The Kush
Hi! Welcome to the 5th edition of The Kush, our newsletter written specifically for Mondays and Tuesdays. How’re you doing?
We hope you’re trying to use your time wisely, but remember even if you are not, please make sure to cultivate the smallest possible, positive micro-habit that’s easy to do and insert it into your daily lives. Before you know it, within a week it’ll become a new, internalized habit! For example, yesterday we began making sure that our day’s last and first ten minutes, both before and after sleep is spent near the pillow right beside an open book hoisted on a chair, leaving us with no option but to look at the pages of the book and unconsciously try reading the words on it, immediately when we open our eyes in the morning (to snooze), and lo, before we know it, our first five to ten minutes is spent reading a book.
Let’s see what happens tomorrow.
Shroom Boom
As per the Investing News Network:
“The promising research associated with psychedelic medicine has generated interest in the potential for these products as treatments for mental health issues or even addiction to opioids. Early projections for the space, including a data report from a Canadian exchange, have pegged the magic mushroom industry with the potential to reach a US$7 billion value by 2027”
$7 billion. The market value for Medicinal Shrooms.
Of course, such numbers need to be taken with a pinch of salt, because they’re, you know……forecasts, predictions so to speak. And trying to predict the future is not easy at all, when you consider the fact that a majority of political and economic analysts get a majority of their predictions wrong, sometimes the margin of error being so far off track, that you wonder if a fool could have done better with a little luck.
Yet, make no mistake. Medical cannabis and psychedelic drugs will go global in less than a decade.
Richard Carleton, CEO of the Canadian Stock Exchange compared the two industries, saying while cannabis has raised millions of dollars in Canada to launch “the most exciting new consumer-packaged goods industry in generations,” the psychedelic stocks investment space is more akin to pharmaceuticals and takes a much more established medical approach to its business models.
Let’s keep Blazing.
How Much Influence Does Pharmaceuticals Have Over Cannabis?
While it is too nascent to blame select pharmaceutical companies to feel threatened by medical cannabis, it is prudent to note two developments – one in the United States of America and one in Europe, within the space of one month – July and August, 2020.
In Europe,
“News broke that the European Commission (EC) would suspend applications for CBD to be included in its Novel Food Catalogue, stating that CBD and other extracts from hemp flowers would be better regulated as narcotics under the United Nations (U.N.) Single Convention on Narcotics of 1961”
The UN Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs of 1961 and 1971 is the same international agreement that gave India 25 years to criminalize cannabis, ignoring 4000 years of Indian usage of cannabis for recreational, medicinal and spiritual purposes. This created a drug problem in India because it created a market for more dangerous and profitable drugs like cocaine and heroin.
Reading further,
“The “preliminary conclusion” would permit synthetic cannabinoids, but not plant-derived extracts, and thereby essentially end hopes for a legal, regulated hemp-derived CBD industry. Since the decision was not final, no definitive conclusions were to be drawn; however, should the decision stand, the implications for Europe’s CBD market cannot be overstated: The ruling would not only make it impossible for Europe’s CBD market to exist in its current form, but also constrict cannabinoid research and innovation throughout the continent”
“The European Commission may be responding to pressure from pharmaceutical companies who see plant-derived CBD as a threat to their markets for medications and nutraceuticals. Whatever the motivations, however, the development underscores the significant influence which the U.N.’s Single Convention continues to have regarding cannabis policy, despite surging consumer demand and growing legal commercialization globally”
After Europe, it was time for the American Drug Enforcement Agency
Seemingly as if they couldn’t resist the urge to speak out against cannabis’ growing adoption across the world.
As per the Cannabis Law blog, penned down by renowned Cannabis lawyer, Rod Kight:
“As usual, the DEA has taken the wrong position. This time, its position is an existential threat to the hemp/CBD industry. While the DEA’s position is not surprising, it is frustrating. It is a prime example of the DEA’s attempt to chip away at the significant progress that has been made with hemp and its cannabinoids during the past 5 years. It is a popular issue with both Democrats and Republicans, and our leadership needs to understand that the DEA is threatening it”
The American DEA is seemingly afraid of Cannabinoids, yet comfortable in tolerating substances that pose a greater danger to the health of human beings. However, we are not worried. Cannabis will win everywhere. Eventually. The will of the people will win out in the end. Let us not be afraid of voices speaking for narrow, vested self-interests, so obviously against one of nature’s most useful commodities – cannabis.
Let’s keep Blazing.
Cannabis and Covid-19: The Latest
To make it short: Yes, compounds derived from cannabis have the ‘potential’ to work against the coronavirus and inhibit its symptoms, including a cure, but, No, as of this writing, cannabis companies around the world have so far not been successful. Yet. There’s a lot of promise and hope though.
Here’s Conor O’Brien writing for Prohibition Partners:
“Firstly, there is solid reasoning behind the hypothesis that cannabis and its constituent cannabinoids like CBD and THC could be used to treat the symptoms of COVID-19. Key to the hypothesis is the fact that the deaths associated with the virus are thought to occur in large part due to the body’s own immune response being overly reactive. When the body has this overreacting immune system, such as in severe cases of COVID-19, the resulting inflammation can harm the body’s own tissues, such as lung tissue where respiratory failure can occur”
“Research has shown that THC and CBD can alter the body’s inflammatory response and help avert inflammatory damage being done to tissues and organs. In fact, cannabinoids regulate the exact same inflammatory proteins responsible for some of the damage occurring in COVID-19 cases. However, there is a suggestion that cannabinoids can reduce the immune response too much, and smoking of any kind is a possible risk factor for worsening symptoms, so, at this point, patients must exercise caution”
The Evidence
“By searching databases such as ClinicalTrials.gov, the World Health Organization, the FDA and news outlets, we have identified 16 groups who are working to develop therapies for COVID-19 using cannabis or cannabinoids“
“Furthermore, it is not certain that positive results in these trials would convince large bodies such as the FDA in the US or the EU’s European Medicines Agency to approve the treatments for their inhabitants. That would require studies at more locations and with more patients. Until trials involving relatively large numbers of human patients are complete, it is impossible to say whether cannabinoids offer an effective treatment”
Have a great day :).
Keep Blazing. Don’t forget to share.
Marijuana Maharaj 