***Click here to view or print a PDF copy of this commentary.***
We also encourage you to file your own testimony with the FDA about this important issue. You can do so via docket FDA-2019-N-1482 before July 2, 2019
Docket No. FDA-2019-N-1482, Scientific Data and Information about Products Containing Cannabis or Cannabis-Derived Compounds; Public Hearing; Request for Comments
As a Harvard Medical School graduate, a board-certified and practicing psychiatrist, a veteran of NIH training and a clinical professor at Georgetown Medical School since 1980, I’ve witnessed many dramatic changes over my career. Yet the hoopla and hysteria surrounding the medical use of marijuana and cannabinoid-containing products is unlike anything I have ever seen. It is frightening to me and should be to all who are trusted to protect the public’s health and safety.
With that perspective as context, I commend the FDA for tackling the enormous challenge of creating a regulatory pathway for cannabis-derived products. I believe that Congress had products like these in mind when it passed the Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act in 1906. Yet even with an eye toward protecting the public’s health and safety as the motivation for the act, a century ago people couldn’t have imagined the amount of deceptive advertising we’re seeing today for cannabidiol (CBD). To hear the marketers tell it, CBD cures everything.
We are watching the explosive creation of a multi-billion-dollar industry poised to make tremendous profits off desperate patients and their loved ones. Anecdotes and testimonials, not science, drive the marketing of unregulated, non-prescription forms of CBD. It is reminiscent of 19th century patent medicines, with its peddlers commonly known as “snake oil” salesmen.
