Medical marijuana is now legal in 11 states, and bills to legalize it are pending in at least 7 more. The drug is also at the heart of a case being considered by the United States Supreme Court. Yet there remains much confusion over whether marijuana in fact has any significant medical effect. "People subjectively report benefits," said Dr. Joseph I. Sirven, an epilepsy specialist and associate professor of neurology at the Mayo Clinic College of Medicine in Scottsdale, Ariz. "There's a whole Internet literature suggesting what a wonderful thing it is. But the reality is, we don't know." [continues 1191 words]
The Drug Can Be a Lifeline, and a Fortunate Few May Soon Get It on Prescription. but Why Has It Taken So Long? I have had patients commit suicide because they said life had no meaning for them any more," says William Notcutt, an anaesthetist at James Paget Hospital in Great Yarmouth, Norfolk, on England's east coast. Notcutt specialises in treating patients in severe long-term pain. The causes are varied, ranging from spinal injuries to multiple sclerosis, but most of the patients have one thing in common: existing medicines don't help them. [continues 2055 words]
I have been lobbying for medical marijuana rights for seriously ill and dying New Jersey residents for more than a decade. I began doing so after seeing how marijuana, not marinol, was able to relieve my late wife's spasticity and pain. Cheryl died last year after a 32-year battle with primary progressive multiple sclerosis, but her dream of a better life for others looks like it may soon come true. A medical marijuana bill is pending introduction in the New Jersey Assembly. Although it comes too late for Cheryl, it is not too late for many others, yet. [continues 1098 words]
For doctors who want to discuss using medical marijuana with their patients, the line between advice and advocacy remains almost as blurred as it was before a recent court decision guaranteed a physician's right to address the issue openly. Some doctors are relieved that the United States Supreme Court let stand a lower-court decision two weeks ago that barred the federal government from punishing doctors who advised patients that marijuana might ease some symptoms. But some doctors are also perplexed, and even inhibited, by part of the underlying court decision at the center of the case. That decision essentially affirms the federal government's right to hold physicians accountable if they actually take steps to help patients obtain marijuana. [continues 1360 words]
SAN FRANCISCO - A University of California San Francisco study says that short-term use of medical marijuana causes no harm to people with HIV who are on combination antiretroviral therapy, according to Health Day News. Researchers said they could find no harmful changes in HIV levels in the participants when they smoked marijuana or took dronabinol, an oral medical cannabinoid. The study examined 62 people with HIV who are on antiretroviral regimens containing a protease inhibitor and lasted 25 days. Researched divided the volunteers into three groups. A group of 20 smoked marijuana. A second group of 22 received dronabinol and the final group of 20 received an oral placebo. CD 4 T-cell counts increased by about 20 percent for groups that used marijuana and dronabinol. CD 8 T-cell counts increased by 20 percent in the marijuana group and by 10 percent in the dronabinol group. There was no increase in CD 4 or CD 8 T-cell counts in the placebo group. "The change in lymphocyte counts for the smoked marijuana group is intriguing. At a minimum, it contradicts findings from previous studies suggesting that smoked marijuana suppresses the immune system," said study author Dr. Donald Abrams, a USCF professor of clinical medicine. [end]
HealthDayNews - Short-term use of medical marijuana causes no harm to people with HIV who are on combination antiretroviral therapy, says a University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) study. Researchers found no harmful changes in HIV levels in the participants when they smoked marijuana or took dronabinol, an oral medical cannabinoid. The 25-day study included 62 HIV-infected people on antiretroviral regimens containing a protease inhibitor. The volunteers were divided into three groups: 20 smoked marijuana, 22 received dronabinol, and 20 received an oral placebo. [continues 230 words]
It's Become An International Model For Compassionate Care When San Francisco General Hospital opened the world's first AIDS ward on its fifth floor exactly two decades ago, a lot of people thought it was a bad idea. Dr. Mervyn Silverman opposed it. As director of the San Francisco Department of Public Health at the time, he feared that patients sent there would be shunned, and others would live in dread that they were destined for a lonely place of no return. [continues 1477 words]
Harmful toxins in marijuana smoke can be effectively avoided by a vaporization device, according to a new study by California NORML and MAPS (Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies) with support from a grant from the MPP (Marijuana Policy Project). The study, conducted by Chemic Labs in Canton, Mass., tested vapors from cannabis heated in an herbal vaporizer known as the Volcano(R) (manufactured by Storz & Bickel GmbH&Co. KG, Tuttlingen, Germany; http://www.storz-bickel.com) and compared them to smoke produced by combusted marijuana. The Volcano(R) is designed to heat material to temperatures of 130 to 230 C (266 to 446 F) where medically active vapors are produced, but below the threshold of combustion where smoke is formed. [continues 717 words]
U.S. Can't Punish Physicians Who Recommend Drug A federal appeals court on Tuesday rejected one of the U.S. Justice Department's primary legal assaults on medicinal marijuana laws in California and other states, finding it is unconstitutional for federal officials to punish doctors who recommend pot to the sick and dying. The federal government's policy of investigating and threatening to revoke a doctor's license for recommending medicinal marijuana violates the First Amendment and tramples on the doctor-patient relationship, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals determined. [continues 744 words]
Well, No. But the Latest Research Suggests the Health Risk From Occasional Use Is Mild, and It Might Ease Certain Ills I never smoked pot in junior high because I was convinced it would shrivel my incipient manhood. This was the 1980s, and those stark this-is-your-brain-on-drugs ads already had me vaguely worried about memory loss and psychosis. But when other boys said pot might affect our southern regions, I was truly terrified. I didn't smoke a joint for the first time until I was 21. [continues 2935 words]
Medical marijuana's history began thousands of years ago in China and India. In India, marijuana has had a solid position in Ayruvedic medicine and is still prescribed today. The world's first encyclopedia of medicines, compiled in 1 A.D. by Chinese authors, suggests marijuana for over 100 conditions such as malaria and absentmindedness. Even in the United States, pharmaceutical companies produced marijuana-based drugs until 1937, when high taxes and extensive paperwork discouraged doctors from treating patients with marijuana. [continues 2101 words]
A public health official quoted in The Reporter in a June 23 story about marijuana is misinformed about marijuana's effects on the immune system and its alleged dangers for AIDS patients. Research conducted by Dr. Donald Abrams of the University of California, San Francisco, and presented at the International AIDS Conference in 2000, found that AIDS patients using marijuana kept their virus under control just as well as patients given a placebo, and gained more disease-fighting immune system cells than the placebo-patients. They also gained more weight. [continues 105 words]
San Francisco is the most pot friendly large city in the country, so it is no surprise that the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws (NORML) held its national convention there on April 18-20. Over 570 people from all walks of life streamed to the Crowne Plaza Union Square Hotel to hear speakers from State Senator John Vasconcellos to the host of ABC-TV's Politically Incorrect Bill Maher. Demanding that the government lay off pot smokers, mothers decried the arrest of their children, medicinal marijuana users heralded its beneficial properties, civil libertarians denounced the violations of the constitution and pot smokers praised the plant for its enjoyable effects and the lack of harm of any significant extent. [continues 2451 words]
SAN JOSE, Calif. - The pot is unsmokeable, they say, full of sticks, stems and seeds. The leaves have gone stale after at least a year of storage, freezing and then thawing. Marijuana supplied to researchers from the government farm in Mississippi isn't quality product, according to a range of observers, from Redwood Shores HIV patient Phillip Alden to a cop-turned county supervisor. Alden said he knows from experience - he's smoked it. And the result? An upper respiratory infection and an early departure from a landmark research study, the first publicly funded analysis of HIV patients smoking cannabis in their homes. [continues 850 words]
SAN FRANCISCO - Robert has taken a lot of prescription drugs over the past 15 years. One made him vomit without warning. Another tasted like motor oil. One drove his cholesterol to heart-attack levels. Still another caused a hot, tingling pain in his hands and feet. Late last month, Robert checked into San Francisco General Hospital to test a drug to quiet the nerve pain. This one left him temporarily giggling and bewildered. As someone who's been sick from HIV for most of his adult life, Robert found the side effects of this test drug gentle. "It is really mild compared to everything else," he said. [continues 1107 words]
Robert has taken a lot of prescription drugs over the past 15 years. One made him vomit without warning. Another tasted like motor oil. One drove his cholesterol to heart-attack levels. Still another caused a hot, tingling pain in his hands and feet. Late last month, Robert checked into San Francisco General Hospital to test a drug to quiet the nerve pain. This one left him temporarily giggling and bewildered. As someone who's been sick from HIV for most of his adult life, Robert found the side effects of this test drug gentle. "It is really mild compared to everything else," he said. [continues 1107 words]
Millions of Americans use marijuana on a regular basis - last year alone 700,000 were arrested on charges related to the small, benign-looking plant. While the majority of cannabis smokers are recreational users, some of them have turned to marijuana for its medicinal properties. The current U.S. policy against medicinal cannabis is hypocritical and needs to be reevaluated in terms of its benefits to society. A study from a group of Australian researchers, published last month in the Journal of the American Medical Association, claims that long-term marijuana use impairs memory and concentration. [continues 575 words]
A Landmark Study Funded By The State Is Researching The Therapeutic Value Of Marijuana. SAN FRANCISCO -- Robert has taken a lot of prescription drugs over the past 15 years. One made him vomit without warning. Another tasted like motor oil. One drove his cholesterol to heart-attack levels. Still another caused a hot, tingling pain in his hands and feet. Late last month, Robert checked into San Francisco General Hospital to test a drug to quiet the nerve pain. This one left him temporarily giggling and bewildered. [continues 1705 words]
California Studies Will Try to Determine Reputed Benefits Washington -- Researchers next month will begin the first study since the 1980s of the reputed medical benefits of marijuana, signaling that the long debate over the drug's merits could be settled in hospitals and labs rather than in courts and Congress. Scientists at the University of California's Center for Medicinal Cannabis Research will conduct tests to determine whether smoking marijuana -- dubbed "medipot" -- can help HIV-infected patients and those with multiple sclerosis by easing pain or treating nausea. [continues 580 words]
Patients Need Place To Smoke The city's health authority is drafting procedural plans that will allow patients to smoke marijuana while in their care, officials have told the Sun. As the Canadian government readies its first batch of medicinal marijuana for transport, officials at the Calgary Health Region are devising strategy to deal with requests by patients wanting to use marijuana while on hospital property, by providing "a safe and private place" for users to smoke. "It would be appropriate to recognize ... that we have to look at all options for the use of marijuana in our hospitals," CHR communications adviser Brenda Barootes told the Sun. [continues 287 words]
Health chiefs in Edmonton and Calgary are drafting policies to allow patients to smoke marijuana in hospitals. As the Canadian government readies its first batch of medicinal marijuana for transport, officials at the Capital and Calgary health regions are devising a strategy to deal with patients who want to toke while on hospital property. "It would be appropriate to recognize ... that we have to look at all options for the use of marijuana in our hospitals," said Calgary health spokesman Brenda Barootes. [continues 369 words]
Research on the medical uses of marijuana is scheduled to begin early next year, for the first time in nearly two decades, now that the government has approved new experiments to test whether smoking it can help patients who have multiple sclerosis or who suffer from pain in their limbs as a result of AIDS. The new approvals, granted on Nov. 28 by the Drug Enforcement Administration, do not make it legal for doctors to give their patients marijuana as treatment; they merely provide for limited use in scientific experiments. In some states, state law allows doctors to prescribe or recommend marijuana; federal law prohibits the practice, however, even in those states. [continues 691 words]
Brain Power, Cutting-Edge Science And Political Conflict At The 10th Annual Cannabinoid Research Convention. I walked into a cavernous meeting room at a hotel in Baltimore and encountered the biggest collection of brainy brain researchers that I had ever witnessed. Cerebral cortexes were literally throbbing with talk of endocannabinoid systems, custom-built experimental mice, receptor sequestration, hippocampuses, amygdalas, and whether there would be enough potent coffee to keep everybody awake during three days of formal and informal presentations, symposiums and panel discussions. [continues 2075 words]
More than half of a group of youth suicide victims checked for drugs had been using cannabis. Figures from a review of cases were given to the parliamentary health select committee's cannabis inquiry yesterday in Auckland. Fourteen of 25 young people who killed themselves in 1997 and 1998 tested positive for cannabis, scientist Dr Keith Bedford said. But Dr Bedford, the forensic programme manager for the Institute of Environmental Science and Research (ESR), said the figures were weak because most suicide victims were not checked for drugs. [continues 707 words]
He's been in on the AIDS battle since the beginning, but it's the feds Donald Abrams fights when it comes to scoring marijuana Dr. Donald Abrams won't say the word "joint." After what he's been through in his attempts to acquire marijuana from the feds for his research, it's hard to blame him if his incessant use of the term "marijuana cigarette" makes him sound like a fifth-grade health class teacher struggling to explain the dangers of reefer madness. [continues 3326 words]
If HHS Secretary Tommy Thompson is serious about the federal government's commitment to fighting AIDS, ("Thompson: U.S. dedicated to fighting AIDS epidemic", June 6), he would immediately move to reschedule marijuana so it can be prescribed by physicians. A study conducted by University of California-San Francisco researcher Dr. Donald Abrams that was released in July 2000, found that AIDS patients using medicinal marijuana thrived during a 21-day study, gaining weight and strength. The Institute of Medicine report, commissioned by former drug czar Barry McCaffrey and released in March 1999, declared marijuana is not only very beneficial in combating AIDS wasting syndrome, but also in battling the nausea caused by the medications used in treating AIDS. [continues 132 words]
As Politicians Debate The Potential Merits Of Medical Marijuana, Scientists Search For New Ways To Deliver This Old Drug Photo caption: MEDICAL MARIJUANA poses dilemmas for politicians, but scientists see tremendous therapeutic promise in the drug's derivatives and synthetic forms. Photo caption: NATURAL VERSUS SYNTHETIC. THC (top) is one of marijuana's most active components. But CP55, 940 (bottom), a synthetic, is far more potent because it is designed to fit tightly into the receptor, allowing it to stay active longer. [continues 1617 words]
Dr. Lester Grinspoon Says Pakalolo Is Safer And Cheaper Than Conventional Drugs Despite conflicting state and federal laws, medical marijuana is here to stay, says Dr. Lester Grinspoon of Harvard University. Not only that, "it will be seen as a kind of miracle drug during the next decade," the psychiatry professor predicts. A nationally recognized authority on marijuana, Grinspoon is among key speakers at a two-day conference, "Marijuana in 2001: Medical and Social Issues," that opened yesterday at the Ala Moana Hotel. [continues 815 words]
Marijuana, as medicine, presents a paradox: It can ease the symptoms of chronic disease. But it's usually smoked, and smoking is generally thought to be bad for you. After evaluating decades of research, the Institute of Medicine ran into just that wall. "The report found potential medical benefits in the active ingredients of marijuana," says Janet Joy, director of the IOM's 1999 study, "but it's due almost completely to one particular molecule that's packaged in an unhealthy way." [continues 221 words]
The High Court's Marijuana Ruling Won't Play In Mendocino UKIAH, CALIF.-A neat row of bright-green seedlings basks in the sunlight on Patrick's window sill. Together with the 20 fullgrown plants sitting in plastic kiddie pools under fluorescent lights in his basement, these plants supply the stout, white-bearded Californian and a handful of other locals with medicine. And though part of his tiny marijuana crop is clearly visible from the driveway, he's unconcerned about the law. "I feel totally legal," he says. "I have searched my soul and feel like finally we got the law changed to a level where we can comply." [continues 1306 words]
People hearing Jody Corey-Bloom's plan to study how smoking marijuana affects patients stiffened by multiple sclerosis often can't resist teasing the doctor. "Oh, nice research to be in," they say with a mischievous smile. At the same time, many are curious about the possible medicinal value of the plant called cannabis sativa. Because for all the stories about how marijuana cures ills, rigorous scientific studies of its therapeutic effects are scarce. The absence of ample data is due largely to the difficulty of legally obtaining marijuana for medical research. The federal government for 20 years has grown cannabis to research the drug's potential for abuse and addiction; it was not until 1999 that it established a policy for making marijuana available to independent researchers interested in testing for medicinal effects. [continues 1422 words]
The U.S. Supreme Court threw compassion and the pleas of patients to the wind when it ruled by the letter of the law and against the medical use of marijuana. In its 8-0 unanimous decision issued Monday, May 14, the court found that "for the purposes of the Controlled Substances Act, marijuana has no currently accepted medical use at all." "Congress has made a determination that marijuana has no medical benefits worthy of an exception," wrote Justice Clarence Thomas in the majority opinion that denied use of a medical necessity defense when prosecuted. He was joined by four other justices who are held to be the more conservative members of the court. [continues 435 words]
UH Staging Gathering For Doctors And Laymen On Marijuana Doctors unable to answer patients' questions about marijuana, either as a medicine or abusive drug, can get the latest information at a conference May 30-31 at the Ala Moana Hotel. The John A. Burns School of Medicine Department of Psychiatry is presenting the conference from 7:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. both days. "We know lots of doctors are being asked questions about marijuana by patients," said Dr. David Friar, University of Hawaii assistant professor in psychiatry and board-certified in psychiatry and addiction medicine. [continues 679 words]
"This is not going to be over until we win," vowed Dennis Peron, author of the California proposition that in 1996 legalized the use of marijuana as medicine in the state. Peron and other proponents decried Monday's unanimous U.S. Supreme Court ruling that cannabis may not be given to patients, even with a doctor's prescription. While the ruling is largely being construed as saying that federal laws override the California statute allowing the medicinal use of pot, Peron rejects that interpretation. [continues 637 words]
A medicinal marijuana study, the first of its kind in the United States funded by local authorities, is designed to determine whether the drug will be diverted to recreational users. Participants in the San Mateo County experiment will not be watched while they smoke. San Mateo County officials are recruiting HIV patients for a two-year medicinal marijuana study considered groundbreaking in that it aims to determine whether cannabis will be used medicinally or wind up on the streets. Participants will be monitored through self-reports, home visits, medication logs and the return of marijuana cigarette butts during weekly clinic visits. [continues 648 words]
SACRAMENTO -- California is about to fund the nation's first scientific studies to look at whether marijuana can relieve symptoms and pain associated with AIDS and multiple sclerosis. Three of the four grants are set to go to researchers at UC San Diego, which operates the state's cannabis research center, scientists announced yesterday. The state-financed center, which has $3 million in research grants to give out this year, is the only research institute in the nation set up to examine whether marijuana can serve as a medicine. [continues 666 words]
Research To Focus On Drug's Effect On Symptoms Of Illnesses Hoping to inject some science into the acrimonious debate over using marijuana in medicine, researchers will examine how the illegal drug might help AIDS and multiple sclerosis patients in the first series of studies sponsored by a new University of California research center. The Center for Medical Cannabis Research in La Jolla -- a collaboration between the UC's San Diego and San Francisco campuses - -- announced Thursday it will spend about $841,000 this year on the following four new experiments: [continues 413 words]
The issue: The federal Drug Enforcement Administration has approved a program to study the medical benefits of marijuana. Our view: Results of the study should be useful in determining whether legalization of marijuana for medical use is wise. Perhaps with reluctance, the Clinton administration has approved a program in California to study and assess the potential medical benefits of marijuana. Congress and the federal Food and Drug Administration have taken the position in the past that marijuana is unsafe, but that has not kept several states, including Hawaii, from legalizing marijuana for medical use. The study should provide some badly needed answers. [continues 291 words]
Results Could Help Guide Prop. 215 Implementation SAN MATEO (AP) -- The federal Drug Enforcement Administration approved a program Wednesday that will allow San Mateo County to give away government-grown marijuana to 60 AIDS patients in a study to assess the potential benefits of the drug. The 12-week study could begin in January. One county supervisor hailed its approval. "What we could end up with is scientific proof that this is a medicine that should be prescribed by doctors," said San Mateo County Supervisor Mike Nevin. [continues 281 words]
San Mateo Will Monitor Effect On AIDS Patients San Mateo County will distribute free marijuana to selected AIDS patients early next year as part of a first-of-its-kind study to determine the drug's potential benefits, county officials said yesterday. The federal Drug Enforcement Administration has agreed to provide government-grown marijuana to 60 patients for a 12-week study that could begin as early as January, said Supervisor Mike Nevin. San Mateo County officials first proposed the project in 1997, and the DEA signed off on the plan yesterday. [continues 416 words]
The University of California last week announced the establishment of a new research center to study the safety and efficacy of medicinal marijuana. The Center for Medical Cannabis Research (CMCR) will be a collaborative project of the University of California at San Francisco and the University of California at San Diego, and will be housed at UCSD. Dr. Igor Grant, a professor of psychiatry at UCSD and director of UCSD's HIV Neurobehavioral Research Center will serve as the CMCR's director. Co-directors include Dr. J. Hampton Atkinson, UCSD professor of psychiatry; Dr. Andrew Mattison, USCD associate professor of psychiatry and family and clinical medicine; and Dr. Donald Abrams, UCSF professor of medicine. Abrams recently presented research at the 13th International Conference on AIDS in Durban, South Africa, that showed that medicinal cannabis can be used without detrimental effects in people taking combination antiretroviral therapy for HIV disease. [continues 228 words]
The U.S. Supreme Court's decision to enjoin the Oakland Cannabis Buyers' Cooperative from dispensing its wares marks the latest setback for California voters who long ago wanted to get medicinal marijuana in the hands of critically ill patients. It also underscores the dilemma that has existed since 56 percent of state voters approved Proposition 215 in 1996. As long as the federal government continues to regard marijuana as a "Schedule I" controlled substance with the likes of heroin and LSD, efforts to forge compromise deals to get medicinal pot to those who need it will be vulnerable to such 11th-hour federal blitzing. [continues 283 words]
Is Good Medicine A Political Headache? When Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, the NBA's career leading scorer, was arrested in Los Angeles last month and accused of driving under the influence of marijuana, it was the second time the former Laker has been stopped and detained because of possession of the green weed. But Abdul-Jabbar maintains that his marijuana use is medicinal: to alleviate the migraine headaches from which he has suffered for years. In California, it's been technically legal to possess marijuana -- provided you have a doctor's recommendation -- since 1996 when Proposition 215, which legalizes the use of medicinal marijuana, was adopted by 56% of the voters. Seven other states have passed similar legislation. [continues 1456 words]
Physicians at the San Francisco and San Diego campuses of the University of California announced yesterday that they will set up a scientific research center to study the medical uses and effects of marijuana. The new Center for Medicinal Cannabis Research, which is to be established in San Diego, will start off with $3 million in state money for its first year, the doctors said. The money will support grants for well-controlled studies seeking to determine whether the weed is safe and effective in relieving the distressing side effects of powerful AIDS drugs and cancer chemotherapy agents. [continues 327 words]
San Diego Center To Coordinate Research Throughout State; UCSF Will Be Partner A state-funded program to study the benefits and safety of marijuana to treat certain diseases is being established at the University of California. The Center for Medicinal Cannabis Research, based at the University of California-San Diego, will be a collaboration between UCSD and the University of California-San Francisco, two of the UC system's leading biomedical research campuses. ``I hope this center will give us some answers to the benefits of marijuana for medicinal purposes,'' said Donald Abrams, co-director of the cannabis center and a professor of medicine at UCSF. ``By doing the science, we can properly determine, and mandate what is good and bad.'' [continues 154 words]
Health: The aim of the San Diego facility will be to develop data to help counties implement new state law. SAN DIEGO--In an effort to determine whether marijuana has medical value, the University of California on Tuesday announced a new cannabis study center to include researchers, doctors and patients throughout the state. With its headquarters at UC San Diego, the center will attempt to develop scientific data to help counties craft guidelines for the medical use of marijuana, which was decriminalized by a 1996 ballot initiative adopted by California voters. [continues 467 words]
To The Editor: More proof that the Federal Government is giving the American people misinformation on the medical ( and recreational ) use of marijuana!!! DURBAN, SOUTH AFRICA -- Smoking marijuana helps people with AIDS gain weight, without causing adverse virologic effects, according to the results of a study released Thursday at the XIII International AIDS Conference. Dr. Donald Abrams, a world-renowned AIDS researcher at the University of California at San Francisco, has finally completed his study after *six years* of navigating federal obstacles. [continues 272 words]
The news that U.S. District Judge Charles R. Breyer has modified a previous injunction against California cannabis clubs is good news on the medical marijuana front. The federal government's previously unyielding wall of marijuana prohibition is beginning to crumble. It's about time. Breyer's ruling almost certainly clears the way for the Oakland Cannabis Buyers Cooperative to begin dispensing marijuana to certain patients. Medical marijuana became legal in California through a 1996 ballot initiative, though the federal government refuses to accept that fact. [continues 539 words]
