What does “Star Trek” have to do with arthritis? I’ll show you.
And here the really wild thing: The link is wrapped in the leafy green of cannabis.
Let’s start with a stunning factoid. A survey of 1,000 arthritis patients found that 57% of them had tried marijuana to treat their symptoms. And of those who tried it, more than 90% said weed helped their aches and pains.
This is big news for the 40 million Americans … and the 350 million people worldwide … who suffer from arthritis.
With the that kind of potential patient base, I believe this is big news for cannabis stock investors as well.
The survey was conducted by CreakyJoints, an online arthritis support community.
As CreakyJoints reports, managing arthritis isn’t just about treating pain or swelling. Patients surveyed reported using marijuana or CBD to treat many different symptoms and side effects of living with arthritis, including:
- Pain
- Inability to sleep
- Relaxation
- Depressed mood
- Nausea
- Physical function
- Fatigue
Now, many doctors already accept that cannabidiol (CBD), a nonpsychoactive ingredient in cannabis and hemp, helps treat many physical ailments. That’s been proven since 2000. And it’s just one of the many, many things people are treating with CBD nowadays.
That’s why we see more and more CBD treatments rolling out for everything from autoimmune diseases like rheumatoid arthritis to Alzheimer’s, Crohn’s disease and more.
If you want the 411 on CBD, you can read articles I’ve written about it here and here. Heck, CBD even helps sick pets. But that’s not what I’m talking about today.
Today, we’ll focus on how marijuana — and its active, psychotropic ingredient, THC — help arthritis patients.
Enter ‘Star Trek’
This is old news to Captain Picard. I mean, the actor Patrick Stewart, who played Captain Picard on “Star Trek” and Doctor X in the “X-Men.” Mr. Stewart, 76, says in published reports that he often uses cannabis sprays, ointments and edible products to help soothe his arthritis.
Medical cannabis is now legal in the UK, but too often patient access is cruelly denied. Visit https://t.co/D29sFtrWNu to email your MP urging them to act. #EndOurPain @end_our_pain
— Patrick Stewart (@SirPatStew) March 9, 2019
In published reports, Mr. Stewart said marijuana helped him regain the use of his hands.
“I have had no negative side effects from this treatment and the alternative would have been to continue taking NSAID’s, Advil, Aleve and Naproxen, which are known to be harsh on the liver and to cause acid reflux,” Stewart said.
As a longtime “Star Trek” fan, I find this amusing because the space-going doctors on that TV show could whip up a high-tech miracle cure to just about anything in under 40 minutes. Now, one of the Star Trek captains is healing himself with one of the oldest known cures to mankind.
I just need someone to shout, “Dammit! I’m a doctor, not a budtender!”
Anyway, now Mr. Stewart is speaking out about his marijuana use to support a project at Oxford University, one that will explore the medical benefits of cannabis.
And there could be many.
Helping arthritis may be just the tip of the iceberg. Here’s a chart from cannabis company Emerald Health Therapeutics (OTCQX: EMHTF) that shows the potential health effects of all sorts of cannabinoids …
As you can see, cannabinoids can treat everything from pain to spasms to arterial blockage to bone growth
So how can an investor make the most of this?
There are biotech companies racing to find the Next Big Cure in cannabis. And we trade these in Marijuana Millionaire Portfolio. We’ve already taken profits on two of them … we have more in place for potentially more gain … and I’ll be recommending more as they rise up in our Weiss Cannabis Stock Rankings.
The fact is, the medical side of marijuana is a treasure trove of both patient treatment and investor returns. You just need the intestinal fortitude to ride the wild moves in this market.
Some of these great stocks are held in the ETFMG Alternative Harvest ETF (NYSE: MJ), a basket of leading marijuana-leveraged stocks. And if you don’t want to do any more research, that is one easy way to play it.
But if you’re willing to roll up your sleeves and do the due diligence to investigate these biotech companies, you could find some with the potential to knock it out of the ballpark.
The choice is yours. But to borrow a line from “Star Trek,” you might want to boldly go where few investors have gone before. The gains could be downright stellar.
All the best,
Sean
