Final Statement (Maarten)

Het gebruik van drugs is duizenden jaren oud, echter is vandaag de dag de wetgeving zeer streng en verschillend van land tot land. Voor het aanvangen van deze blog vond ik dat het gebruik van drugs in de medische wereld zeker moest kunnen, maar ik stelde mij toch een heel aantal vragen over de praktische toepassing ervan.

Een van de meest gekende drugs is ongetwijfeld marijuana dat, buiten zijn populaire recreationeel gebruik, in tal van medische toepassingen kan gebruikt worden. Indien men marijuana in medische toepassingen gebruikt spreekt men van medische marijuana. Voor medische toepassingen moet het gehalte aan THC (de actieve stof in cannabis) getest worden en mag het slechts in een bepaalde concentratie aanwezig zijn. De wetgeving rond marijuana is behoorlijk ingewikkeld en verschilt van land tot land. Zo mogen volwassenen in België niet meer dan 3 gram bezitten op plaatsen waar dit niet tot overlast kan zorgen voor de directe omgeving. In Nederland is de wet dan weer soepeler en mag een volwassene niet meer dan 5 gram bezitten en mag men cannabis gebruiken in speciale coffeeshops. In groot contrast staat dan weer het Verenigd Koninkrijk en Duitsland waar elk bezit verboden is. Tenslotte is er de wetgeving in Amerika die verschilt van staat tot staat en waar er al dan niet een onderscheidt gemaakt wordt tussen medische marijuana en het recreationeel gebruik van marijuana. Ik denk dat men beter kan overgaan tot een algemene wet over de hele wereld voor het gebruik van medische marijuana. Zo kan elke persoon met een bepaalde aandoening beroep doen op de vele voordelen van marijuana en kan elk land afzonderlijk nog altijd zijn eigen wetten voorschrijven voor het bezitten en gebruiken  van marijuana om recreationele doeleinden.

Dat het gebruik van marijuana om medische doeleinden positieve effecten heeft staat als een paal boven water. De actieve stof van deze drug is zoals reeds eerder gezegd THC waardoor deze drug een sedatieve, pijnverlichtende en anti-emetische werking heeft. Er zijn meer dan 200 medische aandoeningen die positief reageren op het gebruik van marijuana waaronder MS, artritis, kanker en glaucoom. De vraag blijft waarom medische marijuana nog steeds niet legaal is ondanks al deze voordelen. Zo zijn sigaretten en alcohol wel legaal en veel schadelijker dan marijuana. Ik blijf het raar vinden dat er studies werden gepubliceerd die schadelijke effecten van marijuana aantoonden op basis van verkeerd geïnterpreteerde resultaten. Zo werden apen blootgesteld aan veel te hoge dosissen cannabis en zag men de afsterving van hersencellen. Echter, dit was niet de oorzaak van de hoge dosis marijuana maar gewoon het  rechtstreekse gevolg van een gebrek aan zuurstof. Er bestaat ook een geneesmiddel Marinol, dit is een geneesmiddel in de vorm van tabletten die THC bevatten maar waarvan de resultaten veel minder goed zijn dan het roken van medische marijuana. De vraag blijft dus waarom men een geneesmiddel met THC mag nemen, men ook mag roken, maar het gebruik van medische marijuana in vele landen verboden blijft.            

Men mag zich uiteraard niet blind staren op de vele voordelen van medische marijuana om deze drug te legaliseren want er zijn natuurlijk ook nadelen waarmee men zeker rekening moet houden. Een van de nadelen die ontstaan door het legaliseren van deze medische marijuana zag men in Californië. Hier stelde men een verschuiving in de criminaliteit vast, doordat er naast de illegale praktijken rond recreationele marijuana er nu ook documenten werden vervalst om illegaal medische marijuana te kunnen bemachtigen. Men mag ook niet vergeten te denken aan de kinderen van patiënten die in aanmerking komen voor het gebruik van medische marijuana. Ik denk dat men best strenge controles kan voorzien in dergelijke gezinnen waardoor men er zeker van kan zijn dat kinderen niet in aanraking kunnen komen met de drug, net zoals dat reeds het geval is voor andere medicijnen. Tenslotte moet er ook een streng controle systeem ingebouwd worden voor de productie en distributie zoals dit reeds het geval is bij zware medicatie. Een waterdicht systeem is natuurlijk praktisch haast onmogelijk, maar men kan toch tal van controles doen om misbruik tegen te gaan. Zo denk ik dat men de productie en distributie het beste kan toevertrouwen aan de farmaceutische industrie om persoonlijk misbruik en winstbejag te vermijden.

Het feit dat er nu ook synthetische cannabis bestaat verwonderde mij het meest. Bij synthetische cannabis is niet THC het actieve bestanddeel maar is het een chemische formule met dezelfde effecten als THC. Het gevaar bij deze synthetische cannabis is dat er zeer sterke varianten bestaan waardoor er zelfs bij eenzelfde dosering als normale cannabis dodelijke slachtoffers kunnen vallen wat bij normale cannabis onmogelijk is. Ik vind het dan ook maar meer dan normaal dat men deze synthetische cannabis zo snel mogelijk moet verbieden maar dat is niet zo gemakkelijk als het lijkt. In België kan men enkel een bepaalde chemische samenstelling verbieden, maar hier hebben de criminelen die synthetische cannabis produceren al lang een oplossing voor. Door enkel een kleine wijziging in de chemische formule aan te brengen waardoor de werking bijna helemaal gelijkaardig blijft is de wet niet meer van toepassing op die bepaalde variant. Met andere woorden blijven de criminelen zo het gerecht altijd een stapje voor. Het lijkt mij dan ook veel beter om een bepaald recept of een groep van chemische moleculen te verbieden waardoor deze synthetische cannabis niet meer legaal verkocht kan worden.

Ten slotte had ik op onze blog ook een post geplaatst over het gebruik van hard drugs in de medische wereld. Ik denk dat dit onderwerp nog veel gevoeliger ligt dan het gebruik van medische marijuana. Natuurlijk zijn er medische toepassingen van hard drugs die al meer dan duizend jaar gekend zijn. Zo werd ondermeer cocaïne gebruikt om tandpijn en reuma te verlichten of werd LSD gebruikt voor het behandelen van depressies. Er zijn dus zeker voordelen maar wegen deze wel hard genoeg op tegen de nadelen? Persoonlijk denk ik dat het onmogelijk is om deze hard drugs te kunnen legaliseren in medische toepassingen. Hoe kan bijvoorbeeld een moeder die lijdt aan een depressie LSD gebruiken in de nabijheid van haar kind als er andere geneesmiddelen bestaan met veel minder neveneffect?  

Ik vind dat men dus duidelijk niet elke drug over dezelfde kam kan scheren, en spijtig genoeg zijn er veel mensen die eerder ‘zwart of wit’ denken. Op onze blog hadden we namelijk een poll georganiseerd met de vraag of drugs gelegaliseerd moeten worden voor medische toepassingen. Van de 305 stemmen stemde maar liefst 68,5% ja en 11% nee, de andere 18% antwoordde misschien of geen mening. Ik denk dat er op de vraag van onze blog geen ja of nee bestaat maar dat er duidelijk een onderscheid gemaakt moet worden tussen de soort drug. Op het vlak van hard drugs is mijn standpunt dus zeer duidelijk: de voordelen wegen gewoon niet op tegen de nadelen. Op het vlak van medische marijuana ben ik dan eerder voorstander. Er moet natuurlijk wel eerst een duidelijke en liefst uniforme wetgeving komen met een solide controle orgaan vooraleer het gebruik van medische marijuana toepasbaar kan worden. Eenmaal dit gerealiseerd is denk ik dat veel mensen geholpen kunnen worden met deze drug en men de criminaliteit onder controle zou moeten kunnen houden.

Final Statement: Drugs should be legalized for the use in medical applications

The original proposition for our blog was the following: “The use of drugs is well known since the sixties. The government tries to counter the excessive use of drugs by enforcing laws, which differ from country to country. Although marijuana is known for its recreational use, it can be applied in medical applications. In 14 states of the USA, there are pharmacies, where patients can get medical marijuana on prescription. Belgium considers legalizing the use of marijuana in medical applications.” The discussion in our blog went about the possible legalization of both hard and soft drugs to be used in medical applications.

Almost 4 millennia ago, in ancient India, the psychoactive properties of marijuana were recognized and used by doctors to treat a variety of illnesses. In the present is proven by scientists that medical marijuana and marijuana-based preparations are possible pain relievers and relaxants that can help people with their problems. The use of drugs in medical applications is vigorously tested in various medical trials. And it was found that the active component of marijuana, the cannabinoids, offer the potential as anticancer agents and have possible palliative effects, while having a good safety profile.

When looking into the current legalization all over the world, it is shown that there is a great difference in legality. In Europe and the USA, drugs are mainly not allowed. But in a few countries and states of the USA, the possession and use of small amounts of marijuana is decriminalized. When further debating the legalization of medical drugs potential problems arise. Such as the possible criminality issues, how will it influence the children of people that use it? How will the distribution of the product be arranged and controlled? How much can a patient buy of the product and with which frequency? How to prevent the reselling of the marijuana?

Also another possible problem might be the differences in marijuana. Current legalization only concerns natural marijuana, while there is also a synthetic form. This synthetic form is a chemical formula that resembles THC and is much stronger. This makes that synthetic marijuana is much more dangerous compared to the natural form, and may even cause deaths by overdosing. The problem of this chemical formula is that is consists of different products which determines the strength, and when the legal system tries to change the law concerning one of the ingredients the chemical formula, the producers change the composition staying one step ahead. So it is important that not only one ingredient is regulated but a group of ingredients.

When we look into the use of hard drugs in medical applications, the discussion is much harder. This is because people link hard drugs with irreversible damage and criminal activity. This is because hard drugs are mostly used as a partydrug, which leads to catastrophic overdoses. But take cocaine for example, it is being used by the Peruvian and Bolivian population for more than 1000 years for its medical properties, using it as a remedy for problems like toothaches, rheumatism and even malaria. This shows that it can be effectively used when used in the right way and for the right purpose. But still a lot of research has to be done regarding hard drugs to determine advantages and disadvantages.

We made a poll and consulted the GroupT student population to check their opinion on legalizing drugs for the use in medical applications. We got 305 votes and 68.52% of the voters agreed that drugs should be legalized. While only 11.43% being against legalization, and the rest of the voters didn’t have an opinion or were nor for or against legalization. We have to take into account that the voters are in an age range of 18 to 25. While people from older generations might be more opposed to the use of drugs because they grew up in a total different time were drugs was mostly a taboo.

My conclusion in this matter is that there is a long way to go before the use of drugs in medical applications is going to be legalized. Nevertheless it is proven that they are effective to treat some diseases. But it has to be taken into account that there will be problems concerning legal issues like tightly controlled prescription and the prevention of reselling the drugs. This has to be very well regulated by the government and the regulations have to be enforced by the authorities. Also the diseases for which the drugs are prescribed will have to be selected by using a strict set of rules, as well as the people prescribing it to. Because some people will tend to develop an addiction to things that make them feel better. This brings us to the point that the general public has to be very well informed in the do’s and don’ts when it comes to the use of drugs to treat there medical problems.

Also the production of the drugs have to be regulated very well and should only be done by certified companies so that they can be controlled very well so the profits don’t go the criminal organizations. In general I’m certainly not opposed to the legalization of soft drugs for medical application as long as the choice of patients and diseases are tightly regulated. And the patients have to be monitored closely so that they don’t develop an addiction for their product of use. Also the production and selling has to be controlled very tightly so that there are no possible illegal activities.

Final Statement: Drugs should be legalized for the use in medical applications

The statement blog was established to discuss the topic of drug legalization for medical applications. Along the blogging process, different topics were considered in which pros and contras were mentioned and discussed. This final statement gives an overview of the arguments I find decisive and important, and states my general conclusion about the title question.

First of all, I think that even if a clear conclusion or statement can be made about this topic, there will always be some valuable argumentations against this main conclusion. Second of all, I think that it’s very difficult to filter the information we collect about these kinds of topics. Everything we find on the internet or is shown by the media is subjective, and therefore influences our conclusions. In spite of all this, I will now give the arguments I find the most important and decisive about the legalization of medical drugs. First, I will discuss the use of marijuana for medical applications and then I will argument on the use of hard drugs to treat people.

Several investigations have shown that cannabinoids, active components of Cannabis sativa, offer the potential as anticancer agents as well as palliative effects. These palliative effects include inhibition of chemotherapy-induced nausea and vomiting, mainly in cancer patients. Marijuana has also been shown effective as a pain reliever (Guzmán, 2003).  For these applications, the use of marijuana (prescribed by a doctor) is legalized in some countries. This use of marijuana in medical applications is very disputed, as the blog has shown.

Like stated on the blog, I think that people are very afraid of the use of marijuana as a medicinal substance. Although marijuana has been used as a medicine throughout world history, since the 1960’s, it has been known and defined as a drug. Because of this categorization, people associate it with criminality, violence, addiction, etc. I think that most of these associations are exaggerated and are due to ignorance of the people. Marijuana does not, in comparison to other soft drugs like alcohol, stimulate violent behaviour. Instead, Marijuana calms down the consumer of the drugs. A lot of people think that marijuana is a very addictive drug. As instead, this in not the case. Nicotine from tobacco for instance is much more addictive than THC, the active component of marijuana. Because a lot of conservative people are unaware of these facts and don’t want to known anything about it, they don’t even give research a chance to look into the medical effects of marijuana. Like Bart Verbiest stated on the Blog: “Politicians should not only look at the possible dangers for the community. But also to the possible applications to aid the ones in pain.” I think this is very true and even more, I think that politicians are scared of the consequences of being a proponent of drug legalization for medical use. They could lose a lot of votes of conservative people and will probably be looked at in a very different way.

From the moment that the government starts the support of research and publication on this field, more people will look into the benefits of this approach, without being so narrow-minded about the use of drugs in medicinal applications.

 Opponents of the legalization would say that there are other medicines with the same medical application and effect, but without the side effects of marijuana. I think this is a good example of the people’s ignorant view on this topic. It’s only because morphine is defined as a medicine and marijuana is defined as drugs that people think differently about the side effects of the substances. Morphine could very much also be defined as an illegal drug, but because it’s first application was medical, it was never seen as a dangerous substance by the public. If morphine had been consumed as drugs first, it would probably be illegal and never used in medical applications. Morphine and marijuana both have side effects, the only difference is that the side effects of morphine are socially accepted in medical environments. Morphine is just an example to illustrate my point of view, but I think all strong medicinal substances have side effects when consumed in high concentration. Only those side effects are approved because people don’t see them as being high. On the other hand I believe that the brain damage caused by heavy marijuana consummation is an important factor that has to be taken into account. At long term, use of marijuana has been linked with significantly increased probability of developing psychosis and schizophrenia. But again, I believe that almost all medicinal substances that are taken in high concentration for a long period will have severe side effects.

Although several scientific investigations have proven marijuana to be favourable for medical applications, not very much has been made public about this topic. I think that the pharmaceutical industry has a lot to do with this. If marijuana would be legalized for medical applications, several traditional drugs would lose ground on the market, which wouldn’t be a good thing for the industry. Because the pharmaceutical industry is very powerful on different levels, I think they would be tempted to slow down research about this topic. This could be done by not giving grants to these specific investigations for example, or by making a lot of publicity for other traditional medicines.

Milton Friedman also had some very convincing arguments about drug legalization. He states that drug prohibition leads to death by drug overdose or adulteration of drugs. Nowadays, adulterants are added and THC concentrations are increased in order to sell more and ‘better’ drugs. By legalizing drugs, we would destroy its black market, which would lead to a much more controllable market. The marijuana that would be sold for medicinal use would be regulated in terms of THC concentration and many more factors, which is not the case if it is illegal. One of the downsides of this marijuana legalization is that there very likely would be more people taking drugs. Legalization leads to the destruction of the black market, and the price of drugs would go down drastically. As a result of the lowering price, the demand would increase.

In past discussion, I only cited arguments about marijuana. Very strong proponent of drug legalization for medical applications also think that hard drugs should be used to treat people. Cocaine for example, is believed to be a remedy for toothache, ulcers, rheumatism, asthma and even malaria. Amphetamines such as Benzedrine can be used in many medical applications such as narcolepsy, weight loss, depression, and for people with an attention deficit disorder. LSD can help cure depressions, alcohol abuses and can be very useful for terminal patients (Grinspoon et al.). Contrary to the marijuana policy, I believe these hard drugs should not be used as medicinal substance. I think the damage that these drugs cause to the consumer’s body is too big in comparison to the benefits they bring along. If people would take these drugs, the consequences of the intake would create an even bigger problem than the disease that was meant to be cured. All of these hard drugs are also more addictive than marijuana, which would lead to a strong dependence of the patient to the drugs after treatment.

The only reason why these drugs should be legalized is for the innocent children that are born addicted to heroine or cocaine because their mother was using during pregnancy. If the drugs were legal, I think a lot of mothers would go into rehab or therapy when they knew they were pregnant. With the current law regulation they would give themselves in as criminals, which stops them from getting professional help.

My final statement about the legalization of drugs for medicinal applications is that only marijuana should be legalized. Other drugs and hard drugs are not beneficial because they cause much more severe damage to the patient’s body. The legalization of marijuana would be a very difficult and slow trial and error process. The legalization also has to be very detailed on the subject of amounts, age, concentration, selling, etc. The more detailed the law is, the more difficult it is to abuse from the legalization. Medicinal marijuana should only be bought by prescription, in small amounts. By selling only small amounts to the patients who need it, we can prevent the drugs from being resold to dealers. Medicinal drugs should only be given to the patients that really need it, and this necessity has to proven by standard test procedures.

References:

Guzmán, M. (2003). Cannabinoids: potential anticancer agents. Nature reviews. Cancer, 3(10), 745-55

Grinspoon L. and Bakalar J.B. Medical Uses of Illicit Drugs, retrieved from: http://www.druglibrary.org/

Final Statement: “Drugs should be legalized for the use in medical applications” (Kim Vriens)

As part of the master year’s program, students
Industrial Engineering, Biochemistry started a
blog with references to their Master’s thesis.
Participation on this blog was obligated,
though, students were allowed to choose a
subject of their interest. To make our blog
interesting, we’ve chosen a topic that is
socially, medically, ethically and even
politically relevant in our society. Hence, all
people could relate to our subject in one or
another way and could therefore more easily
reply on our blog. In this way, we were able to
investigate how society thinks and feels about
this topic, which is still more or less taboo.
We’ve started a blog about drugs in medical
applications.

Our initial statement was “Drugs should be
legalized for the use in medical applications”.
To inform people about this topic, we’ve
started with a small introduction in the world
of drugs used as medicines. When people hear
the word “drugs”, they all start thinking about
cannabis, heroin, LSD, XTC and so on, and
they forget about “common” drugs, such as
caffeine and alcohol, or morphine as a pain
reliever. In this regard, our first goal was to
inform people properly about what drugs really
are and what they are used for. Since cannabis
is the most known drug by our public, we’ve
started with explaining what cannabis is and
what benefits there are by using this drug as a
medicine. A lot of people were amazed of
these advantages, including me. I did know
that medicinal cannabis was used for some
illnesses or as a pain reliever, but I didn’t know
that there was so much research done on this
topic with evidence of a working cannabis
agent. Cannabinoids have shown effectiveness
as anticancer agents and as a pain reliever for
palliative cancer patients. This information
combined with the increase of (fatal) illnesses,
and thus the need for more medicines, made
me approve of our statement. Now, we knew
the effectiveness of cannabinoids, but what
about legalization of cannabis and
cannabinoids? It was obvious: here, the road
got bumpier.
Since the laws concerning common drugs (i.e.
medicines, cigarettes, alcohol, …) in general
are questioned by many people, and this is
even more the case in Belgium compared to
the Netherlands or the USA for example, it
was not hard to understand that a legalization
of a so called “real” drug would create a
serious debate among people. Many people,
including myself, have some serious questions
that need to be answered in order to understand
the entire situation. First of all, who is allowed
to use medical cannabis? Won’t people take
advantage of this? What process do people
have to go through to get a prescription? Well,
the answer to these questions is not simple, but
I think it mostly depends on the doctor who is
allowed to write a prescription for his/her
patients. It is the doctor’s job to diagnose the
need of medicinal cannabis based on an
objective view on the patient’s situation.
Though, this is rather hard and will mostly
depend on a subjective opinion I think. In
order to make sure that people won’t take
advantage of the possibility to get cannabis on
prescription a severe supervision is mandatory.

The society itself feels rather negative when it
comes to medicinal cannabis. We performed a
poll on our blog to investigate how people feel
about a legalization of drugs used in medical
applications. We asked more than 300 persons
what their opinion was on this topic. The
results showed that 68.52% of the people
approved a legalization of medicinal drugs,
whereas 11.48% was against it. However, there
was no possibility to motivate the decision
made by the people, which could be very
helpful for us to understand why one should or
should not approve this legalization. Moreover,
most people that responded on our poll were
students of Group T, making that the results
obtained reflect only the opinion of younger
people with an age between 18 and 25 years
old. I think if we had performed a
questionnaire on the streets instead of a poll on
the internet, we would have obtained a more
clear result, which included the opinions of
people older than 25 years. In that case, I think
the overall decision would be a “no” to
legalization of drugs used in medical
applications, because these people have a
different view concerning this topic than
students.

In my opinion, the main problem here is that
cannabis was labeled as a drug since the
sixties, the time of the flower power and the
hippies. It made people relaxed and calm, or
stoned as we call it now. Back then, the society
did not know the effects of cannabis on the
physiological system of the human body;
people only knew the consequences, which
was overall just being high. Since this episode,
the word “drugs” has got such a negative
meaning for most people, that they are just not
willing to accept or believe that a drug can
have medicinal benefits. However, it seems to
me that there are different point of views
regarding the age of people, as I already
mentioned, meaning that the opinion of an
individual depends on the generation to which
this person belongs. In general, people with an
age varying from 18 to 40 years old are more
easily convinced of the medicinal advantages
of drugs in general, because they belong to the
“research generations”. People that have
passed age 40 seem to stick to the old opinion,
which is “drugs are bad”. In this regard, it is
definitely mandatory to inform people properly
about the pros and cons of using drugs in
medical application.

Since cannabis is well dosed for the use in
medical application, no side effects exist,
except for getting somewhat sleepy, which is
sometimes even wanted. Moreover, there are
no deaths related directly to the use of
cannabis, which makes cannabis a better
alternative to heavy drugs. Cannabis or
cannabinoids have been proven to be effective
for more than 200 illnesses, such as glaucoma,
arthritis, cancer and MS. In this way, it even
has a better outcome than most common
medicines. I don’t understand why it is so hard
for our country to legalize drugs for the use in
medical applications. Belgium has approved
for the use of alcohol and cigarettes, which
have no medical benefits whatsoever. They are
even deadly. In contrary, cannabis has been
proven safe and beneficial in over 200
illnesses, but it remains illegal.
As far as I’m concerned, cannabis should
definitely be legalized for the use in medical
applications, as well as all other drugs that
have proven a positive outcome in research.
However, a requirement is a severe supervision
on receiving the prescription for medicinal
drugs and on their use in medical applications.
Cannabis should be treated the same as all
common drugs and medicines, such as alcohol
and cigarettes and pain relievers and
antibiotics, respectively. They should be kept
out of reach for children and used in a minimal
effective dose corresponding with the
prescription. The use of medicines should
always be followed up and checked by a doctor
on regular time points.

I think it is time for our country to
acknowledge the fact that drugs, i.e. medicines,
are relevant and beneficial in medical
applications. There is already a lot of research
done in our country and others to prove the
advantages of these medicinal drugs and to
investigate the clinical outcome in patients
treated with it. The next step is the legalization
of these drugs, which will start a new era for
patients, as well as for medicine and
researchers.

Final statement: Drugs should be legalized in medical applications (Elly Vandermeulen)

ABSTRACT
All over the world, millions of people take prescription medicines to treat numerous diseases and symptoms. The medical use of medicines is well known but what about soft and hard drugs?
Lots of people are misled by the word ‘drug’ because they associate it with party drugs and recreational use. Headers of newspapers or debates on TV concerning excessive use of drugs and local abuse of drugs by students/elderly ensure that drugs are still taboo.
In this final statement, I’ll focus on the clinical outcomes of some well-known drugs, the global legalization, pro vs. con and the future prospects.

Clinical outcomes
Soft drugs
Cannabinoids, active components of Cannabis sativa, are proven to offer the potential as anticancer agents as well as palliative effects. Cannabis modulates several cell-signalling pathways that have prominent roles in the control of cell growth and differentiation. They induce death of tumor cells and therefore tumor growth is inhibited. Cannabinoids exert palliative effects so that cancer symptoms e.g. nausea, vomiting and pain can be reduced. The main advantage of cannabis in anticancer therapies is that there is no production of toxins that occur in the conventional chemotherapies.
Cannabinoids increase caloric intake and weight in HIV/ AIDS patients whereas it is important to maintain a stable weight for an improved quality of life.
Glaucoma, multiple sclerosis, schizophrenia are some other examples where cannabinoids have significant outcomes.
Hard drugs
Cocaine is used in South American countries (e.g. Peru and Bolivia) to treat tootache, ulcers, rheumatism, asthma and malaria.
LSD (lysergic acid diethylamide) can cure terminal patients, depression or alchohol abuses.
NOTION
These studies emphasize that the medical use of cannabis must be strictly administrated. The exact dose of cannabinoids is difficult to control in smoked studies compared to oral administration. The same is true for ignorant people who use smoked cannabis as a partydrug, not knowing that it can be applied in medical applications. Every medicin, even a common aspirin can bring side effects so careful administration and understanding is required!

Global legalization
Every country all over the world has their own laws concerning legalization and authorization of drugs. Hard drugs are forbidden in each country and I must agree with this law. People perceive hard drugs as an inacceptable damage because the side effects of hard drugs are more severe and variable compared to soft drugs. Although hard drugs have proven to be beneficial for patients with rheumatism, depression etc., the side-effects remain decisive and therefore legalization of hard drugs will not happen in my point of view for now on. In the case of hard drugs, I obtain for more clinical research before thinking about legalization. When clinical outcomes are proven to be beneficial and side-effect are controllable, hard drugs can be applied in medical applications if the follow up and administration happens appropriate.
In California, the possession and cultivation of marijuana is no more criminal. In the Netherlands and Belgium, individual use of marijuana by adults, respectively 5 grams and 3 grams is legalized. In Belgium, purchase is strictly forbidden. In terms of medical use, I obtain for an equal global legalization.
In this way, every person can be treated the same way so that the endless discussions between different states and countries can be stopped. Belgium has already difficulties to negotiate with only the leading political parties so I’ve my doubts if we’re able to compete with mighty states such as America. Let the pride and pettiness of some countries don’t stand in the way and break the taboo so that an equal legalization can lead to a medical break-through!
Pro vs. con
Opponents of medical legalization believe that when drugs become legal, people will abuse it. There will be a shift in crime; from illegal possession to falsification of documents. The argument of ‘falsification of documents’ is pretty weak. There will always be people who abuse the system, with or without legalization. If we don’t legalize it, people will buy it from corrupt or dodgy dealers who don’t have any idea what the possible consequences of drug use can be. When we make it legal, the drug traffic business will possibly decrease because what’s the use of buying it illegal when you can get it safe in a pharmacy? A well trained pharmacist has the responsibility of informing their clients and make sure that they understand the consequences of drug abuse. Drugs will become less expensive because a uniform market price will be established.
Another important contra is the statement ‘illegal drugs are illegal because they are harmful’. Again, this argument is based on stories and not on facts. Tobacco and alcohol are legal in Belgium and is there a strict administration? It is not allowed to sell alcohol to minors below 16 years old but it still happens a lot which may lead to catastrophic alcohol abuse. The same is true for tobacco: many studies confirmed that smoking tobacco can cause cancer or impotence.
I’m aware it’s not easy to control ignorant children or ‘die-hard smokers’, but the fact is that alcohol and tobacco can be harmful as well when it’s used in a wrong or excessive way.
Drugs are harmful when you make them harmful! Use it in a controlled way for the right purpose so that damage cannot occur.
In all of the arguments of the opponents, there are two where I have to agree.
The first one is that illegal producers will always try to be one step ahead; sell the drugs cheaper or invent a more powerful drug that pharmacists aren’t allowed to sell. The police will always have their work with closing down illegal shops. On the other hand, I believe that recreational users of drugs won’t get the kick anymore when they know that drugs become medically legal. So we can only hope that they get notion that a medicine is meant for patients and not for recreational users.
The second problem is the government; politicians must look at all the medical data researchers have collected how drugs can be applied in medical applications. Even if they do so, they will be afraid of the possible consequences. Will votes be lost due to conservative people? More addiction can occur?
Of course votes will be lost, there will always be conservative people when it comes to drugs but with every law there are opponents and proponents. I believe that the number of opponents can decrease when the government stimulates research and above all: willing to pay for research!
When I started up the poll, I thought that many people would click on the answer ‘no’ or ‘maybe’ concerning the question ‘should drugs be legalized in medical applications?’ But I’m satisfied to say that of 305 voters, 69% voted ‘yes’ and respectively 11% and 14% voted ‘no’ or ‘maybe’. The remaining percentages included voters who had no or another opinion. This confirms that many people don’t see any harm in the use of drugs in medical applications. And I totally agree with them but only for medical use of beneficial proven drugs.

Future prospects
Further research
Before talking about legalization, further investigation is needed. Researchers have already shown that marijuana has a lot of advantages over other medicines in medical applications. However, the clinical outcomes of other soft drugs and hard drugs are rare. Therefore, further research has to be done to study the effects of drugs and for which disease it can be applied. The optimal concentration has to be found to make the drug active in a safe way with minimal side-effects.
Illegal shops
To avoid abuse of drugs, illegal shops and plantations have to be closed. Patients must only be allowed to buy it in a pharmacy.
Pharmaceutical industry
Pharmaceutical industries can speed up the legalization by promoting the research but on the other hand if drugs would be legalized, some traditional drugs would go of the market which wouldn’t be a good thing for the industry. But the economical balance will be restored again because only pharmacists are allowed to sell and produce drugs. In this way, they will have their share in finding the optimal concentration for the medicinal drugs.
Prescription
Doctors have to take good care of their patients and only prescribe drugs when they believe it can
make a difference. A doctor’s opinion is slightly subjective but when the suffering of the patient is
unbearable, the patient should get the prescription.
Doctors definitely know what side-effects drugs and medicines can have so a strict follow-up and administration is needed. The amount of drug prescriptions will be rather small so I don’t think it could evoke an enormous abuse by dealing and so forth.
Control
To keep addiction of drugs minimal, patients must be obliged to do a monthly check-up for a certain period. It is perfectly possible to check the concentration of active components by taking blood, urine or sativa tests. When there’s an indication that the concentration is not correlated with the amount of prescribed drugs, limitations or sanctions will follow.
Conclusion
First of all, further research in Belgium has to be done to learn more about the clinical effects of other drugs and how it can be introduced in medical applications.
Drugs should be legalized in medical applications for patients where drugs can have a positive effect on their illness. Only a prescription gives patients the right to buy their drug in a pharmacy. Strict follow-up and administration is needed to overcome possible abuse and addiction.
But most importantly: doctors must make sure that their patients use it in a right way and for the right purpose!

Synthetic cannabis will be forbidden soon!

To react once again to the post of Maarten: after looking to the video of ‘Koppen’, I was looking at the internet whether this reportage didn’t ring a bell with politicians. I was glad to see that someone of a political party in Belgium (Vlaams Belangs) asked the minister of ‘Public Health’, Laurette Onkelinx, to forbid synthetic cannabis. They are working now on a decree (Koninklijk Besluit in Dutch) to make it illegal.

I’ve copied the article below. You can also find it on: http://www.standaard.be/artikel/detail.aspx?artikelid=DMF20110316_047

The last paragraph explains what the plan is to forbid synthetic cannabis. The minister wants that every “ingedrient” must be forbidden which will take time. Like Maarten said in his post, the producents will be always one step ahead by making small adjustments everytime the law changes. But the plan is to group a bunch of “ingredients” together so that small adjustments will make no difference.

Hopefully the decree will be realized soon!

Thanks for reading!

Elly

The danger of synthetic cannabis!

Last week I saw a very interesting reportage on synthetic cannabis in a program called KOPPEN.

http://www.deredactie.be/cm/vrtnieuws/mediatheek/programmas/koppen/2.14709/2.14710/1.979183
(last view 25/03/2011)

The problem here is that in this cannabis the active substance isn’t THC but some chemical formula with the same effects as THC and sometimes much stronger. There are even cases where people die from an overdose which is not possible with normal THC.
I believe that we have to protect people from this stuff but that isn’t easy because these chemical components are not prohibited. Even when they change the law and such a chemical formula is forbidden, the producents only have to change the structure a little bit so they are always one step ahead on the legal system.
Because of all these different formula’s an effective saliva test is not possible so users can not get caught.

So i think that Kim is right, we can only legalise normal, ‘flowwer power’ marijhuana for medical purposes. All the other stronger variants and synthetic cannabis should be banned to avoid more victims!

Finally, to reply to the post of elly, I endorse the view expressed by Kim and elly. I also believe that legalizing medical marijhuana at the same level in the whole world would have much more positive than negative consequences!!

Medical marijhuana: “flowerpowerweed” vs. “nederweed”

Hey everyone,

Yesterday I saw a talkshow (“Goedele op dinsdag”, in dutch), where they highlighted the use of cannabis in teens and young adults. It is thought to make them aggressive and violent, committing crimes en getting involved in fights. I was amazed and followed the entire discussion about it. It seems that there is a major difference in the cannabis they used in the sixties and the cannabis that is used at the moment: “flowerpower weed”  versus “neder weed”. The name neder weed is derived from the place where the cannabis is cultivated: The Netherlands, or Nederland in dutch. The difference between those two “species”, if you like, is the amount or concentration of the active substance THC, which is thought to be 7 times higher in neder weed compared to the old weed. The effects of smoking/eating/… the new weed, are thus 7 times stronger. It appears that people who use drugs for a longer period of time, are getting more frustrated about small things, getting violent more easily and so on. I’m sure (also said in the discussion) that it is a mixture of the society of today, the world people live in nowadays and perhaps the ease of buying and using alcohol and drugs, that makes people get angry or frustrated more easily.

I know what you guys are thinking right now, and that is “Now it appears to be dangerous, why legalizing it?”. Well, medical marijhuana is made for medical applications off course. Therefore, it is not allowed to be dangerous, meaning that medical cannabis does have THC in it (off course, it is the active substance), but in a controlled way. For this reason, I would legalize it, because it is much safer (actually totally safe! see previous posts). People who are in pain, and I mean in real pain, would do anything to relieve their pain. If it takes drinking, using morfine or selling cannabis on the street (neder weed), they probably will do it. If they can get medical cannabis, all this isn’t necessary.

To reply on the post of Elly earlier this week, I think it is a good plan to legalize medical marijhuana at the same level in the whole world; there will be no selling and buying between countries to get cannabis in a cheaper way, people won’t have to get there cannabis illegal in a different country, the voilence will go down because of this, … and so on.

What do you guys think?

Grtz!

Differences in legalisation all over the world

Hello!

Like I promised in one of my previous comments, I’m going to talk about the differences in legalisation laws depending on which country you live in.

Fig 1: World laws on cannabis possession (small amount)

As you can notice, in Europe and in some states of the USA, drugs are mainly not allowed.

I’ll go in detail for some neighbouring countries in Europe:

• Belgium: individual use by adults (<3 grams) if it doesn’t cause any problems to their environment. The cultivation of one female cannabis plant for personal use is decriminalized. So there is no other legal way of obtaining cannabis [1, 2]

• Netherlands: possession/ purchase of cannabis is tolerated in small amounts by adults (<5 grams) , only in special shops (called “coffeeshops”).  A recent court decision allowed a medical cannabis to avoid legal prosecution for possession of a small number of cannabis plants; however, the state is appealing the decision. [1]

• United Kingdom: Cannabis is illegal but punishments are usually minor resulting in a confiscation and a “cannabis warning” for small amounts. [1]

• Germany: Cannabis is prohibited by the German BtMG (drug schedule), making it illegal to possess, cultivate, or sell. [1,3]

In this picture below, I focus on the medical possession of the United States of America

Fig 2: US cannabis laws

• California: the possession and cultivation of marijuana is no more criminal — so long as (the law’s) conditions (Proposition 215 [4]) are satisfied – than the possession and acquisition of any prescription drug with a physician’s prescription [1,3]

The legal use of hard drugs is not allowed in any country!

My question of the day is: would it be better to obtain a equal law considering ‘medical use of drugs’ all over the world so that every person has the same medical rights or do you think every country has to make up their own laws?

>> I believe that in terms of medical use, it would be better that every person can be treated the same way so that the endless discussions between different states and countries can be stopped. So break the taboo and let the pride and pettiness of some countries don’t stand in the way!

References:

[1] World cannabis laws, January 2011. Retrieved from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:World-cannabis-laws.png

[2] Nieuwe Belgische wetgeving inzake verdovende middelen, March 2003. Retrieved from http://www.just.fgov.be/nl_htm/informatie/htm_justitie_atotz/drugs-11-06-2003.html

[3] Cannabis legal status, Erowid, October 2010. Retrieved from http://www.erowid.org/plants/cannabis/cannabis_law.shtml

[4] Legislative counsel’s digest California, February 2010. Retrieved from  http://www.leginfo.ca.gov/pub/09-10/bill/sen/sb_1401-1450/sb_1449_bill_20100405_amended_sen_v98.html

See you!

Elly

What about hard drugs?

I think our position on the use of canabis is clear, but what about hard drugs?

On the internet I found a very interesting article about the possible use of hard drugs in medical applications.

www.druglibrary.org/schaffer/hemp/medical/meduse.htm

For example cocaine, derived from the coca shrub erytroxylon. This drug is used for more then 1000 years by the local population of Peru and Bolivia in medical applications. Here it is a standard remedy for toothache, ulcers, rheumatism, asthma and even malaria!

Another example, the amphetamines such as Benzedrine which was first synthesized in 1887. This drug can be used in many medical applications such as narcolepsy, weight loss, depression, and for people with an attention deficit disorder.

Finally there is the large group of psychedelic drugs like LSD. these drugs can help cure derpressions, alcohol abuses and can be very useful for terminal patients.

I think these hard drugs may be very useful in a purely medical applications. But what would be the consequences for the legalization of hard drugs, because I believe we can not compare hard drugs with cannabis, or what do you think about this subject?