Month: February 2018

Legislation to protect medical marijuana patients from the release of information to federal agencies has been passed by New Hampshire’s House Judiciary Committee.

The committee voted 13 to 5 to pass the tripartisan measure (House Bill 1672) which was introduced by Representative Caleb Dyer (L), and is cosponsored by Representatives Dan Hynes (R), Timothy Josephson (D), James McConnell (R) and Joseph Stallcop (L).

The proposal would make it so that; “Requests by federal authorities for any information relative to users of therapeutic cannabis contained in the registry shall require a search warrant issued by a judge based on probable cause.” The full text of the 1-page bill can be found by clicking here.

If the measure is passed into law – which would require it to be passed by the full House of Representatives and Senate, and not vetoed by Governor Chris Sununu – it would take effect January 1, 2019.

In New Hampshire the medical use of marijuana has been legal since 2013, with the first dispensary opening in 2016. Last month the state’s full House of Representatives approved a bill to legalize marijuana for all uses, though the measure has so far stalled in the Senate.

The post New Hampshire Committee Approves Bill to Protect Medical Marijuana Patients’ Data From Federal Agencies appeared first on TheJointBlog.

According to a study of nearly 3,000 people, cannabis seems to be a safe, effective and well tolerated palliative treatment for cancer.

The study was published in the European Journal of Internal Medicine, and published online by the U.S. National Institute of Health. The aim of the study “is to characterize the epidemiology of cancer patients receiving medical cannabis treatment and describe the safety and efficacy of this therapy.”

To do so, researchers “analyzed the data routinely collected as part of the treatment program of 2970 cancer patients treated with medical cannabis between 2015 and 2017.” Among the patients, the “average age was 59.5 ± 16.3 years, 54.6% women and 26.7% of the patients reported previous experience with cannabis.” The most frequent types of cancer were: “breast (20.7%), lung (13.6%), pancreatic (8.1%) and colorectal (7.9%) with 51.2% being at stage 4. “The main symptoms requiring therapy were: “sleep problems (78.4%), pain (77.7%, median intensity 8/10), weakness (72.7%), nausea (64.6%) and lack of appetite (48.9%).”

After six months of follow up, “902 patients (24.9%) died and 682 (18.8%) stopped the treatment. Of the remaining, 1211 (60.6%) responded; 95.9% reported an improvement in their condition, 45 patients (3.7%) reported no change and four patients (0.3%) reported deterioration in their medical condition.

The study concludes by stating that; “Cannabis as a palliative treatment for cancer patients seems to be well tolerated, effective and safe option to help patients cope with the malignancy related symptoms.

The full study and its abstract can be found by clicking here.

The post Study: Cannabis is a Safe, Effective Palliative Treatment for Cancer Patients appeared first on TheJointBlog.