Interview García de Palau - Spannabis 2014

Transcript of the interview with Dr. Garcia de Palau:

One… ACTION! 

Good Morning, we’re in Spannabis 2014.
It’s an honour for us to have with us the Doctor Mariano Garcia de Palau, Since 35 years practicing as a Doctor and these past 15 years devoted to what is the therapeutic use of cannabis at all levels.

We are going to make our questions as rapid as possible, with him, it’s an honour to have him here with us, Good morning Doctor Mariano García de Palau.

Good morning to all, it’s a pleasure for me to be here with the colleagues of Alchimia, who always treats me very well,
and we're going to talk a little bit about therapeutic cannabis.

In what situation are currently the investigations at a general level a bit also eh?

Well we’re living a special moment regarding the use of therapeutic Cannabis, the advances in the studies, after a long time of recreational use, this perhaps has influenced to take interest on the plant as a therapeutic resource, so currently, referring to the question in particular there are many studies including clinical that ‘s to say with patients, with human mammal patients, which makes that we’re awaiting to collect information on specific subjects
as it can be the dosages or the more indicated cannabinoids for according to which pathologies.

A recent study of the Canadian Ministry of Health 2013 published in February of last year, presently there are in study about 26 possible indications of the therapeutic use of the cannabinoids,
currently, all this is in the process of study.

And a question that we have of our interest, recently is also given much therapeutic use of what are the extractions, and we would like to know a bit about the latest developments regarding the information that we may have of what is the plant in whole,
with all its properties, or what are extractions that are currently in use.

Correct, the use of the complete plant, the cannabis plant is a very complicated plant, it’s a complex plant, which has many active principles, it’s a great botanical pharmacy, it’s a good pantry of therapeutic products, so the theme of the extractions is interesting
since if we use the whole plant we use the cannabinoids which are present in that variety, and what  is also interesting is to dispose of the terpenes and the flavonoids which are 2 groups more of very interesting substances, let's not forget that the cannabinoids are terpenophenols and the terpenes are terpenes,
that means that  they seem a lot in terms of chemical structure and they act through the same receptors in the human body.

So the theme of the extractions is interesting because, if the extraction is correct being extractions made with CO2, there are different processes, CO2, ethanol, for example BHO.

If these extractions are carried out by a competent professional, with a competent equipment, and that in the final extraction don't remains any toxic residues, which is the crux of the question,
these extractions can then be used, for example, to produce or manufacture dilutions in oil, which the patient can then take and these dilutions can be made in a way that the patient knows in every drop which exact dose it has of cannabinoids, today, this can be achieved.

Great progresses are being made

Great progresses are being made, especially when using,
we all know, who we have used the whole plant of an approximate way, we knew that some plants were more potent than others etc, etc.., but we didn't knew why, to this day, if we analyse any cannabis variet trough using a gas chromatograph associated to a mass spectrometer, which ultimately is a machinery to analyse volatile or semi-volatile substances of any botanical variety, if we analyse, I repeat, the varieties with this “gadget”, so the end result is that we can know exactly how to dose later the cannabinoids that exists in the plant, and this, I consider that it’s a great, a great advance to this day, to be able to dose, this makes that we make use of the plant in a scientific manner, and that we move each time closer to an empirical scientific method and not to an approximate and not verified method.

Although it’s a question of making a good use and with the best conditions and scientifically bringing us closer increasingly to what can be used on each occasion, at present what type of diseases are those who are treated more, If they are chronic diseases, of what kind of diseases actually we have more data, studies of what is marijuana making its role as therapeutic cannabis.

Yes, presently we still have the four basic indications of the cannabinoids, adopted at global level, those are: the treatment of the pain of any kind, we know that cannabinoids are effective for chronic pain, acute, neuropathic, the pain associated with cancer, including the pain induced on an experimental way.

On the other hand the treatment of nausea and vomiting in patients who are undergoing treatments with chemotherapy, the indication of the effect of oxygen, the increase of appetite in patients who have a cancer, HIV-seropositive patients, patients who have passed a process in which they had a weight loss, surgical convalescences etc, etc...

And finally we have the accepted indication of the treatment of spasticity in all neurological diseases that presents with this symptomatology, in addition to that, currently the cannabinoids
are being studied in the in the indications of neurodegenerative diseases as for example Alzheimer, Parkinson's disease, demyelinating diseases, symptoms of dystonia, symptoms  of spasticity, of movement disorders.

They will probably be used in inflammatory intestinal diseases, Crohn's disease in hepatopathies  its use is being studied, of course, the glaucoma at the time that is obtained a collyrium, who obtains the collyrium will make a very well living, from this moment, of these 26 indications that I have named before, ongoing also, we will see, the antineoplastic properties of the cannabinoids, the THC and other cannabinoids they’re proving as useful, all this is in experimental phase, and not in clinical study at the moment,
that means, not with human mammals, it’s being done in particular with mice, the results in mice are quite spectacular, we'll have to wait.

And as I say, in principle, this is what we have up  in the air.

This is the present, and what is the role that plays the marijuana, the cannabis in the end, which is the role that it will play in the coming years, which is its prevision, the studies are advancing a lot, which is the future of the cannabis at therapeutic level, at level of the pharmaceutical organizations, let's see if the world, the humanity once and for all it already legalize it ? It would be the way, but already!

Let's see, I have a very clear discourse, the standard is already set since alcohol is a legal drug, alcohol is the drug number one worldwide in respect of repercussion, on the individual, socio-economic repercussion on its environment and in the country where it  live, it has already replaced the cocaine, the heroin, the opiates etc.. So, clear proposal, if alcohol is legal, a less harmful drug, that is what have shown all the studies that are realised, must be legal, both for recreational use and of course, for therapeutic use, in other words, please, it must be made a decision that doesn’t have to be political or economic, it has to be scientific.

So political gentlemen, inform yourself at once, let yourselves be advised by the people who correspond and make the decisions which corresponds already, already a  time ago that this should be, not legalised, it should be normalised, it's like in Uruguay they like to tell the theme, we regularize, because the theme of legalise is a bit like…

I’m stunned since a long time with this theme in concrete, and I repeat, the proposal is very clear from the scientific point of view.
Which role will play Cannabis, at the moment we don’t know that Cannabis cure anything but as a complementary and palliative medicine, we have an important field, patients who don’t have an effective treatment, many patients, in the scope of the indications we have commented on, they're orphan patients of treatment, if Cannabis can improve their quality of life, and the patient wants,
because ultimately the patient, I defend that, is the one who must decide, prior information, what treatments he want to do, Even before the politicians.

Correct! If the patient no longer has the capacity to decide, it’s that already they don’t let us decide anything, gentlemen, and the patient of legal age, well informed, can decide if he’s going to take a benzodiazepine, which is psychoactive, which has some special metabolic circuits and which is a drug that can create addiction,
or if he want to be treated with cannabis of course.

We’re glad, very grateful for this very first-hand knowledge, we say goodbye here, we would be hours and hours but they don’t let us, we’re in the Spannabis stand very happy to have here a doctor who is dedicated to this use, put it into practice, even at the level of personalized information also, we know that many people access to the doctor for make their personal questions, it is as well?

Yes, in fact two years ago emerged a project to fill a space from which we thought it was empty and through the website, THCTERAPEUTICO.COM I personally answer to questions related to the use of therapeutic cannabis and on this website, we attempt that people can access to different sections of documentation, news etc.

So that people can be informed with information that we believe objective, confirmed, about therapeutic use in concrete of cannabis.

Thank you very much doctor de Palau, it’s an honour for us to have you here in the stand of Alchimia, thank you a lot.

Thank you, thank you very much.