Snake oil, placebo at best.
It's too early to say this mate. The MHRA have declared CBD a medicine and the NHS is doing research on it. There's been clinical studies which show it absolutely does have effects on the brain.
Just because NICE haven't written up guidelines for prescription (yet) doesn't mean it's snake oil.
Remember as far as NICE is concerned even cannabis itself with THC in it has no research to back up its medical benefits, even though Theresa May's government of all things was forced to admit cannabis does in fact have medical properties when they allowed that kid access to cannabis oil with THC because the specialist doctors in the hospital said quite simply this is the only thing that works for his condition. Nothing else worked for his severe epilepsy. Not clonazepam or pregabalin or whatever else they use... only cannabis.
And yet now that it's legal the NHS still refuses to script it because they claim there is no evidence at all that it works. Which is utter bollocks, one need only look at all the clinical trials that have taken place in the US and Canada to see a wide body of evidence including proper placebo controlled clinical trials exists to prove cannabis has many medical effects.
But NICE does not trust foreign medical research. They want UK studies. Not many of them about because it's been a schedule I drug since forever, so getting permission from the government to do any trials on it was extremely difficult and costly.
I have to say though, surely the existence of Sativex which was approved for use on the NHS back in the 90's is proof enough that cannabis has medical benefits at least for pain? I am sure GW Pharma had to do clinical trials before bringing their product to market just like any other pharma company bringing any other medicine to the NHS would... so how does that not count as scientific evidence from a UK pharma company that cannabis has medical benefits?
I'm sure GW Pharma is looking into getting their existing Sativex drug, which is literally just pure cannabis extract containing
both THC and CBD in a spray bottle, licensed for other conditions now that cannabis is schedule II. But clinical trials take time.
Back to the topic of CBD alone, here is a page from GW Pharma's site for medical professionals explaining CBD's mechanism of action in the treatment of epilepsy:
Jazz Pharmaceuticals is focused on improving patients’ lives by identifying, developing, and commercializing products that address unmet medical needs.
www.gwpharm.com
I hope that's enough to prove it's more than just snake oil. The research on all this has been done and continues to be explored. GW Pharma alone has been researching CBD's anti-epileptic effects since 2007:
GW has been conducting pre-clinical research of cannabidiol (CBD) in epilepsy since 2007 and has reported significant anti-epileptiform and anticonvulsant activity of CBD using a variety of in vitro and in vivo models. This research has shown the ability of CBD to treat seizures in acute models of seizure with a potentially favourable tolerability profile. ... Overall, data from these in vitro studies demonstrated CBD to have therapeutic potential in the control of epilepsy and provided enough evidence for GW Pharmaceuticals to investigate CBD in well-established in vivo models of seizure.
We will see properly licensed CBD based medical products alongside THC and CBD products in the near future and GW Pharma will have been waiting for this change in law and preparing for it for ages. It's undoubtedly true they will now begin the process to get their existing approved product, and probably some new ones, approved for more and more conditions. They've already been doing the required research on how the medical effects on cannabis work in the form of preclinical trials, now comes the time for the clinical trials of actual products, which they can expand also to THC now the law accepts it has medical benefit.
This will be a good thing for a lot of people. Instead of having to bosh high doses of clonazepam or pregabalin daily, epileptics can spray some stuff on under their tongue that has little to no side effects. Instead of using SSRIs, benzos, or booze, people with anxiety will be able to do the same. Not to mention the analgesic properties of cannabis, which can help avoid millions of people getting hooked on opiates.
It's a shame UK doctors remain so closed minded in the face of legitimate research, but I am very thankful for the fact that clinical trials can now begin in the UK for medical cannabis, and once that process begins, NICE and the NHS will accept what is published in British medical journals and we will see guidelines finally being written so more than 20 people can actually get scripts from the NHS. And I hope the NHS uses cannabis as a first line medicine with opiates and SSRIs as second line medicines. This will do a lot of good, preventing people from getting needlessly hooked on pills.
