Big Pharma: 2+ lobbyists per lawmaker

This video is from CNN’s American Morning, broadcast Oct. 22, 2009.

60 Minutes’ Steve Kroft Reports On Drug Lobbyists’ Role in Passing Bill That Keeps Drug Prices High

If you have ever wondered why the cost of prescription drugs in the United States are the highest in the world or why it’s illegal to import cheaper drugs from Canada or Mexico, you need look no further than the pharmaceutical lobby and its influence in Washington, D.C.

According to a report by the Center for Public Integrity, congressmen are outnumbered two to one by lobbyists for an industry that spends roughly $100 million a year in campaign contributions and lobbying expenses to protect its profits.

One reason those profits have exceeded Wall Street expectations is the Medicare prescription drug bill. It was passed more than three-and-a-half years ago, but as 60 Minutes correspondent Steve Kroft reports, its effects are still reverberating through the halls of Congress, providing a window into how the lobby works.  (read more here.)

Drugmakers’ victories in Washington could keep health costs high, trade office warns

The pharmaceutical industry spent $110 million in just the first half of 2009 in its efforts to influence health care reform, part of a booming lobbying effort that now has 2.3 drug lobbyists on Capitol Hill for every member of Congress, a new investigative report reveals.

Writing in Time magazine, Karen Tumulty and Michael Scherer report that Big Pharma’s efforts to protect their interests in health care reform amounts to an expenditure of $609,000 per day, and “they’re getting a pretty good return on their investment,” Tumulty told CNN’s John King on Thursday.

“It’s not just the lobbyists,” Tumulty said. “The money goes into a lot of other things. It finances a lot of so-called research, expert reports, consultant reports. A lot of do-good organizations are springing up with names that sound like quite beneficial organizations, but you look at them and it turns out the whole thing is being run by drug companies.”

As evidence of drugmakers’ clout on the Hill, Tumulty pointed to a major victory for the group earlier this summer, when the House and Senate voted to extend patent protection of biotechnology drugs — biologics, as they are known — by an additional 12 years.

The move to grant them extra protection from generic drug makers was opposed by the Federal Trade Commission, which argued that extending patent protection could stifle innovation and keep drug costs high.

“These bio-tech drugs — they’re miracle drugs — are probably going to be something like half of all new drugs being approved,” Tumulty said. “And the big fight right now is whether there will ever be a generic equivalent for these drugs that cost $20,000, $40,000 or even $200,000 per year to administer.”

Tumulty noted that it’s practically impossible to trace all the money being spent in Washington to influence health care reform, because “it’s going not only into the campaign coffers of elected officials and salaries of lobbyists, but also into organizations that are essentially front groups for these interests, and into scientific-sounding consultant reports.”

Tumulty warned that the American public could be the “losers” in all of this.

“On some of these key questions you’ve got to say the lobbyists are getting pretty much everything they’re asking for,” she told CNN’s John Roberts. “And considering how important it is to bring down health care costs in the long run, I think the rest of us are the losers.”

(Source: Raw Story)

See Also:  Bloomberg.com Six Lobbyists Per Lawmaker Work on Health Overhaul (Update2)

Two Paths Emerge For Full Legalization Of Marijuana In California

As supporters of a proposed ballot initiative to fully legalize pot  turned in their signatures this week, a spokesman for San Francisco’s Tom Ammiano said the assemblyman would also reintroduce his own decriminalization bill in the state legislature. “We are planning on reintroducing the bill in early- or mid-February,” Ammiano’s spokesman, Quintin Mecke, told the Weekly.

The bill would fly in the face of federal law by removing pot from a list of controlled substances and regulating it like alcohol, with with the over-21 crowd being able to buy it, grow it and have it.

Ammiano’s bill would tax pot to the tune of $50 an ounce, an amount the state Board of Equalization estimates could bring the state a much-needed $1.3 billion a year in revenues.

While the state initiative would allow local governments to decide whether or not to outlaw or control sales (like states with “wet and dry” alcohol counties), Ammiano’s bill would establish a state regulatory body to license growers, wholesalers and retailers.

“Marijuana purists are concerned that the ballot initiative may not go far enough in fully legalizing marijuana,” Drug Policy Alliance spokesman Stephen Gutwillig told the Weekly. “It was drafted to appeal to as many voters as possible. We endorse both of them. The decriminalization of marijuana for adults is the most important thing.”

Ammiano’s original bill died in a committee as time ran out on last year’s legislative session.

(Source: Dennis Romero LAWeekly)

Mexican Cartels Join DEA in Opposition of U.S. State Marijuana Laws

The DEA and other federal agencies want to incarcerate people and overly regulate this simple herb and you know who is on their team? That’s right, the Mexican drug cartels.

Source: Tim King Salem-News.com This nation is heading for a showdown with the Drug Enforcement Agency, a government arm nearing rogue status. They have been running awry of state laws in order to keep the pharmaceutical and insurance industries intact. The DEA is an enemy of the emerging data that keeps painting marijuana an even richer tone of green, and their interests a sootier shade of black.

They are the last vestiges of the Bush Administration’s whacked out interpretation of how things should be. I don’t know about you but I’m tired of the feds shoveling sh*t over the vibrant people of America.

The moral compasses of these so-called cops is soaring somewhere over the Bermuda Triangle. The centerpoints of the new campaign are both LA and San Diego Counties, where the will of the people is utterly devalued.

Marijuana never should have been criminalized and only a blind, closed minded society would seek to keep it that way. Clearly, it is not the will of the people that is at stake, but the profits of the above mentioned industries.

The feds want to lock up your sons and daughters, parents and grandparents, because of a plant that grows naturally in the ground. Pot laws are a farce and a case of extremely willful prejudice. Laws against marijuana are rooted in bigotry toward Mexicans and African-Americans.

Jack Herer, author of “The Emperor Wears No Clothes”, wrote the book of all books on this subject. He exposed the process used to vilify and then criminalize this herb which helps Americans by the millions.

The DEA and other federal agencies want to incarcerate people and overly regulate this simple herb and you know who is on their team? That’s right, the Mexican drug cartels. They are the DEA’s friends.

Only a complete simpleton misses the connection.

Keeping marijuana illegal and non-commercial only helps big pharma, insurance, DEA job security, and these cold blooded drug dealing killers south of the border. The United States is economically strapped and the DEA wants to keep it that way.

In my view that makes them a danger to our very existence. The agency should be disbanded, they had their chance and they have miserably failed. In their heyday they added to the problem of “drugs in America” through their complicity with the Ronald Reagan/Ollie North era guns for drugs programs operated by the DEA’s sister agency, the CIA.

Our writers Dr. Phil Leveque and Allan Erickson have written about this at length, along with Norm Stamper, former Seattle Police Chief, who is an active proponent and member of the forward thinking group called LEAP, Law Enforcement Against Prohibition.

Americans have been had and now the DEA wants to rub salt in our wounds by proving that they don’t have to follow state laws; as if they are somehow above it, as if somehow there is no United States at all.

People of the older generations might as well get it through their heads that practically everyone today either has or does use marijuana. Again, as Dr. Leveque has written hundreds of times over the years on these pages, marijuana has never caused a single death. It is an appropriate alternative to alcohol, which kills a person’s liver.

Almost every single negative thing you have ever been taught in school, or told by a police officer about marijuana, is probably not true.

Conservative Judge Says Legalize Drugs

Retired California Superior Court Judge James Gray says we can hurt gangs and cartels by legalizing and regulating all drugs after spending years locking people up in the “war on drugs.” Judge Gray is now a member of Law Enforcement Against Prohibition (LEAP), which any citizen can join.

The Government conspiracy to prevent medical marijuana research

(Source: Stop the Drug War)  It’s impossible to rank in order of severity the numerous lies that have long formed the foundation of the federal government’s position on medical marijuana. But one of the most calculated and audacious deceptions deployed in this debate is certainly the manufactured myth that insufficient evidence exists to demonstrate the drug’s medical efficacy.

That’s why this NYT article should be required reading for anyone in the habit of expressing opinions on the scientific merits of medical marijuana.

“Marijuana is the only major drug for which the federal government controls the only legal research supply and for which the government requires a special scientific review.
…
But federal officials have repeatedly failed to act on marijuana research requests in a timely manner or have denied them, according to a 2007 ruling by an administrative law judge at the Drug Enforcement Administration.”

What an impressively cynical and corrupt political strategy it is to literally block research while simultaneously citing the absence of said research as an excuse for prohibition. The whole situation is so maliciously dishonest that it’s disturbing to think how many government agencies were complicit in manufacturing it.

Meanwhile, medical marijuana’s enemies condemn state-level reforms by reflexively insisting that the ballot box is not the place to formulate health policy. Our response is pretty straightforward:

“The more it becomes clear to people that the federal government is blocking these studies, the more people are willing to defect by using politics instead of science to legalize medicinal uses at the state level,” said Rick Doblin, executive director of a nonprofit group dedicated to researching psychedelics for medical uses.

We did what we had to do, and it reflects well on the American public that this issue has been so well understood despite a massive federal conspiracy to make it confusing.

Medical Marijuana frees people from addiction to deadly painkillers

(Source: The Huffington Post 1.30.10)  On Wednesday, dozens of former addicts made the tough decision to share their stories publicly, doing so before news cameras and a standing-room only crowd. The admissions were not without irony. It was, after all, a federally prohibited drug, according to the patients who spoke, that freed them from their addictions to far more lethal–though legal–prescription narcotics.

Under the Colorado Capitol’s golden dome, dozens of patients gathered for a state Senate committee hearing, eager to give their two cents on the controversy at hand: How to regulate the doctor-patient relationship when it comes to physicians making medical marijuana recommendations.

After hearing testimony, committee members voted as most anticipated they would, injecting significant and potentially unconstitutional government mandates into doctor-patient relationships previously viewed as sacred to many of the state’s sick and dying. Only conservative Republican Shawn Mitchell of Broomfield voted against the bill, understanding that although he may have concerns with medical marijuana’s inclusion in our state constitution, lawmakers are sworn to uphold that constitution, even those portions with which they disagree.

The legislative action sadly reflects an overly emotional response to salacious headlines chronicling the alleged abuses by just a handful of the nearly 1,000 doctors who have issued medical marijuana recommendations. Their offense: they let greed trump patient health, and now stand accused of being far too flippant in making medical marijuana recommendations.

Troubling, yes. But as patient after patient testified Tuesday, any possible abuses of the state’s medical marijuana registry (now host to more than 20,000 patients) should be analyzed under a larger public health care perspective. As they told lawmakers, some through tears, medical marijuana has freed them from the agony of addiction resulting not from marijuana, but rather from the dangerous narcotic pain medications they had previously resorted to in an effort to curb their chronic and often progressive symptoms.

The message was clear: Marijuana use–which has put millions of Americans behind bars over the last seven decades–is now freeing Colorado’s sick and dying from their addictions to xycontin, vicodin, morphine, and a multitude of other prescription drugs incredibly dangerous, addictive, and destructive when taken over long periods of time.

Legislators should listen.

In Colorado, prescription drug overdoses are now the leading killer in our state. As we’ve written previously for this site, such drugs now kill more Coloradans than car accidents every year. Meanwhile, marijuana has never been independently linked to an overdose death. Not a single one.

Tuesday’s testimony was compelling, with its honesty and humility too real to be some paid construction of the lobbyists who sprinkled the crowd. Lawmakers heard from a former college football star now in his 60′s, a man who now suffers the excruciating effects of decades-old injuries and the surgeries that failed to make him whole. Without medical marijuana, he testified, he’d have no other option than to pop prescription pain pills by the handful. Another wheelchair-confined patient also spoke of how medical marijuana has freed him of his own long-term prescription addiction. His voice wavered as he talked tenderly of his late wife, who died seven years ago from liver failure resulting from overdosing on Tylenol PM.

Bill sponsor, Chris Romer, a well intentioned Denver Democrat, proudly proclaimed that “this is the beginning of the end of the wild west,” his bill could usher in a whole new set of problems. On Wednesday, he showed a growing willingness to accept amendments that removed some of the bill’s most controversial provisions. Still, while it’s true that Colorado’s medical marijuana industry has thus far outpaced efforts to usher in its regulation, his bill still raises issues that could result in unintended consequences extending far beyond the relationships between medical marijuana patients and their doctors.

Ultimately, one of the bill’s most troubling mandates is also its most ironic. The language would prohibit any doctor who has ever had his or her Drug Enforcement Agency Schedule I prescribing license suspended–even for a day or even 30 years ago–from making medical marijuana recommendations to Colorado patients. Meanwhile, while the bill relies on this federal DEA standard to define professional competence, it then ignores the fact under the DEA’s own rules, doctors who recommend medical marijuana are subjected to having this same Schedule I license yanked.

The bill also subjects doctors making medical marijuana recommendations to a new system that could very quickly result in a two-tiered witch hunt, empowering not only the Board of Medical Examiners to revoke a physician’s medical license in its entirety for medical marijuana-related offenses, but also granting the state Health Department the ability to revoke any physician’s right to advise patients on medical marijuana. Doctors, already looking over their shoulder when making recommendations, will now have even more to fear.

For many indigent patients in the room Wednesday, cost was the biggest issue on their minds.

One disabled veteran testified that the new changes could make getting his medical marijuana recommendation prohibitively expensive. Under current federal Veteran’s Administration policy, doctors are prevented from recommending medical marijuana entirely. As the vet noted, his only source of medical care comes from the VA, meaning he’d have to go elsewhere. A doctor recommendation and follow up care could now cost him hundreds of dollars annually due to one bill provision that prohibits dispensaries from reimbursing doctors for making recommendations.

In absence of financial assistance for such required examinations, the vet would be forced to explore one of two options, neither desirable. He could either obtain his medical marijuana from the black market where physician recommendations are not required, or he could return to prescription narcotics to treat his horrific symptoms.

For years, legislators have turned a blind eye as doctors have too freely prescribed narcotic painkillers without adequately assessing patient necessity, or in many cases, without even speaking with a patient in-person before writing a prescription.

But this was only a passing thought Wednesday to too many of the bill’s supporters. Law enforcement officials claimed that lawmakers have a duty to prevent illegitimate abuses of medical marijuana. Even if this obligation is presumed true, however, fighting medical marijuana abuse should be far down the public policy priority list from addressing the scourge of other, far more harmful drugs, including prescription pain killers and alcohol. A proper regulatory scheme would acknowledge the real issues facing patients and caregivers today, including the lack of assurances of medicinal quality and consistency some face when selecting medicine. (Click here to see our analysis of SB 109, including our support for several of the bill’s provisions, and suggestions concerning others).

As Senate Bill 109 now prepares to make its journey through the Capitol, we hope legislators will resist rubberstamping Tuesday’s emotional response to a perceived problem. While it’s true that a handful of the nearly 1,000 doctors who have made medical marijuana recommendations thus far are accused of abusing the process, this legislation would remove time-tested protections to the doctor-patient relationship that would not only hurt patients, but could also begin the erosion of confidentiality between a far larger population of sick people and their doctors.

For centuries, doctors have committed to uphold the Hippocratic oath, pledging to “first, do no harm.” In the aftermath of Tuesday’s committee bill passage, lawmakers should consider taking their own oath.

Listen. Get the facts. Then make the prescription. Don’t let emotion cloud the truths revealed through the testimony of Colorado’s real experts–the patients and doctors themselves–who have resoundingly demonstrated that medical marijuana is one of the greatest tools we have in the essential fight against prescription drug addiction.

Jessica Corry is a Denver land use attorney and Robert J. Corry, Jr., is a Denver medical marijuana attorney. Together, the Corrys represents several medical marijuana caregivers and patients.

Medical marijuana lab raided by DEA

Full Spectrum Laboratories received some uninvited visitors yesterday.

(Source 1.28.10)  Yesterday, Betty Aldworth, director of outreach for Full Spectrum Laboratories, a marijuana testing facility, was at the State Capitol to watch lab co-owner Bob Winniki testify about Senator Chris Romer’s just-introduced bill dealing with the relationship between doctors and medical marijuana patients.

But before Winniki could speak, the twosome received an e-mail letting them know members of the Drug Enforcement Administration had stopped by the lab. And by the time they got back to the facility, Aldworth says, “it was full of DEA agents” and other local law-enforcement types, who spent the next several hours seizing all the marijuana testing samples they could find.

In October, the Obama administration issued a memo confirming that its Justice Department wouldn’t actively pursue prosecution of medical marijuana businesses in states that had legalized the process. As such, Full Spectrum should have been in the clear — but in an attempt to preclude any problems, the lab formally applied for analytical lab licensure through the DEA.

“We didn’t need to do that, but we thought it was the right thing to do,” Aldworth says. “We’ve worked really hard to make sure that everything we’re doing is above board. We’ve tried to get the best advice from the smartest people about all parts of our business, and we’re trying to follow their advice as well as we can. And we’re trying to be engaged in the community. That’s the reason we were at the Capitol. We think it’s important that people know what we’re doing and why we’re doing it.”

Such transparency didn’t help with the DEA. During the agents’ first visit, they “smelled marijuana, which prompted them to request a warrant,” Aldworth says. The document eventually arrived, but Aldworth and company had already given the agents permission to search the premises, under the theory that they had nothing to hide.

Nonetheless, she continues, “they confiscated all of the material on site — even test tubes filled with extraction fluid that we run on our machines.”

Fortunately, Aldworth says, all of the samples sent to the lab had already been tested; it would have eventually been discarded. And agents didn’t seize the equipment, which Full Spectrum leases. However, plant material used to set baseline standards for testing, provided to the lab by assorted dispensaries, was taken as well.

Aldworth, who declines to speculate about the timing of the raid, says the agents were “incredibly professional” during the hours-long process “considering what an awful experience it was.” But they weren’t immediately forthcoming with information about what was going on. It took some time before Full Spectrum personnel were told that they wouldn’t be arrested or charged with a crime.

What happens next? Aldworth isn’t sure as it applies to the DEA. But as for Full Spectrum, “we’re not shutting down,” she emphasizes. “We are as determined as we were at the beginning of the day yesterday to keep providing this service to Coloradans who need it. We’re not going anywhere. We’re still going to be here.”

Nebraska bill would require drug tests for welfare recipients

(Source: Omaha Reader)  If you receive direct cash or medical benefits from the state, you shouldn’t be using illegal drugs. The premise seems simple enough, but a bill in the Nebraska Legislature seeking to enforce it faces a history of lawsuits and failed attempts in other states. The bill is also raising concerns for medical marijuana patients and advocates, who say their form of self-medication is cheaper and more effective than prescription drugs.

Introduced by Sen. Charlie Janssen of Fremont, the bill seeks mandatory drug tests for welfare recipients. If individuals were caught using illegal substances, they would be ineligible for welfare cash payouts, food stamps, and similar state assistance for up to one year. Janssen says drug testing would help ensure that welfare recipients are on the road to finding employment and getting off of state assistance.

“We want to offer a hand up, not a handout,” Janssen said. “Nebraska taxpayers’ hard-earned dollars should be used to help people in need, but we need to make sure they are able to get a job as soon as possible. This bill helps to ensure that.”

Ten years ago, Beth (who asked to remain anonymous) fell from a 100-foot cliff. She suffered a severe spinal injury that left her paralyzed from the waist down. She said she uses marijuana to control muscle spasms that tend to occur in those who suffer from partial paralysis. She said the spasms were bad enough to throw her from a chair. Beth said she has tried dozens of pharmaceuticals, but most left her feeling sick and none were as effective as marijuana.

Beth also receives food stamps and state living assistance, making Janssen’s bill particularly worrisome for her.

“I don’t want to do anything illegal, but so far (marijuana) is the only thing that seems to work for me,” she said. “If I were caught with pot, I would lose both my apartment and my state assistance. In my situation, that would be basically the same as killing me.”

Janssen said consumption of illegal substances by state aid recipients is a waste of taxpayer dollars and would bar them from employment if they were caught. Many Omaha businesses require new employees to pass a drug-screening test before their employment is official.

Janssen acknowledged some significant challenges with bill. The program would be costly; the state would likely have to pay for a pilot program before the bill took effect. This would be a tough sell following the emergency budget-cutting session in November. With anticipated pay and hiring freezes for state employees this year, senators will likely steer clear of many high-ticket items.

There may also be significant legal hurdles. Similar programs have been tried in other states, only to be struck down by the courts. In 2003, the ACLU sued and successfully halted random drug testing of welfare recipients in Michigan. Of the 268 people who were successfully tested in Michigan prior to the programs demise, just 21 were found to have consumed anything illegal; and of those 21, 18 were found to have consumed only marijuana.

While still considered a Schedule 1 narcotic by the U.S. government, several states have passed medical marijuana laws. Colorado has allowed medical marijuana since 2000 and the Iowa Board of Pharmacy recently held a statewide fact finding tour on the pros and cons of allowing its regulated use.

While legalizing the use of marijuana appears to have little legislative support, some Nebraskans are concerned that LB 940 would jeopardize the welfare of individuals who consume marijuana for medicinal purposes.

Attorney Ralph Smith, of Louisville, Neb., represents individuals caught using marijuana, but who claim to be using it for medical reasons. He told The Reader the bill was “outrageous and unfair to some of our citizens who desperately need cannabis, as well as those who are unaware of its potential benefits.”

Janssen said anything prescribed for an individual would not count against them if discovered in a drug test.

(Note: the only drugs that can be prescribed for an individual in Nebraska are pharmaceuticals. As California comes closer to legalization, the conservative states are sticking it to the cannabis users. In addition to introducing this bill, Janssen recently tripled the fine for possession of small amounts of cannabis from $100 to $300.)

Marijuana legalization backers hand in initiative petitions

(Source – LA Now Jan 28)  Supporters of legalized marijuana announced today that they have gathered about 700,000 signatures for their initiative, virtually guaranteeing voters will see it on the November ballot.

They plan to turn in the petitions today to elections officials in some of the state’s major counties, including Los Angeles. Supporters need 433,971 valid signatures to qualify the measure.

The measure’s main proponent, Richard Lee, a highly successful Oakland marijuana entrepreneur, bankrolled a professional signature-gathering effort that was bolstered by volunteers from the state’s hundreds of medical marijuana dispensaries.

“This is a historic first step toward ending cannabis prohibition,” Lee said. “I’ve always believed that cannabis should be taxed and regulated and that our current laws aren’t working.”

The initiative, known as the Regulate, Control and Tax Cannabis Act, would make it legal for anyone 21 and older to possess an ounce of marijuana and grow plants in an area no larger than 25 square feet for personal use. It would also allow cities and counties to permit marijuana to be grown and sold, and to impose taxes on marijuana production and sales.

Four marijuana legalization initiatives have been proposed, but Lee’s is the only one that appears to have the financial support to make the ballot.

Lee’s firm, one of the state’s most successful marijuana businesses, has spent more than $1 million on the measure and hired professional consultants to run the campaign. Lee owns half a dozen mostly pot-related businesses in Oakland, including Coffeeshop Blue Sky, a medical marijuana dispensary, and Oaksterdam University, which offers classes on marijuana.

Polls have shown growing support nationwide for legalization. In California, a majority favors it. A Field Poll taken last April found that 56% of voters in the state and 60% in Los Angeles County want to make pot legal and tax it. That margin, though, is not enough to assure victory.

The political climate has turned conservative in this non-presidential election year. Some prominent marijuana legalization advocates have questioned whether 2010 was the right year to test whether Californians would again break new ground on drug legalization, as they did in 1996 when they approved marijuana for medical use.

If passed, the initiative would put the state in conflict with federal law. The Obama administration last year announced it would not prosecute medical marijuana dispensaries that adhere to California’s laws, but it has adamantly opposed efforts to legalize marijuana for recreational use.

– John Hoeffel

Photo: Howard Dillon, left, unloads boxes of signatures outside the county registrar’s office in Norwalk. At right is retired Judge James P. Gray. Dillon delivered 17 boxes holding 143,105 signatures for the marijuana legalization initiative. The boxes were brought inside to be counted. Credit: Francine Orr / Los Angeles Times

It’s lack of balance that makes skunk cannabis do harm

Two molecules could be better than one (Image: Fotex/Rex Features)

(Source)  The effects of cannabis on mental health have attracted much attention over the years. As far back as the 19th century it was recognised that cannabis could induce a transient psychosis which mimics the symptoms of schizophrenia. Despite this, until the last decade or so, most psychiatrists regarded cannabis as essentially benign.

This, however, is at odds with recent research which concludes that in a susceptible minority, cannabis use can push the brain towards long-term psychosis requiring mental health treatment. Susceptible young people who use cannabis increase their risk of developing a chronic psychotic disorder such as schizophrenia, and the more cannabis they consume, the higher the risk.

Additionally, people with schizophrenia who have a history of cannabis use tend to go through their first breakdown up to five years earlier in life than those who do not use the drug. Psychotic patients who fail to give up cannabis experience more symptoms, more relapses and end up in hospital more often.

These discoveries about the link between cannabis and psychosis have been widely reported in the media, often accompanied by warnings that street cannabis has risen in strength in recent years and therefore poses a major health risk to the susceptible minority.

This, however, is too simplistic: the type of cannabis taken is an important factor. Street cannabis has indeed changed over the years. So-called “skunk” does contain higher than normal concentrations of the main psychoactive compound, a molecule called delta-9-tetrahydrocannabinol (THC). What is less well known is that another constituent, cannabidiol (CBD), has been eliminated from skunk through selective breeding to increase the THC content.

The elimination of CBD may play a key role in the development of psychosis. Laboratory studies have shown that pure, synthetic THC causes transient psychosis in 40 to 50 per cent of healthy people. In stark contrast to THC, CBD appears to have an anti-psychotic effect, at least in animals. Studies in humans, though few in number, have produced similar findings.

The elimination of cannabidiol from skunk may play a key role in the development of psychosis

In one human study, published in Neuropsychopharmacology (DOI: 10.1038/npp.2009.184), Sagnik Bhattacharya and colleagues at the Institute of Psychiatry in London used functional MRI brain scanning to study the effects of THC and CBD on the brains of healthy volunteers. They found that THC and CBD acted in opposition; in brain regions where THC increased neural activity from a baseline, CBD decreased it, and vice-versa.

In a further experiment, a group including one of us (Morrison), in collaboration with the Beckley Foundation, compared the effects of a mixture of synthetic THC and CBD, (to mimic traditional cannabis) with THC on its own (to mimic skunk). The aim was to find out if CBD offered protection against the psychotic effects of THC.

Healthy volunteers were given the molecules intravenously for two sessions. They received the same amount of THC during each session; the only difference was whether they received CBD as well. Thirty minutes after injection a consultant psychiatrist interviewed the volunteers and rated their experiences. Overall, volunteers were rated as being significantly less psychotic after being given THC and CBD compared to THC on its own. The implication is that the presence of CBD in cannabis counteracts THC’s tendency to trigger transient psychosis.

Another study from the Institute of Psychiatry by Marta DiForti and colleagues reached similar conclusions for chronic psychosis. They compared the cannabis habits of 280 newly diagnosed psychotic patients with those of 174 healthy volunteers who were matched for age, sex, educational attainment and socio-economic status. Both groups were equally likely to have tried cannabis, but, strikingly, psychotic patients were seven times more likely to have been skunk users. So in real life, as well as in the lab, THC unopposed by CBD appears to be particularly hazardous for mental health (British Journal of Psychiatry, vol 195, p 488).

This research has important implications for both street and medical marijuana. On the medical side, the question is whether CBD will be a useful antipsychotic in its own right.

To help find out, the Beckley Foundation is setting up a research project in collaboration with University College London and a leading medical marijuana dispensary in California which supplies over 30,000 patients. The study will analyse different strains of cannabis for their THC and CBD content. Patients will be asked which strains they find most effective, how they compare with conventional drugs, and to rate other effects, both beneficial and negative.

As for street cannabis, the Beckley Foundation hopes that this research will be used to make it safer. Skunk, with a typical THC content of 15 to 19 per cent and a CBD content of zero, has come to dominate the street market. Ironically, many consider skunk’s market dominance to be a consequence of prohibition, as illegal drug markets have always tended towards higher potencies.

The Beckley Foundation sees this as yet another argument for regulating the recreational cannabis market. Only in a regulated market can the knowledge from this research be used to create strains which are less hazardous for users.

The evidence supports the idea that nature knows best, and that the reintroduction of CBD would be beneficial. Two molecules are better than one.

Amanda Feilding is director of the www.beckleyfoundation.org Beckley Foundation, a charitable trust based in Oxford, UK, that promotes the investigation of consciousness and its modulation.

Paul Morrison is at the Institute of Psychiatry in London