By
Michael Komorn
After the MMMA was enacted by a vote of 63% of Michigan voters in 2008, the legislature has declined to add any new qualifying conditions to protect patients from arrest.
Senator Rick Jones even attempted to remove Glaucoma from the MMMP's list of qualifying conditions. Patients , caregivers and other interested parties wrote in opposition to the bill.
A handful of petitions have been submitted over the years. LARA (and the previous MDCH department) have used various reasons and tricks to deny these petitions. Only Post Traumatic Stress Disorder has been added as a qualifying condition to the Michigan Medical Marihuana Act. Autism and Parkinson's disorder petitions were approved by the Michigan medical marihuana review board (the board consists mostly of physicians). These petitions were denied by the LARA director. The petitions were not deficient in any way and should have been accepted by LARA. We resubmitted the Autism petition again, with 20 additional research studies.
Now, with the help of numerous patients, researchers, Dwight Z. and Dr. Christian Bogner along with the Michigan Medical Marijuana Association and Michael Komorn, we have assembled a massive amount of peer-reviewed medical research and government data to show that these conditions should be approved to protect patients, caregivers and physicians from arrest for the medical use of marijuana to treat their conditions.
This project took months of work. Reading, organizing, searching and collecting thousands of pages of research from all over the world. Including the most up to date medical studies, peer-reviewed patient surveys and the national reviews of all medical marijuana studies by the National Academies of Science. The oldest peer-reviewed medical research paper cited within these petitions was from the first volume of The Lancet in 1889. Birch EA. The use of Indian hemp in the treatment of chronic chloral and chronic opium poisoning. The Lancet. 1889;133:625.
Cannabis, Indian Hemp, Marijuana, whatever you call it, physicians were using this non-toxic plant in 1889 to treat chronic opium poisoning and opium addiction. As opioid based prescriptions are addicting and killing approximately 142 Americans each day in 2017, medical marijuana is a non-lethal non-toxic way to avoid "America enduring a death toll equal to September 11th every three weeks."
The qualifying condition petitions were based primarily on the following:
Already approved qualifying conditions in other medical marijuana states.
Historical and ancient medical books.
Patient self-reports and surveys.
US Government Department of Health and Human Services Patent on using marijuana to treat many diseases and injuries, including brain injury on humans.
Institute of Medicine 1999 report on medical marijuana. This report was the basis for the MMMA, specifically cited within the Michigan law, MCL 333.26422 (b).
National Academies of Science (formerly the Institute of Medicine) 2017 updated report on medical marijuana.
Included research not only supports each qualifying condition petition, but also answers questions that the LARA directors, physicians and medical marijuana review panel board members had asked of past petitioners. Reports on dosages, safety profiles of marijuana, statistics from the CDC and Poison Control, and information from NIH, FDA and the DEA are presented in the petitions. This information was included in order to compare the safety, effects and side-effects of medical marijuana with FDA approved prescription medications.
All of the patients, caregivers, researchers, the Michigan Medical Marijuana Association and it's president Michael Komorn fully agree that marijuana should be removed from the Controlled Substances Act. Marijuana should continue to be studied as a treatment for every human and animal disease. Marijuana also should be submitted to the FDA for approval as a medicine. We fully support all clinical trials related to using marijuana as a treatment for any condition, disease or injury. As all of the scientific peer-reviewed published clinical trials show, marijuana is an effective medicine.
The http://www.nih.gov website was heavily utilized throughout this project for locating scientific peer-reviewed published research, reports and information.
The petitions are grouped by similar conditions, symptoms or mechanisms of treatment. Included in this post are some choice quotes from a few studies in each group of petitions.
001.-Anxiety.pdf
004.-depression.pdf
007.-Obsessive-compulsive-disorder.pdf
008.-panic-attacks.pdf
011.-Schizophrenia.pdf
012.-Social-Anxiety-Disorder.pdf
Marijuana and Medicine Assessing the Science Base 1999 report from the Institute of Medicine
https://directorsblog.nih.gov/2014/04/10/anxiety-reduction-exploring-the-role-of-cannabinoid-receptors/
Medical Cannabis in Arizona: Patient Characteristics, Perceptions, and Impressions of Medical Cannabis Legalization.
014.-arthritis.pdf
023.-Rheumatoid-Arthritis.pdf
Preliminary assessment of the efficacy, tolerability and safety of a cannabis-based medicine (Sativex) inthe treatment of pain caused by rheumatoid arthritis
Transdermal cannabidiol reduces inflammation and pain-related behaviours in a rat model of arthritis
025.-brain-injury.pdf
030.-Treatment-of-spinal-cord-injury.pdf
031.-asthma.pdf
Effects of smoked marijuana in experimentally induced asthma.
Effects of cannabis on lung function: a population-based cohort study
Newspaper ad from 1876 selling marijuana cigarettes for treating asthma.
You may laugh at a marijuana cigarette as a real medical treatment, but marijuana is a verified bronchodilator similar in strength to albuterol, the standard asthma medication. The medical efficacy of this specific brand of Asthma cigarettes were specifically exempted within the Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs as created by the United Nations. This means these marijuana cigarettes were still able to be sold after each country banned marijuana.
https://www.unodc.org/unodc/en/data-and-analysis/bulletin/bulletin_1951-01-01_4_page002.html
https://www.unodc.org/unodc/en/data-and-analysis/bulletin/bulletin_1962-01-01_4_page005.html
036.-diabetes.pdf
The Health Effects of Cannabis and Cannabinoids The Current State of Evidence and Recommendations for Research (2017)
The Impact of Marijuana Use on Glucose, Insulin, and Insulin Resistance among US Adults
044.-colitis.pdf
050.-gastric-ulcer.pdf
055.-Inflammatory-bowel-disease-IBD.pdf
064.-Ulcerative-colitis.pdf
Marijuana Use Patterns Among Patients with Inflammatory Bowel Disease
Minnesota Medical Cannabis Program: Patient Experiences from the First Program Year by the MN Department of Health 2016.
Cannabinoids and the Urinary Bladder
Cannabinoids and gastrointestinal motility: Animal and human studies
Medical cannabis – the Canadian perspective
Impact of cannabis treatment on the quality of life, weight and clinical disease activity in inflammatory bowel disease patients: a pilot prospective study.
106.-organ-transplant.pdf
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4541500/
Medical Marijuana and Organ Transplantation: Drug of Abuse, or Medical Necessity?
107.-Non-severe-and-non-chronic-Pain.pdf
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3998228/
LARA statistics show the majority of the 250,000+ patients in the MMMA are using cannabis to treat chronic pain. As we know that the medical use of marijuana can treat “severe and chronic pain” already, it can and should be used to treat regular generic pain that is not severe and chronic.
The reports and information from the Minnesota Department of Health on its medical marijuana program are very detailed and informative about patients experiences with medical marijuana.
Minnesota Medical Cannabis Program: Patient Experiences from the First Program Year by the MN Department of Health 2016.
http://www.health.state.mn.us/topics/cannabis/about/appendixa.pdf
108.-Parkinsons.pdf
Other states already approve of medical marijuana for Parkinson's Disease.
Including: Georgia, Vermont, Connecticut, Florida, Illinois, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Ohio, New Mexico, New York, Pennsylvania, West Virginia and California
http://www.google.com/patents/US6630507
111.-Tourette's-Syndromequalifying.pdf
Tourette’s Syndrome is an approved medical marijuana qualifying condition in Arkansas, Illinois, Minnesota and Ohio. While the MMMA covers persistant and severe Muscle Spasms, Tourette's Syndrome sufferers may not have the severe symptoms that qualify.
The 1999 Institute of Medicine report states that marijuana can be used to treat Tourettes
Syndrome.
112.-MMRP-Autism-Petition-2qualifying.pdf
Pennsylvania Medical Marijuana Program lists Autism as a qualifying condition.
There are two clinical trials for Autism and cannabis in 2017:
Cannabinoids for Behavioral Problems in Autism Spectrum Disorder: A Double Blind, Randomized, Placebo-controlled Trial With Crossover.
Cannabidivarin (CBDV) vs. Placebo in Children With Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD)
https://nccih.nih.gov/health/autism
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5473390/
Safety and Efficacy of Medical Cannabis Oil for Behavioral and Psychological Symptoms of Dementia: An-Open Label, Add-On, Pilot Study.
An Open Label Study of the Use of Dronabinol (Marinol) in the Management of Treatment-Resistant Self-Injurious Behavior in 10 Retarded Adolescent Patients
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4648553/
DOWNLOAD ALL PETITIONS ONLY (34MB)
DOWNLOAD ALL PETITIONS AND SUPPORTING STUDIES HERE (1.7GB)