Pubdate: Fri, 14 Jul 2000
Source: Province, The (CN BC)
Copyright: 2000 The Province
Contact:  200 Granville Street, Ste. #1, Vancouver, BC V6C 3N3 Canada
Fax: (604) 605-2323
Website: http://www.vancouverprovince.com/

USE OF MEDICAL POT SAFE FOR HIV PATIENTS ON OTHER DRUGS

DURBAN, South Africa - The first U.S.  study using medical marijuana for 
people with HIV has found that smoking the plant does not disrupt the 
effect of antiretroviral drugs that keep the virus in check.

The results were announced Thursday at the 13th International AIDS 
Conference and are the first to be released from research conducted at San 
Francisco General Hospital into the use of marijuana by people infected 
with HIV.

It took four years for UC San Francisco professor Donald Abrams to jump 
through hurdles erected by the federal government to get the research under 
way, and in the process he was restricted to focusing on marijuana's safety 
rather than its effectiveness.

The 67 people who participated in the study were kept in the hospital 
during the 25-day study period.

"Any good clinician with his eyes and ears open has known for a long time 
that cannabis is very useful in the treatment of AIDS reduction syndrome 
and does not harm patients." said Dr. Lester Greenspoon, professor of 
psychiatry at Harvard University and author of "Marijuana: The Forbidden 
Medicine."

"When all the dust settles, and when marijuana is admitted to the U.S. 
pharmacopoeia, it will be seen as one of the least toxic drugs in the whole 
compendium.  What Don (Abrams) has done is put the seal of approval on a 
new drug with his double blind study."

The participants were divided into three groups - one set smoking pot, 
another taking a pill containing pot's main ingredient, and a third taking 
a placebo pill.

In all groups, tests showed that the level of virus in the blood dropped or 
remained undetectable by current tests. But those taking marijuana either 
by smoking or in a pill form saw their level drop slightly more than those 
on the placebo.

Researchers also found that those using the pill or smoking pot gained an 
average of 2.2 kilograms, compared to .6 kilograms in the placebo group.

- - Scripps Howard
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MAP posted-by: Keith Brilhart