Americans are confused about medical marijuana. On the one hand, research shows some of marijuana's components may become useful medicines. Two, Marinol and Cesamet, already are. Both are synthetic versions of THC, marijuana's psychoactive component. Doctors prescribe them to reduce chemotherapy-related nausea and AIDS wasting in patients when nothing else works. Two more, Sativex and Epidiolex, are undergoing U.S. clinical trials. Sativex is equal parts THC and cannabidiol. If it is approved by the Food and Drug Administration, doctors will prescribe it to treat advanced cancer pain, muscle spasticity and neuropathic pain caused by multiple sclerosis. Epidiolex is purified cannabidiol that contains no THC. It is just beginning clinical trials here to treat seizures caused by Dravet and LennoxGastaut syndromes. [continues 349 words]
Thank you for Doug Clark's clear-headed column against legalizing drugs (Oct. 23). You no doubt will receive hundreds, if not thousands, of letters from drug-legalization proponents who say you are wrong. (You are not.) This is an orchestrated protest that occurs every time a newspaper publishes an editorial or article that displeases the legalizers. For several years, they have posted to the DrugSense Media Awareness Project, an Internet Web site they created (http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews), copyrighted newspaper articles from publications throughout the world. [continues 272 words]
As if parents didn't have enough to worry about. Now comes something called ``reality-based'' drug education, and it's being pushed by the people who want us to legalize drugs. These programs call for educators to teach children that they can have ``healthy relationships'' with marijuana, PCP, cocaine, crack and heroin, and that they can use these drugs ``safely.'' This approach to drug education is one thing that drove adolescent drug use up in the 1970s to the highest levels in history, from less than 1 percent in 1962 to 34 percent of adolescents, 65 percent of high school seniors and 70 percent of young adults by 1979. [continues 533 words]
