Medicann is launching the first medical cannabis clinic in Ireland and is immediately accepting patients who believe they may be eligible for treatment, according to a news release. The clinic will cover “all conditions treatable with medicinal cannabis,” not limited to those recognized by Ireland’s Medicinal Cannabis Access Programme.

Currently, there are three qualifying conditions included under the Medicinal Cannabis Access Programme: spasticity associated with multiple sclerosis, intractable nausea and vomiting associated with chemotherapy and severe treatment-resistant epilepsy.

A Step Forward for Medical Cannabis in Ireland

While Medicann has only just launched, patients have been able to register their interest in obtaining medical cannabis through the clinic online since August of this year.

Interested parties can make a virtual appointment with Medicann, which will then conduct an evaluation through its secure health portal to establish whether or not individuals are eligible for a medical cannabis prescription through products including flower, oils and topical creams. Through the government’s Medicinal Cannabis Access Programme, qualifying patients can also apply for funding to cover the costs of medicinal cannabis. 

Medicann Ireland CEO Gary Whipp said he noticed the potential for medical cannabis to improve quality of life for citizens early on, when it first became legal in the U.K. back in 2018.

“We have been providing access to this natural medication for patients that are eligible for the last four years,” Whipp said. “As the first clinic to launch in Ireland, we know patients have been waiting for local access to this medication, and we are very much looking forward to helping patients manage their condition better, and improve their quality of life under the guidance and help of our specialist Doctors here at Medicann.”

The Medical Cannabis Access Programme first launched after Minister of Health Simon Harris signed legislation on June 26, 2019 to allow for its operation on a five-year pilot basis. After the five years is up, the program will undergo a review. It was designed to facilitate access to cannabis-based products for medical use in line with legalization and clinical guidance surrounding it. 

Recreational Cannabis and Ireland

Previously, medical cannabis was only available to select patients in the country, while recreational cannabis remains illegal.

“The purpose of this programme is to facilitate compassionate access to cannabis for medical reasons, where conventional treatment has failed,” Harris said at time. “Ultimately it will be the decision of the medical consultant, in consultation with their patient, to prescribe a particular treatment, including a cannabis-based treatment, for a patient under their care.”

The sentiment around recreational cannabis hasn’t changed much in the four years since the medical program launched. Even among citizens themselves, support for adult-use cannabis has remained low, though it’s increased over time, according to a study released earlier this year.

The survey found that minority support for recreational cannabis legalization is still the standard, though support increased from 19.1% in 2006/07 to 29.9% in 2019/20. Support was highest among recent cannabis users and those who had used cannabis in the past, those who know cannabis users, those who perceive cannabis use as “not being a great risk” and those who don’t disapprove of cannabis use.

While the reasons behind the increase in support weren’t immediately clear, authors speculated that “the recent, predominantly positive, public discourse in Ireland in relation to the potential medical utility of cannabis-based products may have led to Irish people having a more positive view of cannabis in general.”

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Nine-year-old Krystal Mattis is unable to attend full days at school because she uses cannabis tincture to treat epilepsy and autism spectrum disorder. 

Sabrina and Tim Mattis, her parents, told CBS News they want their daughter to receive a full-time education, which up until now she has been unable to do because of her symptoms. In order to attend a full day at school, Sabrina and Tim said Krystal needs a dose of her tincture at lunchtime. The tincture is a mixture of CBD and THC mixed in with some juice.

The school, however, told Sabrina and Tim that Krystal has to consume her medicine away from school property and come back to class afterwards if she wants to use cannabis during the day.

“I feel it’s unfair. It’s unjust,” Sabrina Mattis said to CBS. “She just deserves to be at school a full day and have her medicine like any other kid.”

On top of her regular doctor visits and the various therapies required to treat her disorders, Krystal is nonverbal and uses a device to communicate, according to the CBS article. Sabrina and Tim Mattis said that taking her in and out of school would only serve to further disrupt their daughter’s schedule and unnecessarily confuse her. 

“To take her back, that just throws her out of her routine. The chances of her not understanding the whole situation and having discomfort more likely to not have a good rest of the day, as opposed to us just going there administering her dose and leaving and it’s barely an interruption,” Tim said to CBS.

Unable to sway the school and unwilling to take away what they described to CBS as a game changer medication for their daughter, Sabrina and Tim Mattis opted to keep Krystal in class for half-days. However, their fight would continue a bit higher up in the Minnesota state government. Sabrina reached out to Minnesota DFL Rep. Zack Stephenson, who authored the adult-use cannabis bill which was just recently passed in the state of Minnesota. 

Rep. Stephenson told CBS he spoke with the family and told them an exemption exists to the adult-use cannabis statute in Minnesota state law for using medical cannabis on school grounds as long as it was not ingested through smoking or vaporization, the language of which CBS said they emailed to Krystal’s school district asking for comment but they only received a brief statement saying that the district “cannot comment on a student’s medical interactions with our schools.” The district cited data privacy laws which almost all American educators, doctors and social workers are universally bound by.

Rep. Stephenson also said that keeping the Minnesota medical cannabis program intact would remain a top priority for him while helping to write and draft laws about Minnesota’s blooming adult-use market, saying the following:

“There is a strong distinction between medical and adult-use cannabis,” Rep. Stephenson said to CBS. 

According to the Minnesota Medical Cannabis Dashboard, the Minnesota medical cannabis program currently has a little over 18,000 participants which include 452 patients between the ages of five and 17. The vast majority of Minnesota medical patients use cannabis to treat chronic pain (59.3%) and Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (32.3%) but the next most reported use is for severe and persistent muscle spasm disorders like epilepsy with 2,217 patients statewide. Another 802 Minnesota patients use cannabis to treat autism spectrum disorder.

The Mattis’ fight will continue as the school district has yet to change their decision regarding Krystal. As cannabis legislation progresses state by state, individual cases like this will undoubtedly be making headlines a bit more often and the line between patient’s rights and illegal activity will undoubtedly continue to blur while legislation at both the state and federal level attempts to rewrite and undo decades of cannabis prohibition laws.

“We hope to bring justice for children on medical cannabis, so they can be allowed to take their medicine at school, just the same as any other child in the state of Minnesota. That’s what we’re hoping,” Sabrina said to CBS.

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The UMC Utrecht Brain Center, in collaboration with various organizations in the Netherlands, will receive about $1.5 million (€1.4 million) from the Dutch government. Bedrocan announced the study on March 20. Previous research shows that CBD reduced seizures in children with specific epilepsy-related syndromes. 

U.K.-based Cannabis Health News reports that via the government’s or ZonMW’s Good Use of Medicines program, researchers will use the money and launch a four-year research project delving into the effects of high-CBD oil in children living with severe epilepsy.

Researchers will administer whole-plant high-CBD oil, Bedrolite from the Dutch Transvaal pharmacy, which is made using cannabis produced by Bedrocan. Fifty participants will join the trial which is planned to kick off in the summer. The first patients are expected to begin by the end of the year.

Researchers will study if the oil is effective in reducing frequency of seizures. They’ll also monitor other “quality of life markers” such as seizure length, sleep, and alertness. Patients must not have previously used CBD oil for the treatment of epilepsy and/or seizures and must have a minimum of eight seizures or more every four weeks. 

“Our research focuses on the individual. Instead of looking at a group, we look at whether the drug is effective per patient,” said lead researcher, Floor Jansen, who is a pediatric neurologist. “We want to investigate whether the number of attacks decreases, but we also pay attention to other important outcomes for a patient. Think of less use of emergency medication against prolonged attacks, a change in alertness or a better night’s sleep.”

Rare, intractable forms of epilepsy have not been studied well enough. Researchers will look at individual cases instead of looking at a group as a whole in order to determine whether the drug is effective for each patient.

Intractable Epilepsy is a charity that raises funding to assist families pay for private cannabis prescriptions. Jo Griffiths, chair of Intractable Epilepsy said she would like to see the U.K. match the €1.4 million for randomized control trials (RCTs) on Bedrocan products. 

“Intractable Epilepsy supports families with private medicinal cannabis costs, once it has been prescribed for at least six months,” Griffiths said. “But some families cannot even afford a private consultation. To help every child and young adult with intractable epilepsy access full-extract medicinal cannabis, the government and health providers are saying gold standard RCTs are needed. Therefore, we are calling on the U.K. government to match the Dutch government’s €1.4 million towards trials, and to run an NHS trial using the same oils.”

“The NHS has prescribed the very same oils to two children in the U.K. over the past four years, while others pay privately and some families are looking to the unregulated black market,” she said.

Alongside RCTs, Intractable Epilepsy is seeking an observational study to examine the effects of whole-plant cannabis oils on people who have already found success with the compound.

“Alongside a UK RCT, we would like to see the observational trial recommended by the Health Select Committee in 2019, for those already taking full-extract oils,” she added.

“It would be prudent of the government and the NHS to take part in these trials to build the evidence base that over 50 children have proven over the last four years.”

The study will launch this summer, and the first patients are expected to be treated by the end of 2023.

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The cannabis community suffers great losses in the passing of its community members, but today it is with great regret that we report the passing of Michigan cannabis advocate and political activist, Zahra Abbas, who was 35 years old.

The Cannabis Caucus of the Michigan Democratic Party for which she held the position of Chair announced her passing on July 28. “Without Zahra the Cannabis Caucus would not be what it is today and the world is a lonelier place without her presence,” the Caucus wrote online. “Our deepest condolences to her family and friends. We know she touched many all across this great state and beyond.”

Abbas was a prominent figure advocating for cannabis as a patient herself, and sought to spread the word about cannabis and its medical benefits. “Zahra was dedicated to teaching the world about the health benefits of cannabis and helping lead the progressive movement action to remedy the catastrophic consequences of the war on drugs,” the post continued. “Zahra was frequently failed by our healthcare system and cannabis prohibition that would at times deny her the only medicine that could bring her seizures under control.”

Detroit’s Metro Times reported on Zahra’s passing, describing an interview they conducted with her in 2017. At the time, she suffered from daily seizures that were not solved through brain surgery or prescription medication—but cannabis was a game changer for her.

“As soon as I started it, within a few days my seizures stopped,” Abbas told Metro Times in 2017. “Before I started looking into it for epilepsy I was very much against marijuana because there was so much misinformation around it. It came to the choice between using that and having another brain surgery to control my seizures. … Turning to cannabis was kind of my last resort.”

She volunteered to gather signatures for the legalization ballot that appeared before voters in 2018, in hopes that others could utilize cannabis just as she did. “I’m doing this because I think more people should have access to cannabis because it helps all people,” she told Metro Times. “It should be everybody’s right to use it,” she added.

But her journey into the cannabis industry had only just begun. Her advocacy grew, and she later became Vice Chair and, later, Chair of the Cannabis Caucus, and also Vice president of the Detroit chapter of Motor City NORML. She had an instrumental role in commuting the sentence of Michael Thompson, a man convicted of a cannabis crime who had survived 60 years in prison.

Fellow advocate Jamie Lowell told Metro Times that at one point, Abbas had to quit cannabis in order to pass a drug test for a new job, but her seizures returned. “She soon had a major seizure and vowed to not quit again for anything,” Lowell said. “After resuming, she was again seizure-free. This was her powerful and amazing testimony.”

Speakers at a rally featuring Sen. Bernie Sanders, which was held in Pontiac, Michigan on July 29, took a moment to honor Abbas’s memory. Rep. Rashida Tlaib called Abbas “an incredible warrior.” “Her heart was full of love for community, and there wasn’t a cause that she did not take on … 100%,” Tlaib said. “She was one of our biggest advocates for health care and access to alternative approaches, including cannabis … and she never gave up the fight. She will be sorely missed. I know that she is with us today.”

Also present was Dr. Abdul El-Sayeda who previously ran for Michigan governor in 2018, whose spoke about Abbas’s selfless dedication to the cause. “She took her pain and she used it to bring people together, to fight for all of the things that she herself was denied, recognizing that it could have been anyone else,” El-Sayeda said. “She took that pain and decided to make the world that much better.”

“Zahra didn’t have very much time, but Zahra put all of herself into the time she had,” he added.

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South Carolina senators will debate a bill to legalize the medicinal use of cannabis this week after an eight-year effort to bring the proposal to the floor of the state Senate. If passed, Senate Bill 150 would allow patients with certain debilitating medical conditions to use medical cannabis products. A companion measure, House Bill 3361, is also pending in the South Carolina House of Representatives.

Last week, Senators unanimously agreed to assign special order status to the bill, which faces strong opposition in deeply conservative South Carolina. As a legislative priority, senators will be required to approve or reject the bill before moving on to other legislation. Debate on the bill is expected to begin Tuesday or Wednesday of this week, according to media reports.

The measure, known as the South Carolina Compassionate Care Act, was first proposed in 2015 by Republican Sen. Tom Davis. In 2018, the Senate Medical Affairs Committee advanced the bill to the Senate floor but senators opposed to the measure blocked the legislation from coming up for debate. At the close of the 2021 legislative session, Republican leaders promised Davis that the bill would come up for a vote this year.

“If you pound at the door long enough. If you make your case. If the public is asking for something, the state Senate owes a debate,” Davis told The Post and Courier. “The people of South Carolina deserve to know where their elected officials stand on this issue.”

South Carolina Medical Cannabis Bill Contains Strict Limits

The Compassionate Care Act would allow patients with one or more qualifying health conditions to use cannabis medicinally. Qualifying debilitating medical conditions include cancer, multiple sclerosis, a neurological disease or disorder (including epilepsy), sickle cell disease, glaucoma, PTSD, autism, Crohn’s disease, ulcerative colitis, cachexia, a condition causing a person to be home-bound that includes severe or persistent nausea, terminal illness with a life expectancy of less than one year, a chronic medical condition causing severe and persistent muscle spasms or a chronic medical condition for which an opioid is or could be prescribed based on accepted standards of care.

Smoking cannabis would not be allowed. Instead, patients would have access to medical marijuana products including vaporizers, topicals, and patches. Patients would be allowed to purchase up to a two-week supply of cannabis products at a time.

The bill also establishes rules for physicians to recommend medical cannabis and regulations for the production and sale of medical marijuana, including a requirement that cannabis dispensaries complete a licensing process every two years. Dispensaries would be required to contract with a state-licensed pharmacist, physician’s assistant or clinical practice nurse with training in the medicinal use of cannabis. Cannabis products would be subject to testing and labeling requirements and a seed-to-sale tracking system would be established to monitor transfers of medical marijuana products. Davis said the legislation would create the nation’s strictest medicinal cannabis program.

“I want to empower physicians. I want to help patients who could benefit from cannabis to alleviate their medical conditions,” Davis told reporters. “But I want it to be tightly regulated and controlled. I don’t want it to be a precursor to adult recreational use.”

Advocates Back Legislation

The South Carolina Compassionate Care Act is supported by medical cannabis advocates including Jill Swing, the founder and president of the South Carolina Compassionate Care Alliance. She believes her daughter would benefit from medical cannabis.

“Mary Louise shouldn’t have to continue to suffer and other patients across the state shouldn’t continue to suffer when this medication is available in 36 other states,” said Swing.

“I genuinely hope that every single Senator that walks into that chamber opens their minds and their hearts,” she added.

But Davis’ bill is opposed by law enforcement leaders, who cite public safety issues and the fear that permitting medical marijuana will lead to the legalization of recreational cannabis.

“If marijuana is medicine, it should be regulated as every other medicine is regulated. We are aware of no other medication that has to be approved by the General Assembly,” said Jarrod Bruder, executive director of the South Carolina Sheriff’s Association. “This (bill) includes a lot of other things — including vaping, including edibles. This is not going to your local pharmacy — it’s going to a dispensary. This is not being treated like every other medicine is.”

Kevin Tolson, the executive director of the law enforcement group, said in a statement that legalizing medical cannabis in South Carolina would lead to increased traffic accidents and financial crimes by cannabis businesses.

“I understand supporters of this bill are seeking to bring comfort and relief to friends and family members who are suffering from debilitating illnesses,” Tolson wrote. “But I can’t endorse or even ignore the attempt to provide relief through illegal methods, especially when those attempts will jeopardize public safety.”

Davis, however, believes that public opinion is on the side of reform. In December, a poll of 300 registered voters found that 54 percent favored legalizing the medicinal use of cannabis, with another 14 percent undecided on the issue.

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A small study of children with treatment-resistant epilepsy has found that whole-plant cannabis therapies reduced seizures by 86 percent, according to research published recently by the journal BMJ Paediatrics Open.

To conduct the study, researchers collected retrospective clinical data from caretakers and clinicians of 10 children with intractable, or drug-resistant, epilepsy. All 10 patients recruited for the study had not responded to CBD products.

When the patients were given a whole-plant cannabis oil containing THC, CBD, and other cannabinoids as well as compounds including terpenes and flavonoids, the frequency of their seizures decreased by nearly 90 percent.

“Seizure frequency across all 10 participants reduced by 86 percent with no significant adverse events,” the authors of the study wrote. 

The dosage of cannabis oil was determined by each patient’s physician. On average, the children in the study received about 5mg of THC per day, although they did not get high from the medication. Parents reported results to researchers by phone or via video conference calls. Few adverse effects, including excessive tiredness before exact dosing was determined, were reported to researchers.

“All parents reported that the whole-plant products were well-tolerated and the children showed improvements in their mood, behavior, eating anding as well as substantial improvements in their cognitive [mental] abilities,” said study author Rayyan Zafar, a fellow at the Centre for Psychedelic Research and Neuropsychopharmacology at Imperial College London.

The research also revealed that using the cannabis oil resulted in a dramatic reduction in the number of other medications taken by the patients in the study. At the onset of the research, patients were taking multiple medications daily, a figure which declined significantly after treatment with cannabis oil was begun.

“Participants reduced use of antiepileptic drugs from an average of seven to one following treatment with medical cannabis,” the researchers wrote.

Researchers Support Improved Access to Cannabis Therapies

Although U.K. Home Secretary Sajid Javid (now the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care) announced in 2018 that cannabis medicines would be made available to patients “with an exceptional clinical need,” so far few patients have received a prescription from the National Health Service. The authors of the study “noted significant financial costs of £874 per month to obtain these medicines through private prescriptions” and believe that the data collected on whole-plant cannabis therapies provide evidence to introduce such medications into the NHS under current prescribing guidelines.

“Such a move would be hugely beneficial to the families, who in addition to having the psychological distress of looking after their chronically ill children, have also to cover the crippling financial burden of their medication,” the authors concluded.

Parents Cautioned Against Unsupervised Cannabis Treatment for Seizures

Dr. Kevin Chapman, a neurologist at the Phoenix Children’s Hospital and spokesperson for the American Epilepsy Society, said that more research is needed and warned parents not to try to medicate their children with cannabis from a dispensary, saying “it’s still buyer beware.”

“There isn’t enough evidence to support using these products at this time especially instead of prescribed epilepsy treatments,” Chapman said.

The authors of the study acknowledged that there are risks treating young people with psychoactive compounds, but noted that commonly used medications for epilepsy also have serious side effects. Dr. Peter Grinspoon, a primary care physician at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston and a board member of the advocacy group Doctors for Cannabis Regulation who was not involved in the study, noted that worries about how cannabis therapies may affect children should be considered in the context of the risks associated with other commonly used medications.

“I’d imagine that any concerns about the use of THC in a pediatric population would be at least in part alleviated by the drop of anti-epileptic drugs, many of which have side effects,” Grinspoon told UPI.

“It is not difficult to understand why there is such a determined parents’ movement in support of access to cannabinoids for pediatric epilepsy,” he added.

The researchers noted that the individual dosage and blend of cannabis oil was tailored to each patient by their doctors and warned against using the medication without proper supervision.

“Medical oversight is important,” Zafar said. “We encourage parents interested in using these medicines for these children to approach clinics and discuss this option with their physician.”

The authors of the research cited several limitations of the study, including using data that was retrospective and relied on caregiver recall, although parents often kept diaries for recording seizures as documentation of their experiences as they occurred. They also noted that the study was not randomized and did not include a placebo group with which to compare results. 

Researchers also cited the small sample size of the study as a limitation, but noted that the results were consistent with other research. The authors called for further study into the benefits of whole-plant cannabis products for epilepsy patients who experience seizures.

A report on the research, “Medical cannabis for severe treatment resistant epilepsy in children: a case-series of 10 patients,” was published on December 14 by BMJ Paediatrics Open.

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Effective today—Bright Minds Biosciences shares will commence trading on Nasdaq under the ticker symbol “DRUG.” Bright Minds is already listed on the Canadian Stock Exchange (CSE:DRUG) under the same symbol. Nasdaq Stock Market LLC approved the listing of the company’s common stock on The Nasdaq Capital Market.

Bright Minds’ team of drug designers developed psychedelics to make them safer and accessible for a larger patient population, often people who are out of options when dealing with treatment-resistant conditions. The company has several patented drugs in its pipeline—primarily 5-HT2C and 5-HT2C+5HT2A agonists—that are currently at the late-preclinical stage.

The particularly intractable epileptic condition common in children, Dravet syndrome, is difficult to manage using conventional drugs. That’s why a number of patients resort to using cannabis, itself a mild psychedelic, to fight it. Charlotte’s Web, for instance, shares the name of the late Charlotte Figi whom the strain was named after. Now, scientists are exploring psychedelics to battle the condition as well, which so far are demonstrating remarkable capabilities.

The company’s lead novel compound—BMB-101—showed efficacy in in-vitro and in-vivo preclinical studies for pediatric epilepsy and decreased seizure duration by 74 percent. The company has plans to progress into clinical trials with the compound early in 2022. 

Bright Mind Biosciences’ leadership is thrilled about the “psychedelic drug revolution” that’s re-inventing therapy as we know it. A renewed interest in medical benefits from drugs such as psilocybin, ketamine, MDMA and so forth is everywhere.

“We’re making the drugs [of] the ‘60s great again! And to be honest, even better than they were in those days thanks to modern day scientific knowledge and helping a lot of patients out on the way,” Bright Mind Biosciences CEO Ian McDonald told High Times.

Bright Minds has a portfolio of serotonin agonists designed to target “neurocircuit abnormalities” responsible for difficult-to-treat disorders such intractable epilepsy, treatment-resistant depression, PTSD and pain. The company creates compounds with a goal to minimize side effects of first-generation psychedelics such as psilocybin.

McDonald also acknowledged the dire situation people with Dravet syndrome face in a press release. “Our listing on Nasdaq marks an important corporate milestone for Bright Minds, as we continue to advance our innovative drug candidates in pursuit of an improved generation of targeted serotonin-based therapies,” stated McDonald. “With encouraging preclinical data across several indications, we are progressing toward first-in-human trials with our lead drug candidate, BMB-101, for the treatment of Dravet syndrome, a devastating congenital and genetic disease affecting the nervous system. We expect to commence the trials in the first half of 2022.”

Last August, the company announced that BMB-101 showed efficacy in rodent models of Dravet syndrome. Furthermore, the effect of BMB compounds was consistent and comparable to other pharmaceutical anti-epileptics such as fenfluramine. 

BMB-101 is a 5-HT2C selective and biased agonist, demonstrating compelling promise in medical treatments for Dravet syndrome and/or other illnesses.

BMB-101 works differently than cannabis, as THC, nor any other cannabinoids and terpenoids present in cannabis plant material have known direct effects on receptors associated with psychedelics in similar classes.

Listing on the Nasdaq puts Bright Minds in a much more competitive position in an already competitive psychedelic landscape.

“Bright Minds is also committed to delivering significant returns to our shareholders,” McDonald continued. “Trading on the world’s most liquid market in which all investors can participate helps us continue to actualize that objective. We look forward to continuing to work closely with all our key constituents—scientific, medical, and the capital markets—to bolster our excellent competitive positioning.”

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Researchers in Australia say they’ve discovered the “mother of all cannabinoids,” and it isn’t THC or CBD. For the first time, a study reports that three acidic cannabinoids found in cannabis, notably cannabigerolic acid (CBGA), reduced seizures in a mouse model of Dravet syndrome, an intractable form of child epilepsy.

The three acidic cannabinoids—CBGA, cannabidivarinic acid (CBDVA) and cannabigerovarinic acid (CBGVA)—”may contribute to the effects of cannabis-based products in childhood epilepsy,” and were noted with “anticonvulsant potential.” CBGA, however, demonstrated the most potential for certain anticonvulsant effects.

“From the early nineteenth century cannabis extracts were used in Western medicine to treat seizures but cannabis prohibition got in the way of advancing the science,” said Associate Professor Jonathon Arnold from the Lambert Initiative for Cannabinoid Therapeutics and the Sydney Pharmacy School. “Now we are able to explore how the compounds in this plant can be adapted for modern therapeutic treatments.” The study was recently published in the British Journal of Pharmacology. 

CBGA is the precursor “granddaddy” molecule of CBDA and THCA, which eventually convert to THC and CBD, among other compounds. CBGA is part of a protective system for cannabis, produced by trichomes that triggers targeted plant cell necrosis—natural self-pruning to allow the plant to focus energy on the flower. 

“We found that CBGA was more potent than CBD in reducing seizures triggered by a febrile event in a mouse model of Dravet syndrome,” Lead author of the study, Dr Lyndsey Anderson, said. “Although higher doses of CBGA also had proconvulsant effects on other seizure types highlighting a limitation of this cannabis constituent. We also found CBGA to affect many epilepsy-relevant drug targets.”

Fight Against Dravet Syndrome with CBGA

The mission for the team at the Lambert Initiative for Cannabinoid Therapeutics is simple: develop a better cannabis-based treatment for Dravet syndrome—an intractable form of child epilepsy.

In 2015, Barry and Joy Lambert made a hefty donation to the University of Sydney to push forward scientific research on medicinal cannabis. Barry and Joy’s granddaughter Katelyn suffers from Dravet syndrome.

“After using hemp oil for treatment, we got our daughter back. Instead of fearing constant seizures we had some hope that our daughter could have a life worth living. It was like the noise cleared from her mind and she was able to wake up. Today Katelyn really enjoys her life,” said Michael Lambert, Katelyn’s father.

In order to learn more, the research needs to be continual. “Our research program is systematically testing whether the various constituents of cannabis reduce seizures in a mouse model of Dravet syndrome,” said Associate Professor Jonathan Arnold. “We started by testing the compounds individually and found several cannabis constituents with anticonvulsant effects. In this latest paper we describe the anticonvulsant effects of three rarer cannabinoids, all of which are cannabinoid acids.”

The Entourage Effect

In the meantime, anecdotal evidence from cannabis consumers abroad suggests that there is more to cannabis’ healing powers than THC and CBD, although the science is limited.

Families like the Lamberts have noticed significant drops in seizures when children facing intractable epilepsy take cannabis extracts, although the source makes huge differences.

Supporting the concept of the Entourage Effect, there are unknown benefits from lesser known cannabinoids. Many people believe that the presence of terpenes and other compounds in cannabis make it more effective.

Harvard Professor, Dr. Lester Grinspoon, said that you need more than THC and CBD if you want cannabis’ full effects. It should be called the Ensemble Effect, not the Entourage Effect, he said. Dr. Grinspoon believed THC should be taken with CBD and other phytochemicals in order to be more effective. Any chemical in isolation does not perform the same way as it is found in nature, he believed.

Dr. Raphael Mechoulam is best known for his extensive work in cannabis acids, as well as Dr. Ethan Russo. In 1996, Japanese researchers found that CBGA is a precursor to CBDA and other compounds.

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