Cannabis Cures COVID – The elusive Holy Grail headline the marijuana industry needs for speedy state legalization

This week broke the news that cannabis may help fight COVID-19, and almost the entire non-cannabis world grabbed the headline from Oregon State University’s study on cannabis and cellular signaling pathways used by the COVID virus to enter the body. Luckily, almost everyone in the cannabis industry kept their cool and said no, marijuana doesn’t stop or cure the COVID virus, but it does have the potential to help in some way. First, it can reduce the spread of the virus by binding to receptors that the virus uses to spread throughout the body. Second, since cannabis has natural anti-inflammatory properties, it can reduce symptoms associated with the virus. Up to this point, marijuana cannot cure COVID or prevent you from getting the virus.

As the Cannabis.net article “The Cannabis Grinch” pointed out, hopes for rapid federal marijuana legalization in 2022 are dwindling unless there is a long-term bet like cannabis that has a major impact on transmission or remission from COVID. The article also points out that the news must come from a Big 4 pharmaceutical company that currently has tremendous appeal to the White House and the CDC. The reason for this goes back to the story, “Cannabis can inhibit pathways that the COVID viruses use to spread, so it closes doors that the virus uses to gain strength,” shared almost two years ago with Dr. Kovelchuk in Canada began. You can watch the full interview with Dr. Watch Kovelchuk here and listen as he explains his findings prior to the peer-to-peer review. Fast forward to Dr. Richard Van Breeman’s Oregon State study, based on Dr. Kovelchuk’s thesis builds and you can see how the cannabis and Covid headlines could start to get out of hand.

CANNABIS STOPS THE SPREAD OF COVID WITH DR. KOWELCHUK

One problem is that for the marijuana industry to see a real push toward legalizing cannabis for COVID research and use at the federal level, the study needs to come from a company or lab like Pfizer or Johnson and Johnson got to. Will these labs making millions a day from vaccines want to put a cannabis Covid alternative on the plate? Under no circumstance. As some medical professionals have also pointed out, the work of Dr. Van Breeman is a start, but there is still a long way to go from a petri dish and mass spectrometer predictions. While the marijuana industry has been heartened by news of a possible holy grail of rapid cannabis legalization, the facts summarized in Dan Adams’ “This Weed in Weed” are as follows:

researchers at Oregon State University‘s hemp round used some sophisticated computer modeling and mass spectrometry techniques to make predictions about how well a variety of organic compounds would bind to the coronavirus’ “protein spike,” allowing it to infect human cells. They then sent their list of top candidates to the Oregon Health & Science University, which has a special security facility authorized to work with live samples of dangerous pathogens such as the coronavirus.

The tests at OHSA (sic – OSHU, not the Occupational Health and Safety Act) showed that two hemp-derived cannabinoid compounds bind strongly to the tip and block the virus cells ability to infect human cells.

However, the effect has not yet been studied on humans, only on Petri dishes. Also, the compounds in question are found in very small amounts in most cannabis and hemp strains and can only be ingested through solvent-made extracts, not through smoking or cooked edibles.

Assuming the clinical trials go well, the researchers’ hope is that a pill containing purified versions of the cannabis compounds could be developed as a supplement to vaccination, to be used after a known exposure or by those with compromised immune systems.

Whenever this is a positive clinical trial on cannabis and COVID marijuana, stocks soar and the world rejoices in the medicinal potential of marijuana as a medicine. Then the details emerge, and they’re never as groundbreaking as the headlines used by the site to get the click through to the article. While cannabis has the potential to heal and benefit the human body in myriad ways, medical testing has been kept in the dark for the past 58 years thanks to the federal government’s Schedule 1 classification of the plant. The research was banned by the federal government in almost all cases. The medical studies of the last 7 to 8 years of government legalization are just beginning to meet modern medical standards, but in a way we are starting the research over as if it were 1958 and hurtling into the 21st century for cannabis information.

Does Big Pharma want marijuana legalized right now? Based on studies showing that patients discontinue more than half of their prescription medications once they begin a cannabis therapy program, the reasonable answer would be no. Why would Big Pharma want to see the full legalization of a plant that would theoretically cut their profits by 50%? Ditto for Big Alcohol and Big Tobacco at this point. With billions of dollars in lobbying funds against legalization of marijuana, see Citizen United for an example, the road to full legalization of marijuana at the federal level is currently a pipe dream. While voters overwhelmingly want legalization, big corporations interested in lobbying and election finance NO DON’T want it at the moment.

Legalization of marijuana at the federal level will happen with Mitch McConnell saying it will happen as he has the key votes and influence in the Senate to pass or end marijuana legalization. So far, the Kentucky senator has shown no interest in helping a “democratic” cause and legalizing marijuana at the federal level. Without strong Republican support, federal legalization is dead, and the SAFE Banking Act now looks like a long shot even in 2022.

These facts are propelling the marijuana industry into “Hail Mary” or “Holy Grail” mode. While there’s no obvious path to federal legalization right now, especially with the 2022 midterm elections looming, the industry needs to have an outlier or long shot for a groundbreaking cannabis move. Curing or preventing COVID from cannabis is certainly a headline story that, if revealed, could do just that. Barring a major medical finding at the cancer or COVID level, 2022 doesn’t look like the year for federal marijuana legalization.

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