Alan Kohler interviewed David Langsam in his Eureka report subscription. The only thing cannabis/mdc related i added below. The whole interview is worth a listen imo. and his views there probably give a little more context as to why he isn't invested in a company like MDC.
Alan Kohler:
Let’s talk about cannabis for a minute, not too long, but it is a bandwagon, as you say, there’s a lot of interest, a lot of activity, a lot of companies having a crack at it. Do you think this is going to be an industry and are there any companies that you’ve invested in or that you think are worth investing in?
David Langsam:
No, not that I’ve invested in. Worth investing in is another matter and I wouldn’t give financial advice, certainly not in a broadcast. But you’ve got to understand that tetrahydrocannabinol was first described in Israel 50 years ago. A relative of mine was the Head of R&D at an Israeli company in 1990, that’s 30 years ago. For Californians and Canadians, it’s legal, so whoever thinks that Australia’s going to get a jump on the world when we’re so far behind the eight-ball I think is really kidding themselves.
That said, there are some companies doing some serious and interesting work. Botanix has just failed a trial on its marijuana for acne, and that’s because acne, like the other indication it’s taking on, psoriasis, is not a skin disease as such, it’s something internal to do with your immune system and inflammatory. So, simply rubbing a marijuana derivative on it I never thought was going to get very far. On the other hand, Zelda who’s now rebadged itself as Zelira, is using medical marijuana, they say, for insomnia. Whoever thought that having a glass of whiskey and a joint might have helped you sleep at night. I don’t know if any of your listeners have ever tried that and I wouldn’t recommend they do because that would be mixing drugs, but yes, you’ll probably get a good night’s sleep and they’ll probably prove that it’s good for insomnia.
Another company that I do like, Medlab Clinical, is currently conducting a trial for cancer pain, which is not trying to deal with the cancer at all, but with the side effects of the chemotherapy and the other drugs that you’re on, which hopefully will allow the patients to, if I could use the expression, chill out a bit. Perhaps if they’ve got a serious cancer – well, all cancers are serious, but a life threatening cancer, it might make their end days a bit more comfortable. Certainly I’ve heard anecdotally from people that I’ve known with multiple sclerosis and with anxiety that surprisingly, marijuana seems to work for it.
There are some areas where there’s anecdotal evidence that it does work. If anyone claims that they’ve got a marijuana cure for glioblastoma or brain cancer, I’d run a hundred thousand miles away.
