From Joe D. Goldstrich, MD, on Cannabinoid Hyperemesis Syndrome,

My current thinking is that CHS is most likely caused by Azadirachtin from Neem oil. Despite treating hundreds of patients with very high doses of THC, I have yet to see a case. It’s as good a working hypothesis as any, methinks. https://www.google.com/search?q=cannabis+hyperemesis+syndrome+Azadirachtin&source=lnt&tbs=qdr:y&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiPze320-bWAhUm9IMKHb43D64QpwUIHw&biw=1526&bih=666

From Nancy Sajben, MD:

I thought results showed they were down, not up. (With a link to a newspaper story headed: “Legal cannabis linked to 66% rise in traffic deaths in Colorado: Study reveals surge in fatal motor accidents since the state went green in 2013.”

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-4971644/Cannabis-linked-66-rise-traffic-deaths-Colorado.html

Retro Message from FG: Consider the source (The Daily Mail) and the source’s source (the National Drug Control Strategy, a product of the downsized Drug Czar’s office) and the source’s source’s source (the Rocky Mountain High Intensity Drug Traffic Area, a mechanism for channeling federal funds to narcotics officers from various agencies in four states)… A reader in the UK commented, “I see from the original article the majority of 550 deaths were caused by alcohol, some both alcohol and cannabis. Just 13 with cannabis only were over the limit. So the real issue is alcohol.”  That’s enough fact-checking. The article is blatantly slanted and the neoprobes win when we waste our time refuting their fake news.

From Dean Weiss, MD, on Paxil Leads to Suicide

Anti-psychotic drugs are the leading cause of akathisia but the term is hardly by definition a side effect of drugs. It was coined for the modern medical lexicon long before these drugs were available and is associated with plenty of neurological processes. When do we see the TV ads considering the suicide numbers —”If your loved one committed suicide and was taking the following psychiatric medications, please call our operators who are standing by 24/7. You may be entitled to compensation . . .” I’m imagining the numbers are far larger than the other crap that inundates the TV commercials. And out of all the side effects, surely suicide must be atop the list for the worst imaginable . . .
 Retro Message:  In the early ’90s I focused (as a free-lancer, while working at UCSF) on the marketing of Prozac by Eli Lilly. It was tragically clear that the biomedical establishment had become dependent on Big PhRMA funding. Tod Mikuriya, MD, who I met in ’96, saw Big PhRMA as the ultimate upholder of marijuana prohibition, so we had a strong political affinity. When Mikuriya talked or wrote about marijuana as a treatment for various conditions, he would discuss the patients’ real-world options —what he called the “toxic alternatives” in “Cannabis Eases Post-Traumatic Stress.”
As more MDs become cannabis clinicians and more people become medical users, we should bear in mind Tod’s message: Big PhRMA is not our friend. Pass it on.