Research Leaves No Cloud In Medical Pot Debate

As the author of the recent publication, "Emerging Clinical Applications for Cannabis and Cannabinoids: A Review of the Scientific Literature", I take umbrage with those politicians and law enforcement officials who argue, "Smoked marijuana is not medicine." This allegation -- most recently asserted on the DEA's new website is false, plain and simple.

While writing the abovementioned booklet, I reviewed over 150 clinical and preclinical studies assessing the therapeutic value of cannabis and its active compounds to treat symptoms -- and in some cases moderate disease progression -- in a variety of illness, including multiple sclerosis, Alzheimer¹s, osteoporosis, diabetes, and Lou Gehrig's disease. Nearly all of the studies cited in my work were published within the past six years.

Additional scientific studies are being published in peer-reviewed journals everyday. For example, a recent review by investigators at the National Institutes of Health (The endocannabinoid system as an emerging target of pharmacotherapy, Pharmacology Today) reported that compounds in pot hold therapeutic promise in a wide range of disparate diseases and pathological conditions, including movement disorders, mental disorders, and cardiovascular disorders.

This February, investigators at San Francisco General Hospital and the University of California's Pain Clinical Research Center assessed the efficacy of inhaled cannabis as a treatment for HIV-associated sensory neuropathy. (Neuropathic pain colloquially known as "nerve pain" ­ affects an estimated one percent of the world's population and is typically unresponsive to both opioids and non-steroidal anti-inflammatory medications.)

Writing in the journal Neurology, researchers reported that patients who smoked low-grade cannabis three times daily experienced, on average, a 34 percent reduction in pain.

Investigators at Columbia University in New York published clinical trial data in the Journal of Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndromes this summer that concluded, "Smoked marijuana ... has a clear medical benefit in HIV-positive [patients] by increasing food intake and improving mood and objective and subjective sleep measures."

Researchers in the study compared the efficacy of inhaled cannabis to the Marinol -- a synthetic THC pill lauded by the DEA and many critics of medical marijuana -- but reported that the prescription pill was far less effective. In fact, patients in the study required eight times the daily recommended dose of Marinol to achieve the same therapeutic benefits provided by just a few puffs of weed, researchers reported.

Finally, last month an investigative team from Trinity College in Ireland proclaimed in the British Journal of Pharamcology that pot-based therapies may offer greater hopes for staving off Alzheimer's disease than do existing pharmaceutical therapies ("Alzheimer¹s disease: taking the edge off with cannabinoids?").

Researchers wrote, "Cannabinoids offer a multi-faceted approach for the treatment of Alzheimer's disease by providing neuroprotection and reducing neuroinflammation, whilst simultaneously supporting the brain's intrinsic repair mechanisms by augmenting neurotrophin expression and enhancing neurogenesis (the formation of new brain cells)."

Can the Drug Enforcement Administration please name another plant with the power to achieve all this?

Finally, unlike most politicians and law enforcement officials, I frequently interact with medical marijuana patients. Many of them write to me daily, as do their physicians. Often they tell me stories like this:

I was recently diagnosed with a malignant brain tumor inside the left the temporal lobe of my brain. I had surgery, and I've just started chemotherapy and radiation. The surgeon actually apologized for the fact that he could not write me a prescription for marijuana, but he told me it was safe to smoke. My prescriptions make me very dizzy and nauseous and I have ever-present headaches that top any of the worst hangover headaches anyone could possibly have. My brain is still so badly swollen. The swelling has actually gotten worse and is exacerbated by the radiation. Marijuana is saving my life right now; it has helped to kill my seizures, nausea, dizziness, and calm my headaches. If marijuana can help me with all my other problems in addition to possibly reducing the size of my tumor and extending my life, then why on earth would our government not allow me to have it?

Why indeed? Perhaps it's time for the DEA to "just think twice." Paul Armentano is the senior policy analyst for NORML and the NORML Foundation in Washington, DC. He is the author of Emerging Clinical Applications for Cannabis and Cannabinoids: A Review of the Scientific Literature (2007, NORML Foundation) He may be contacted via email at [e-mail].

Comments

[oldpotsmuggler]

"In fact, patients in the study required eight times the daily recommended dose of Marinol to achieve the same therapeutic benefits provided by just a few puffs of weed, researchers reported."

Man, them researchers got the good shit. It's too bad they can't hook the rest of us up.

Just a point of clarification that I don't see touched on much. I think it's clear that one consequence of admitting medical efficacy from pot is that perscription use would then no longer be prosecutable, but there is another change that would flow from that determination.

21 U.S. Code 841 is the begining of the Controlled Substances Act, and it calls for all substances under its coverage to be placed on Schedules. Schedule 1 is the most restrictive Schedule and has the highest penalties for unlawful activities. Marijuana is in Schedule 1, along with heroin and some others I can't recall. Schedule 2 has things like cocaine (used as an antesthetic), and perscription opiates.

One specific provision of the Act requires any substance to be rescheduled out of the first level if and when an accepted medical purpose is determined for it. Doing that with pot would automatically decrease the maximum sentence that new pot smugglers, etc. could receive.

I'm sure it's easy to understand why we can't have this.

[juliette23]

Keep criminalizing Americans so we can keep the prison industrial complex going! Lockheed Martin and Watergater Chuck Colson need the money! Who is going to defend people with criminal records, anyway! Am i right?

[seawolf77]

It is absolutely disgusting that we are denied this godsend plant by a bunch of hypocritical right wing religious fanatics. I truly hate these poeple. Caring what a joke. The only thing a Republican cares about are order, power, and money arranged in whatever order. Order becuase it gives them the RIGHT to execise power, and power becasue it gives them the RIGHT over money. Gateway drug. Alcohol puts marijuana to shame . Ask someone who has had 10 drinks what WOULDN'T he/she do. Every argument they use falls apart with only a modicum of inspection. It would pollute our youth, yeah right the riatalin proscac riddled bunch of mealy mouth fake gangsters.

[leftLibertarian]

The DEA is not interested in the truth about marijuana: that it is a benign substance. Like all large bureaucracies, the DEA is only interested in expanding its turf and budget.
The only way the DEA will be abolished is by voting for candidates which actually believe in the idea of liberty as a principle and not as a talking point.
That's why I'm voting for Ron Paul.

[OhgReaTone]

Hey,
Marijuana is an insidious drug or at leat the THC is insidious. This is a seemingly innocent drug that steals the ambition of our youth. They sit around smoking pot at age 18, saying,"Some day I is gonna be a doctor." Then at age 28 they say, "I is gonna be a doctor." then at at 50 they say, "I coulda been a doctor." Keep smoking and doing nothing else.
Ohg
http://thefireside.wordpress.com/2007/10/19/inspired-by-bill-cosby/

[RumiSouth]

In a word, BULL. Most of your successful 38 year-old doctors have at least tried marijuana. In fact, a majority of adults have tried it, and millions manage to maintain successful careers despite using it on a regular basis.

As someone who has seen Crohn's Disease up close many times -- my area has about ten times the normal rate of the disease -- I can safely say that marijuana SAVES LIVES.

[BorninVA]

Pot does have medicinal purposes to combat pain, loss of appetite, and dystonia. I am a MS patient who suffers pain everyday to no avail. No, pain pills do not work, they only play havoc with your gastrointestinal tract, and your kidneys. Maybe you should have a little compassion for those of us that need an alternative to monster-meds, that Big Pharma produces.
Have a nice day,ohgReaTone.

[joebhed]

Yeah, much better they should sit around drinking beer at 18 and drive like alcohol does to you so that way they won't be around to say anything else at 50, hoping all the while that they are the only ones to be taken out.

[jeffmorgan]

I saw it on Cheech and Chong, therefore it must be true! Plus many people I know think the same way!

[FullChat]

Bullshit. Most marijuana users are normal, productive people. Carl Sagan and George Washington were certified potheads, but they did some good stuff.

Read the research.
Its not physically addictive. (Even Aunt Helen's Key Lime pie can be psychologically addicting).
Its not a gateway drug except in that it shares the distribution system with more harmful and illegal drugs.
It helps many medical conditions.

The only difference between potheads and the rest of society is that can get arrested for using their intoxicant of choice, not the consequences of their intoxication.

Legalized pot would bring in billions in taxes, save billions in enforcement, move billions from organized crime and into the tax rolls, uncrowd the jails and remove a significant burden from police and the courts, remove pot smokers from the market for illegal drugs, and make sure that the pot is "clean" from additives. And the pot would be a lot cheaper than it is now!