Pubdate: Sat, 25 Nov 2000
Source: Austin American-Statesman (TX)
Copyright: 2000 Austin American-Statesman
Contact:  P. O. Box 670 Austin, Texas 78767
Fax: 512-445-3679
Website: http://www.austin360.com/statesman/editions/today/
Author: AP by Daniel Q. Haney

SCIENTISTS TO TEST STORIED USES OF MARIJUANA AS MEDICINE

SAN DIEGO -- Maybe The Smoke Is About To Clear In The Debate Over 
Medical Marijuana.

Few ideas, it seems, are so firmly held by the public and so doubted 
by the medical profession as the healing powers of pot. But at last, 
researchers are tiptoeing into this field, hoping to prove once and 
for all whether marijuana really is good medicine.

To believers, marijuana's benefits are already beyond discussion: Pot 
eases pain, settles the stomach, builds weight and steadies spastic 
muscles. And that's hardly the beginning. They speak of relief from 
PMS, glaucoma, itching, insomnia, arthritis, depression, childbirth, 
attention deficit disorder and ringing in the ears.

Marijuana is a powerful and needed medicine, they say, tragically 
withheld by misplaced phobia about drug addiction.

However, the drive to legalize medical marijuana is based almost 
entirely on the testimonials of sick people who swear it makes them 
feel better. Those stories are not the kind of dispassionate 
experimentation that drives medical thinking.

"We lack evidence that there is something unique about marijuana, 
other than an impressive number of anecdotal reports," says Dr. Billy 
Martin, chief of pharmacology at the Medical College of Virginia.

For the first time in at least two decades, marijuana the medicine is 
being put to the test. Scientists say they will try to hold marijuana 
to the same standards as any other drug, to settle whether its 
benefits match its mystique.

One way to buff up a pharmaceutical's raffish image -- especially one 
that's a drug in more than one sense of the word -- is to call it 
something else. When the University of California at San Diego 
started the country's first institute to study the medical uses of 
marijuana this year, they named it the Center for Medicinal Cannabis 
Research. Cannabis is the botanical term for pot.

"We talked about it a lot," says Dr. Igor Grant, the psychiatrist who 
heads the new center. "Marijuana is such a polarizing name. We don't 
want this institute to be caught in the crossfire between proponents 
and antagonists. Ultimately, if cannabis drugs become medicine, they 
will almost certainly be known by that name, not marijuana."

The center will give out $9 million over the next three years to 
California researchers -- enough to underwrite six or seven marijuana 
studies a year, each involving between 20 and 50 patients.

At least four other studies of the medical effects of marijuana are 
planned. Three are sponsored by the National Institutes of Health, 
the other by California's San Mateo County.

The medical marijuana movement began in earnest in 1996, when 
California passed a statewide referendum intended to make it legal. 
Alaska, Arizona, Hawaii, Maine, Oregon and Washington adopted similar 
laws, and Colorado and Nevada joined them in the November election.

"I was just so surprised at these policy decisions being made with so 
little scientific information," says Margaret Haney of Columbia 
University. "I'm not against the use of medical marijuana. There's 
just no data about its efficacy."

Most of the new research will probably focus on four main uses of 
marijuana that seem to hold the greatest promise:

* Relieving severe nausea and vomiting caused by cancer chemotherapy. 
This is probably marijuana's best-known medical use. Although the 
drug almost certainly helps ease nausea, there is no research showing 
how it stacks up against highly effective anti-nausea drugs developed 
in the past 15 years.

* Stopping weight loss. Marijuana clearly improves appetite. However, 
the drug has not been adequately tested in people who are 
unintentionally losing weight, such as those with AIDS or cancer.

* Treating muscle spasticity conditions, including multiple 
sclerosis. Many victims say it helps, and some animal research backs 
up the idea. But is it better than standard medicines?

* Easing pain. Researchers especially want to test it on AIDS 
patients with peripheral neuropathy, numbness and pain in the feet 
that afflicts between 20 percent and 30 percent with the disease. 
Animal studies suggest marijuana may be a mild to moderate 
painkiller, and many with AIDS are already using it, since there is 
no other good treatment.
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