Tomás Cobo, president of the General Council of Official Colleges of Physicians (Cgcom).
The medical cannabis integration in the National Health System (SNS) is still surrounded by unknowns. Despite the fact that the Congress of Deputies gave the green light at the end of June to the report that supports its use for therapeutic purposes, the decision does not have the approval of the group of doctors who only agree to use this formula to treat a very specific childhood pathology.
The president of the General Council of Official Colleges of Physicians (Cgcom), Thomas Cob, has explained to Medical Writing that the only pathological field in which it is demonstrated with “solid scientific evidence” that this type of treatment can work is that of child patients with continuous status epilepticus that do not respond to any other type of medication.
Cobo has underlined that even for this specific group of patients, medical cannabis result “impossible to determine in the long term what the effects will be they produce because mortality in these cases is very high.”
The leader of the collegiate body has warned that for the rest of the diseases there are only “Indications” regarding its potential use but not the certainties necessary to apply it. “Cannabis is absolutely restricted to very specific pathologies in which the benefit of its use is demonstrated with scientific evidence,” he explained.
The doubts of the Collegiate Medical Organization thus add to the criticism that some groups of the profession have already made in a private capacity. The Spanish Society of Pulmonology and Thoracic Surgery (Separ) has already become one of the main opponents of its regulation before the “serious danger to physical and mental health” that represents his opinion for the population. While he put the specific focus on adolescents.
The therapeutic uses of medicinal cannabis
The starting point of the medical sector collides head-on with the roadmap set by the Health Commission at the end of June following a debate that lasted for months with the appearance of different experts. The document proposes its application for a wide range of patients of pathologies such as multiple sclerosis, some forms of epilepsy, nausea or vomiting due to chemotherapy o to endometriosis. Among the main innovations, there is also the incorporation to the group of those people with chronic pain Like the oncological patients.
The parliamentary groups defined these potential beneficiaries of medical cannabis because they had “stronger indications of usefulness”, but they left the door open to incorporate new therapeutic indications as they are published scientific studies that provide new data on its effectiveness.
The text went ahead thanks to the support of the two groups that make up the cgovernment oalition (PSOE and United We Can), to which were also added Citizens, PNV and PDeCAT. The lack of support for their initiatives caused CKD and HD Bildu they refrained While Popular Party and Vox they were the only ones who rejected the entire opinion. In any case, the final decision will fall on the Ministry of Health.
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