Pubdate: Tue, 23 Feb 1999 Source: Kansas City Star (KS) Contact: http://www.kcstar.com/ Author: Paul Armentano MARIJUANA HAS THERAPEUTIC USES Marijuana has therapeutic uses; the law should reflect that Missouri and other states should protect patients from prosecution Federal authorities should rescind their prohibition of the medical use of marijuana for seriously ill patients and allow physicians to decide which patients to treat. The government should change marijuana's status from that of a Schedule I (prohibited) drug ... to that of a Schedule II drug ... and regulate accordingly. - - Dr. Jerome Kassirer, editor, New England Journal of Medicine, Jan. 30, 1997 It is clear from available studies and rapidly accumulating anecdotal evidence that marijuana is therapeutic in the treatment of a number of serious ailments and is less toxic and costly than many conventional medicines for which it may be substituted. In many cases, marijuana appears more effective than the commercially available drugs it replaces. The best established medical use of smoked marijuana is as an anti-nauseant for cancer chemotherapy. During the 1980s, researchers in six different state-sponsored clinical studies involving nearly 1,000 patients determined smoked marijuana to be an effective anti-emetic. For the majority of these patients, smoked marijuana proved more effective than both conventional prescription anti-nauseants and oral THC (marketed today as the synthetic pill, Marinol). Scientific and anecdotal evidence also suggests that marijuana reduces pain and suffering in other serious ailments. For example, it alleviates the nausea, vomiting and loss of appetite experienced by many AIDS patients. Furthermore, the National Academy of Sciences and others suggest that marijuana reduces intraocular pressure in patients suffering from glaucoma, the leading cause of blindness in the United States. Clinical and anecdotal evidence also points to the effectiveness of marijuana as a therapeutic agent in a variety of spastic conditions such as multiple sclerosis, paraplegia, epilepsy and quadriplegia. Animal studies and carefully controlled human studies support marijuana's ability to suppress convulsions. Many patients and older Americans use marijuana therapeutically to control chronic pain. Recent studies performed by researchers at the University of San Francisco and elsewhere demonstrate that compounds in marijuana modulate pain signals in much the same way as morphine and other opiates. Between 1978 and 1996, legislatures in 34 states and the District of Columbia passed laws recognizing marijuana's therapeutic value. Twenty-five of these laws remain in effect. The Missouri General Assembly passed a Senate Concurrent Resolution in 1994 calling on the federal government to end ``prohibitions against the legitimate and appropriate use of marijuana in medical treatments.'' Voters in Alaska, Oregon, Nevada and Washington have adopted initiatives exempting patients who use marijuana under a physician's supervision from state criminal penalties. Arizona and California have passed similar initiatives. These laws do not legalize marijuana or alter criminal penalties regarding the possession or cultivation of marijuana for recreational use. Nor do they establish a legal supply for patients to obtain the drug. They merely provide a narrow exemption from prosecution for defined patients who use marijuana with their doctor's recommendation. Until Congress amends federal law to legalize prescriptive access to marijuana, Missouri and other states have an obligation to protect patients using medical marijuana from state criminal prosecution. Paul Armentano is the publications director for the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws (NORML) in Washington, D.C. - --- MAP posted-by: Derek Rea