Pubdate: Mon, 08 Dec 2014
Source: Denver Post (CO)
Copyright: 2014 The Denver Post Corp
Contact:  http://www.denverpost.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/122
Author: John Ingold

RESEARCHERS BEMOAN ROADBLOCKS TO RESEARCH

Four decades ago, a scientist in Utah envisioned a time when a 
medicine made from marijuana might be available at the pharmacy

Researcher Ralph Karler at the University of Utah's College of 
Medicine injected mice with one of three compounds found in cannabis 
- - psychoactive THC, the closely related CBN or the non-stoning CBD. 
Then he shocked the mice to cause a seizure.

While THC had a small benefit in stopping the seizure and CBN had a 
little more, CBD- known more scientifically as cannabidiol - was the 
clear winner. The result was illuminating: Just because CBD didn't 
get you high didn't mean it wasn't working.

"The main point," Karler wrote in a slim, five-page paper published 
in 1973, "is that CBD and CBN, substances generally thought to be 
pharmacologically inactive, possess significant anticonvulsant 
activity relative to delta-9-THC."

Karler's finding didn't stand alone for long. In the mid-to late 
1970s, there was a burst of research worldwide that suggested CBD 
could be effective at controlling seizures in lab tests.

"CBD... was active in reducing or blocking convulsions," one study concluded.

"CBD was an effective and relatively potent anticonvulsant," another found.

A small trial in Brazil confirmed CBD's potential to treat seizures 
in humans. But, after a few straggler studies on CBD and epilepsy 
were published in the early 1980s, research stopped almost 
completely. The scientists who worked on the early studies knew why.

"It was just (that) people, in general, thought that this was dirty 
stuff to work with," Karler, now retired, said by telephone from his 
home near Salt Lake City. "There isn't one reason why cannabidiol 
shouldn't have been pursued as an anti-convulsant."

By the early 1980s-the era of Just Say No - the politics of marijuana 
had turned too toxic to sustain the science of it, and many 
researchers gave up working with pot.

Only in the past two years- as attitudes toward marijuana have 
softened-has research on marijuana and epilepsy picked up. Since 
2012, there have been 27 studies published worldwide on cannabidiol 
and epilepsy, according to a search of the federal government's 
medical literature database, PubMed. That compares with 21 published 
between 1973 and 1983, and a mere six published in the two decades after.

"There's no doubt," Rob MacCoun, a law professor at Stanford 
University who specializes in drug policy, wrote in an e-mail, "that 
politics has greatly hindered serious medical research on cannabis."
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom