In our last post, we mentioned a medicine called Marinol, which is synthetic THC in a pill. Many believe that Cannabis and the THC/CDB’s it contains cannot be medically helpful to anyone or anything, yet Marinol exists as a medicine for many as an over the counter prescription drug. Marinol is designed to treat the symptoms of nausea and vomiting in cancer patients, in which other medicines and treatments don’t work.
Cannabis is largely used to treat the exact same thing, using the exact same chemical, THC. Although, the treatable symptoms list for cannabis is significantly longer. Its also reported by most patients of Marinol who have tried Cannabis that Cannabis works better at treating the same symptoms. Why is that?
The short answer is, no one knows. But many are speculating that its not THC that is the key medicinal ingredient in Cannabis. Instead, it is the CBD’s that the THC degrades into over time. CBD strains of Cannabis like Charlotte’s Web (not the book) are not very popular in the recreational community, but are widely used in the medical community. CBD’s have powerful medical effects that we are only begging to understand, but are already being taken advantage of by patients around the world.
Strains like these often go unheard of in the recreational community of Cannabis however. This is because the psychoactive component of Cannabis is THC, which degrades into CDB. Since the THC is now all CBD, there is no more (or very little) psychoactive component. Strains like Charlotte’s Web wont get you high. However, this doesn’t mean that high CBD strains are useless; in fact they are the most powerful forms of Cannabis.
You might be wondering “Why is there a strain named Charlotte’s Web? Isn’t that a book?”. It is a book, but it is also named after one of the greatest medical proofs of Cannabis in history. The story of Charollette.
Charollete Figi and her identical twin were born into a normal family in 2004. However, unlike her sister, Charolette starting experiencing seizures at a very young age. Her parents of course treated her with her doctor. The seizures never stopped, and in fact, increased as she grew older. Her parents took her to countless doctors and physicians, going so far as to try experimental medicine not cleared for human use. Nothing would make the seizures decline or stop. Her doctors started to inform the parents that the medicine might be doing as much brain damage as the seizures were at this point.
When the parents thought they had exhausted all treatment options, they found out that high CBD Cannabis strains were being used to treat epileptics. Knowing that the medicine they were giving their daughter could very well be damaging her anyways, and seeing no other options, they looked for a doctor who would authorize Charollette for the use of Cannabis. Charollette is also the youngest documented Cannabis patient in the USA, which made it difficult to find a doctor who would allow her to have a medical authorization. Eventually, they found one.
Her parents sought out a dispensary, and bought a high CBD strain. They had their friend make it into a concentrate oil such as BHO to mix into her food (concentrates have already been heat activated, they can be added to any food and will have the effects of cannabis, however eating raw bud will not). At this point in time, Charlotte was having up to 300 grand mal seizures per week and having weekly (if not daily) hospital visits. After her first dose of high CBD cannabis oil, she stopped having seizures. An entire day went by and no seizures at all. They gave her a dose before bed, no seizures at night. Charlotte went from having on average 300 grand mal seizures per week, to 3 per month.
The strain she uses to treat her seizures is now named Charollettes Web.
Medical miracles like these are being told every day. Even I am a user of high CBD medicinal cannabis and it is far more effective for treating my symptoms then any other medicine I have used.
The medical use of THC and cannabis is starting to be acknowledged, the development of Marinol is proof of that. More and more doctors are accepting it as a legitimate medicine and prescribing the use of it to more and more patients. Marinol is not the only medicine that has been modeled after cannabis. Sativex, Dexanabinol, Cannabinor (formely known as PRS-211,375) and many others are all drugs that can be traced directly back to THC, and some to a specific plant even (Sativex because it is based on the most psychoactive/high THC-producing plant type, sativa). The medical world has been selling weed to patients in the form of synthetic drugs for years.
THC/CBD are medically benifical: FACT
For more information about Charollette and Charollettes Web, click the link below.
http://www.cnn.com/2013/08/07/health/charlotte-child-medical-marijuana/