Episode Description: Continuing from our previous episode where we began exploring the idea of Cannabis as medicine, in this episode we dive into exploring how medical claims are derived, what it takes to develop a Cannabis-based drug in the United States, and what outcomes health care professionals are seeing in their patients that are using Cannabis as a medicine.
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TRANSCRIPT
You’re listening to the Curious About Cannabis Podcast
Before we get started let me share a little disclaimer here. In this episode we are going to be discussing the medical uses of Cannabis. All of the information I present to you in this podcast is for education and entertainment purposes only and should not be considered medical advice. Never make decisions about your health based on anything you hear me or any other podcast host talk about. I’m simply sharing information that I’ve collected from talking with professionals with relevant experience or from research studies that are available. But I’m not a doctor, and you should always get your medical advice from a licensed health care professional. Now with that out of the way, let’s move on.
[INTRO SEGMENT]
In the previous episode of the podcast we began exploring the concept of Cannabis as medicine. We looked at many of the ways in which Cannabis has been used as a medicine in the past, and some ways in which Cannabis based pharmaceuticals are being used as medicines today. Picking up where we left off, I wanted to explore the ways in which medical claims are derived. How do we determine that something is a medicine? And what results are clinicians seeing in their patients that are using Cannabis?
[INTRO MUSIC]
Hey everybody, this is Jason Wilson with the Curious About Cannabis Podcast, thanks so much for tuning in once again.
As we covered in the previous episode, there are a lot of medical claims swirling around Cannabis. If you go into just about any Cannabis dispensary, you are likely to see posters on the wall indicating the myriad of different chemicals in Cannabis and their supposed effects.[1] [2] However, many times these kinds of charts are built off of very simple, pre-clinical research data, that may not have any relevance in a real-life Cannabis use scenario.
How are medical claims derived?
So, how are medical claims derived?
There are several forms of medical research of varying degrees of quality.[3] On one end of the spectrum are anecdotal reports – these are basically eye-witness testimonies from a single person or small group of people. Up from that you have case studies, usually written by a professional describing an incident in detail. Moving along, there are observational studies, where a health care professional watches a patient engage in an activity and records the outcomes. On the other far end of the spectrum is the gold standard of randomized controlled trials.[4]
When a drug is being developed, typically the first way it is studied is through in vitro research.[5] In vitro studies are laboratory studies performed in test tubes or petri dishes. In vitro literally means, “in glass”.
[JUSTIN FISCHEDICK]
This is Justin Fischedick. Justin is a natural products researcher that studies the activity of the chemical constituents of plants, including Cannabis.