Partnership to study cannabis

Mac teams up with producer to look at using pot for pain

A new partnership between a Canadian licensed producer, McMaster University and Hamilton Health Sciences is expected to result in medical research to better understand the impact of cannabis.

A clinical trial — Cannabis Oil for Chronic Non-Cancer Pain Treatment (CONCEPT) — is scheduled to begin this fall and will be followed by additional randomized placebo controlled clinical trials, said Eric Paul, CEO of CannTrust Holdings Inc.

The partnership with the Michael G. DeGroote Pain Clinic and the Michael G. DeGroote Institute for Pain and Research Care marks the first with a Canadian university for CannTrust.

“For a Canadian company like ours, it’s a tremendous opportunity to add to the science of medical cannabis,” said Paul.

Dr. Ramesh Zacharias, medical director of the pain clinic and principal investigator of the study, said this trial is important because there is very little research on the use of cannabis.

“Frankly, one of the concerns is that we not only want to know where it’s appropriate, but we also want to know where potentially cannabis can be a problem for patients taking it,” he said.

Of CannTrust's close to 50,000 customers, the No. 1 reason for using medical cannabis is pain, for conditions from arthritis to gastrointestinal issues, Paul said.

“That’s why pain is so important and why this study is so critically important,” he said. “We need to understand the dosing levels to get an appropriate clinical response.”

Zacharias pointed to the current opioid crisis, noting this study offers a chance to learn from history.

“If 20 years ago, someone had done a similar study on opioids, I’m convinced we would not be seeing the problems we’re seeing today,” he said. “There was poor research at the time and people started to prescribe without really collecting enough data on not only the benefits but the potential harms.”

CannTrust, which was granted a Health Canada licence in 2014 to produce medical cannabis, announced an ALS clinical trial with Australia’s Gold Coast University Hospital this summer. The company has yet to announce several other Canadian studies, Paul said. As for CONCEPT, the team from McMaster and HHS designed the trial and has exclusive rights to publish it, Zacharias said. CannTrust is providing patients with the product, he added.