Pubdate: Sat, 19 Apr 2014
Source: Augusta Chronicle, The (GA)
Copyright: 2014 The Augusta Chronicle
Contact: http://chronicle.augusta.com/help/contact
Website: http://chronicle.augusta.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/31
Author: Tom Corwin, Staff Writer

MEDICAL MARIJUANA USED IN AUGUSTA, ACTIVIST SAYS

Diverse Range Of People Said To Be Involved

Even without a law to cover them in Georgia, dozens and maybe hundreds
of people in the Augusta area are using marijuana or a derivative to
treat ailments, one activist said.

Medical marijuana activist Maison Harley said their shadowy use
clamors for the state to extend legal protection amid an evolving
understanding of the potential health benefits of cannabis.

"That's the gray area that all of these families are having to go
into," he said. "Most of them have taken it upon themselves to find
these products via any means necessary."

That means using it outside the law.

Asked whether that meant taking a trip to one of the 21 states where
medical marijuana is legal and bringing it back or obtaining it by
mail, Harley said: "That's some of the ways, but I can't fully
disclose their means for obvious reasons."

The families have found each other by "word of mouth," he
said.

"These are everyday people," Harley said. "The range of social class
is phenomenal, the range of backgrounds, jobs, everything."

He said the number of families doing this is beyond what even he
knows.

"I would say it could even be in the hundreds," he said. "I've been
meeting folks who have been using it for years now, and obviously
they've had no means to get in a legal sense."

Most of them are not smoking marijuana but are eating foods laced with
the drug or its derivatives, Harley said.

"And their doctors know," he said. "They tell their doctors that's
what they do."

Harley said he got interested in the subject during college at the
University of South Carolina when he joined the university's chapter
of NORML (National Or-ga-n-ization for the Reform of Mari-juana Laws)
and became fascinated with what he saw as the potential health benefits.

"A lot of people in many families are sick, disabled," he said. "From
cancers to nerve pain, chronic pain, (multiple sclerosis). I found all
of these chemicals (in cannabis) have an interaction with those kinds
of diseases, mostly beneficial things. There's something going on,
there's something there."

MARIJUANA WAS used as a treatment for malaria, constipation and pain
in China as early as 2600 B.C. and was widely used in Europe and the
United States in the 19th century, according to a review in the
journal Drug Testing and Analysis by the medical director of GW
Phar-ma-ceuticals, which has created drugs based on cannabis compounds.

The drug fell out of favor with the advent of pharmaceuticals and
widespread concern about its recreational abuse, which led to
prohibition in the U.S., according to the review.

In 1988, researchers discovered the first cannabinoid receptor on a
nerve cell, which led to the discovery of the endocannabinoid system
in the body, which is involved in processes as diverse as immune
response, motor coordination, body temperature, emotions and bone
formation, the review notes.

Marijuana was historically used as anti-seizure medication, and there
is evidence that the endocannabinoid system is involved in modulating
seizure activity and the excitation of nerves, the review found.

Specifically, it has centered on a chemical derived from cannabis
called cannabidiol, but it has been studied in only 48 patients who
were not getting seizure control from their medications, the review
noted.

While there was some evidence of seizure reduction, it was not
possible to compare to a placebo, so testing in humans "is still in
its infancy," the review said.

GW Pharmaceuticals has a drug with cannabidiol called Epidiolex that
is just entering clinical trials in the U.S. in patients with Dravet
syndrome, with first 30 and then 60 patients in those trials. The
state of Georgia hopes to persuade the company to hold a trial at
Georgia Re-gents University to get desperate parents access to the
drug. GRU researcher Yong Park said he has been in contact with the
company on his own and hopes to hear back soon.

A GEORGIA BILL that would have legalized cannabidiol oil without
tetrahydrocannabinol, or THC, which causes the marijuana high, wasn't
passed earlier this year despite overwhelming support. It was attached
at the last minute to less popular legislation mandating insurance
coverage for autism treatment.

That bill authorized the oil for only certain conditions such as
severe seizure disorders and made it clear that the change in state
law would not be a step toward recreational use.

"There's no dispensaries, there's no storefronts being made," Harley
said. "You won't see this pop up on Broad Street."

A bill in the South Caro-lina Legislature would do just that and
authorize a much broader range of medical conditions the oil could
cover.

THERE IS NOT a medical marijuana prosecution ongoing in Georgia right
now as far as Ashley Wright, the district attorney for the Augusta
Ju-dic-ial Circuit, knows. It is difficult for her to talk about how
she might handle one, other than following the law as it stands.

"You take a case-by-case situation, you look at whether there is
criminal intent, you look at what the substance is and how it is
obtained and how it is administered," Wright said. "I think those
would be the steps one would go through if there turned out to be a
case where there was someone who had a medical need. But
unfortunately, the law doesn't provide that exception right now."

The cannabidiol oil bill's sponsor, Rep. Allen Peake, R-Macon, has
promised to bring up the legislation again the first day of the
session next year to try and give families some protection.

Harley hopes the medical evidence he so firmly believes in, but is now
mostly confined to animal models and anecdotal cases, will be even
more evident by then.

"There's definitely something to it," he said. "It's definitely moved
beyond hippies and Woodstock."
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MAP posted-by: Jo-D