“Light” cannabis appears to substitute many drug classes in Italy

“Light” cannabis appears to substitute many drug classes in Italy

A recent study sowed a correlation with availability of light cannabis on the Italian market and decreased number of prescribed drugs for a vast number of diseases.

What is light cannabis? It is essentially medicinal cannabis with low (legal) amounts of THC (usually 0,2%) and a high content of CBD (most of it as cannabidiolic acid or CBDA, to be accurate). You can also think of it as a legal marijuana – but it does not get you (that) high.

In some federal states in the USA with legal access to medicinal cannabis (or medicinal marijuana, as it is also called) sales of opioid drugs have dropped by as much as 30%. It is a well documented fact that opioid drugs cause severe dependency. Opioid drugs prescribed to patients by doctors also cause more than 50.000 over dose deaths in the USA. Luckily, European medical systems are less inclined to prescribing opioids to patients.

This study presents a first documented case in Europe that shows how light cannabis has substituted many drug classes of which many can have severe side effects that cannot be compared to those of generally benign light cannabis. Findings of the study show that quantity of prescribed anxiolytics (-11,4%), sedatives (-9,5%), anti-psychotics (-4,8%) and other drugs has droped significantly.

Graph: % of reduction in prescribed drug class as a correlation to light cannabis availability

Advice: medicinal cannabis is intended for vaporizing because high quality vaporizers only heat cannabis buds to around 180⁰C. This allows for therapeutic substances to evaporate and be inhaled without harmful toxins. Harmful toxins are largely emitted when pyrolysis takes place at burning cigarettes or joints. Compared to CBD drops inhaled CBD provides release of symptoms much quicker – in approximatelly 10 minutes compared to around one hour with CBD drops.