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Posted on 05/17/2006 2:38:57 PM PDT by LouAvul
Seventeen years after it was withdrawn from U.S. markets, a synthetic version of the active ingredient in marijuana is going back on sale as a prescription treatment for the vomiting and nausea that often accompany chemotherapy, the drug's manufacturer said Tuesday.
Valeant Pharmaceuticals International hopes to begin selling Cesamet in the next two to three weeks, company president Wes Wheeler said.
The Costa Mesa, California, company received Food and Drug Administration approval Monday to resume sales of the drug, which it bought from Eli Lilly and Co. in 2004. Valeant currently sells the drug, also called nabilone, in Canada.
Lilly originally received FDA approval for nabilone in 1985 but withdrew it from the market in 1989 for commercial reasons, Wheeler said. Valeant, since purchasing the drug, has revised its label and updated its manufacturing process, he added.
The drug will compete with Marinol, made by Belgium-based Solvay SA. Marinol, another synthetic version of tetrahydrocannabinol, the active ingredient in marijuana that's more commonly known as THC. It also received FDA approval in 1985.
Synthetic THC acts on the brain like the THC in smoked marijuana but eliminates having to inhale the otherwise harmful smoke contained in the illegal drug, Valeant said.
Cesamet is a Schedule II drug, meaning it has a high potential for abuse. The 1-milligram tablets are meant to be taken twice daily before cancer patients undergo chemotherapy and up to 48 hours following treatment. Side effects include euphoria, drowsiness, vertigo and dry mouth.
(Excerpt) Read more at cnn.com ...
Glad to hear your friend got better.
Nice logic RP. Try this one, I'm trying to supliment my calcium intake
Broccoli has calcium. My casserole contains Broccoli. My casserole has no calcium.
Like foxglove, its use is in the extract, not in the consumption of the plant.
The extract is part of the plant.
Therefor, the plant will work as well as the extract.
You never give up and you are never right.
Just can't admit you are wrong, can you?
Foxglove is poisonous.
Profit should be made illegal.
Probably 100x more expensive, with a fancy 'brand name'. Anyone with a terminal illness or chronic pain with half a brain left would simply grow the stuff.
If it's really that dire of a situation, I think you should be proactive.
If I say more, I'll get flammed by the usual suspects, calling me a libertarian wacko pot head...and I don't even smoke the stuff lol.
Funny. If the pharmaceutical companies can make money on it, there's no problem with it?
Interesting that the FDA is giving approval to this drug, when it (or some other federal agency) just a few weeks ago issued a report that said marijuana has absolutely no therapeutic benefits.
The duplicity is astounding. Sure, I'm biased because I am opposed to the War on Drugs, nevertheless if there is nothing therapeutic in marijuana this drug would never have approval.
You beat me to it (and maybe some other posters). The FDA makes a joke of itself.
Yeah - but a typical tobacco smoker smokes a pack or more, while a marijiana smoker needs only a few puffs. And, you don't need to smoke marijuana to a burn, you just need to heat it to a degree that activates the cannaboids. Or you can cook with it (though if you can't eat then you need another delivery system).
OK, 3 posts on the pot thread, I'm going to get typecast :-)
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sw
Not sure is that was sarcasm (probably) but absolutely not. I have no problem at all with people or corps making a killing for providing services. The problem here is that the government is intervening in favor of the corp and a perfectly good substitute (natural THC) is being banned in order to ensure profits for this corporation with their artificial thc.
If a company came up with a panacea drug that could fix all kinds of stuff or perhaps some sort of anti-agathic (anti aging) by all means, charge what the market will bear.
They did that study. They hooked up monkeys so that every breath was taken through burning herb and proved that just about anything consumed to excess can cause cancer.
"you can't legalize something that causes cancer"
Cigarettes cause cancer and they are legal.
Foxglove is toxic if not prepared properly to be used as medicine.
Marijuana needs no preparation and it is non-toxic.
You've already admitted that marijuana contains substances that can be used as medicine, conceeding the point that marijuana can also be used as medicine.
Do you still have a problem with marijuana being used as medicine to give sick people comfort and to prevent blindness from glaucoma, to say the least?
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