The first medical university in the United States enters a course hemp medicine

University of Vermont decided to start teaching a course entirely devoted to the use of cannabis in the treatment of various diseases.

More and more US states decides to legalize the psychoactive hemp for its use in medicine, the American doctors and the community is not behind the change. University of Vermont decided to start teaching a course entirely devoted to the use of cannabis in the treatment of various diseases. The program is already in demand, both by students and by teachers of medicine and medical practitioners, although professors complain that years of obstructing investigations properties of the plant is certainly affected the currently known facts doctors.

There are other institutions offering courses and lectures on the topic of medical cannabis, but the University of Vermont is the first in the country accredited by the department of health, decided to devote full course medical use of cannabis. Other educational institutions so far only indirectly touched on this topic.

"The purpose of the lectures is to destroy the myths that developed over the years criminalization of cannabis for the purpose of providing it to the medical community, as the drug has certain medicinal properties," says Professor of Pharmacology Wolfgang Dostmann. "We want to explain to a new generation of doctors that cannabis is not" just a recreational vehicle "and is quite effective in treating certain ailments medicine."

Despite continued federal ban on the use and distribution of psychoactive cannabis, 23 states, including Vermont, have passed laws allowing the cultivation and use of psychoactive hemp for the treatment of various kinds of serious diseases, the list of which consists mainly of diseases such as cancer, HIV / AIDS and epilepsy.

Speaking of other schools with similar training programs, you can still remember the Massachusetts Institute of Community Medicine, which offers its students a course on network pharmacology of cannabis, like Vermont with the proviso that in the course may be inaccurate due to the lack of formal studies on the effects of cannabis.

Obviously, medical cannabis and its therapeutic properties are a hot topic, both among physicians and in American society as a whole. On a new course at the University of Vermont, the beginning of which is scheduled for spring, officially enrolled about 90 students, which is why the teachers had to find a larger audience than they were originally produced. Among other things, the courses are open to foreign visitors, inviting members of the public, especially the deputies, representatives of law enforcement and practitioners to come and listen to the course materials.

Alice Peng, a graduate course of pharmacology, who wishes to further continue their medical education, said that she immediately signed up for the lectures, as it has long interested in the use of cannabis in the treatment of chronic pain.

"I work in a cancer therapy center at a local hospital, where every day I see the suffering of people with different types of malignant tumors. Of course, it affected my interest in the study of cannabis as a drug to their suffering," says Miss Peng.

Despite the enthusiasm of the public, professors, intending to teach a course, I regret to report that information available to them at the moment, is not confirmed by official, federally sponsored research at the Health Ministry.

"Information relating to medical cannabis is not just a lot, and even very much, and she often comes from various sources, sometimes conflicting," says at the expense of pharmacology professor Karen Lounsburi.

The course covers the following topics related to the medical use of psychoactive cannabis:

- Taxonomy of hemp;

- The chemical structure of cannabinoids, in particular those that have the greatest medical use;

- Physiological effects of using psychoactive hemp;

- Presently used methods hemp therapy in treating various diseases;

- The history of the country's legislation with regard to cannabis and its political and sociological effects.

Mr. Dostmann who specializes in pharmacokinetics, or the study of the mechanisms of interaction of medicines with the human body, and Miss Lounsburi whose specialty is devoted to the study of the physiological and biological effects of drugs on the body, are only a few teachers responsible for the course.

In addition, teach a course will be experts already directly involved in the investigation of the properties of cannabis, as well as people involved in the reform and the formation of the hemp market in the state, which will definitely help the students get not only the latest information on medical cannabis, but also to establish useful contacts in research groups and industry konoplevodstva.

Among the participating professionals can be the head of the research project on the medicinal properties of cannabis, as well as the owner of the cannabis pharmacy, who will talk with students about the biology of the plant, as well as professors from the Department of Business and Entrepreneurship, included in the analysis group, which develops technologies for the study and dissemination of health psychoactive hemp products, which will hold a series of lectures on economics related to medical cannabis market.

In addition, the course will visit the meeting of the parliament of the state where the deputies will discuss the topic of administration in the State of the legalization of cannabis for recreational use.

The market already has several literature books discussing subjects the medical use of cannabis, which, however, also address the subject of recreational consumption, as well as hemp cooking that, to put it mildly, is not the most suitable educational material for doctors. Therefore, a professor and Lounsburi Dostmann plan to soon sit down to write your own, strictly scientific material devoted to hemp medicine.

The course also welcomes amateurs of recreational consumption, in the hope that they will attract the topics discussed in-depth study of the pharmacology of cannabis and its use in modern medicine. In the end, the course is intended to provide the whole of society real evidence that psychoactive hemp has great potential in medicine, and it's not just a disguise for the promotion of recreational legalization.

"We have practical information and theory, but, unfortunately, no data from large clinical trials," says Miss Lounsburi. "Without them we can not 100% claim that the psychoactive cannabis is a proven and effective medicine, in spite of all the facts."