Worth Repeating: Update – Medical Marijuana As Schedule +1

The current scheduling of drugs, which classifies cannabis (marijuana) as a Schedule I drug, is an incomplete rating system. It is missing a corresponding equal positive or upside rating of the health benefits that a drug or medicine may bestow to treat an illness or disease. 

 

This chart is a negative scale. Starting backwards from 0 -5, -4, -3, -2, -1 the harm increases as the negative number gets smaller.

Nowhere on this list do you see the word “health” or “wellness.” What’s missing is its polar opposite, a “schedule of positive health benefits.”

The present marijuana drug scheduling scheme is a faulty concept, because it is missing half of a complete scale!  It only includes a negative harm scale but doesn’t include an opposite beneficial scale or “schedule of positive health benefits.” 

A schedule of positive health benefits would look something like this:

 

0 to +5 = the increasing benefits of a medicine to produce healing and overall health (the green shade is the missing half!)

 

Remember! Real scientific conclusions should be stripped of political and profits motives. 

Marijuana as a Schedule I drug really is a negative scale because it classifies drugs in descending order of supposed harm in three categories: High potential for abuse, no currently accepted medical use in treatment in the United States, and a lack of accepted safety for use of the drug or other substance under medical supervision.

We are talking science here: science demands a precise measuring system in its methology, and without one, marijuana as Schedule I is unscientific, completely arbitrary, and just somebody’s opinion. 

The big problem with the present scheduling model is that it lacks a rubric, which would provide clear criteria for measuring or evaluating a drug objectively. Such a measure would add or subtract points from a drug; this new methology would be clear and could be used by physicians and patient on an individual patient-by-patient basis, which is the very definition of individualized medicine.

 

Drug scheduling is based on an outdated disease model of health. It’s focused on harm, it’s focused on negatives, and it’s focused on what may go wrong. Yes, these are important, but only half of the picture.

Nowhere in the above drug schedule list does it instruct you on how to find your health.

Taking a page from positive psychology, which looks at what can go right with health and medicine, the new schedule of positive health benefits scale would measure what goes right and would be measured together by both physician and patient in a team approach to better health. 

Because of marijuana’s unparalleled record of safety, as in there has never been a recorded death due to its direct use, it would be the gold standard that all other drugs would be measured against.

 

A prototype of this “positive scale of health benefits” would include five parameters, each equal to one point, which would be added together for an overall holistic score.

Parameter 1 would just be a statistical overall rating of a drug’s safety   Parameters 2 and 3 would be physician-rated; Parameters 4 and 5 would be patient-rated.

The definition of a drug is any substance that changes you physically, cognitively, emotionally or how you behave socially. We all consume many “drugs” in a normal day and what is a negative side effect to you may be a positive side effect to me.

To truly judge a medication, a complete drug profile of both harmful and beneficial effects must both be presented: how else one can accurately make a good decision?

  

1. Kill ratio: This would be based on the LD 50 kill ratio. The dose required to kill half the members of a tested population after specified test duration. LD50 figures are frequently used as a general indicator of a substance’s acute toxicity.

If the drug has never caused a death, it would get a full point.  How many people die per year as a direct result of taking this drug? The lower the number the higher the score.

There has never been a recorded death due to the direct effects of marijuana intake. In this regard, marijuana has a perfect score of 1.00 in this category. 

2. Multi physical therapeutic effects: How many medicinal conditions can be treated by the medicine at the same time? Give .20 points for each condition treated, 5 conditions = 1.00

Example: Penicillin only treats infection –  Total score = .20

A short list for marijuana would be – anti tumor = .20, analgesic = .20, anti-inflammatory =.20,   20, appetite stimulant = .20, anti spasmodic = .20   Total score =1.00 

The US Government Accountability Office (GAO) noted the following symptoms or conditions under Appendix IV of their Nov. 2002 report titled “Descriptions of Allowable Conditions under State Medical Marijuana Laws”:

 

3. Multiple psychiatric therapeutic effects:  How many psychology conditions could be treated with this one medicine?

PTSD = .20, depression =.20, ADHD = .20, OCD = .20 sleep aid =.20 

Total sore =1 .00

 

4. Spiritual therapeutic effects: Historically cannabis/marijuana was infused into all of the early Asian and Middle Eastern proto-religious cultures. Marijuana smoke helped shape the thinking of early developing belief systems. Marijuana smoke primed the human mind to develop abstract cognition. 

“The cannabis was presumably (cultivated and) employed by this culture as a medicinal or psychoactive agent, or an aid to divination. To our knowledge, these investigations provide the oldest documentation of cannabis as a pharmacologically active agent, and contribute to the medical and archeological record of this pre-Silk Road culture.”

5. Major unwanted side effects as reported by patient:  .20 points for each side effect that interferes with lifestyle as reported by the patient. 

This scale is individual to the person taking the drug. A drug that may bring no relief to you may be very beneficial to me. In this age of personalized medicine, this is based on the individual genome of the human taking the drug. That is why marijuana is not for everybody, but it should not be against the law for everybody.

But ultimately it comes down to the rights of the patient to choose which medicine they want to take based on knowing how their bodies react to difference medicines. I have a right to know what makes me feel better and to have my own definition of health and lifestyle. 

Substances in this schedule have a high potential for abuse, have no currently accepted medical use in treatment in the United States, and there is a lack of accepted safety for use of the drug or other substance under medical supervision. 

Some examples of substances listed in schedule I are: heroin, lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD), marijuana (cannabis), peyote, methaqualone, “ecstasy”.

Substances in this schedule have a high potential for abuse which may lead to severe psychological or physical dependence.

Examples of single entity schedule II narcotics include morphine and opium. Other schedule II narcotic substances and their common name brand products include: hydromorphone (Dilaudid®), methadone (Dolophine®), meperidine (Demerol®), oxycodone (OxyContin®), and fentanyl (Sublimaze® or Duragesic®).

Examples of schedule II stimulants include: amphetamine (Dexedrine®, Adderall®), methamphetamine (Desoxyn®), and methylphenidate (Ritalin®). Other schedule II substances include: cocaine, amobarbital, glutethimide, and pentobarbital.

Substances in this schedule have a potential for abuse less than substances in schedules I or II and abuse may lead to moderate or low physical dependence or high psychological dependence. 

Examples of schedule III narcotics include combination products containing less than 15 milligrams of hydrocodone per dosage unit (Vicodin®) and products containing not more than 90 milligrams of codeine per dosage unit (Tylenol with codeine®). Also included are buprenorphine products (Suboxone® and Subutex®) used to treat opioid addiction.

Examples of schedule III non-narcotics include benzphetamine (Didrex®), phendimetrazine, ketamine, and anabolic steroids such as oxandrolone (Oxandrin®).

Substances in this schedule have a low potential for abuse relative to substances in schedule III.

An example of a schedule IV narcotic is propoxyphene (Darvon® and Darvocet-N 100®). 

Other schedule IV substances include: alprazolam (Xanax®), clonazepam (Klonopin®), clorazepate (Tranxene®), diazepam (Valium®), lorazepam (Ativan®), midazolam (Versed®), temazepam (Restoril®), and triazolam (Halcion®).

Substances in this schedule have a low potential for abuse relative to substances listed in schedule IV and consist primarily of preparations containing limited quantities of certain narcotics. These are generally used for antitussive, antidiarrheal, and analgesic purposes. 

Examples include cough preparations containing not more than 200 milligrams of codeine per 100 milliliters or per 100 grams (Robitussin AC® and Phenergan with Codeine®).