84 MEN’S HEALTH
founder of drug development company
Small Pharma Peter Rands argues, that’s
not a million miles away from what has
been happening in the US.
The cannabis industry operates in the
grey area between federal law (it remains
outlawed at a national level) and state law
(at the time of going to press, 33 states
had legalised medicinal marijuana and
11 had legalised recreational marijuana).
That means it hasn’t been subject to the
usual regulatory processes.
If you want to market a conventional
medicine in the US, you need to apply
to the Food and Drug Administration to
approve a clinical trial and specify which
precise condition you’re trying to treat.
Only once you have established safety,
efficacy and quality will you be allowed
to market your drug to doctors.
“With cannabis, all of that has been
bypassed,” says Rands. “In the states with
legalised medical marijuana, a doctor just
gives you a medical marijuana card – and
there are few limitations on the safety,
efficacy and quality of the marijuana-
based products on sale in dispensaries.”
Dispensaries can be strange places as
a result. They house an unsettling blend
of medicine, recreation and commerce.
In one of the dispensaries I visited near
Venice Beach, I found people weeping
in evident pain and distress right across
from cackling kids and sales reps in fancy
dress. “It hasn’t been good for public
health that everything has been put
under the same umbrella,” says Rands.
“People have come up with all sorts of
justifications for smoking weed. If it has
the potential to save lives as a medicine,
then clearly it shouldn’t be banned.
But if someone is enjoying a spliff in
the evening, it should be regulated in
the same way as any other substance
that could be abused.”
The Good Life
One obvious improvement would be
to make patients and consumers aware
of what they’re taking by labelling the
percentages of THC and CBD. “It’s the
same as alcohol,” Badcock argues. “There’s
beer, wine and spirits. People know there’s
a difference between them all – they don’t
go around accidentally drinking pints of
whiskey. But all that has developed over
time with alcohol, not overnight.”
If you’ve ever watched movies from
the immediate post-Prohibition era in
the US, you might notice a few parallels.
From 1920 to 1933, recreational alcohol
was banned across America. It was great
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