Could cannabis help heal your mutts and moggies?
A company that makes nutritional supplements for pets is testing another health product usually used by humans that it believes may help pets too – medicinal cannabis.
Hale Animal Health is developing what its managing director Leila de Koster hopes will be the world’s first registered CBD oils for dogs and cats.
CBD oils are derived from the hemp plant. They do not contain the chemical THC, which causes the high when
people smoke cannabis. They are increasingly used to treat conditions like pain and inflammation in humans and some evidence has emerged that they may also help animals experiencing anxiety, stress, nausea, skin conditions, arthritis and seizures.
Partly owned by medicinal cannabis company Helius Therapeutics, Auckland’s Hale Animal Health has partnered with overseas organisations to conduct clinical trials for a medicinal cannabis tincture for pets.
De Koster said although the product is at least a couple years away from hitting the shelves – it still needs to gain approval by New Zealand’s regulator the Agricultural Compounds and Veterinary Medicines – demand for it already appears to be high.
‘‘We get a lot of enquiries weekly from pet owners [about medicinal cannabis].’’
She added that the regulatory process was ‘‘very rigorous’’.
‘‘Before releasing you need to be 100 per cent sure that it does what it’s saying.’’
In a bid to generate more discussion about the potential benefits of medicinal cannabis for pets, Hale Animal Health is hosting an event for vets at its headquarters in East Tamaki on June 29. About 30 vets are expected to attend.
Massey University associate professor in small animal medicine and nutrition Nick Cave said interest in using cannabis to treat ailments in animals had grown as it became a more popular remedy for human health problems, but the results of studies into its effectiveness varied, leaving him ‘‘sceptical’’.
While some research indicated it may provide modest relief for osteoarthritis in dogs, other projects had found CBD had little
to no effect in treating anxiety or failed to detect any CBD in the dogs’ bloodstream, meaning it may not be absorbed property, he said.
‘‘Does that mean no product would work at no dose? Absolutely not. But there’s no evidence yet.
‘‘The conundrums for a company or the challenges would be to demonstrate that their product is actually absorbed and that they provide better evidence than is currently available. Then on top of that we still need to do studies on the long-term effects.’’
Cave said medicinal cannabis companies would have to demonstrate, based on independent double-blind placebo-controlled trials, that they had a marked impact on particular diseases before he was convinced of their effectiveness.