cannabisnews.com: Marijuana Aids Nerve Pain Relief 





Marijuana Aids Nerve Pain Relief 
Posted by FoM on August 20, 2000 at 13:22:33 PT
By Nancy A. Melville, HealthSCOUT Reporter
Source: HealthSCOUT 
Where morphine fails, marijuana may work. That's the major finding of British research into the pain caused by nerve injuries, a pain known to be somewhat resistant to morphine and similar drugs that are the gold standard for treating just about any other kind of serious pain. The researchers say they now have evidence that active components of cannabis, which is better known as marijuana, may offer hope. 
"It's known that if you injure a nerve, the morphine receptors in the spinal cord disappear and that's probably why morphine isn't a very effective pain killer for such conditions as shingles, people who have had an amputation or perhaps if cancer has invaded the spinal cord," says Dr. Andrew Rice, a senior lecturer in pain research at London's Imperial College. "But what we've shown is that the cannabinoid receptors do not disappear when you injure a nerve. So this could offer a therapeutic advantage over morphine for treating such pain, " he adds. Cannabinoids are components of cannabis or compounds that mimic cannabis, and discovering the complexities behind how and why they can offer pain relief has been the focus of various areas of research. Rice says the significance of his team's research is that they mapped the cannabinoid receptors in the spinal cord and showed that they are found specifically in areas concerned with pain processing. "Other researchers showed that if you inject cannabinoid compounds in small doses in the spinal cord, you get pain relief. And we showed how that effect is mediated," he explains. "In addition, a third group of people showed that nerve cells in the spinal cord that are normally activated by pain are damped down by small doses of cannabinoid in the spinal cord fluid." The findings were published in a recent issue of the journal Molecular and Cellular Neuroscience. Rice says the task now is to find out how to administer the cannabinoids, but he cautions that the most familiar -- smoking it -- is the last thing researchers would advise. "Smoking is obviously a big health hazard and we're certainly not going to advocate that people smoke cannabis. So right now we're looking at ways of delivering the drug to the body," he says. "One problem with cannabinoids is that they are very fat-soluble, so that makes them very difficult to formulate the drugs into pills or injections. So one way that's being looked at by some pharmaceutical companies is using the kind of inhaler that asthma sufferers use." "It's going to be a tough cookie to crack, however," he adds. Cannabinoid compounds are among a variety of drugs that have been intensely looked at as researchers look for alternatives to the remarkably few pain relief options. "Researchers have spent the last 30 years trying to understand the mechanism of pain, particularly in the skin and spinal cord, and the massively complex array of chemicals that are involved in that process," Rice explains. "While people have generally tried to target each of those chemicals to develop pain killers, very few approaches have been successful, and we're still essentially left with the three very old, basic concepts in drugs: morphine, which has been with us for thousands of years, aspirin or acetaminophen," he adds. Kenneth Mackie, an associate professor in anesthesiology and physiology at the University of Washington in Seattle, says there is indeed great concern in the medical community about the need to find better pain relief for damaged nerves, but that progress is being made. "It's obviously a big problem for the people who have that kind of pain and on the basic science side, it's an area of intense investigation. Cannabinoids are just one option that people are looking at." "Our understanding of the wiring of the spinal cord is evolving very quickly, however, and we should soon be able to choose drugs to work more effectively," he adds. What To Do: You can read more about research on cannabinoid components with multiple sclerosis patients in this HealthSCOUT story. http://www.healthscout.com/cgi-bin/WebObjects/Af?ap=1&id=91918And here's a 1997 report by a panel of National Institutes of Health experts on the need for more research to further explore marijuana's effects. http://www.nida.nih.gov/NIDA_Notes/NNVol12N6/Marijuana.htmlSunday August 20 12:35 PM EDTCopyright © 2000 Yahoo! Inc. Copyright © 2000 Healthscout.com CannabisNews Medical Marijuana Archives:http://cannabisnews.com/news/list/medical.shtml
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Comment #4 posted by Hempman on August 20, 2000 at 21:36:01 PT:
If it were not so sad, it would be hillarious
For those of us who suffer, this is not really news. We have known for some time that it was great for pain other drugs don't touch. I can relate personally.I have bone spurs growing all ofer my body from arthristis. every time I get any kind of damage (a bruise, a minor muscle tear from working out a little hard, etc.) I grow another bone spur. They are growing on the bottoms of my feet, on the sides of my feet and hands, on my elbows. Worst of all, they are growing inside my spine. They are slowly crushing the nerve bundle that passes through the tiny space inside the spine. There is little room left in several places for the nerves.At times, the pain is beyond excruciating. I have taken a drug store of various prescription and over the counter drugs, all to no avail. I have taken everything from aspirin to ibuprofen to morphine and oxycontin (a high powered heroin derivitive, huundreds of times more powerful than heroin). They do absolutely nothing for the pain (well, some of them made me not give a good gaddamn).The doctor tried other avenues, as well. Paxil, Prozac, and another pharmacy full of anti-depressants and such. None of these drugs did squat to the pain. And, in fact, many of them had side effects so severe it is unbelieveable that it is legal to prescribe them.I even took dronobinal (Marinol). Good buzz (at first), only temporary pain relief. Plus, I had to take immense dosages to get any releif at all. Seems that my liver functions so well, the THC is metabolized before it gets into my blood.The only thing that has ever worked is smoked marijuana. I've tried eating it, but my liver functions so well that I get absolutely no effect whatsoever from eating it.So, my choice is, suffer unbelieveable pain. So bad that the pain makes me vomit and writh in agony sometimes. Or, I can be a criminal and smoke anyway. Can you guess what my choice is? I'll bet you can.Whenever I can afford it, I smoke. I would, but dare not, grow it. I would die in jail. Not only from the pain, but the confinement. Also, as a free person, I would never be able to play the games needed to stay alive in jail. Gangs ain't my style, and I could never bend to false authority. In fact, there'd be no kind of bending, if you get my drift.Its been several weeks since I have been able to smoke. My pain level is so high right now that I have slept a mere 8 hours in over four days. I have lost 18 pounds in the last week.This is another reason I will not stop demanding legalization until it happens or the prohitionist bastards kill me. This is another reason why I am so desparate to get others to speak out, as frequently, constantly, continuously as possible.No Frankenstein is going to put their needles in my spine when I can smoke a simple joint. Sanity alone tells me that a joint is far less dangerous (and less expensive) than Frankenstein needles in the spine. And I can't wait until they decied to spend money to develop an inhaler I couldn't afford, either. I am in agony NOW - THIS SECOND - CONSTANTLY.Would that I could, I would, at this second, like to share my pain with those morons and Frankensteins and prohitionist bastards. I would grab thier testicles (or breasts) and smash them repeatedly in a drawer and ask if they'd like some pain releif. Then I'd tell them, "No, sorry, you will have to wait an indeterminate period of time, maybe decades, before you can get legal relief. In the meantime, let me experiment on you with drugs and proceedures that have terrible side effects and, well, we know they aren't going to work anyway but we need a guinea pig."I am so sick and tired of the constant pain that I don't know how much longer I can hang in. So, perhaps they will kill me after all. By letting the pain drive me to seek my own death.How may pain sufferers have killed themselves because they could not find anything to stop the pain?The Frankensteins and Mad Prohibitionists are traitorous bastards. They all deserve the hell they will all burn in for eternity when they die, and I hope all of thier deaths are as painful as my life.They all deserve to suffer and die for thier insane insistence that people suffer so just so they can have thier insane prohibition laws. They deserve horrors that I can not even begin to describe for making people want to kill themselves, just so they can have thier evil prohibition.Now, let me tell you about how I am going blind from glaucoma.....
Delaware Cannabis Society
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Comment #3 posted by Rainbow on August 20, 2000 at 18:30:02 PT
Under his nose
But I liked his statement"It's going to be a tough cookie to crack, however," he adds. Hey that;s a great idea why not put it in cake, cookies, brownies or other tasty treats.This is too funny. They even provide the answer and don't realize it or do they?peaceRainbow
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Comment #2 posted by observer on August 20, 2000 at 15:05:04 PT
Delivering the Drug to the Body Politic
Amen kaptin! I had to add my rant to this.)Rice says the task now is to find out how to administer the cannabinoids, but he cautions that the /most familiar -- smoking it -- is the last thing researchers would advise.And if some patients disagree, and simply (and much more economically) grow their own and make marijuana milkshakes (or whatever), we should feel perfectly at ease about thoring these people into jail? andicapped persons into solitary for using cannabis anyway? That's the assertion this piece is designed to cover: since patent medicine companies need to grease the correct political palms, first, Mr and Mrs Oh So Concerned Parent needs to feel reassured that it is ok to throw Joe Minority over there (the Enemy In Our Midst) in jail for toking up, because of what the good scientist just said: "smoking ... bad!""Smoking is obviously a big health hazard So is being shot by the gestapo. http://www.spr.org or getting raped in jail http://www.fear.org http://www.november.org when you're there for "distribution" for passing a marijuana cigarette to an ailing friend. Did the article forget to mention all that?and we're certainly not going to advocate that peoplesmoke cannabis.(...And we sho nuf ain't gonna talk about prison: no sir! But we'll happily provide the political cover for your corrupt politicos, DAs, police, prison unions, testing companies, rehab shrinks/workers etc. to continue to lock adults up for using cannabis, though. It is OK to lock up adults who use cannabis, we say, because we're certainly not going to advocate that people smoke cannabis.)Check.So right now we're looking at ways of delivering the drug to the body," he says.(... but more importantly, we're looking at ways to deliver a continuous supply of the mother's milk of politics (money) to us (of course!), and also to the body politic: to the end that our government that we paid for, shall keep locking you up for using cannabis. Any questions?)
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Comment #1 posted by kaptinemo on August 20, 2000 at 14:19:01 PT:
The old bugaboo, again
Let's see, now. We already knew cannabis was an anti-emetic; tens of thousands of cancer patients and thousands of AIDS victims can attest to that.But Barry still sticks his fingers in his ears and hums real loud, and insists that MJ has no medical uses.The Israelis are using a cannabis derivative to assist people who have been subjected to nerve agent exposure. They are also using it in studies of neural spasticity.But Al Gore claims that he has not seen any medical research that MJ has any medical benefit.The Brits are conducting studies on MJ's ability to aid those suffereing from MS. We've had the (selectively repressed) WHO study. We've had the IoM study. We've had the Abrams study. And, now this.But what really burns the arse of the antis? What are they so concerned about? You smoking it. Because smoking it implies something. It implies that you or someone else grew it. And didn't pay taxes on it. Didn't give the pharmaceutical companies a crack at establishing their much hoped for monopolies, as they have with all other elements of the pharmacopeia. Because if it doesn't go through their allies, the pharmaceutical companies hands via an artificially costly inhaler scheme, they don't 'get theirs'.So, despite the fact that there are people who have smoked cannabis every day of their lives for 20, 30, 40 years, and are alive and well with no sign of lung cancer, the researchers have to toe the line and spew the bilge about 'medicine cannot be smoked'... when it so obviously has for over two centuries - and possibly much longer.But Fedral prosecutors say the drug is dangerous, and will destroy your life if you use it. So, to prevent the drug from destroying your life, they will 'beat it to the punch', and try to destroy your life, first. They will even *kill* you...as they did Peter McWilliams. As they are trying to do to Todd McCormick. All so some CEO at Roxane or somewhere else can make a hellacious amount of money off of an extract from a common weed.Makes a lot of sense, don't it?
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