cannabisnews.com: Pain Specialist Backs Marijuana Trials! 





Pain Specialist Backs Marijuana Trials! 
Posted by FoM on March 06, 1999 at 07:11:02 PT

Palliative-care pioneer and pain specialist Dr. Helen Hays doesn't know if marijuana is a panacea for pain, but she does know it helped one man with a rare and progressive paralysing condition. 
The 34-year-old's muscle strength improved dramatically after he smoked marijuana, Hays said Friday. "This was actually a very interesting finding. "He had been saying this for some time and then we did have the opportunity to do this serial testing." Hays said she and her colleagues tested strength because it can be measured objectively, unlike pain which depends on the patient's own assessment. But just by observing him, it was clear he could walk so much better when he was smoking than not, she said. The man also reported more pain relief. "He does need other things for his pain as well, but when he smokes pot, it helps on top of that," Hays said. "In fact, research that has been established shows that if you smoke pot or you use cannabinoids, it enhances other painkillers." Hays is quick to point out that case studies such as this one don't prove anything by themselves. "One snowflake doesn't make a blizzard." Hays supports Health Minister Allan Rock's call this week for clinical trials of marijuana's role in pain control for the terminally ill and other patients with chronic illnesses. "So many people are reporting improvements with seizures that we do need to look more in depth at marijuana at what the possibilities are therapeutically," she said. But she quickly added she doesn't favour its legalization. "I would be surprised and appalled if it was just legalized," she adds. "We don't really want to be driven through the Rockies by a bus driver who was smoking pot. "But we do need a sort of national consensus statement that we can all live with and perhaps some leeway for people who have painful and disabling conditions and say that it's helpful for them." More research is needed on finding new compounds that are related to the cannabinoids that possibly would have the benefits but not the side-effects, she says. Hays sometimes prescribes synthetic cannabinoids that have been around for awhile and are legal because they help some people sleep. She also offers them for pain, but says patients often report they don't really help with pain, "not as much as the real stuff." Meanwhile, an Edmonton pot grower with seven years experience growing more than 100 strains of organic marijuana says he'd be happy to supply some of his crops for any clinical trials. Dean McDowell says he's supplied many medical users of marijuana through the Cannabis Compassion Club in Vancouver, an organization which provides a safe spot for people with cancer and AIDS to buy and smoke marijuana. "I've got thousands of people who say I grow some of the best marijuana in the world," says McDowell, 26. There are specific strains that work best for specific ailments, he says. But McDowell isn't growing any strains at the moment. He was arrested last year and is awaiting trial on several charges of cultivating and trafficking marijuana. http://www.edmontonjournal.com/news/alberta/030699ab7.html
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