Cana-oil: beware of «medicinal cannabis» scams»

The growth of medical cannabis abroad and the gradual arrival in our region of products containing cannabidiol (CBD) are particularly appealing to certain sellers.

While some products are entirely legitimate—they don’t exaggerate their effects and offer lab-tested dosages—our attention has been drawn to less scrupulous professionals. And this isn’t their first time doing this.

Healthcare Innovations

The magazine *Innovations Santé* is sent free of charge to the addresses of people who have ordered products from wellness websites. Issue No. 9, a special edition on pain, focuses specifically on «the most powerful natural treatment ever discovered by the medical world»: the medical cannabis seeds.

Between rehashing studies that do indeed demonstrate the pain-relieving effects of cannabis and blatant exaggerations—or even a complete lack of understanding of the subject—this magazine has only one goal: to get you to buy this fabulous product Cana-oil who will heal all your pains by It takes less time than you'd think, but we still recommend taking 60 capsules to try it out.

Here, in fact, is the first 6 pages, to judge for yourself. It might be laughable if we weren't sure that some people actually fall for it.

A Fake Magazine and a Real Scam?

Several factors should give the attentive reader cause for doubt:

• The magazine’s scientific expert, Prof. Acker (who appears on pages 2 and 4), is incredibly hard to reach. No doubt because he consults on Shutterstock, a stock photo library
• The active ingredients in this «natural treatment» (the magazine is careful not to refer to it as a medication) are not listed. Anyone with even a basic understanding of the subject would expect to see at least a made-up CBD concentration, which the magazine briefly mentions. There is no information in the magazine or on the website, and the hotline was unable to provide us with any details, even after our emails, to which Prof. Acker was supposed to respond «promptly.» We can only assume that the capsules contain «nothing but» hemp oil.
• The second authority cited is Professor MacKenzie (page 6), a pain specialist at the University of Lausanne (those Swiss!), who recommends this «treatment that revolutionizes everything we thought we knew about pain and how to treat it.» Aside from having virtually no online presence, our call to the Lausanne Pain Center confirmed what we suspected: no trace of MacKenzie. Or maybe he’s in the Shutterstock cafeteria.
• And undoubtedly the most beautiful (p. 4): «It is the use of the cannabis leaves «by users of so-called »soft» drugs, which tarnished its reputation and led to its ban." There you go. And those nasty drug users took a MIRACLE product off the market (we’ll gloss over the fact that numerous opioid medications are still on the market, by the way).

In short, as you can see, it's all a load of nonsense from start to finish. Once again, we could find it amusing if the subject of the’medical use of cannabis wasn't that complicated. Some people are indeed looking for relief from their daily aches and pains and could easily fall for this «natural treatment» that sounds too good to be true.

A quick Internet search for the company’s name plus “scam” also shows that some of their customers have encountered significant problems. The site also sells snail slime, lubricants, and “Colon Water” (not our first Prime Minister, but a mixture of prunes, artichokes, burdock, broccoli, and rosemary).