Pubdate: Sun, 16 Jul 2000 Source: Denver Post (CO) Copyright: 2000 The Denver Post Contact: 1560 Broadway, Denver, CO 80202 Fax: (303) 820.1502 Website: http://www.denverpost.com/ Forum: http://www.denverpost.com/voice/voice.htm Author: Karen Auge LEGAL CROP EXCEEDS DEMAND July 16, 2000 - Down in Mississippi, there are a couple of people who get paid to grow dope for the federal government. The little marijuana patch, overseen by the University of Mississippi, only produces a crop every couple of years, according to officials at the National Institute on Drug Abuse. Some of that weed goes to the handful of glaucoma, cancer and multiple sclerosis patients permitted to get marijuana through the quarter-century-old federal compassionate use program. And some of it goes toward research. For years, pro-marijuana activists have claimed that proving marijuana's effectiveness in alleviating nausea, helping AIDS patients eat again and easing MS patients' pain would be a cinch if only the federal government would turn loose a little more marijuana for research. Last year, the Clinton administration relaxed a requirement that any research using marijuana be paid for by the National Institutes of Health. The policy change freed up legal marijuana for private researchers, if their studies gain federal approval. Steven Gust, special assistant director of NIDA, said he expected the announcement to uncork a flood of research requests. "But we've gotten very few, actually," Gust said. Very few, in this case, meaning five. Currently, the government is sharing its stash with three researchers, Gust said. One, working in Chicago, is looking at how or if marijuana eases nausea. Another, at the Medical College of Virginia, is examining marijuana's effect on pain. In the third study, the only one that involves patients using marijuana according to Gust, Dr. Donald Abrams at the University of San Francisco gave 62 AIDS patients who are on protease inhibitors marijuana cigarettes, the legal, pill version of marijuana, or a placebo. Abrams plans to announce the results of the study, which began in May 1998, at the world AIDS conference under way in Durban, South Africa. Until then, Abrams said, his findings must remain secret. But he has already gone public with his criticism of what he considers the government's reluctance to give a green light to his study. In a 1998 article published in the Journal of Psychoactive Drugs, Abrams offers his version of the transformation his study had to undergo before it finally got approval. Abrams started out wanting to look at whether marijuana is really effective in stemming AIDS wasting syndrome. The study ended up examining whether there is any potentially harmful interaction between marijuana and the most common ingredients in the AIDS "drug cocktails." Abrams' tale has become folklore among pro-marijuana activists and government critics. But his version is just wrong, Gust said. It often takes years, and changes, for studies to be approved. And, he said, "There is a perception out there that government is blocking research. The reality is there aren't many applications out there." In the meantime, there are plenty of studies going on involving marijuana - if not the actual use of the drug. The American Cancer Society, which is against legalizing medical marijuana, this year chipped in $361,000 to help find out whether the same theory behind stop-smoking nicotine patches can be used to deliver marijuana's active ingredient. The "marijuana patch" being studied at the Albany College of Pharmacy in New York, would deliver cannabinoids through the skin, according to Dr. Audra Stinchcomb, the chief researcher. - --- MAP posted-by: Terry Liittschwager