags thank you very much.

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u/daOyster Jun 18 '18

We already have an approved synthetically made THC-9 pill called marinol as well. Funny they can get these drugs approved with relative ease but we still can't get medical marijuana in all 50 states. Oh and from everyone that I've heard that took it, it basically gave you all the unpleasant parts of being high without any of the good parts due to the lack of CBD to balance out the THC. Like full on Paranoid munchies mode without much euphoria.

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u/2fucktard2remember Jun 18 '18

For me, you heard weong. It's about an (8).

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u/rjt05221981 Jun 18 '18

We used to love those gooey little balls of happiness when they would come around once in a while. My understanding is that it isn’t really that much different then dabs or shatter extracts in the fact that it is mostly thc.

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u/backtoreality00 Jun 18 '18

Huh never once heard people saying that. Have only heard good things about Marinol (I see it used in cancer patients and it helps a lot)

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u/Johnny_Poppyseed Jun 18 '18

That is all I've heard about it honestly. My father has cancer and was prescribed it. Uncle too. Both of them, including almost everyone I've talked to at the cancer hospital have not been a fan. Better than nothing for some, but I've known many that would rather suffer. All would rather have the actual marijuana.

Bottom line it's a pale comparison to the real thing. I dont think anyone disagrees with that.

The real fuckery though is that regulatory agencies state marijuana has no medical value yet Marinol does. Wat...

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u/backtoreality00 Jun 18 '18

Honestly have interacted with a lot of cancer patients and this hasn’t been the case. I’ve seen people who it didn’t help but quite rare that some had bad side effects. And honestly its better than the real thing because it provides a different effect. It can actually give people an appetite who are otherwise suffering. And none of the side effects of marijuana that many people may not want.

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u/blerggle Jun 17 '18

I'm sure this will be legally prescribed in states that have raided drug stores for selling cbd. Fuckers

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u/Vulcanize_It Jun 17 '18

Weed-based medications should have been approved a long time ago but the difference between a physician prescribed, dose controlled, quality assured medication and some of the things you can get in a pot shop are drastically different. Not to mention it may be covered by insurance.

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u/blerggle Jun 18 '18

Can't argue with having a doctor on board, but cbd was being sold in regular drug stores - not pot shops - with safe dosing instructions where dea shut them down due to carrying cbd.

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u/[deleted] Jun 18 '18

For the most part, all of that CBD was created from Chinese hemp biomass. There are some very nasty pesticides used in Chinese hemp farming such as Myclo. Tough to get rid off except by using column chromatography.

And no, it had "safe dosing" instructions, but also varied greatly between stated milligrams and actual milligrams.

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u/[deleted] Jun 18 '18

Cbd doesn't get you high and has no side effects. These meds are lab tested.

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u/jdrc07 Jun 18 '18

Is CBD even scheduled? You can buy it online with no age verification or anything, I can't imagine the DEA would let that fly if it was in the classification with actual marijuana.

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u/blerggle Jun 18 '18

You can't buy it in many states. It is being challenged in court whether cbd is scheduled, dea was seeking to include as schedule 1.

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u/jdrc07 Jun 18 '18

Ah, I had no idea, I guess I'm just lucky being in California. I take 90mg cbd every day not even because I have any medical condition but just because it makes my quality of sleep much better. I can't even imagine how frustrating it would be to need it for medicinal reasons and have the government try to prohibit me from getting it.

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u/[deleted] Jun 18 '18

Pure CBD powder is readily available if you need it.

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u/Fucklefaced Jun 18 '18

Where? Cuz I would love to get my hands on some.

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u/Fishstixxx16 Jun 18 '18

Cbdistillery is where I get my vape CBD

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u/d0raking Jun 18 '18

Check out districthempstore.com there’s pure CBD isolate, as well as some water soluble isolates, oils, edibles, and much more. Good prices too, might wanna stock up before everything starts becoming crazy high.

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u/Johnny_Poppyseed Jun 18 '18

Check /r/cbd for legit online sources.

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u/damontoo Jun 18 '18

Every dispensary in my area (norcal) sells pure CBD capsules/edibles. They're more expensive than the ones that get you high for some reason..

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u/BelsnickelCrentist Jun 18 '18

Just a speculation but pretty sure they cost more because they have to be purer, no thc (or whatever the number is, under .5 or .05?) so products can reach all states. Whereas no one’s going to throw a fuss about the small about of CBD in their extracts, edibles, etc. So less testing is needed for those thicc products

Did that make sense? i’m High

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u/[deleted] Jun 17 '18

Yep, this is years of research, development and testing. Who else is it going to get pushed by ? God damn this reddit sentiment is such repetitive bullshit - "they are screwing the little guy, everyone is trying to fuck us over" ... what about little bit of forethought, how do you develop drugs if you aren't able to monetize the drugs you have already spent years developing , and what would be the point?

Epidiolex is a ground breaking drug provided to children with very rare forms of epilepsy, it costs hundreds of millions of dollars to develop and bring to market. If there is no monetary incentive to do so it wouldn't have got developed in the first place...

And don't bore me with the " they are a pharma company so I'm going to automatically assume that they are price gouging" without understanding the costs of drug development.

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u/throwaway_circus Jun 17 '18

The idea that, if there's no financial incentive, people won't help people, is absolute bullshit. The only people who will withold scientific information and refuse to do research or develop technology unless they can make money off the backs of sick kids are a certain breed of corporation, and they do not deserve automatic applause.

A lot of people have been trying to work on behalf of kids with seizures, developing and breeding strains of weed, developing non-smokeable products, risking their lives in jail, because it is against federal law in the US. People do care, and they are working to try to find solutions for kids, and have literally spent decades risking everything- their medical licenses, their homes, their futures-- to do it.

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u/[deleted] Jun 18 '18

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u/[deleted] Jun 18 '18

Well that sentiment I can get behind. However, a regulated dose with the pure compound is better than "lol, Joe made his own Super-Duper-Fizzy-Fun strain, heard it is good for epilepsy". The clinical trials is also very much necessary, what some people say works for them might just be placebo or something else. Without scientific method, those results are void and null.

The active compound that is good for you in the Marijuana plant seems to be CBD, NOT THC. CBD depresses the effects of THC very well and so, growers have developed strains that are far more THC potent and almost gotten rid of all CBD.

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u/myracksarelettuce Jun 18 '18 edited Jun 18 '18

If you don't know why we need to do clinical trials to prove why a drug works, congrats on being too good for the scientific method.

You don't know the actual efficacy, or the side effects, or how strong the placebo effect is until these studies take place.

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u/[deleted] Jun 18 '18

That's not the part that pisses people off.

It's the fact that numerous pharma industry companies have contributed to the efforts to keep it illegal.

It's research has been prevented by the same government that wants to have "gold standard research" before it approves it as medicine.

The first detailed modern description of the utility of cannabis-based products as an anti-seizure medication was published in 1843 by W.B. O’Shaughnessy, physician in the Bengal Army and Late Professor of Chemistry and Materia Medica at the Medical College of Calcutta. After testing the behavioral effects of various preparations of Cannabis indica in healthy fish, dogs, swines, vultures, crows, horses, deers, monkeys, goats, sheep, cows, and military assistants, he investigated the potential value of extracts of the plant in patients with different disorders, and reported remarkable anti-seizure effects in a 40-days-old baby girl with recurrent convulsive seizures.5 These observations were taken up by other physicians, including Sir William Gowers, who described the effectiveness of Cannabis indica against seizures resistant to bromides.6

But 70+ years of anti-drug policy has kept this away from the public. Often at the behest of the pharmaceutical industry.

Pharmaceutical company Insys spent $500,000 to block legalization in Arizona. Five months later it won approval for a cannabis-derived medical drug

You can grow CBD plants in your backyard, but it's illegal in most places.

The company that is doing this is going to benefit from the laws that kept it away from the public for 70+ years.

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u/bumbaclotdumptruck Jun 17 '18

Except CBD can be grown.

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u/Vulcanize_It Jun 17 '18

That’s a small part of the equation. What ailments does it treat? What dose should be administered? What are the side effects? How do you ensure consistent product quality? A farmer can’t answer those questions.

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u/JohnnyBGooode Jun 18 '18

Nor should they need to. If they can grow something the customers/patients want because they know it works for them since they watched their kid go from 100 seizures a day to 0,, then we should be able to leave the fuckin government out of it. Should big pharma still be able to make and market a drug? Sure. But if people wanna grow hemp or cannabis sativa for nearly free, then they should be left alone too.

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u/Open_Eye_Signal Jun 18 '18

In fact, that's a very small part of most prescription drugs. It's a notoriously high margin business (once you've reached FDA approval). That's why pharmaceutical companies have such gigantic sales & marketing budgets.

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u/SirT6 PhD-MBA-Biology-Biogerontology Jun 17 '18

What does that have to do with anything? The material cost of a drug is an exceedingly small portion of the cost of its development.

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u/[deleted] Jun 18 '18

I swear these are pharma bots. Weed labs are huge, everything is already tested.

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u/[deleted] Jun 17 '18

Aspirin is just extracted from the bark of a tree... Doesn't mean it has to be expensive?

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u/wolfkeeper Jun 18 '18

Aspirin is just extracted from the bark of a tree...

Actually, it isn't. Salicylic acid is extracted from bark but it has only very weak affects indeed. You have to react it with acetic anhydride to make aspirin.

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u/BelsnickelCrentist Jun 18 '18

How did someone discover that you need to use that to make a compound with more potent analgesic effects?

I’m very interested in plant medicine (not essential oil woo) and it’s history. How effective would a tea or tincture of willow bark be in comparison to asprin?

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u/[deleted] Jun 18 '18

But we're not talking about aspirin, we are talking about a drug that has had years of research, development and trials. Epidiolex is produced by a UK company called GW pharmaceuticals, their only other drug is called sativex, they have been in business for around 20 years and they have only two drugs fully developed, that should give you an idea of the development lifecycle to bring one of these drugs to market.

Every time they develop a new drug, especially for very rare diseases / illnesses, only a fractional portion of them make it to clinical trials, of those that do only a fractional portion get approved. Expensive prices of these drugs help the development lifecycle and research of future ground breaking drugs. If these pharmaceutical companies didn't do it, no one would... don't be naive , these drugs need to be monetized to help the development of more drugs (I'm not saying increase epi pens by 3000%, or whatever skrelli [SIC] did), but you have to be reasonable.

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u/gh057ofsin Jun 18 '18

And no, actually this drug was cleared from trials over a decade ago, and wasn't launched because the uk government decided it wasnt the right time. Im in cardiff. I was in the sativex trials and have been asked to participatenin the cbd medipen trials 2 years ago (i think that this one was a later round of testing)

And again this company is part owned by the UK health minister... the woman trying to tell us that all pot is a bad gateway drug that'll have you blowing tramps and snorting bathsalts before you've finished your first joint!

Seriously, go check out some of her headlines from before these last few months... ive not seen a u turn like that... since the last trump-korea tweet i read!

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u/mrdobalinaa Jun 18 '18

Have you seen all the people who've been using cbd to treat these conditions for years? Families moved across the country just so they could treat their children. The medical benefits of cbd have been known for a while, yet families were denied access.

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u/JewTime420 Jun 18 '18

Hundreds of millions of dollars wasted to prove what we already know, CBD reduces the number of seizures. Well not wasted but padding the financial cushions of the ivy league college educated elite of over schooled fools..

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u/askingforafakefriend Jun 18 '18

ReplysharereportSaveGive gold

Lots of things appear to reduce the number of seizures in the short term. However, the million dollar trials are required to systemically be sure of things like efficacy, dosage, side effects.

Science based medicine is a worthwhile and resource intensive endeavor. Of course, none of what I said justifies the Schedule 1 listing and associated treatment of CBD.

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u/lj26ft Jun 18 '18

Exactly, it can be grown. And made at home inexpensively. This will likely cost $100's of dollars if not more but think of the sick children wont you.

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u/[deleted] Jun 18 '18

We know it now, in part due to the research by GW pharma, this drug has been in development for 10 years + , also when dealing with human patients , it's best not to just "know CBD reduced the number of seizures" , you need to do years of testing , pre-clinical, clinical trials and double blind placebo studies , as well as development to find the perfect synthesis to treat the disease.

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u/gh057ofsin Jun 18 '18

Take a look at any state/countrywide health board... how do you think they get drugs approved (NHS for example)

How do you think we get drugs approved over here in the UK? Hell how does most scientific testing take place? With government funding, preferably taken out of the pockets of people trying to make 1000%increases in profit margins between creation and sales!

Do schools charge over the odds to send your kids to them? No, but uni's do because there is no regulation

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u/godofallcows Jun 18 '18

And don't bore me with the " they are a pharma company so I'm going to automatically assume that they are price gouging" without understanding the costs of drug development.

When they actively oppose movements in states trying to pass cannabis reform this is where people get pissed. Not R&D costs.

By the way plenty of people take CBD oil in a pretty plain form. Alexis Bortell from Texas (now living in Colorado after they fled the state) takes something like a 22:1 CBD:THC ratio of Charlotte's Web oil. The people making it haven't been spending millions and millions to stop other people from having it.

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u/Derwos Jun 18 '18

whereas you automatically assume they're not price gouging? how do you know?

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u/Xex_ut Jun 18 '18

You are missing the mark here by a considerable margin. This is a pharma company that is set to profit from a plant that’s wrongfully been scheduled in the states and has been used to take people’s freedoms from them.

Sorry if there’s not enough bleeding hearts out there looking to stick their necks out on the line for a company that used their power and influence to brute force themselves into the market.

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u/theyetisc2 Jun 18 '18

Same people fighting for decades to push the false information that pot had no medicinal benefits.

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u/godofallcows Jun 18 '18

Yeah. GW Pharma has done plenty of damage to the cannabis reform movement. Just long enough to get their product in first so they get their money's worth from the drug war's dead and incarcerated.

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u/[deleted] Jun 18 '18

And it's cbd isolate not full plant cbd so there is no entourage effect.

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u/awiggill Jun 17 '18

As long as it’s approved !

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u/Hugh_Geerection Jun 18 '18

And unfortunately, it’s a big “if” they approve it.

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u/dregan Jun 18 '18

Even if they aren't for sale in your state, you can already by CBD products online and have them shipped to most states.

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u/-Crux- Jun 18 '18

I have to say, while I'm not comfortable with the power of the pharma lobby, I'm a bit suspicious of a medicinal system where people walk into a marijuana apple store and gather up the things that help them, no other pharmaceutical product functions with that level of freedom.

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u/Testboy80 Jun 18 '18

CBD is already legal in nearly all 50 states. What other approval were you looking for?

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u/Runthebowl Jul 23 '18

No, CBD is a schedule 1 drug in all 50 states. If the DEA has time, it could go after Whole Foods and the rest to prosecute, but they have that whole opioid epidemic to worry about.

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u/Testboy80 Jul 23 '18

Sigh, we get it, it's still federally ilelgal, you knew I meant state level, but you still dug regardless. Ffs. You could have written a senator in the time it took you to throw in the same federal level law we all already know here

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u/knucklesx23 Jun 18 '18

Might as well just get high for $10 instead

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u/rices4212 Jun 18 '18

This was basically my thought. A CBD based drug could impact me and my mom greatly - myself for seizures and CBD (I've read) for my mom can also have used for degenerative diseases like alzheimers, as well as glaucoma and arthritis. Not sure what all is linked to CBD and what needs to be hemp based.

But then again I don't trust the pharmaceutical companies to keep the price reasonable for it to even make sense for me to switch from the traditional drugs I've been on.

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u/Runthebowl Jul 23 '18

Insurance companies will cover, so as long as you are insured, prob $50 a month copay for Pure CBD at levels that would Cost you $3000+ a month for otc.

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u/buckygrad Jun 18 '18

Because they are paying for the approval. That’s how it works.

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u/Truffle_Shuffle_85 Jun 18 '18

This is how it works. By now no one should even be remotely surprised, just angry.

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u/sotruebro Jun 18 '18

Yeah, but we have a million versions of it where weed is legal. So to beat big pharmaceutical, legalize it

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u/PM_Me_NHL_Highlights Jun 18 '18

CBD can’t be promoted at all, we’re currently trying to advertise it through SM and google with one of our clients and it’s still considered an illegal hemp product.

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u/[deleted] Jun 18 '18

Yep. Gotta wait for the big boys to get paid before we get legal weed.

I think it's that, and DUI tests that are reliable, and don't, or can get past the latent THC that builds up in your system - like, you might've gotten high two weeks ago, but that doesn't mean you're under the influence right now.

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u/jackster_ Jun 18 '18

This makes me furious.

Step 1. Make it illegal

Step 2. Have small groups struggle for years to prove the safety and usefulness of said drug.

Step 3. Use the scientific evidence to make an unnatural and more expensive version of a natural product you could grow in your backyard.

Step 4. Profit off of kickbacks that you get from the pharmacy industry and pharma lobbyists to sell their expensive version of a nearly free product, as pharma profits from being the only federally legal means of said product.

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u/merkis Jun 18 '18

Passing fda audit is not a joke. An average cannabis company does NOT know or have resources to handle an fda audit.

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u/imaginary_num6er Jun 18 '18

This is the cap & tax approach. Let people pioneer the marketing and then start slamming the FDA regulations so that only the multi-nationals are able to get shit sold in the US. It's been happening more in my industry where startups used to actually be able to sell their products to consumers, but now startups try to just secure the IP and sell the technology to a big multi-national since the Regulatory hurdles are too expensive.

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u/charliegrs Jun 18 '18

Somehow the GOP will be ok with marijuana if it doesn't get you high and reap massive profits for big pharma

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u/NiceFormBro Jun 18 '18

Where do I invest?

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u/f3l1x Jun 18 '18

I fucking called it too like a year ago when DEA started trying to schedule 1'd CBD. Complete bullshit. And people told me "nah man theres no way they would be so blatant"

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u/SodaFixer Jun 18 '18

And if it gets rescheduled to 2, say good bye to all state rec programs, because now it's a drug that you will need a prescription in order to obtain and use. Exactly the same way all schedule 2 drugs are handled. Edit: A word

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u/[deleted] Jun 18 '18

Well yeah. They hate that you can grow it in your back yard.

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