Good morning. Welcome to The Greenfields, your free twice weekly newsletter that tells you everything you need to know about the cannabis business in less than 5 minutes.

What've we got for you today?

• Is another cannabis sleeping pill going to fail? 💊

• WA cannabis committee confirms obvious 🧐

• NBA players free to smoke weed 🏀

Is another cannabis sleep pill going to fail?

Avecho (ASX:AVE) are trying to raise $11 million dollars to test their low-CBD sleep treatment against a placebo so they can register it as an over the counter drug.

They'll be trying to avoid joining Cann Group and Ecofibre who are both sitting on failed sleep study results and wondering what the fuck went wrong.

The difference this time is Avecho believe they've got a few tricks to help them against pesky placebo's.

Two things they think they have in their favour:

1/ Their proprietary TPM technology

The big problem other sleep studies faced is there's little evidence low-CBD (less than 150mg/mL) has any effect on insomnia. This is because only about 6% of the CBD is absorbed by the body.

But Avecho have a technology, TPM (tocopheryl phosphate mixture), that can increase the absorption of CBD. That technology is actually just Vitamin E, and the CBD is mixed in with it.

This means that instead of absorbing about 6% of the CBD when taken without TPM you absorb almost six times that amount.

2/ Optimising the trial to account for placebo effect

Avecho have pointed out illnesses like insomnia have especially large placebo effects because they are difficult for people to describe and measure. So when people try and self-report their experiences during the trial the placebo effect is enhanced. That's why using measurable outcomes or measuring larger differences can help minimise the placebo effect.

To account for the placebo effect they are selecting larger patient numbers of people with more severe insomnia.

Does that mean it's going to work?

No. But it's not guaranteed to fail like the other studies have either. They've given themselves a better shot where others have failed, but there's still a lot of variables here.

We'll be watching closely to see how much of the $11 million they are able to raise. If Avecho are successful in registering a low-CBD sleep treatment as an over the counter drug the opportunity is enormous.

But we expect some investors to be very shy about handing over their money for another sleep trial.

Note: This analysis was written with Dr. Lenny, our plant, brain, and genetics researcher. We are thinking of making some changes to the Dr. Lenny segment. If you'd like to see more cannabis science and business analysis with Dr. Lenny, let us know here:

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WA Cannabis Committee Confirms the Obvious

Legalise Cannabis WA MP Dr. Brian Walker has chaired a select committee to look at cannabis and hemp and they've just submitted their homework.

The committee was setup to look at barriers to medicinal cannabis use, it's affordability, and the benefits and risks of industrial hemp for human consumption.

The Greenfields readers are all aware there are plenty of barriers to medicinal cannabis use.

You'll be pleased to know you aren't imagining them 🥳 because the committee confirmed the following:

1. There's too much bureaucracy and not enough prescribing doctors

2. A lot of doctors don't want to prescribe

3. It's expensive

4. You risk losing your licence or job if you use medicinal cannabis

They've made 16 recommendations, but the key ones are: remove the requirement for doctors to get authorised to prescribe medicinal cannabis, introduce a defence for driving on medicinal cannabis if not impaired, and more education for employers about how THC does and does not effect impairment.

What they don't seem to have taken seriously is the high (😉) cost of medicinal cannabis. The only recommendation to address cost is to do a cost-benefit analysis on a compassionate access scheme 🙄

You know what's pretty cheap? Growing your own.

Allowing medicinal cannabis patients to home grow seems to have been totally ignored as an option to reduce costs.

Dr. Walker had this explanation to offer:

This is a massive kick in the pants for a lot of medicinal cannabis patients who are struggling with the cost and view home grow as their best option. The progress towards legalisation that has been made is in part due to the efforts of these people who have been risking a lot for a long time.

NBA Players Free to Smoke Weed

The NBA hasn't tested players for cannabis since COVID-19 interrupted the 2019-20 season.

Because everyone went and got high once they thought they had the year off but were going to have to spend it in lockdown.

Now they've announced they'll stop randomly testing players for cannabis for good as part of a new agreement with the players union.

The new agreement will see the NBA continue to test for cocaine, meth, and opioids, but random testing for cannabis will not resume.

It's another example of how perceptions of cannabis are changing worldwide. Eventually we'll reach a tipping point where it's impossible to ignore legalisation of adult use.

Tell us what you really think

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DISCLAIMER: This newsletter is not financial or medical advice. It's not even really a newsletter when you think about it. It is strictly educational and is not investment advice or a solicitation to buy or sell anything or to make any financial decisions. Please do your own research and do not buy anything dodgy.