Reports today have revealed that a healthcare firm known as GreenLight Industries hopes to successfully fundraise in order to run medical trials for its cannabis product Greenlight Oil.

The group also wants to lobby the Irish government on changing medicinal cannabis laws.

A two minute video which appears on the crowd funding page and can be viewed below goes into more details about the project and the product.

The company is described as a medical cannabis research and development firm which is based in Dublin. The group describes itself as a team of pharmacists, doctors and scientists. Dr. James Linden is the managing director.

The group currently has one product available which is known as Greenlight Oil. The money raised from the crowd-funding will go towards running a medical trial using the product.

You can learn more about the Greenlight Oil here

While the group is currently targeting medicines for Multiple Sclerosis suffers, it believes the scopes of illnesses that could be treated with such products is much broader.

Looking at the report in the Sunday World and their own crowd-funding page there seems to be one glaring mistake.

Both make reference to the apparent failed promise of legislation for cannabis medicines to be introduced. However they are either unaware or have simply ignored that Sativex has been made available after Alex White TD made the required legislative changes

Their fundraising video talks about keeping costs low. which in light of last years report about Sativex not being cost effective must be a concern for patients.

Hopefully if any product does emerge on the market it will be readily and cheaply available

It is unclear what the firm’s aims are when it comes to producing and selling other cannabis medicines. Whether these products would be similar to their oil, or if we would see cannabis in its herbal form like it is available in the Netherlands under the name Bedrocan is somewhat unclear.

However going by the language in the news report one might assume Dr. Linden is referring to cannabis based medicines rather than herbal cannabis.

Dr. Linden states that “speaking to people with MS… they are crying out for cannabis-based medicines to relieve their symptoms.”

He also goes on to say “We want to change the law in Ireland and build a proper research and development facility with the aim of producing cannabis medicines for export, and not just for MS patients but for cancer patients, epilepsy patients and patients with chronic pain”

I will attempt to contact Dr. Linden to clear up this matter and I will inform you of any reply. While many are happy to use such medicines, some find herbal cannabis a preferable option.

Looking at their crowd funding page we see the goal is to achieve €100,000 worth of donations by May 19th. That is 59 days from now. Perhaps I am being pessimistic, but I would be very surprised if the company could reach such a goal in just two months. But best of luck to them.

While many readers may not agree with such products, they do for some people offer a hope of a relief. Something no one should deny anyone in pain. However I am sure many are concerned that such products will mean herbal cannabis will not be viewed as a medicine, when we know for many it is.

It is interesting to see a Dublin firm emerge on the cannabis medicine market. They much like many activists are seeking to change the laws.

But perhaps for different motives.