Covid spruikers hold back medicinal cannabis industry’s quest for legitimacy

Spruiking cannabis as a ‘cure all’ for a range of diseases, including Covid-19, without clinical evidence is doing no favours to an industry that has fought hard for legitimacy.

Cann CEO Peter Crock with some medicinal cannabis: ‘We’re setting this up to be an efficient lab-scale producer.’ Picture: Aaron Francis

On the outskirts of Mildura, springing from the red earth, is a white slab of a building that backs on to rows of glasshouses shining in the sun.

The land out here is old – it preserved Mungo man for at least 40,000 years – but Cann chief executive Peter Crock says it also presents the future.

Soon these glasshouses will be filled with marijuana plants, which will be harvested and processed into a range of pharmaceutical-grade medicines onsite. It is here that the medicinal cannabis industry hopes to rise to the same level of legitimacy as opiate-based pharmaceuticals.

So the last thing medicinal cannabis producers need is a pile on of “spivs”, claiming that cannabis is a cure-all for a smorgasbord or ailments, including Covid-19, without solid clinical evidence, which threatens the industry’s hard-fought battle to shake off “pot head” connotations.

“It doesn’t help get the clickbait headlines, saying it’s going to be the latest thing that’s going to solve the world’s problems,” says Crock, who has been busily preparing the Mildura site for an audit by the health regulator, the Therapeutic Goods Administration.

“We’re setting this up to be an efficient large-scale producer. We’re not here to produce commodity cannabis. We are producing IP-protected medicine. Medicine that looks and feels like medicines that doctors normally prescribe.”

It did not take long for fledgling biotechs to try to capitalise on the pandemic. In February 2020 – when Australians could still travel overseas freely – companies from hand sanitiser to surface spray manufacturers were lining up to spruik their wares as Covid-­busters.

In the past week, the pandemic sent some producers to new highs, when US Neutra Corp – an over-the-counter stock that does not trade on any formal stock exchange – trumpeted a Oregon State University study that found cannabidiolic acid and cannabigerolic acid prevented Covid-19 from “penetrating” human cells.

In a statement, Neutra chief Sydney Jim said the company would pursue phase one clinical trials to test the effectiveness of cannabinoids preventing Covid- 19 infection.

“The earlier study showed great promise. I know it will take time to get started and but this is part of our plans for 2022,” Jim said.

“We are hopeful that our trials will show that hemp-based cannabinoid compounds to be a safe way to help to protect people from the coronavirus and SARS-CoV-2 that continues to plague the world after two years.”

Cann Group's Mildura factory, which is about to be commissioned, changing the game for medicinal cannabis manufacturers

It is unusual for phase one trials to attract such publicity before they begin. They are the first step in a lengthy drug development process that also includes phase two and three trials before gaining regulatory approval.

And many biotechs start out with grand ambitions to cure or treat all sorts of diseases, only to fail in phase two or three.

Australia’s biggest health company CSL experienced disappointment when a locally developed Covid-19 vaccine it developed with the University of Queensland failed to progress to phase two/three trials after it triggered false HIV- positive results.

It is why rigorous and costly research is needed, and why health experts and epidemiologists urge caution about cannabis treating “long Covid”, the symptoms of which include fatigue, shortness of breath, memory difficulties and joint pain.

“Research shows there is no clinical evidence to support the use of cannabis or any of its compounds including CBD (cannabis and/or its product-cannabidiol) for treating any of the neuropsychiatric complications of Covid-19,” says a study published on the US National Library of Medicine’s website.

“Thus, it is important that the addiction physicians/psychiatrists caution their patients from using cannabis or cannabis products for treating any such complications.”

Closer to home, the medicinal cannabis industry has enjoyed rapid growth in recent years, with more than half a dozen ASX-listed companies now offering treatments: Botanix Pharmaceuticals, Cann, Little Green Pharma, Medilab Clinical, Arovella Therapeutic, Zelira Therapeutics and Bod.

Like Neutra Corp, Bod – which began as a natural beauty wholesaler before entering medicinal cannabis – made news when it announced last week it had received British approval to test its MediCabilis product to see if it can treat the long-term effects of Covid-19.

It came after Bod struck a deal last March with Drug Science UK, an independent scientific body, to assess the efficacy of its MediCabilis product in managing long Covid symptoms.

Drug Science UK was established by the British government’s former chief drug adviser, David Nutt, after he was sacked in 2009 for claiming alcohol and tobacco were more harmful than LSD, ecstasy and cannabis.

Professor Nutt said the new study “could be an exciting and important step for both patients and for our wider understanding of these medicines”.

“Long Covid is a problem in many different countries. Our hope is that this UK-based research will lead to help for patients all over the world.”

For Crock, who is also chair of Medicinal Cannabis Industry Australia (MCIA), Bod is striking the right balance between claim and research.

That is vital in keeping the industry moving from the “heady days” before the government began issuing research and cultivation licences in early 2017, when Crock recalls attending meetings with regulators and other industry participants, some who had driven to Melbourne from Torquay and looked like “they’d got straight out of the water”.

“Bod are doing it the right way, taking it through a formal trial process without beating it up as the latest and greatest thing that’s going to solve everything,” Crock says.