Pubdate: Sun, 09 Feb 2014
Source: Day, The (New London,CT)
Copyright: 2014 The Day Publishing Co.
Contact:  http://www.theday.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/293
Author: Peter F. Moore
Page: C7

MARIJUANA SHOULD FACE SCRUTINY OF ALL DRUGS

Given the Food and Drug Administration's job to safeguard society, it
needs to say something about the marketing of marijuana for "medical"
and "recreational" use.

Inhalation of burning marijuana subjects the user to essentially
intravenous doses of unknown quantities of mixtures of unknown purity;
potent agents with diverse pharmacologic effects. I say intravenous
because the materialis drawn into the deepest passages of the lungs,
the alveoli, highly vascularized small sacs which allow the easy rapid
transfer of oxygen into the blood.

I have a B.S. in Pharmacy and a Ph.D. in Pharmacology and spent a
career in drug research and development. The current situation seems a
throwback to the days of hawking magic elixirs in the Old West.

The abilty exists to identify, quantify and determine the efficacy and
safety of all of these materials, the same process the FDA uses to
test all proposed new drugs for purity, safety and efficacy the -
NDA(New Drug Application) process. The medical community should demand
the NDA process for marijuana.

People should be concerned that friends or relatives, probably unaware
of the complexities of the matter, can in some states buy weed, light
up and get behind the wheel of a car, truck, bus or piece of
construction machinery and drive off. Circumventing the NDA process
will have dire consequences.

Peter F. Moore New London
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MAP posted-by: Matt