Editor -- Where's your reporting about major scientific results? Smokable marijuana is a safe and effective medicine for people with AIDS! The story was released July 13 from the International AIDS Conference in Durban, South Africa. ``The federal government manipulated the study design to increase the likelihood that the results would reveal that marijuana harms the immune system and doesn't boost the appetite,'' said Chuck Thomas, director of communications for the Washington, D.C.-based Marijuana Policy Project. ``But the government's plan backfired -- smoking marijuana did not cause any immunological problems, while it increased caloric intake and weight gain.'' [continues 126 words]
Editor, Index-Tribune: New scientific evidence that Sonoma medical marijuana patients need to know. Smokable marijuana is a safe and effective medicine for people with AIDS! The story was released July 13 from the International AIDS Conference in Durban, South Africa. "The federal government manipulated the study design to increase the likelihood that the results would reveal that marijuana harms the immune system and doesn't boost the appetite," said Chuck Thomas, director of communications for the Washington, D.C.-based Marijuana Policy Project. "But the government's plan backfired - smoking marijuana did not cause any immunological problems, while it increased caloric intake and weight gain." [continues 128 words]
The news that U.S. District Judge Charles R. Breyer has modified a previous injunction against northern California cannabis clubs tops a week-end of 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. Judge Breyer's ruling almost certainly clears the way for the Oakland Cannabis Buyers Cooperative to begin dispensing marijuana to certain patients. In addition to Judge Breyer's decision, UCSan Francisco medical school researcher Donald Abrams reported promising results at last week's international AIDS conference in Durban, South Africa, on his pioneering studies on the use of marijuana by AIDS patients. Dr. Abrams' research showed no damage to the immune systems of patients in his study, but noted improved appetites and ability to hold down food and medicine. [continues 525 words]
Durban, South Africa -- In the first government-sanctioned test of the effects of marijuana on people infected with the AIDS virus, a San Francisco study has found that the patients on pot came out of a 21-day trial just as fit and quite a bit fatter than when they started. Dr. Donald Abrams, a researcher at the University of California at San Francisco, reported the results of the one-year, $1 million study yesterday at the 13th International AIDS Conference. [continues 944 words]
July 16, 2000 - Down in Mississippi, there are a couple of people who get paid to grow dope for the federal government. The little marijuana patch, overseen by the University of Mississippi, only produces a crop every couple of years, according to officials at the National Institute on Drug Abuse. Some of that weed goes to the handful of glaucoma, cancer and multiple sclerosis patients permitted to get marijuana through the quarter-century-old federal compassionate use program. And some of it goes toward research. [continues 473 words]
'Banner Week' For Pot Patients Sees Release Of First U.S. Study A federal judge hinted Friday he will modify -- or perhaps lift -- a ban that has kept the Oakland Cannabis Buyers Cooperative and other Northern California medicinal marijuana clubs from dispensing the drug to people with certain illnesses. Robert Raich, the cooperative's attorney, said U.S. District Judge Charles R. Breyer spoke during a hearing on the cooperative's motion to modify the 1998 injunction. Oakland City Attorney Jayne Williams and San Francisco District Attorney Terence Hallinan were there to argue on the cooperative's behalf, Raich said, "but as it turned out ... it wasn't necessary for us to say much at all." [continues 509 words]
DURBAN, South Africa - The first U.S. study using medical marijuana for people with HIV has found that smoking the plant does not disrupt the effect of antiretroviral drugs that keep the virus in check. The results were announced Thursday at the 13th International AIDS Conference and are the first to be released from research conducted at San Francisco General Hospital into the use of marijuana by people infected with HIV. It took four years for UC San Francisco professor Donald Abrams to jump through hurdles erected by the federal government to get the research under way, and in the process he was restricted to focusing on marijuana's safety rather than its effectiveness. [continues 221 words]
Government funding for research a first Durban, South Africa -- In the first government-sanctioned test of the effects of marijuana on people infected with the AIDS virus, a San Francisco study has found that the patients on pot came out of a 21-day trial just as fit and quite a bit fatter than when they started. Dr. Donald Abrams, a researcher at the University of California at San Francisco, reported the results of the one-year, $1 million study yesterday at the 13th International AIDS Conference. [continues 943 words]
The patients taking marijuana by smoking or in pill form saw the level of HIV virus in their blood drop slightly more than those on the placebo. DURBAN, South Africa -- The first U.S. study using medical marijuana for people with HIV has found that smoking the plant does not disrupt the effect of anti-retroviral drugs that keep the virus in check. The results were announced today at the 13th International AIDS Conference and are the first to be released from research, conducted at San Francisco General Hospital, into the use of marijuana by people infected with HIV. [continues 271 words]
Advocates Hopeful UCSF Researcher's Work Will Pave Way For Medical Use Of Marijuana DURBAN, South Africa - The first U.S. study using medical marijuana for people with HIV has found that smoking the plant does not disrupt the effect of antiretroviral drugs that keep the virus in check. The results were announced Thursday at the 13th International AIDS Conference and are the first to be released from research conducted at San Francisco General Hospital into the use of marijuana by people infected with HIV. Given the scarcity of data about the possible medical uses of marijuana, the results have been eagerly awaited by advocates in this heavily debated issue. [continues 473 words]
Despite intense interest in the medical benefits of marijuana, few scientists are studying it, because the government has always required that such work be paid for by scarce grant money from the National Institutes of Health. That changed Friday when the Clinton administration eased the requirement, announcing that it would sell government-grown marijuana to scientists whose research is paid for by state or county governments or private sources. The decision was issued as a regulation by the National Institute on Drug Abuse and is supported by Gen. Barry McCaffrey, who as director of the Office of National Drug Control Policy has been the administration's most ardent opponent of the legalization of medical marijuana. [continues 633 words]
WASHINGTON -- Despite intense interest in the medical benefits of marijuana, few scientists are studying it, because the government has always required that such work be paid for by scarce grant money from the National Institutes of Health. That changed Friday when the Clinton administration eased the requirement, announcing that it would sell government-grown marijuana to privately-funded scientists. The decision was issued as a regulation by the National Institute on Drug Abuse and is supported by General Barry McCaffrey, who as director of the Office of National Drug Control Policy has been the administration's most ardent opponent of the legalization of medical marijuana. "Before, the problem was if you wanted marijuana, you had to not only show that it was high-quality research, you had to show that it was more important than other competing applications for NIH funding," said Chuck Blanchard, chief counsel for McCaffrey's office. "Now, as long as you are willing to show that it is high-quality research and also provide your own funding, you can have access to medical marijuana." [continues 640 words]
WASHINGTON -- Despite intense interest in the medical benefits of marijuana, few scientists are studying it, because the government has always required that such work be paid for by scarce grant money from the National Institutes of Health. That changed yesterday when the Clinton administration eased the requirement, announcing that it would sell government-grown marijuana to privately funded scientists. The decision was issued as a regulation by the National Institute on Drug Abuse and is supported by Gen. Barry McCaffrey, who as director of the Office of National Drug Control Policy has been the administration's most ardent opponent of the legalization of medical marijuana. [continues 625 words]
NOTE: Unlike the tens of thousands of other articles in the MAP research archives, this is only a summary. This article is only available at the URL below. The article presents an outstanding review of the issue of clinical trials for medical marijuana. Included are quotes by Stanley J. Watson, Eric Voth, John A. Benson Jr, Paul Consroe, Ethan Russo, Donald Abrams, Lester Grinspoon, and Bobbi Bennett. http://www.the-scientist.com/yr1999/may/gwynne_p1_990510.html [end]
Although Unsafe To Smoke, Chemicals Offer Hope For Pain Relief Marijuana is too dangerous to the lungs to make smoking "grass" a safe long-term treatment for illness but some of the active ingredients in the weed could sprout into a whole new family of medicines. Those are among the conclusions of a landmark report issued in March by an expert panel on the medical uses of marijuana, a topic that has pitted patients and pro-legalization activists against the federal government. [continues 756 words]
A new report rejects American government policy on therapeutic cannabis MARIJUANA can treat nausea, pain, the wasting caused by AIDS and other symptoms, a controversial report paid for by the US government concludes. In November, six states legalised marijuana for medical use following referendums, but doctors generally do not recommend the drug because the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy has said that users will be arrested. In 1997, however, the drug control office commissioned a scientific review of the therapeutic uses of marijuana from the Institute of Medicine (IOM), the medical branch of the National Academy of Sciences in Washington DC. [continues 421 words]
Marijuana is too dangerous to the lungs to make smoking "grass" a safe long-term treatment for illness--but some of the active ingredients in the weed could sprout into a whole new family of medicines. Those are among the conclusions of a landmark report issued this month by an expert panel on the medical uses of marijuana, a topic that has pitted patients and pro-legalization activists against the federal government. Marijuana's active ingredients belong to a chemical family called the cannabinoids. In recent years, scientists have found that these chemicals--as well as receptors on cell surfaces that respond to them--are found naturally in the brain, where they probably play a role in memory, control of movement and pain perception. [continues 1003 words]
The recent study by the Institute of Medicine - the IOM - concluded that marijuana is not addictive, it's not a gateway drug, it's not a dangerous drug and it has medical uses. According to the IOM, short-term or occasional marijuana use has minimal risk. It's important to note that the IOM did not conduct new research; they merely reviewed the existing evidence. Dr. Donald Abrams, a physician at the University of California at San Francisco who is conducting the only approved study of medicinal marijuana, said, "they did the same thing in 1982 and came up with similar findings." [continues 193 words]
Drug czar won't ease stance despite findings from study A science panel commissioned by the Clinton administration called yesterday for clinical trials of medical marijuana, declaring that cannabis could be a useful drug but that smoking is a hazardous way to take it. Begun at the request of President Clinton's drug czar, Barry McCaffrey, the National Academy of Sciences' Institute of Medicine study carefully charts a middle path through the minefield of American pot politics. ``Smoked marijuana should generally not be recommended for long-term medical use,'' researchers said. ``Nonetheless, for certain patients such as the terminally ill or those with debilitating symptoms, the long-term risks are not of great concern.'' [continues 1050 words]
Elite Panel Finds Marijuana Helpful But Smoking It Harmful In what amounts to a consensus of scientific opinion, a prestigious panel has found that marijuana probably helps a number of ailments, but because smoking it is also hazardous, it should be used sparingly. At the same time, research on marijuana should get under way to isolate compounds that could eventually be given to patients via inhalers or other fast-acting delivery systems, the National Academy of Sciences said in a report released Wednesday. [continues 1172 words]
WASHINGTON, March 10 (UPI) - Researchers who want to conduct clinical trials on the efficacy of medical marijuana say while the government publicly invites such studies, privately it works to quash the proposals. Ultimately, the researchers tell United Press International, the federal government works to end the move to legalize the drug as a treatment for seriously ill patients. The debate is whether the scientific evidence is strong enough to warrant the federal government reclassifying the drug from Schedule I and prohibited in all uses, to Schedule II, where, like cocaine, it would be approved for a select number of medical applications. The Clinton administration and the Department of Justice oppose the reclassification, pending more clinical trial evidence of efficacy. [continues 1171 words]
WASHINGTON, March 10 (UPI) -- Researchers who want to conduct clinical trials on the efficacy of medical marijuana say while the government publicly invites such studies, privately it works to quash the proposals. Ultimately, the researchers tell United Press International, the federal government works to end the move to legalize the drug as a treatment for seriously ill patients. The debate is whether the scientific evidence is strong enough to warrant the federal government reclassifying the drug from Schedule I and prohibited in all uses, to Schedule II, where, like cocaine, it would be approved for a select number of medical applications. The Clinton administration and the Department of Justice oppose the reclassification, pending more clinical trial evidence of efficacy. [continues 1171 words]
Sandra Lacar's opposition to medical marijuana (View Point, Jan. 30) misses the point: It works better than the alternatives that medical science has offered and is no more harmful than strong chemotherapy drugs. When cancer and AIDS patients need relief from nausea, they need fast relief, and this is what marijuana provides. Synthetic marijuana is a pill that must be swallowed and kept down -- not so easy when nausea is the problem. It is also slow, taking hours to work, and frequently produces unpleasant side effects. [continues 120 words]
Paul Mocko really doesn't like to smoke. But for 25 days, beginning in October, Mocko voluntarily puffed and coughed his way through three marijuana cigarettes every 24 hours as researchers watched for interactions between the cannabis and all the medications the 54-year-old takes to fight AIDS. The data they are gleaning from that ongoing study is valuable, researchers say. Legions of AIDS patients in the Bay Area have been using cannabis for years to whet their appetites, not knowing how it mixes with the 30-odd pills they take every day. [continues 1009 words]
He praises Cayetano for backing a bill to allow medical marijuana The doctor who is beginning the first U.S. study of the effects of marijuana on AIDS patients said San Francisco doctors treating HIV-positive victims "know so many of our patients smoke, we need to know if it's helpful or harmful." Dr. Donald Abrams' planned research project will focus on the safety of medical marijuana use. He described it Thursday to a group of 35 Honolulu physicians who treat AIDS victims, and yesterday at the Honolulu Medical Group. "AIDS patients in San Francisco have long told us that marijuana is good medicine," said Abrams, assistant director of the San Francisco General Hospital AIDS program and a professor of clinical medicine at the University of California in San Francisco. He was involved in early research into the effects of AIDS and treatments. He praised Gov. Ben Cayetano, who has said he will back a bill to permit marijuana use under a doctor's supervision. "Perhaps Hawaii can pass rational legislation that the rest of the country can follow." Voters in six other states have approved ballot initiatives legalizing medical marijuana use. But implementation has been thwarted -- by Arizona's Legislature, by Colorado's state administration and, in California, by state and federal enforcement agencies, which shut down dispensaries permitted by local San Francisco authorities. A total of 64 subjects are being sought for the research project, which will seek information on marijuana in combination with virus-suppressing medication taken by AIDS patients. [continues 256 words]
Marijuana tablets that relieve pain without giving a high are to be tested on people for the first time this week, doctors say. In the study at the University of California some patients will given the new tablets, which contain a synthetic version of one of the drug's ingredients. Their progress will be compared with that of patients who smoke marijuana three times a day. The initial aim of the research is to see what effect the new drug has on the nausea suffered by patients receiving experimental Aids drugs and how it interacts with new drugs being developed. [continues 506 words]
Vital Signs / Pro & Con Voters in Alaska, Arizona, Nevada, Oregon and Washington have approved initiatives to legalize marijuana for medcal use. Does this application encourage marijuana abuse? To answer that, you have to assume that there is medical marijuana. There is no scientific proof of that yet. It has not been approved by the Food and Drug Administration, and there have been no reputable studies that propose to demonstrate marijuana's medicinal qualities.. It has not gone forward because Dr. Donald Abrams at the University of California at San Francisco, who is conducting the only accepted study, has to recruit subjects for a double blind study. But the only thing participants can take while battling AIDS or cancer is marijuana. Naturally, participants' willingness is limited. [continues 256 words]
Marijuana milkshakes are literally what the doctor ordered for Phoenix grandfather Josh Burner. Burner, who suffers from cancer of the tongue and palate, said he turned to marijuana after radiation made him so nauseous that his weight plummeted from 193 to 141 pounds. When voters Tuesday reaffirmed the 1996 law that gave doctors the ability to prescribe marijuana and other drugs, Burner said it made his heart ``soar like a hawk because it meant I would continue to use marijuana for my treatment.'' [continues 747 words]
5 States Consider Marijuana Initiatives “It’s better to make doctors and scientists decide what medicine to use through the process of the FDA, than to have John Doe standing in a voting booth decide.” - Leigh Leventhal, PDFA The debate about marijuana as a gateway drug has shifted from classrooms to ballot booths. In school, smoking pot was condemned as the first step toward serious drug addiction. Now, critics say ballot initiatives that would legalize medical marijuana are a gateway between alternative therapy and the corruption of national drug policy. [continues 835 words]
Is marijuana a safe and effective medication? Medical practitioners, drug-prevention specialists and even scientists give very different answers. Some claim there is no research. Others claim there is, but say it's not good research. Still others believe there's good research - but disagree about whether it shows marijuana is dangerous or safe and effective. Yet another group claims that while there isn't good research, there are very good stories. When it comes right down to it, emotion, not science, divides many people on Initiative 692, which would legalize the use and possession of marijuana by patients with terminal or chronically debilitating conditions. [continues 1958 words]
Several have commented on how well the documentary states the case for medicinal marijuana. Having copies to show audiences would be of value not just in Canada, but everywhere. To give you, our readers, a little idea of the nature of this documentary, the following is provided. At the end is a list of U.S. networks which could be contacted to encourage one of them to broadcast the show. We understand that arrangements are being made for a video copy of the show to be available on the Legalize! website, probably sometime next week. http://www.legalize-usa.org/TOCs/video.htm [continues 1305 words]
Not just free pot - subjects get $1,000! Dr. Donald Abrams and colleagues at University of California at San Francisco (UCSF), San Francisco General Hospital (SFGH), and the Community Consortium are seeking participants for their study of the effects of medicinal marijuana on the immune system, and its interaction with protease inhibitor drugs. Many people with HIV/AIDS use medical cannabis to help relieve drug-induced nausea and to stimulate their appetite and prevent weight loss. Participants taking part in the study will be hospitalized at SFGH's General Clinical Research Center (GCRC) for 25 nights. They will be randomized (selected by chance) to receive smoked marijuana, Marinol pills (an oral drug that contains THC, one of the active ingredients in marijuana), or placebo (inactive) pills for 21 days. Regular blood and urine tests will be conducted. Participants are expected to have follow-up outpatient visits five days and 37 days after the end of the hospital stay. Those who complete the study will receive $1,000. [continues 481 words]
SAN FRANCISCO - Three times a day, a neatly machine-rolled marijuana cigarette is delivered from a locked cabinet at San Francisco General Hospital to Patient No. 9. He closes the door to his small white room and lights a match. A nurse watches through a window. Following strict research protocol, he inhales for five seconds, holds for 10, then releases. He waits 45 seconds. The exercise is repeated 10 times. Patient No. 9, a 34-year-old former Navy man with HIV, is a volunteer in a new, $1 million, two-year research experiment that hopes to help resolve a long-running debate in federal drug policy: Does marijuana, the country's most widely used illegal drug, have medicinal value? [continues 1294 words]
Three times a day, a neatly machine-rolled marijuana joint is delivered from a locked cabinet at San Francisco General Hospital to Patient No. 9. He closes the door to his small white room, stuffs a towel under the door and lights a match. A nurse watches through a window. Following strict research protocol, he inhales for five seconds, holds for 10, then releases. He waits 45 seconds. The exercise is repeated 10 times. Patient No. 9, a 34-year-old former Navy man with HIV, is a volunteer in a new $1 million, two-year research experiment that hopes to help resolve a long-running and emotional debate in federal drug policy: Does marijuana, the country's most widely used illegal drug, have medicinal value? [continues 1384 words]
Last August, amidst fanfare generated by a National Institutes of Health report endorsing medical-marijuana research, NIH Director Dr. Harold Varmus announced that the agency "is open to receiving research grant applications for studies of the medical efficacy of marijuana," adding, rather disingenuously: "We want to make clear what has always been the case." Dr. Donald Abrams, a noted AIDS researcher and professor at the School of Medicine of the University of California at San Francisco, might beg to differ. In 1992, Dr. Abrams designed a pilot study that would have compared the effectiveness of inhaled marijuana with that of synthetic THC as a treatment for the weight loss associated with AIDS "wasting syndrome." He quickly secured private funding for it, and also gained approval from the Scientific Advisory Board of the San Francisco Community Consortium, the California Research Advisory Panel and the federal Food and Drug Administration to move ahead. [continues 619 words]
Marijuana causes brain damage.Or it doesn't. Marijuana is highly addictive.Or it's not addictive at all. Marijuana snaps chromosomes like twigs and weakens the immune system or marijuana is a wonder drug that blocks pain and reduces inflammation. So is it Cheech and Chong medicine? Or a natural healing herb used for more than 2,000 years? Sorting through the vast and contradictory scientific evidence on marijuana can be maddening but that's precisely what investigators from the Institute of Medicine in Washington, D.C., will spend the next year doing, in their quest for the truth. [continues 1173 words]
by Paul Armentano The Wheels Of Reform Grind Exceeding Slow And Rough. A year has passed since California and Arizona voters approved the use of marijuana as medicine, a year of continuing legal maneuvering at both the federal and state levels. Here is a brief summary of what has happened. November 1996 11/05/96: Voters in Arizona and California overwhelmingly approve initiatives endorsing the legal use of marijuana under a doctor's supervision. Proposition 215 in California exempts patients using marijuana medicinally from state criminal charges and also authorizes the cultivation of marijuana for medicinal purposes. Proposition 200 in Arizona states that physicians may prescribe marijuana to seriously ill patients. [continues 4062 words]
New study of marijuana as medicine to begin in January SAN FRANCISCO — Since Proposition 215 legalized marijuana as medicine in California, as many as 1,200 people have flocked daily to just one of the seven buyers’ clubs in the Bay Area. There, they can purchase pot to “treat” conditions from headaches to AIDS. Yet the question remains: Does basic scientific evidence support the use of hemp for better health? GIVEN THAT one in three adults has smoked pot at some point, that marijuana is this state’s biggest cash crop, and that hundreds of thousands of Californians are smoking it to relieve a variety of ills, one would expect plenty of data to be available on marijuana as medicine. [continues 1477 words]
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) ACTOR, "MURPHY BROWN": Brought you something. CANDICE BERGEN, ACTRESS: What? Is this what I think it is? ACTOR: Yes. It's a plastic bag full of marijuana. BERGEN: And where did you get this? ACTOR: I bought it in the park. I understand it might relieve your nausea, and I checked with the Justice Department. Miss Reno is out of town. (END VIDEO CLIP) BOB BECKEL, ANCHOR (voiceover): Should people in severe pain be allowed to use marijuana to ease their suffering? [continues 4647 words]
Never shy to embrace a trendy cause, especially during the November sweeps, next Wednesday CBS'S Murphy Brown, recovering from breast cancer surgery, will smoke marijuana to relieve chemotherapy induced nausea. The day before the show airs, voters in Washington state will cast ballots on the nation's third initiative to decriminalize the use of "medicinal" marijuana. Advocates of similar initiatives in Alaska, Arkansas, Oregon and Washington, D.C., are collecting signatures for elections next year. Last year's ballot victories in California and Arizona showed how deftly proponents of decriminalizing pot have exploited compassion for the desperately ill. And make no mistake: These initiatives, with their notoriously loose provisions, are stalking horses for outright legalization. The Washington, D.C., measure, for example, wouldn't even require a prescription: A physician's "oral recommendation" would authorize up to four "best friends" to cultivate pot for an ill pal. [continues 847 words]
David M. Fine For several decades, researchers have sought to determine whether marijuana has legitimate medical uses, and narcotics control agencies have discouraged them from finding out. Now a new round of federally funded research may provide some answers—or will it? The latest skirmish between scientists and police comes on the heels of two popular referenda, in California and Arizona, legalizing the medical use of marijuana. But since it remains a federal crime to grow, sell, or prescribe cannabis, the referenda have created only a legal morass. see related resources below [continues 3164 words]
Perhaps the ice jam created by attitudes frozen in drugwar intransigence has begun to break; maybe reliable scientific information on the medical uses, if any, of marijuana can be gathered. California voters can be proud that they started the warming trend. Dr. Abrams and his team of researchers at an AIDS project at the University of California, San Francisco, have tried to do similar research before. Three times in recent years Dr.Abrams, a highly respected researcher who has received numerous grants from government agencies, has designed studies to test how marijuana interacts with AIDS drugs, especially protease inhibitors. [continues 258 words]
MEDICINE: The twoyear UCSF experiment will try to determine what effects,if any,marijuana has on HIVinfected subjects. SAN FRANCISCOThe federal government has given the goahead to a comprehensive study of the safety and effectiveness of pot smoking by HIVinfected patients. The research project, run by Dr. Donald Abrams and his team of scientists at the University of California, San Francisco, will pay volunteers $1,000 to be hospitalized for 25 days and either smoke pot, take a tablet form of the drug or take a placebo. [continues 306 words]
Sabin Russell, Chronicle Staff Writer San Francisco researchers have won approval for the first federally sponsored study of the medical effects of marijuana on AIDS patients. With $1 million from the National Institutes of Health, doctors at San Francisco General Hospital will spend two years studying how the drug interacts with the latest AIDS medicines. The results of the study are certain to play a central role in the debate over medical use of marijuana, not only for AIDS patients, but for sufferers of numerous other diseases. It is a debate that led California voters last year to legalize the medical use of pot, and has since become a major issue in the wrangling over national drug policy. [continues 644 words]
GRASSROOTS MEDICINE By David M. Fine For several decades, researchers have sought to determine whether marijuana has legitimate medical uses, and narcotics control agencies have discouraged them from finding out. Now a new round of federally funded research may provide some answersor will it? The latest skirmish between scientists and police comes on the heels of two popular referenda, in California and Arizona, legalizing the medical use of marijuana. But since it remains a federal crime to grow, sell, or prescribe cannabis, the referenda have created only a legal morass. [continues 3135 words]
Marijuana as a medicine. A subtle syllogism Cannabis is a drug. Drugs are supposed to make you better. Therefore cannabis can make you better. Discuss "THERE is not a shred of scientific evidence . . . that smoked marijuana is useful or needed." Thus spake Barry McCaffrey, a retired army general and Gulfwar hero, in his new role as commanderinchief of the Clinton administration's War on Drugs. The National Institutes of Health ( NIH ) begs cautiously to differ. An NIH report issued on August 8th said that eight experts whom it had convened earlier this year expressed "varying degrees of enthusiasm" about whether the dreaded weed had true medical value and, if it had, whether it did things that other drugs, less frowned upon by officialdom, could not. William Beaver of Georgetown University, who chaired the original workshop, said that "for at least some potential indications marijuana looks promising enough to recommend that there be new controlled studies." [continues 996 words]
Dr. Tremblay reports that the British Medical Association, while endorsing medicinal marijuana for a wide list of disorders (as has the prestigious New England Journal of Medicine), noted that there were few scientific studies supporting its effectiveness. The dearth of studies is hardly surprising, since the Drug Enforcement Agency and the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) consistently block such studies. For years, Dr. Donald Abrams of U.C. San Francisco has been denied access to marijuana from NIDA to carry out his FDA approved study in AIDS patients comparing weight gain and nausea control of smoked marijuana vs. synthetic THC (Marinol). NIDA willingly provides marijuana to studies attempting to demonstrate inconsequential harmful effects. In short, drug war rhetoric cites the lack of studies while drug war politics blocks the very studies that could prove marijuana effective. [continues 495 words]
MARIJUANA MEETS NEEDS OF PATIENTS, by David L. Edwards, M.D. I feel impelled to dispute some of Dr. Richard E. Tremblay's assertions in his July 29 column entitled "More Study Needed on Marijuana." Dr. Tremblay reports that the British Medical Association, while endorsing medicinal marijuana for a wide list of disorders (as has the prestigious New England Journal of Medicine), noted that there were few scientific studies supporting its effectiveness. The dearth of studies is hardly surprising, since the Drug Enforcement Agency and the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) consistently block such studies. For years, Dr. Donald Abrams of U.C. San Francisco has been denied access to marijuana from NIDA to carry out his FDA approved study in AIDS patients comparing weight gain and nausea control of smoked marijuana vs. synthetic THC (Marinol). NIDA willingly provides marijuana to studies attempting to demonstrate inconsequential harmful effects. In short, drug war rhetoric cites the lack of studies while drug war politics blocks the very studies that could prove marijuana effective. [continues 491 words]
Mention "December 30" to any physician in the state of California and he or she will know precisely what you're thing about. That was the day when Gen. Barry McCaffrey; flanked by Attorney General Janet Reno, Secretary of Health and Human Services Donna Shalala and a D.E.A. official stood before the television cameras to deliver an unprecedented threat to the doctors of California. According to a statement issued at the news conference, "a practitioner's action of recommending or prescribing Schedule I controlled substances" like marijuana ... "will lead to administrative action by the Drug Enforcement Administration to revoke the practitioner's registration." Though doctors are licensed by the states, without a D.E.A. registration they cannot prescribe medicine cannot, in effect, practice. The new policy also threatened to criminally prosecute doctors who recommend medical marijuana, and to exclude them from Medicare and Medicaid. Exactly how the Clinton Administration would deal with the passage of Proposition 215 had been a lively subject of speculation. The Administration took a hard line during the campaign, which surprised none of Prop 215's proponents: Clinton could scarcely afford to appear "soft on drugs" at a time when Bob Dole was getting some traction with the issue. One of the Dole campaign's most effective and oftenrun spots featured old footage of the President muttering that he regretted not having inhaled. Once Clinton was safely reelected, however, some in the medicalmarijuana movement held out hope the Administration would play down the issue, treat California as an anomaly or, possibly; an experiment. [continues 2192 words]
Marijuana as medicine? Tough-on-drugs America is finally coming round to the idea that the evil weed might do some patients a power of good. (large photo of Dennis Peron with smoking pipe, smile, and caption: "Celebration: Dennis Peron led California's campaign for cannabis on prescription.") IF you're old enough to remember peace and love and bellbottoms, then America's latest debate on marijuana will have a familiar ring to it. What's new is that the government might be comingsomewhat reluctantlyto the conclusion that marijuana could make good medicine. [continues 1649 words]
