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Increased Safe Access In Poland Is A Good Thing

Written by Johnny Green on November 27, 2022. Posted in Archives, Policy, Trending News.

Poland may not be the first country that you think of when the topic of medical cannabis comes up, however, the country is currently experiencing a medical cannabis revolution of sorts, thanks in large part to how access to medical cannabis is determined. In a concept that should not be seen in any way as being controversial, Poland allows its doctors to ultimately decide who should qualify for medical cannabis prescriptions.

In many other jurisdictions, doctors can only approve suffering patients if they have been diagnosed with a qualifying condition. In some areas, the list of qualifying conditions is fairly robust. Yet, in many other areas the list of qualifying conditions can be very limited. In both cases, there are always some amount of suffering patients that do not qualify for a medical cannabis program because their condition or conditions are not on the list, which is truly unfortunate. Thankfully, Poland does not limit its doctors when it comes to medical cannabis and allows them to prescribe medical cannabis to anyone that they think it will help.

The Spread Of Safe Access

Medical cannabis reform was implemented in Poland in 2017, and as of last year doctors in the country were averaging roughly 3,000 medical cannabis patient approvals per month. When a medical cannabis program goes from zero to 3,000 new patients a month that may sound like a lot to some people, however, when put into proper context the monthly figure in Poland is not nearly as staggering as some cannabis opponents and mainstream media outlets seem to portray it to be.

For context, it is estimated that there are nearly 200,000 medical cannabis patients in Germany as of 2022. Taking the reported Poland medical cannabis patient statistic at face value, at roughly 3,000 patients being signed up per month Poland should now be home to roughly 36,000 annual medical cannabis patients. If those numbers are correct, that means that Germany has over five times as many medical cannabis patients compared to Poland even though Germany’s population (roughly 83 million people) is nowhere near five times that of Poland (roughly 38 million people).

The fact of the matter is that increased access to medical cannabis is a great thing. Suffering patients should always have safe access to effective medicine, including cannabis, and that is true in Poland just as it is true everywhere else. Deep down cannabis opponents know that, which is why they never seem to offer up actual evidence of a negative impact on public health when a medical cannabis program is increasing in size, but rather, they simply point to the fact that the program is increasing in size and then try to argue that the increase alone should be cause for alarm.

Trust The Experts

Medical doctors are trained, certified, and licensed. They are quite literally experts when it comes to human biology and medicine. Politicians and members of the mainstream media, on the other hand, are not experts when it comes to human biology and medicine, unless of course they double as licensed doctors. With that in mind, deciding what forms and frequencies of medical treatments are the most effective for a given patient and situation is something that should be determined by a doctor and the patient. Anyone that says otherwise is pushing a political agenda.

When a doctor prescribes medicine to a patient, they are doing so knowing that they could be putting their entire careers on the line. All of the years that they have put into developing their practice, including numerous grueling years in medical school, could all go up in smoke if they make a wrong move. No doctor is going to flush their careers down the drain just to help someone get stoned. When a doctor prescribes medical cannabis, including in Poland, they are doing so because cannabis is a proven medicine – a medicine that tens of thousands of peer reviewed studies have found to be safe and effective.

poland

Scientists Observe Hemp Extracts Delaying The Aging Process In Honey Bees

Written by Johnny Green on April 30, 2022. Posted in Archives, Science.

Getting older stops being fun at some point. At least, I know that was the case for me. When you are younger you can’t wait to get old enough to go to school, or old enough to get a bike, or old enough to drive, or old enough to go to bars/dispensaries, etc.

But at some point aging becomes burdensome. Stuff starts to hurt that didn’t, hair stops growing in some places and starts growing in other places, and you aren’t able to do some of the physical things that you used to. For the physical things that you can still do, you do them slower and everything is sore for much longer afterwards.

Humans try very hard to delay or even try to reverse the aging process. It’s big business too. According to Statista, “in 2020, the global anti-aging market was estimated to be worth about 58.5 billion U.S. dollars. The anti-aging market is estimated to see a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of seven percent between 2021 and 2026.”

Obviously, not all anti-aging products work. A vast majority of them are nothing more than glorified snake oil that is used to financially prey upon people that want to age slower and live longer. However, there is one thing out there that may possess some promise for anti-aging product seekers – hemp.

Researchers affiliated with the Department of Invertebrate Ecophysiology and Experimental Biology, University of Life Sciences in Lublin, Poland recently explored the relationship between honey bees and the consumption of hemp extracts.

“We examined the effect of hemp extract on the activity of the antioxidant system (catalase, peroxidase, glutathione, superoxide dismutase, and total antioxidant capacity) in the hemolymph of adult honey bees (Apis mellifera).” the researchers stated.

The study involved the researchers dividing the bees into three groups:

an experimental group fed with pure sugar syrup with cotton strips soaked with hemp extract put inside the cage
an experimental group fed with a mixture of sugar syrup with hemp extract
a control group fed with a mixture of sugar and a water–glycerine solution.

The researchers collected hemolymph samples on the 1st day of the study and every following week until all of the bees died. The researchers then examined the deceased bees.

“The activities of all antioxidant enzymes were higher for the experimental groups, compared to those for the control group. The highest antioxidant activities were noted in the group supplemented with cannabis with the use of syringes.” the researchers stated.

“Supplementation with hemp also increased the lifespan of bees in this group compared to that of the bees consuming only sugar syrup (control: 35 days), with 49 and 52 days for groups of cannabis on strips and in syrup, respectively. Hemp extract, thanks to its antioxidant properties, increased the activities of key antioxidant enzymes that protect the bee’s organisms against free radicals and thus delay the aging processes.” the researchers concluded.

Obviously, bees are not the same as humans, so how this applies to the human species is something that needs to be researched before any applicable conclusions can be made. However, the results as they pertain to bees are still very insightful. Hemp extracts are perfectly safe for bees and for humans, so boosting the consumption of hemp extracts in both species is a no-lose situation.

It is no secret that the global bee population is dwindling and that it could lead to catastrophic effects on the world’s ecosystems. Helping bees stay alive longer is always a good thing, and from that perspective, the results of this study are very remarkable and will hopefully be used to effectively help the world’s bee population.

bees, poland

Tag: poland

Scientists Observe Hemp Extracts Delaying The Aging Process In Honey Bees

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