Clinical Trials of Cannabis - New South Wales

[Matanuska Thunder]

Clinical Trials of Cannabis Products

Cannabis and Cannabis Products for Therapeutic Purposes
Centre for Medicinal Cannabis Research and Innovation
Clinical Trials of Cannabis Products
Clinical Trial for Patients with Terminal Cancer
About Cannabis

 

The NSW Government is investing $9 million over the next five years on clinical trials that will explore the use of cannabis and cannabis products in providing relief from a range of debilitating or terminal illnesses. 

Three clinical trials were announced in December 2014 to explore the use of cannabis and cannabis products in providing relief for:

1. Children with severe, drug-resistant epilepsy, through a partnership with the Sydney Children’s Hospitals Network
2. Adults with terminal illness, focusing on improving quality of life, and symptoms such as pain, nausea and vomiting
3. Adults with chemotherapy-induced nausea and vomiting, where standard treatment is ineffective.

How can I become a participant in these clinical trials?

Once the scope of each trial is finalised, further information on eligibility will be available. 

What type of cannabis products will be used in these clinical trials?

Cannabis is a complex plant that contains a range of different chemicals, called cannabinoids. The concentration of cannabinoids varies from strain to strain of plant, and depends on the type of growing and harvesting conditions.

To ensure the clinical trials produce reliable results, they must use a standardised product that meets the strict standards of production as well as the Therapeutic Goods Administration Clinical Trials standards. Suitable products will be assessed as part of the application process to conduct the clinical trials.

Progress on establishing the clinical trials

Details of a clinical trial for adults with terminal illness have now been announced.

For children with severe paediatric epilepsy and adults with chemotherapy-induced nausea and vomiting, the NSW Government is working with the research community to ensure high quality trials are developed. More information will be made available as these discussions progress.

 

[weeping angel]

To ensure the clinical trials produce reliable results, they must use a standardised product that meets the strict standards of production as well as the Therapeutic Goods Administration Clinical Trials standards. Suitable products will be assessed as part of the application process to conduct the clinical trials.

 

I really hope that means that they'll be starting off with landrace and other stable or medicinally proven lines and making a standardized product ie. combining thousands of different landrace afghan ladies into the same hash run or chopping thousands of thais into the same mix of bud.  It wouldn't be that hard to standardize to make more scientifically valid either as you can easily weigh everything out to make sure everyone gets the same dose, you can make everyone use the same bongs and vape with pre-weighed cones or whatever to keep it even, etc.  Hell they could make mixed packs in everyones preferred method of consumption so you can test all the strains on offer in joints, edibles, hash or whatever you want or is deemed socially acceptable (think something like mostly mouth sprays for kids but never smoking) and move on with your own personal medical treatment from there in record time but I'm guessing they won't do that.  My money is on sativex this, marinol that and fuck the people who actually need the medicine.

 

Honestly though I think if they had the balls to risk it like that they'd find out that even standardizing it like that still results in not only everyone being treated slightly differently but even the same user being treated differently over time too which will undoubtedly end with a call to end herbal and whole plant extracts as medicine due to their inherent unpredictability.  They could call for allowing the home cultivation of cannabis so users can forever breed towards their own perfect kind of medicine but since the money is in patenting a pill that a company can "scientifically" test themselves and then push on the populace through the trust we have in our doctors that's what they'll do instead.  They'll claim that they've given us the medicinal cannabis we asked for but in the most refined and controlled possible way making anything less than their medicinal forms of cannabis meant for the sick narcotic forms of cannabis meant solely for drug users.  Honestly if I were CEO of a pharmaceutical company I'd secretly fund the natural form movement just so they could have their 15 minutes of fame only to be shot down by numbers of a paper later as it would make their loss that much more public.  Sadly it would probably be a killer business strategy especially if you had home growers saying that they can just grow another lady plant out from the same batch of seeds for a similarly effective medicine and the CEO saying yeah but our medicine will forever be predictable and complies fully with the united nations single convention on narcotics which the home grower of narcotic varieties can never fully do.  It really becomes hard to have a leg to stand on short of producing a much cheaper and more personalised product at home but I doubt there is enough political will to have that become a valid argument especially if the government subsidizes the pharma crap under the PBS.

 

Goddamn it, now I'm sad

Edited August 5, 2015 by weeping angel

[lookinggoodguys]

Mdc or Medlab Clinical has research trial approval for delivery system Pill form.

This is the company that is doing the trial here in Australia.. I if you shoot them a email they may answer some of your questions.

 

 

This company mmj http://www.phytotechmed.com/

http://www.news.com.au/finance/business/australian-medical-marijuana-merger/story-e6frfkur-1227460074532

 

Is trying to complete its approval,to grow it on Norfolk Island, plus also has a delivery system that is endorsed by U.S. Canadian medicos. This uses the plant through it's Multiple delivery systems, vape, pill oral spray

 

 

Sativex won't take off as it has limited benefits and high cost to end user..

Edited August 5, 2015 by lookinggoodguys

[weeping angel]

http://www.phytotechmed.com/ i

Mdc or medilab has research approval for delivery system

 

This is the company that is doing the trial here in Australia.. I if you shoot them a email they may answer some of your questions..Plus they already have support by medicos in the USA Canada .. That's why trials here have been approved.

 

Sativex won't take off as it has limited benefits and high cost To end user..

They literally just want to sell cannabinoids because raw cannabis is unpredictable and therefor unscientific.  Oh you can get them to tailor the product to suit your needs, after all there are companies like GW pharma that already have plants that produce every cannabinoid dominantly and breed true for that chemotype as well who I'm sure will be happy to lease their genetics out, but just because you can come up with all kinds of different ratios of the different cannabinoids to produce different effects doesn't mean you can totally replace cannabis in its raw forms as medicines.  That would be like saying we can replace codeine in over the counter pain pills with heroin because it's increased potency means we can use less and since it all converts to morphine inside the body it's all the same in the end anyway.  We know that's simply not the same and while their drugs definitely have their place so does raw cannabis and all the problems associated with it which for any other drug would be called a side effect and dealt with as a medical issue without all the political horseshit because denying a patient medical care over politics should be considered inhumane.  If you acknowledge it has potential in its raw forms though people will expect to grow their own and will say to hell with the law when told no because of how easy and how much cheaper it is to do it themselves and then everyone is going to want to do it too.  Can't have that so we're told to respect the science which can only happen if you have predictability and repeatability, ie. singular cannabinoids you can control and not a plant where you can have two cuttings from the same plant result in very different end products if the growing conditions are different in even a single way such as being an average of 7c warmer for the entire life cycle of one of the plants.  They'll sell it as a health and safety issue along the lines of you wouldn't want your heart medication to be unpredictable and only work most of the time so why should cannabis be any different?  The sad thing is the general public will not only buy it but probably demand it until they realize that home growing is off the cards and then it'll be too late to turn back.

 

Damn it that's enough depressive ranting about patients getting screwed. I'm breaking out my saved up scissor hash and calling it a night

[Johnydark]

Many of the comments here voice the same fear. Most of us dont trust our civil and medical authorities to do the right thing by us. Whatever the reason they claim for needing control, the result will be the same, cannabis will be restricted to big pharma and we will be charged a fortune for a manufactured product that barely works and people will still be sent to jail for growing a plant.