cannabisnews.com: A Pitch for Pot's Power To Ease Pain





A Pitch for Pot's Power To Ease Pain
Posted by CN Staff on March 03, 2003 at 08:27:17 PT
By Andrew Schotz
Source: Herald-Mail
After smoking a little marijuana, Erin Hildebrandt feels good again. Overwhelming pain goes away for a while. "It's one or two puffs, then I put it away," she said. Vomiting, abdominal cramps, muscle spasms, chills, bloody diarrhea and fever are symptoms of Crohn's disease, an inflammatory bowel condition Hildebrandt has. "It completely drains me," said Hildebrandt, 32, of Smithsburg.
With her husband, Bill, and their five children waiting in the hall, Hildebrandt testified in Annapolis last week before the state Senate Judicial Proceedings Committee, urging passage of a bill allowing marijuana for medical use. The bill failed last year, but it may have a better chance this year. Hildebrandt said she considers marijuana a medicine, which is why she overcame her hesitancy and spoke up. "I just can't stand back and watch more and more people thrown in jail for this and see their lives turned upside down," she said. It is illegal in Maryland to smoke marijuana for pleasure or to relieve pain. But advocates say it's a safe drug and less harmful than alcohol or tobacco, of which society allows the use. Opponents argue that medicinal use is only an excuse to legalize an illicit drug. MedChi - The Maryland State Medical Society, which represents more than 6,000 physicians and their patients, has asked two state Senate committees to reject the bill. "While physicians are supportive of any therapy to relieve pain in their patients," the group's position paper said, "MedChi is not aware of any scientific or peer reviewed literature indicating that marijuana has the benefit contemplated by the legislation without having detrimental impact as well. ... "While the active ingredient in marijuana (THC) can be effective in relieving pain, this ingredient can be obtained in oral form in a legal manner by prescription without involving the adverse agents that are also present in the marijuana cigarette." 'Outright confusion'MedChi Executive Director Michael Preston said the General Assembly could create "outright confusion" by allowing medicinal marijuana use when the federal government prohibits it. That was the conflict in California, where Brian Epis was sentenced to 10 years in prison for growing marijuana plants that would have been used by sick people. The state allowed what he did, but the federal government prosecuted him. Erin and Bill Hildebrandt became active in the cause about a year ago, attending marijuana rallies and bringing their children. The couple protested Epis' plight at a rally in Washington last year. Bill Hildebrandt was ticketed and fined $50 for ignoring three warnings from police, his wife said. Fearing the fallout, Erin Hildebrandt will not say if she smokes marijuana now. "I'd rather not hand them a warrant," she said. This is what she imagines could happen: "I'm picturing that I would get my medicine, then armed men in masks would burst in. My babies would be screaming about me being taken away to God knows where for God knows how long ... just because I said I have used it." Also about a year ago, the Hildebrandts started a Web site, http://www.ParentsEndingProhibition.org There, Erin muses on the discomfort of seeing police officers blanketing the nation's roads and on the injustice of the prohibition of marijuana. "I'm a parent," she wrote. "My first duty is to my children and keeping them safe and healthy. "More than half of high school students today have experimented with drugs at some time," she wrote. "This means that at least three of my five children are at risk of being turned into criminals and losing their basic human rights and freedoms because of the 'war on drugs.'" Initially afraidHildebrandt said she probably tried marijuana the first time just after she graduated from high school. "I was still afraid of it," she said. "I had bought into all the propaganda, just like everybody else." But she rebelled, tried marijuana and decided it isn't dangerous. It became an "on again, off again" interest when she attended Lansing Community College in Michigan. Students would get together to smoke pot and discuss philosophy, and she would join in. She turned to marijuana for pain relief around 1996, when a friend told her it might ease the migraine headaches she's had most of her life. It did, she said. In 1999, when the Hildebrandts moved from Michigan to Smithsburg, Erin found that marijuana also could soothe the symptoms of her Crohn's disease. Until then, she said, prescription drugs either didn't work or caused other problems. Hildebrandt said she gave up using marijuana recreationally about eight years ago, when she became pregnant for the first time. Asked when she last smoked marijuana, Hildebrandt wouldn't be specific. "It's been a while," she answered twice, explaining that she doesn't need it now. She said her Crohn's disease is "under control" and she hasn't taken prescription drugs for it in about seven years. She hasn't been to the hospital for her migraine headaches in three years after previously going up to three times a week. Hildebrandt said she teaches her children - Daniel, 8; Thomas, 6; Jessamine, 5; Billy, 3; and Juliet, 1 - to try a cold compress, a massage or lying down in a dark room before asking for a pain reliever for a headache. For adults, she said, marijuana can also ease pain. "It's a medicine ... that can be used or abused ...," she said. "I'm behind ending the mass hysteria behind marijuana. It's not the bogeyman of illicit drugs." Source: Herald-Mail, The (Hagerstown, MD)Author: Andrew SchotzPublished: Monday, March 3, 2003Copyright: 2003 The Herald-Mail CompanyContact: opinion herald-mail.comWebsite: http://www.herald-mail.com/Related Articles & Web Sites:Marijuana Policy Projecthttp://www.mpp.org/Coalition for Compassionate Accesshttp://www.CompassionateAccess.org Medical Marijuana Supporters Expect Easier Road http://cannabisnews.com/news/thread15593.shtmlMedical Marijuana Bill Gains Momentum http://cannabisnews.com/news/thread15586.shtmlResidents Speak Out for Medicinal Marijuana http://cannabisnews.com/news/thread15584.shtml 
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Comment #4 posted by Ethan Russo MD on March 03, 2003 at 10:07:15 PT:
Medical Hierarchy Ignorant and Misguided
""While physicians are supportive of any therapy to relieve pain in their patients," the group's position paper said, "MedChi is not aware of any scientific or peer reviewed literature indicating that marijuana has the benefit contemplated by the legislation without having detrimental impact as well. ... "While the active ingredient in marijuana (THC) can be effective in relieving pain, this ingredient can be obtained in oral form in a legal manner by prescription without involving the adverse agents that are also present in the marijuana cigarette." This is plainly wrong. A few documents to refute this:Cannabis is more than just THC:http://www.montananorml.org/docs/Psychopharmacology-Russo-McPartland.pdfCannabis in MS:http://www.montananorml.org/docs/Russo-Neurology-LTE-Lite-2003.pdfFirst article from GW Pharmaceuticals' Phase II research:http://gessler.ingentaselect.com/vl=2348790/cl=23/nw=1/rpsv/cw/arn/02692155/v17n1/s4/p21GWP's Phase III info: http://www.gwpharm.com (link on bottom right of page)I am abundantly tired of supposedly representative medical bodies promulgating ignorance and untruths. Any C-News followers from Maryland may be effective in pointing out these items to their representatives or physicians.
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Comment #3 posted by druid on March 03, 2003 at 09:56:59 PT
MMJ Confirmed, Again.
http://bbsnews.net/bw2003-03-03a.htmlMarijuana Medicinal Properties Confirmed, AgainScience/UK: Cannabis extracts effective in reducing pain and spasticityBBSNews - 2003-03-03 -- Medical cannabis received even more confirmation recently. The International Association for Cannabis as Medicine (IACM) in Germany reported on Sunday that cannabis extracts are efficacious reducing "pain and spasticity" in research entitled "A preliminary controlled study to determine whether whole-plant cannabis extracts can improve intractable neurogenic symptoms" [Wade DT, Robson P, House H, Makela P, Aram J. Clin Rehabil 2003;17:18-26] The IACM reported:A THC rich cannabis extract, a cannabidiol (CBD) rich extract and a cannabis extract with a CBD/THC ratio of 1:1 were effective in symptoms of 24 patients, of whom 18 suffered from multiple sclerosis, four from spinal cord injury, one from brachial plexus damage and one from limb amputation.The study was conducted as consecutive series of double-blind, placebo-controlled single-patient cross-over trials with two- week treatment protocols at hospitals in Oxford as part of studies by GW Pharmaceuticals. The trials started with an open label period where patients received the CBD/THC extract to get familiar with the procedure and to ensure they could tolerate the extract.Three patients withdrew from the study due to side effects during the open label period and one patient did not complete all treatment periods. In the 20 patients who completed the study there was a significant improvement of pain with the CBD extract compared to placebo assessed with visual analogue scales, a significant improvement of pain, spasm, spasticity and appetite with the THC extract, and a significant improvement of spasm and sleep with the CBD/THC extract. Impaired bladder control was improved in some patients with this symptom.Scientists concluded that "cannabis medicinal extracts can improve neurogenic symptoms unresponsive to standard treatments. Unwanted side effects are predictable and generally well tolerated."IACM-Bulletin archives: http://www.cannabis-med.org/ 
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Comment #2 posted by Virgil on March 03, 2003 at 09:26:35 PT
Education 
Education is the key. Too bad half of all adults in this country read at an 8th grade level or less. They have to be educated so they can be educated about the true dangers of each drug they find relevant.Of course when the most populus and prosperous state in the Union spends more on prisons than schools, why would you think people would be educated enough to be educated. Most people know the system is corrupt and run for the wealthy. They don't have to read it because that is the big thing spreading by word of mouth, especially in prison and the courthouses.Ed Ucation is great. Bob Ucation, Fred Ucation- they are all fine people. 
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Comment #1 posted by Max Flowers on March 03, 2003 at 09:05:06 PT
OAE
I just realized that a new classification of evidence in evaluating a "drug" (plant drug in this case) needs to be created. Overwhelming Anecdotal EvidenceThat's right, if thousands of people are saying adamantly "this works for me, beyond any doubt" then that should be good enough for the FDA since it is an agency that is supposed to be by the people, for the people. If millions are saying "this works" while millions more have reservations based only on fear and prejudice and no hands-on experience, then the testimony of those people that it is bringing relief to them in the present moment, is the more compelling and should override the other.There could be a qualifying number of reports, like 10,000 or something (not sure what would be appropriate), where that number of people would have to be willing to submit an affidavit, kind of like a petition, and once that was done, the use of the medicine would be codified as legally protected: it would be "OAE".Just fantasizing a bit there about what it would be like if we had a system where the will of the people were translated into immediate result.
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