Those who want the potential to advance society with a marriage of cannabis & pharmaceutical research await the future U.S. announcement of full legalization.

Human clinical studies must be started with this botanical to provide viable alternatives to the current state of stagnant medication innovation.

Currently 90% of the prescription medications in the U.S. are generic. Reason being, higher costs of drug research has been lionized by the focus on making more and more profit. In addition, costs of getting FDA approval for a new drug is astronomical.  Most potential new drugs up for approval don’t make the cut therefore bringing up the expenses even more for the few that become new medications.

During pharmacy school, I never heard of the endocannabinoid system. This system takes mainly fatty nutrients from our foods and makes them into modulators that monitor our entire body. The plant has chemistry similar to our bodies in making what we require to live a quality life. Animals also have similar systems as humans.

What is a modulator? Think of a traffic light. It functions to signify STOP with a red color, CAUTION with a yellow image and GO with green. Now let’s imagine we can design what I would call a “Smart Traffic Light.” Waiting at a red light, the light is programmed to see no traffic going the opposite direction; it will then change your red to a green light before the timing mechanism kicks in to finally turn it green.

The endocannabinoid system does the same thing. If there is too much excitation in a certain area, it dampens that excitation. If there is not enough excitation, it increases activity to that area. It modulates electrical and chemical signals throughout the body.

We can explore with valuable human clinical studies the potential in the benefits of cannabis for treating epileptics (too much brain excitation), inflammation (excess of inflammatory excitation produced in the body), pre-cancer (cells that have to be taken down by security system know as immunity which certain cannabis strains with deprogram by apoptosis (cell suicide)), etc.

Throughout my pharmaceutical career, I have been fascinated by how medicinal chemistry has progressed so far in the last 100 years. The cannabis category will help to re-energize our field and bring new innovative products to market approval as a new therapy or even as an adjunct to an older treatment regime.

Play your part to make this happen. It will kick start even more excitement into your life and pharmaceutical career. And it will positively influence society in a way never experienced in the past, because of the influence of our advancing chemical technological skills.

Let’s DO IT!!!

Thank you.

Categories: cannabis, Health

Tags: cannabis, endocannabinoid, marijuana, mary jane, pot