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Brilliant article!
Medical Cannabis Legalization Bill Introduced in U.S. House
News
July 28, 2014
by TheJointBlog
Representative Scott Perry, a Republican from Pennsylvania, introduced the Charlotte’s Web Medical Hemp Act of 2014 onMonday, a federal proposal to legalize medical cannabis oil that’s low in the psychoactive compound tetrahydrocannabinol (THC). Although the measure is clearly limited in what it would do and the type of reform it would bring, its passage would mark the first time the federal government has altered their law in admittance that cannabis has medical value.
The bill is named after Charlotte Figi, a young girl from Colorado whose parents have been campaigning nationwide for easier access to medical cannabis after it successfully controlled their daughter’s seizures (she used cannabis oil).
This year alone, numerous states – including Kentucky, Iowa, Florida and Alabama – have approved measures legalizing low-THC, high-CBD (cannabidiol) cannabis (and/or cannabis extracts) for medical purposes. This new measure would do just that, but throughout the United States. The bill would amend the U.S. Controlled Substances Act to explicitly allow for the use of low-THC cannabis oil, when its recommended by a physician.
“No one should face a choice of having their child suffer or moving to Colorado and splitting up their family,” says Representative Perry. “We live in America, and if there’s something that would make my child better, and they can’t get it because of the government, that’s not right.”
- TheJointBlog
Tags: Charlotte's Web M
Absolutely the most amazing and informative post i have read on the Farm. Thank you, brother. We will get it right in November10 grams of Real Scientific Hemp Oil [/URL] (purportedly 22 percent CBD) from Hempmeds PX sells for $549 plus shipping.
Hempmeds PX is, meanwhile, directly or indirectly connected to CannaVest, Medical Marijuana Inc., Dixie Elixirs, and other companies referenced in the Forbes article. Management failed to respond to several requests for interviews, but the company claims their products are legal “because the FDA considers hemp oil and hemp oil-derived cannabinoids (like CBD) to be food-based products, [so] no legal restrictions on their importation, production, and consumption exist in the United States.”
Limited domestic hemp cultivation has only very recently been legalized in the US, but back in 2004, a federal appeals court ruled that Dr. Bronner's Magic Soap company could import hemp with extremely low levels of THC into the United States, thus allowing the manufacture and sale of hemp-based foods and products nationwide. At the time, nobody considered the idea of importing high-CBD, low-THC hemp and then concentrating it into a medicinal product. But the FDA hassince confirmed that CBD, in and of itself, remains a Schedule 1 drug.
“Envelope-pushing medical marijuana entrepreneurs claim that it is legal to import CBD-rich oil extracted from industrial hemp grown in other countries, as long as the THC content of this oil is less than .3 percent in accordance with federal rules regarding industrial hemp products,” Project CBD reports. “But this is a rather gray area of the law.”
When Project CBD tested a group of products made in this fashion, two independent laboratories reported that they contained levels of CBD significantly below what was listed on the label. And even if a $549 bottle of RSHO oil does deliver the full 2,200 milligrams promised, that's still at a cost of more than 25 cents per milligram, compared to around 5 cents per milligram for Realm of Caring's oil, which costs far more to produce, according to Jesse Stanley.
More troubling was a November 20, 2013, Facebook post (since removed) from Tamar Wise, former head of science for Medical Marijuana Inc. and Dixie Elixirs Inc.:
I’m tired of so called CBD companies claiming that what they provide is medicine. Anyone using a CBD from hemp product please be aware of what you’re actually getting b/c it is not what you think. These formulations start with a crude and dirty hemp paste (contaminated with microbial life! I have seen this and these organisms decompose the paste. The paste perhaps even contains residual solvent and other toxins as the extraction is done in China) made in a process that actually renders it unfit for human consumption. What these companies are doing is criminal and dangerous. In fact MJNA’s RSHO is literally just this hemp paste diluted in hemp seed oil. No refinement at all!!! And what Dixie Botanicals is offering is beyond disturbing. I cannot keep quiet any more. And since I formulated most of these products as head of Dixie science, I feel responsible for spreading the truth. I left Dixie for ethical reasons but it is not enough to just walk away. These frauds need to be exposed for what they are...
In a subsequent press release, Dixie Botanicals responded by strongly defending their manufacturing practices, and the quality and efficacy of their products, claiming, “Ms. Wise and members of her science team resigned after a dispute with the company” over intellectual property rights, and were motivated to make false allegations by their desire to embark on a new endeavor “that will compete directly with Dixie Botanicals.”
Step Right Up!
And now you too can get in on the ground floor of this amazing opportunity, through the magic ofMulti-level Marketing (MLM). Because, that's right, not only is CBD a blessing for sick little kids, but if you act now—right now—it can also be a miracle for your pocketbook!
At least that's the basic pitch from Kannaway, an MLM operation set up to sell hemp-derived CBD products direct to consumers through a series of tiered affiliates. Which may sound suspiciously like a pyramid scheme, but totally isn't. So are you “looking for financial freedom, more time with your family and loved ones, or just more free time to enjoy your life?” And are you "ready to take back control of your life by joining the #1 industrial hemp company in the world?”
Great!
First pay a monthly fee to become a Kannaway “brand ambassador,” then make a mandatory purchase or sale of of a Kannaway product, and then you're “locked in” to what Kannaway's website calls “a movement with a payment plan.” From there, there are “ten ways to earn with Kannaway,” including qualifying for a “team override bonus,” a “differential infinity bonus,” and a “coded infinity bonus” based on making sales and recruiting additional brand ambassadors.
To be clear, in pushing this affiliate program, Kannaway's website makes no specific health claims for those who use their products (lest it run afoul of the FDA); instead the marketing campaign focuses largely on the incredible, once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to make money selling those products—including vaporizer pens, skin-care products, and “food chew squares.”
Several parents of severely ill children report being contacted by Kannaway-related companies to gauge their interest in helping to promote products. In December, VICE profiled Mykayla Comstock, an eight-year-old leukemia patient in Oregon who legally uses cannabis-derived medicine to treat her cancer, including THC-rich preparations. Last month, her mother posted the following on Facebook:
I have had several friends wonder about "Kannaway" and my thoughts regarding it.
I don't want to go into it much... I hate drama... And the people that run this company and Hempmed Px are not very nice when activists don't support them (first hand experience). But just so you all know, I think Kannaway is absolute garbage... Stick to your local canna-dispensaries and local product makers is my rule of thumb.
In September 2002, less than two weeks after the DEA raided and destroyed WAMM's medical marijuana garden, Valerie Corral gathered the collective on the steps of City Hall in Santa Cruz, California. Photo courtesy of WAMM
Back to the Garden
At the WAMM collective in Santa Cruz, California, demand for CBD-rich cannabis, tinctures, capsules, and concentrates has been growing rapidly ever since Charlotte Figi first appeared on CNN last August. Fortunately, five years ago, with help from Project CBD, WAMM began devoting ever larger portions of their in-house cultivation to high-CBD strains, which means that despite the recent spike in interest, there's currently no waiting list for CBD-rich medicine produced locally in the collective's 100 percent organic outdoor garden.
WAMM co-founder Valerie Corral has been using cannabis to control her own epileptic seizures since the 1970s and is encouraged by the positive results many members report after trying CBD-rich preparations. But she's also wary of a growing movement to anoint the non-psychoactive elements of cannabis as virtuous while continuing to deny the incredible safety and efficacy of THC, as well as the vast superiority of whole-plant medicine over single-compound preparations.
“When we talk about CBD instead of talking about cannabis, that's a very narrow view,” she told me. “That's us as humans presuming that we know more about how to be a plant than a plant does.”
Once described as “the gold standard of the medical marijuana movement” by a federal judge, WAMM offers patients not just medical marijuana of the highest order but also a homegrown community of hundreds of members and volunteers dedicated to providing comprehensive, compassionate care. Plus something the FDA, the pharmaceutical companies, and even the Stanley brothers can't claim when it comes to cannabis—deep roots.
In 1996, Valerie Corral co-authored Proposition 215, a voter initiative that made California the first state to legalize medical cannabis. The US Justice Department responded on September 5, 2002, when 30 heavily armed agents from the Drug Enforcement Agency raided WAMM's state-legal medical cannabis garden, holding Valerie, her husband (and WAMM co-founder) Mike Corral, and a paraplegic woman at gunpoint. The authorities laughed while chopping down hundreds of cannabis plants grown to supply the sick and dying.
Once released from custody, Valerie faced a very real threat of life in prison, where she would be cut off from any contact with cannabis to control her seizures. But instead of backing down, less than two weeks after the DEA raid, WAMM gathered together on the steps of City Hall, alongside the mayor of Santa Cruz, to defiantly distribute free medicine to the terminally ill. Thousands of people rallied in support. And the New York Times showed up to document any potential showdown. At which point the federal government blinked. So, the next spring, WAMM defiantly replanted the garden, where's it's grown in peace ever since.
“Every person is a universe unto themselves, so the best way to treat an individual with cannabis medicine is to start slowly and build up, allowing the patient to set the pace, gauge the effects, and self-titrate the appropriate dosage,” Valerie says. “That's a very common and obvious approach with plant medicines, but unfortunately modern doctors understand very little about plant medicine.”
Danny Desmidt, for example, brought his daughter Justine to the Oakland Children's Hospital's special tuberous sclerosis clinic for ten years to meet with doctors and researchers, and never once heard a word about the cannabis plant. Instead, they gave him two options: more and more and more of the synthetic drugs that were already failing to control her seizures (while producing “brutal” side effects), or brain surgery with a 40 percent success rate.
Then he saw Charlotte Figi on CNN and began to research CBD independently.
“Any parent who hears about this stuff, and the way it works, they're going to try it no matter what,” he said, “because there's nothing worse than watching your kid have a seizure. And now all of us parents are finding out about this.”
After making the decision to seek out CBD-rich cannabis medicine for his daughter, Desmidt spent months looking for the best possible supplier, before a friend from Santa Cruz learned of his search and put him in touch with Valerie Corral. He was impressed by her long history of community service. Also, from the very beginning of WAMM, she'd worked with a wide range of seriously ill children.
“Valerie's guidance was extremely vital to getting me on the right path,” Desmidt says. “She has epilepsy, so she knows all about the synthetics and what we've been through. And she's also been working with cannabis patients for decades, so she knew how to help me design and implement a treatment plan for an 11-year old.”
Not wanting to expose his daughter to psychoactivity, Desmidt chose a 25:1 (CBD to THC) oil, starting slow, with small doses and no changes in Justine's pharmaceutical regime. When that showed positive results, he decided to bring her specialists into the loop, primarily so they could help safely wean her off prescription drugs. She's now down from 12 per day to just four. And she also supplements her treatment with a non-psychoactive form of THC called THC-A that seems to balance the CBD in a way that improves mood.
Back in October, before Justine's first dose of CBD-rich cannabis, seizures were a daily occurrence. Now she's gone seven weeks without one.
Looking back, Desmidt can't believe how quickly and decisively everything changed once he learned the truth about cannabis. And it's not as if he's lived a sheltered life when it comes to marijuana. In fact, he's a professional reggae DJ who's been using pot to treat his own chronic pain for years. He just never thought the same plant would one day miraculously transform his daughter's universe.
“That the answer was so close, all that time, is just mind-boggling.”
Nice! I heard the deer like it :)Here is an ACDC outside this year. Pic from today
WAMM is awesome.
all this is awesome.
How much longer is this going to be kept a secret?
I like that idea! But im a poor dirt farmer..Underwater on the land I have...:facepalm:Some states grew hemp last year mostly legal, and they couldn't keep up with the demand at all for us grown hemp...
ken, lets invest in 100 acres in the valley and grow acdc, etc...the day cbd meds are really legal here lets plant, the law will have to test samples of each plant before they even dreamed of even chopping one down!
Doesnt mean something couldn't be worked out...I am a pretty poor dirt farmer myself, but if you belive something can and will happen...then it can and will!:angelic:I like that idea! But im a poor dirt farmer..Underwater on the land I have...:facepalm:
But maybe someday I can make this lot pay for its self ;)
agreed, cheaper anywayIn the sinking valley...? I'm thinkin' you're gonna want something waaaayyy above sea level. ;)