The First FDA-Approved, Marijuana-Based Prescription Drug Is Here

Unsplash/Rick Proctor

Marijuana hit a major milestone in the United States this week.

On Monday, June 25, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration officially approved the manufacturing, selling and use of the first marijuana-derived prescription medication in the country. It’s called Epidiolex, and it’s intended to treat people dealing with severe, rare forms of epilepsy.

The drug itself makes use of the cannabidiol compound, or CBD, found in the cannabis sativa and hemp plants. Because the human body is naturally an endocannabinoid system, it biologically knows how to process and make efficient use of CBD. Extensive research has found that CBD works with our bodies rather than against it to help relieve pain, reduce feelings of anxiety, decrease inflammation and calm the nervous system in general.

While the growth, distribution and consumption of marijuana is still illegal throughout the majority of the country, this federal acknowledgment of its medicinal benefits is significant in paving the way toward a more open-minded approach to functional medicine in the U.S. Plenty of states have accepted the used of hemp-derived CBD oil, which offers similar benefits, but we have yet to all meet on the same page regarding how to use this controlled substance in a positive and helpful way.

Unsplash/Esteban Lopez

“This approval serves as a reminder that advancing sound development programs that properly evaluate active ingredients contained in marijuana can lead to important medical therapies,” FDA Commissioner Scott Gottlieb said during a call with reporters about the news.

To make proper use of CBD oil, Epidiolex comes in the form of a strawberry-flavored syrup and only includes a purified form of these cannabinoids. No THC, the psychoactive compound in marijuana, is present in the drug. Medical professionals don’t yet understand why CBD helps to reduce the frequency and severity of seizure episodes — they just know that it does, which make this approval an even bigger leap of faith than we anticipated from the FDA.

We can’t wait to see what doors this point of progress opens for the world of medicine and all of the people it aims to care for each day. If the FDA and Drug Enforcement Administration can continue working together in a productive way, this could be just the tip of the iceberg.

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