Panag Pharma announces an Interview given by Dr. Melanie Kelly and Elizabeth Cairns on CBC supporting separate streams for Medical and Recreational Cannabis
Panag Pharma announces an Interview given by Dr. Melanie Kelly and Elizabeth Cairns on CBC supporting separate streams for Medical and Recreational Cannabis
Halifax, Canada; July 2017: Panag Pharmaceuticals Inc., announces that Dr. Melanie Kelly, CSO of Panag and a professor of pharmacology and ophthalmology at Dalhousie University and Elizabeth Cairns, a PhD candidate studying pharmacology and neuroscience at Dalhousie University were interviewed Cassie Williams, Sameer Chhabra, of CBC News.
The interview stemmed from an op-ed article, published in the latest issue of the Canadian Medical Association Journal, co-authored by Dr. Kelly and Ms. Cairns.
In the article, Cairns and Kelly support a recommendation, proposed by the Liberal government’s task force on cannabis legalization and regulation, to keep the two so-called “streams” — medicinal and recreational — separate. This is in contrast to the Canadian Medical Association (CMA) who have publicly recommended just one stream once marijuana is legalized, arguing that more research must be conducted on cannabis before it should be approved for widespread medical use.
“With recreational cannabis, the focus is intoxication — that is not necessarily the case for medicinal cannabis,” said Cairns
Decrease the stigma for patients
The piece from Cairns and Kelly argues that a dual-stream approach would not only decrease the stigma surrounding medical cannabis, but would benefit patients in other ways including:
- Protecting the supply of strains of medical cannabis that have desirable effects for patients, such as lower THC: high CBD strains sometimes used to treat children who suffer from seizures.
- Driving clinical research into therapeutic uses for cannabis.
- Giving health-care providers the incentive to be up to date on the latest research involving therapeutic benefits of cannabis.
About Panag Pharma:
Panag Pharma is a Halifax, Nova Scotia based Life Sciences company developing a range of medical products which provide relief from chronic pain and inflammation, especially in sensitive sites, using proprietary plant-derived compounds.
