Pubdate: Thu, 03 Jun 1999
Source: Globe and Mail (Canada)
Copyright: 1999, The Globe and Mail Company
Contact:  http://www.globeandmail.ca/
Forum: http://forums.theglobeandmail.com/
Author: Anne McIlroy

CLINICAL POT LEAVES YOU SOBER YET FEELING NO PAIN

Call it a soup of pot, Canadians chosen to take part in clinical
trials of marijuana will likely find themselves inhaling the vapours
from a thick green-brown liquid from the drug that doesn't make people
high.

A British firm that makes marijuana soup is negotiating with the
federal government to test its products in Canadian clinical trials,
to see whether the drug can relieve pain and nausea in the chronically
or terminally ill.

GW Pharmaceuticals has begun tests in the United Kingdom. A small
amount of the soup is heated and inhaled through a device called a
nebulizer, similar to the inhalers used by asthma sufferers. The idea
is to deliver pain relief without the negative health effects of
smoking a joint, without getting patients stoned.

"Smoking kills people," said Mark Rogerson, a spokesman for the
company. He says people mistakenly believe marijuana helps people with
multiple sclerosis and cancer precisely because it is a mind-altering
drug. But he says its painkilling capabilities go well beyond its
psychoactive effects. "Some components actually act as pain
suppressors," he said.

He said the company has already tested the soup on healthy people to
prove it safe, but the experiment turned out to be less fun than the
volunteers may have bargained for.

GW Pharmaceuticals is awaiting final approval from the British
government to begin trials on multiple-sclerosis patients. Anecdotal
evidence shows that marijuana improves their balance, tremors and
general feeling of well-being and endurance. The trials should begin
in a few weeks; the company hopes to have a product on the market
within five years.

For years, those suffering from ailments such as AIDS, MS, chronic
pain, chemotherapy-induced nausea, glaucoma and epilepsy have sworn
that pot offers the only relief from a variety of their symptoms and
complaints.

In March, Health Minister Allan Rock announced that his department was
developing guidelines for trials that could lead to the legalization
of marijuana for medicinal purposes. He said he would make the
government's plans public in June, but the Canadian clinical trials
are likely to also include marijuana that is smoked as well.

Government officials have confirmed that they are negotiating with GW
Pharmaceuticals about marijuana soup, but are also talking to the U.S.
government about a supply of the drug that could be used in a separate
clinical trial looking at the medicinal benefits of smoking marijuana.
Ottawa is also looking at a home-grown long-term solution, in which
Canada's supply of the drug would be produced here.

Government documents obtained under the Access to Information Act note
that one of the biggest obstacles to making marijuana available to
sick people is ensuring a secure supply. But officials said that is no
longer true. The government is now confident that it can get as much
of drug as it needs.

The Health Department can't use marijuana confiscated by the RCMP,
because it might contain impurities and because different plants have
different concentrations of the chemicals that may provide relief.

Mr. Rogerson said the 10,000 plants legally grown in the United
Kingdom are cloned, which means that are genetically identical.  They
are grown in a greenhouse, but for security reasons he wouldn't say in
which part of Britain.

Doctors can currently prescribe a synthetic form of marijuana, but it
is expensive, and many patients complain that taking oral forms of the
drug doesn't work as well as smoking it. 

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