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By conservative estimates, at least 54 million American adults have doctor-diagnosed arthritis, according to the Arthritis Foundation, and many of them are turning to cannabis to treat their painful symptoms, inflammation, and mood swings. And it's working.

CreakyJoints, an online arthritis support community, conducted a survey and presented a summary of the results at the 2019 Annual European Congress of Rheumatology (EULAR) meeting in Madrid, Spain, to ascertain how arthritis sufferers perceive and use medical cannabis and cannabidiol (CBD). The survey utilized the Arthritis Power research registry, which includes 19,000 participants. 

The results are positive. More than half of the 1,059 surveyed had tried cannabis to manage their arthritis symptoms; fully 97% of them said it improved their symptoms. Pain and sleep disturbance were the main symptoms participants sought to relieve.  

Arthritis Foundation is Listening

On Sept. 24, 2019, the Arthritis Foundation released a series of CBD guidelines for the first time along with suggestions for adults with arthritis. The move came about as a result of its own national survey, conducted in July 2019.

"While CBD is controversial and its effectiveness inconclusive, people with arthritis aren't waiting to try it to treat their pain," Cindy McDaniel, Arthritis Foundation Senior Vice President of Consumer Health and Impact, said in a press release. 

The vast majority of patients surveyed by CreakyJoints said they used cannabis or CBD to treat a host of symptoms related to arthritis but not limited to pain or inflammation.

These uses included improving sleep, physical function, and alleviating depression and anxiety that come from dealing with constant pain.

Dr. Benjamin Caplan, a primary care family physician in Boston, noted that cannabis as a medicine works across different systems in the human body and that when someone has pain every day it becomes a disabling condition.

“It's not like one's joints hurt just today. When it's the 50th day in a row of being in agony and not sleeping well, people very soon can start feeling depressed,” said Caplan, founder of the CED Foundation and Clinic in Boston.

(Gina Coleman/Weedmaps)

Arthritis sufferers who medicated with cannabis reported experiencing better sleep, improved physical function, and reduced depression and anxiety.

Patient Perspective

Jean Howell is a New York City tango and tai chi instructor who has suffered from arthritis for the past seven years and recently started to use medical cannabis.

“An aspect of arthritis, in fact, all pain, that does not get enough attention is how depressing it can be,” Howell said. “The knee pain just getting on and off the bus was enough to put me in a rotten mood for the rest of the day. I'm now using a THC/CBD balm and I can't tell you how relieved I am.”

While arthritis is generally treated with over-the-counter anti-inflammatory drugs, large numbers of sufferers are turning to cannabis, with or without their doctors' blessing.

“I refuse to ruin my kidney, liver, etc., with NSAIDS [non-steroidal anti-inflammatories] or worse, opioids,” Howell said. “I stopped seeing the physicians who prescribe them.”

CreakyJoints, part of the Global Healthy Living Foundation, noted that nearly half of those surveyed started using cannabis without their doctors' knowledge.

“Our study found that there's a disconnect between what patients want to know and what their providers are able to discuss.”

It stands to reason, Caplan said.

“We know cannabis is a powerful anti-inflammatory agent that functions differently from other drugs like Tylenol, Ibuprofen, steroids, or the biological options that work on the immune system and can present severe side-effects,” Caplan told Weedmaps News. “We don't see that with cannabis.”

(Gina Coleman/Weedmaps)

At least 54 million American adults have doctor-diagnosed arthritis, according to the Arthritis Foundation, and many of them are turning to cannabis to successfully treat their painful symptoms, inflammation, and mood swings.

Caplan said that up to 27% of the general population suffers from rheumatoid arthritis (RA) – an autoimmune disease which, if untreated, can damage cartilage, the elastic tissue that covers the ends of bones in a joint, as well as the bones themselves.  

Difficult to Treat

A recent cross-sectional survey, published in the September 2019 issue of Rheumatology and Therapy journal, revealed that nearly three-fourths of RA sufferers who responded were dissatisfied with their treatments, do not achieve their treatment goals and experience symptoms that affect their daily activities.

Another study may have some answers.

A report called “Joint for joints – cannabinoids and the treatment of rheumatoid arthritis” published in the journal, Current Opinion in Rheumatology in May 2019, concluded that CBD demonstrated “anti-arthritic effects independent of cannabinoid receptors” and helped control pain and reduce inflammation.

Undertaken by a team of German researchers at the University Hospital in Duesseldorf, Germany, the study noted that the body's endocannabinoid system (ECS) is capable of combating joint pain related to RA.

“An increasing number of patients with rheumatoid arthritis (RA) are using cannabis to treat their symptoms, although systematic studies regarding efficacy in RA are lacking,” the German team noted.

Studies vs. Anecdote

In a post-survey analysis of the study done in Spain, Director of Patient-Centered Research at CreakyJoints, W. Benjamin Nowell, cautioned not to rely too much on anecdotal responses. 

“Anecdotally, and via this survey data, we know that there are many people with arthritis who benefit from marijuana and CBD products,” Nowell said in the analysis. “However, we have to temper our potential excitement about adding these products to an arthritis management strategy because there is so much yet to learn … .”

Caplan agreed that further research is needed but does not discount anecdotal accounts. In fact, he finds them important.

“There is still not enough of what modern medicine calls the gold standard — randomized trials or review trials that collect multiple studies — but anecdote is not meaningless,” Caplan said.

“Stories we hear from individuals are very meaningful and worthwhile,” Caplan said. “We live in a scientific culture that thinks we should discount anecdotes and only pay attention to the highest quality data, which I think is misleading and not fair.”

New York tango dancer Howell could not agree more.

“Cannabis has been around for thousands of years. Scientific research is only starting to catch up. Those of us who use it for pain know it works.”

With legalization hitting more states by the month, and with support for marijuana legalization in the United States at an all-time high at 65 percent, the need for political action on behalf of the cannabis industry -- the world’s fastest-growing market -- has never been greater. 

Despite the cannabis industry’s meteoric rise, we are bumping up against a ceiling. Cannabis remains a federally-illegal, all-cash-based industry. It depends on outdated and unpredictable financial practices and systems. As a result, cannabis infrastructure fails to keep up with demand, and the illicit market continues to thrive (a recent audit found there are three times the illicit dispensaries than legal ones in California), which further fragments the market and caps growth.

Unlike other developed industries, cannabis lacks access to the lifeblood that allowed those businesses to even get started: modern banking and financing. Without access to formal financial services and capital, entrepreneurs in the legal cannabis market lack flexibility to reinvest and grow. Without traditional financing, ventures are blocked from accessing lines of credit to hire more talent, take calculated risks like other legal businesses, and are more likely to be delinquent on payments. A lack of access to banking also leaves thousands of workers in the financial shadows -- impeding employees from improving their own credit, preventing them from using common mechanisms like direct deposit, and forcing them to risk their safety by carrying too much cash with nowhere to put it. 

While people and businesses in the cannabis industry suffer from the lack of access, so, too, do local and state tax coffers. Cannabis businesses are barred from paying taxes via check so that states and public institutions are missing out on hundreds of millions in public dollars. Take California, for instance, where marijuana tax collections fell $100 million short of expectations, and marijuana revenue projections by the state through June 2020 were cut by $223 million.

For the cannabis industry to realize its full potential, federal and state authorities need to treat it like any other American industry. That starts with legalizing the cannabis industry’s access to modern banking and financing. 

We can start in Washington. 

The U.S. House of Representatives recently made history by voting 321-103 to pass the SAFE Banking Act (H.R. 1595) -- a bill that would enable financial institutions to serve state-authorized cannabis businesses without fear of federal punishment. 91 Republicans voted for the measure in one of the few examples of bipartisan Congressional action this year. The bill’s next hurdle is the U.S. Senate.

The SAFE Banking Act would enable financial institutions to serve state-authorized marijuana businesses without fear of federal punishment. Passage of the SAFE Banking Act would be one of the most important actions Congress could take to support the cannabis industry, acting as the first major step in funding the rising marijuana economy.

Early in the summer, the California Senate passed SB 51, allowing cannabis businesses to create accounts with certain chartered banks and credit unions for specific cannabis business-related purposes. Unfortunately, the bill stalled, but it’s sponsor, Senate Majority Leader Bob Hertzberg, is planning to resurface it next year. Nevada is drawing from the gambling industry to pilot a three-year program, which would allow the state’s cannabis industry to deal in tokens for a more secure financial medium. Earlier this month, in Illinois, Gov. J.B. Pritzker signed a bill prohibiting state financial regulators from penalizing or discouraging banks and credit unions from serving cannabis businesses.

Not only are these federal and state initiatives the right thing to do, they’re also popular. According to polling from the Third Way, 67 percent of Americans across the political spectrum want Congress to enact legislation allowing financial institutions to support legal cannabis operators. 

Access to modern banking and financing will transform the industry. It will incentivize businesses to join the legal market, as the illicit market won’t have access to banking. It will allow entrepreneurs to write checks to pay their taxes, take out a loan to invest in their business, or go paperless to pay their expenses. Financing for cannabis will improve public safety by reducing the literal bags of cash in dispensaries, warehouses and homes. And, with banking, there's a serious opportunity to legitimize the industry to skeptics who still view cannabis as they did in 1995. Stable jobs will be created, and it will allow cannabis to be part of the mainstream economy. 

The cannabis industry will continue to push for federal legalization, but the first step toward empowering the cannabis businesses is pushing state representatives in the Senate to pass the SAFE Banking Act. The cannabis industry, like any industry, deserves access to modern banking and financing solutions. At the same time, the industry can only follow the lead of states developing and passing creative solutions. 

This is the fastest growing industry on the planet. It’s high time for state legislators to treat it that way.

For the first time in more than eight decades, farmers in most parts of the country have the freedom to make hemp part of their plow and pick repertoire.

It has been said for years that the legalization of industrial hemp production in the United States would breathe new life into agriculture, giving the American farmer the benefit of a genuine cash crop. Well, the 2018 Farm Bill, which was signed late last year by President Trump, came out of nowhere to do just that. 

Now, for the first time in more than eight decades, farmers in most parts of the country have the freedom to make hemp part of their plow and pick repertoire. It is a business sector that is predicted to reach well over $2 billion within the next two years. However, there is a learning curve involved that is making it difficult for hemp growers to find profitability right out of the gate. 

In the Midwest, where hemp farmers are harvesting this crop for the first time since World War II, delayed planting efforts and heavy spring rain has created a situation where the harvest is a bit lackluster, to say the least. Indiana farmer Mark Boyer, who planted 50 acres of hemp to be used for high-quality food oil, told the South Bend Tribune that late planting caused a variety of issues, including puny yields. 

“The plants didn’t get as tall,” he said, “they never canopied and that created weed problems.”

Another major difficulty that many hemp farmers are facing is theft. Perhaps thinking that they are stealing its intoxicating cousin marijuana, thieves are sneaking into hemp fields and taking tens of thousands of dollars of product. And while theft might sound like the price of doing business, it is a problem that could cripple those farmers that have entered the hemp game to keep afloat. Because these heists are not just happening on occasion, it is something that goes down regularly. 

“You feel violated that people come here and steal from you when you’re trying to help a new industry get started that can help a lot of people,” New York hemp farmer Dale Weed told The Times of Wayne County. “It’s alarming, the fact with no theft in 17 years, and now I’m being robbed every night.”

Ramping up security and increasing foot patrols is just another expense that hemp farmers must endure. But for Weed and other farmers who cannot afford to drop beaucoup bucks on round the clock watchdogs it is up to family and friends to make up the shifts when there are no hired guns available. 

“We’ve been trying to hire employees and outside people,” Weed said. “My family has spent quite a few nights here watching the property. I’ve spent nights here where I’m sleep deprived. It’s a big problem for us.”

There is hope that these growing pains will subside in time. And if they do, it will surely be worth the initial hassle. A recent study shows that hemp farmers stand to earn in upwards of $50,000 per acre from hemp. In contrast, an acre of corn brings right around $1,000 per acre. But farmers are going to have to work for that money. In addition to poor growing conditions and theft, farmers still do not have the proper tools to handle industrial hemp throughout the entire growing process. For many, this means trying to grow without approved pesticides and harvesting by hand. 

Although the last few months have been rough for the cannabis industry, company fundamentals are improving (on average) as new markets open and existing markets gain traction.

We have been closely following the cannabis industry since 2014 and have noticed a lot of changes at the industry level and at the company level during this time. During the last year, we have noticed a large increase in the number of publicly traded cannabis companies that are focused on specific verticals of the industry and this is a trend that has caught our attention.

FRANKFORT—Six years ago, the Kentucky General Assembly created a framework for production of industrial hemp. Now the state is a hemp production leader, with around 26,000 acres planted this year alone.

But the growth of hemp and hemp processing in Kentucky under 2013 SB 50 and the 2014 U.S. Farm Bill has presented what Kentucky Agriculture Commissioner Ryan Quarles calls “growing pains,” with farmers and processors facing some uncertainty from both federal regulators and financial lenders.