I bet alarmists will still use this to stop medical marijuana.
http://www.alphagalileo.org/ViewItem.aspx?ItemId=160210&CultureCode=en
Contrary to initial reports, the drug tested on paid volunteers in a
French study, which resulted in one death and five hospitalizations,
did not contain cannabis or cannabinoids. The drug, an FAAH inhibitor
manufactured by the Portuguese company Bial, was instead designed to act
upon the human endocannabinoid system as a potential painkiller and
treatment for anxiety. Beyond that, very little information is publicly
known and as such, no conclusions can be drawn about the safety or
efficacy related to future cannabis and cannabinoid research.
"Without
adequate information it is impossible to advance any realistic theory
about causes of toxicity," says Daniele Piomelli, PhD, Louise Turner
Arnold Chair in Neurosciences and Professor, Anatomy & Neurobiology
University of California-Irvine, School of Medicine, and Editor-in-Chief
of Cannabis and Cannabinoid Research. "Several structurally different
FAAH inhibitors have been previously tested for human safety in rigorous
Phase 1 clinical trials. These include compounds from Sanofi, Pfizer,
Merck, Johnson and Johnson, and others. All these FAAH inhibitors were
shown to be safe in humans."
The human safety of multiple FAAH
inhibitors suggests that toxicity of the Bial compound is unlikely to be
a 'class effect'-in other words, it is unlikely to be due to the
interaction of the Bial compound with FAAH.
"It is more probable
that the Bial compound interacts with another, as yet unknown protein
that is responsible for the observed toxicity, or that a toxic impurity
was present in the test drug," continues Dr. Piomelli. "Of course, while
we can tentatively exclude a class effect at this point, we cannot
pin-point which other target might be responsible for the toxicity of
the Bial compound."
http://www.liebertpub.com/can
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