Medical Use Has Wide Support, But Government Cracking Down Now, it seems, is the best of times, and the worst of times, for the marijuana movement. While most Americans say they support medical marijuana, the federal government has won several high-profile criminal cases against cannabis clubs and pot growers in the past year. With staunch social conservatives like Attorney General John Ashcroft at the helm of federal law enforcement, Keith Stroup, director of the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws (NORML), says it's hard to know just how much longer marijuana advocates can ride the current momentum in their favor. [continues 767 words]
Amid growing reports of deaths and emergency room visits from use of the popular "club drug" GHB comes even more disturbing news: quitting GHB cold turkey may be lethal. GHB is an easily made industrial solvent that is imbibed and gives users a euphoric high. While it was made illegal last year after several people died of GHB overdoses, it has become popular at nightclubs, particularly among young people. "If you look on the Internet on GHB, everyone says it's not addicting, it's safe, it doesn't cause dependence like heroin," said Jo Ellen Dyer of the California Poison Control Center, based at San Francisco General Hospital. But what she and her colleagues are finding is just the opposite. Withdrawal symptoms include shakiness, confusion, insomnia, delusions and even seizures. [continues 372 words]
Like marijuana before it, MDMA -- ecstasy to its users -- is being touted as a potential therapy, and a handful of psychiatrists are agitating for permission and money to study the illegal drug in controlled settings. "This substance is a potent, immediate-acting antidepressant, and there is no such thing right now in psychiatry," said Dr. Julie Holland, a psychiatrist at Bellevue Hospital in New York and editor of the forthcoming book, "Ecstasy: The Complete Guide." But the idea of giving a medicinal sheen to what has become a much-abused street drug scares federal drug officials and some in the psychiatric community. [continues 819 words]
S.F. Models 'Harm Reduction' Theory After Tony Trimingham's son Damien died of a heroin overdose in 1997, Trimingham didn't go after drug dealers or shrink in shame. Instead, the Australian psychologist spearheaded an effort in Sydney to provide a place where junkies could go and shoot up safely. "Watching people doing this turned my stomach," Trimingham said of the church-based shooting gallery that police shut down after nine days. "But the sad reality is: If a facility like this had been available, Damien might not have died." [continues 1100 words]
In a finding that could send shivers down the spines of pot-smoking couples hoping to conceive, new research is raising the possibility that marijuana could interfere with reproduction. New studies show that a cannabis-like compound inhibits the ability of human sperm to fertilize an egg. Also, high concentrations of THC --- the psychoactive ingredient in marijuana --- appear to cause structural changes in sperm as they become ready and able to reach and fuse with a woman's egg. While pot smoking may not yet qualify as a contraceptive, the findings presented Tuesday at the American Society for Cell Biology meeting in San Francisco are some of the first indications that marijuana use could reduce fertility in both men and women. [continues 233 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]
Germs Enter Body Along With Heroin; Serious Infections Increasingly Common Covered in scars, and missing chunks of his buttocks, John Bunkley is one of thousands of walking examples of what skin abscesses are doing to San Francisco's heroin addicts. He is also an example of what they are doing to The City's health care budget. Bunkley, 51 and homeless, recently spent eight weeks at San Francisco General Hospital - his eighth stay there in the past year - being treated with aggressive antibiotics to clear a bacterial infection from his bloodstream. [continues 1604 words]
Keeping A Lower Profile, But In Plain View Of The Police A year after San Francisco's most flamboyant pot club was shut down by a judge, medical marijuana distribution here is alive and well, with dispensaries ranging from on-call delivery services to clean, well-lit retail spaces and funky activist-run storefronts. With local politicians on their side and plenty of patients flocking in, four marijuana clubs appear to be quietly flourishing, with a fifth in the works. Still in legal limbo, each has constructed its own set of rules. Some, but not all, of the clubs require proof of a doctor's recommendation, which Proposition 215 -- the medical marijuana initiative passed in 1996 -- said patients must have before they could legally smoke pot. [continues 1569 words]
Panels will cover policy, research, prevention, as well as latest advances Nearly 2,000 people with AIDS and HIV and those who serve and advocate for them once again will converge on Bill Graham Civic Auditorium on Tuesday through Friday for the 11th national HIV / AIDS Update Conference. As in past years, the conference combines updates about the latest scientific advances in AIDS and HIV treatment with discussions about policy and the social aspects of the disease. For the first time, it is being sponsored by the American Federation for AIDS Research. [continues 326 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]
The heroin that killed singer Boz Scaggs' son on New Year's Eve is a potent form that during the 1990s has lured more people from various walks of life into using a drug once associated only with skid-row junkies. In years past, when street-grade heroin was 3 to 5 percent pure, injecting it was the only way to get a decent high. But during the past decade, purity has shot up to as much as 50 or 60 percent, while the price has fallen to as little as $40 a gram. The result: More people have been willing to snort and smoke it. [continues 921 words]
Surprise victories for medical marijuana proposals in five states Tuesday mean California's Proposition 215 was no fluke - and the federal government will be under pressure to change its hard-line stance, advocates said yesterday. But officials at the White House's office of drug policy said they were unfazed by the election results in Arizona, Nevada, Alaska, Washington and Oregon. "It does not cause us to believe that marijuana is a safe substance," said Jim McDonough, director of strategy for the Office of National Drug Control Policy. "The bottom line: It's not science." [continues 803 words]
A White House initiative to expand methadone treatment for heroin addiction is getting a warm response from San Francisco health officials, who say it is precisely in line with their own goals. In February, the Board of Supervisors passed a resolution asking the federal government for a waiver so that doctors with training could prescribe the synthetic narcotic designed to lessen heroin cravings. Currently, strict regulations prevent anyone but specially licensed clinics from dispensing it. White House drug policy chief Gen. Barry McCaffrey said Tuesday there are plans to begin training programs for physicians to become accredited to prescribe methadone. [continues 319 words]
U.S. proposes to train doctors to give heroin addicts synthetic substitute A White House initiative to expand methadone treatment for heroin addiction is getting a warm response from San Francisco health officials, who say it is precisely in line with their own goals. In February, the Board of Supervisors passed a resolution asking the federal government for a waiver so that doctors, with training, could prescribe the synthetic narcotic designed to lessen heroin cravings. Currently, strict regulations prevent anyone but specially-licensed clinics from dispensing it. [continues 338 words]
Research adds to evidence drug is medically useful A circuit in the brain stem that is switched on and off by the active ingredient in marijuana is the latest in a mounting pile of scientific evidence pointing to the drug's ability to kill pain, a new UC-San Francisco study said Wednesday. The substance, a synthetic form of THC (tetrahydrocannabinol), has an effect similar to morphine in an area at the base of the skull that is known to block pain impulses. [continues 650 words]
Research adds to evidence drug is medically useful A circuit in the brain stem that is switched on and off by the active ingredient in marijuana is the latest in a mounting pile of scientific evidence pointing to the drug's ability to kill pain, a new UC-San Francisco study said Wednesday. The substance, a synthetic form of THC (tetrahydrocannabinol), has an effect similar to morphine in an area at the base of the skull that is known to block pain impulses. [continues 656 words]
