cannabisnews.com: Is Marijuana Really Medicine? Is Marijuana Really Medicine? Posted by FoM on November 18, 2000 at 12:41:22 PT By Daniel Q. Haney, AP Medical Editor Source: S.F. Gate Maybe the smoke is about to clear in the debate over medical marijuana. Few ideas, it seems, are so firmly held by the public and so doubted by the medical profession as the healing powers of pot. But at last, researchers are tiptoeing into this field, hoping to prove once and for all whether marijuana really is good medicine. To believers, marijuana's benefits are already beyond discussion: Pot eases pain, settles the stomach, builds weight and steadies spastic muscles. And that's hardly the beginning. They speak of relief from PMS, glaucoma, itching, insomnia, arthritis, depression, childbirth, attention deficit disorder and ringing in the ears. Marijuana is a powerful and needed medicine, they say, tragically withheld by misplaced phobia about drug addiction. However, the drive to legalize medical marijuana is based almost entirely on the testimonials of sick people who swear it makes them feel better. Those stories are not the kind of dispassionate experimentation that drives medical thinking. ``We lack evidence that there is something unique about marijuana, other than an impressive number of anecdotal reports,'' says Dr. Billy Martin, chief of pharmacology at the Medical College of Virginia. In the medical establishment's view, the buzz about marijuana is little more than that. Pot has many effects on the body, including some that are probably worthwhile. But does it substantially relieve human suffering, they ask? And if so, is it any better than medicines already in drugstores? For the first time in at least two decades, marijuana the medicine is being put to the test. Scientists say they will try to hold marijuana to the same standards as any other drug, to settle whether its benefits match its mystique. Given marijuana's recreational uses and abuses, people in this new field are understandably eager to come across as serious scientists experimenting with a serious medicine.(Even marijuana's usual reason to be -- the high -- is dismissed as a mere side effect, and probably an unwanted one at that.) One way to buff up a pharmaceutical's raffish image -- especially one that's a drug in more than one sense of the word -- is to call it something else. When the University of California at San Diego started the country's first institute to study the medical uses of marijuana this year, they named it the Center for Medicinal Cannabis Research. Cannabis is the botanical term for pot. ``We talked about it a lot,'' says Dr. Igor Grant, the psychiatrist who heads the new center. ``Marijuana is such a polarizing name. We don't want this institute to be caught in the cross fire between proponents and antagonists. Ultimately, if cannabis drugs become medicine, they will almost certainly be known by that name, not marijuana.'' The center will give out $9 million over the next three years to California researchers -- enough to underwrite six or seven marijuana studies a year each involving between 20 and 50 patients. At least four other studies of the medical effects of marijuana are planned. Three are sponsored by the National Institutes of Health, the other by California's San Mateo County. The medical marijuana movement began in earnest in 1996, when California passed a statewide referendum intended to make it legal. Alaska, Arizona, Hawaii, Maine, Oregon and Washington adopted similar laws, and Colorado and Nevada joined them in the November election. ``I was just so surprised at these policy decisions being made with so little scientific information,'' says Margaret Haney of Columbia University. ``I'm not against the use of medical marijuana. There's just no data about its efficacy.'' Most of the new research will probably focus on four main uses of marijuana that seem to hold the greatest promise: --Relieving severe nausea and vomiting caused by cancer chemotherapy. This is probably marijuana's best-known medical use. While the drug almost certainly helps ease nausea, there is no research showing how it stacks up against highly effective anti-nausea drugs developed over the past 15 years. --Stopping weight loss. Marijuana clearly improves appetite. However, the drug has not been adequately tested in people who are unintentionally losing weight, such as those with AIDS or cancer. --Treating muscle spasticity conditions, including multiple sclerosis. Many victims say it helps, and some animal research backs up the idea. But is it better than standard medicines? --Easing pain. Researchers especially want to test it on AIDS patients with peripheral neuropathy, numbness and pain in the feet that afflicts between 20 percent and 30 percent with the disease. Animal studies suggest marijuana may be a mild to moderate painkiller, and many with AIDS are already using it, since there is no other good treatment. One of the first questions to answer is whether objectively testing marijuana as a medicine is even practical. At the San Mateo County Health Center, Dr. Dennis Israelski will tackle this by enrolling 60 AIDS patients who already use marijuana for painful neuropathy. They will be randomly assigned to smoke marijuana -- or forgo it -- for six weeks. Will people go along with this if it means giving up something they already believe helps them? If not, larger, more elaborate studies of marijuana may be hard to accomplish. Other studies will compare marijuana to THC -- delta-9-tetrahydrocannabinol -- the most active ingredient in pot. THC has been available since the 1980s in a synthetic pill form called Marinol. Theoretically, THC and smoked marijuana should do pretty much the same things, although some argue that the other chemicals in pot are essential for its effects. But many prefer smoking marijuana because the dose is much easier to control. Marinol takes a couple of hours to kick in. By then it's impossible to fine tune the level in the bloodstream, which sometimes is too high, producing an unpleasantly intense and uncontrollable high. The joint is an efficient drug delivery system. When smoked, marijuana's chemicals reach the bloodstream in seconds and hit the brain soon thereafter. Users can regulate the effect puff by puff. In one of the new studies, Haney will compare marijuana with Marinol in AIDS patients experiencing unwanted weight loss. Volunteers won't be told whether they are getting genuine marijuana or dummy joints, Marinol or sugar pills. Then she'll see who eats the most. But even if Haney and others show marijuana is a uniquely useful medicine, many doubt that packs of marijuana cigarettes will ever become standard items at the pharmacy. The job of making marijuana an official prescription medicine would be daunting. Because the stuff cannot be patented, no drug company will pay hundreds of millions for the encyclopedic testing necessary to convince regulators. And then there is that drug delivery system. Nonsmokers often have trouble inhaling marijuana smoke, which they find harsh. And it is, after all, a form of smoking, one of the ultimate health taboos. ``It's not going to be easy to sell marijuana cigarettes as a medicine, even if it could be shown there are particular benefits,'' says Grant. ``It seems that if these things are indeed useful, we would have to find a way to deliver them in a manner that is prescribable.'' To many, that means marijuana's real future is its ingredients, THC and the other 60 or so unique compounds called cannabinoids. These are chemicals that pharmaceutical firms can isolate, improve and call their own. These products could offer the health benefits of marijuana, only better, refashioned to avoid pot's unwanted effects and delivered, of course, without smoke. ``Marijuana does too many things to be a really good drug by itself,'' says John Huffman of Clemson University, a chemist who works with cannabinoids full time. Some of the things it does are obvious to the 70 million or so Americans who admit trying marijuana: the sense of well-being, a ravenous appetite, messed-up perception of time and distance, talkativeness and the rest. Others may be less so. Marijuana also appears to disrupt short-term memory and suppress immune defenses. Among the companies searching for better ways to harness marijuana are Unimed Pharmaceutics of Deerfield, Ill., which makes Marinol. The company is working on a THC aerosol spray, intended to offer the quick, easily controllable wallop of marijuana smoking. Unimed President Robert E. Dudley says that in testing so far, the spray seems to work pretty much like a joint, reaching peak blood levels of THC within minutes. ``It mirrors what you would expect to see with inhaled marijuana smoke,'' he says, including the high. The high, in fact, is one thing that some pharmaceutical designers would like to get rid of. Atlantic Technology Ventures of New York City is testing a synthetic form of THC intended to be a painkiller. By tweaking the molecule, says CEO Joseph Rudnick, ``we kept most of the benefits of THC but got rid of the psychogenic effects.'' In safety testing in France, no one got high. All of the research done on genuine marijuana will use pot supplied by the nation's only legal supplier, the federal government's National Institute on Drug Abuse. Every year or two, it pays the University of Mississippi to plant an acre and a half of marijuana for experiments. Until recently, all of it went to experiments intended to document marijuana's hazards, not its benefits. Some complain that the government provided pot only for government-financed research and made that funding almost impossibly difficult to get. However, Dr. Steven Gust of the drug institute says the real issue was lack of interest. ``The fact of the matter is, there were very, very few applications to conduct research on medical applications of marijuana,'' he says. Now, the government will supply marijuana for scientifically rigorous studies backed by nongovernment organizations. It is even shipping some north for experiments sponsored by Health Canada, the Canadian government agency. To the believers, however, all of this is simply an attempt to prove the obvious, and they question whether the studies are necessary at all. Dr. Lester Grinspoon, a retired Harvard psychiatrist, became a believer in the 1960s. His son suffered terrible nausea during treatment for leukemia and tried marijuana against his father's advice. It seemed to work. Instead of vomiting for eight hours after chemotherapy, he'd ask to stop for a sandwich on his way home. Now Grinspoon is chairman of the NORML Foundation, which wants to legalize marijuana. ``We're going to have to go through this business of doing these studies,'' he concedes. ``But they won't prove anything that clinicians who have paid attention to this don't already know.'' Complete Title: Is Marijuana Really Medicine? At Last It's Being Put To The Test On the Net: Institute of Medicine Report: http://books.nap.edu/html/marimed/ Center for Medicinal Cannabis Research: http://www.cmcr.ucsd.edu/home.htm National Institutes of Health Report: http://www.nih.gov/news/medmarijuana/MedicalMarijuana.htm Source: Associated PressAuthor: Daniel Q. Haney, AP Medical EditorPublished: Saturday, November 18, 2000 Copyright: ©2000 Associated Press CannabisNews Medical Marijuana Archives:http://cannabisnews.com/news/list/medical.shtml Home Comment Email Register Recent Comments Help Comment #16 posted by Fank on November 22, 2000 at 04:22:40 PT Marijuana is a Pain medication I broke my leg in an automobile accident once. The physicians prescribed a powerful Pain medication by the name of Oxycodone for me. Oxycodone is an opiate and addictive. However, sometimes drugs like Oxycodone are required, as pain can be beyond belief. What I’m going to write here is experience and there is no truth above experience. I found that if I took a 500mg Naproxen Sodium tablet and smoked a small about of marijuana the pain relief was just as good as Oxycodone or Morphine with no chance of addiction. The People who say marijuana has no medical properties are liars or idiots or both. [ Post Comment ] Comment #15 posted by JR Bob Dobbs on November 20, 2000 at 12:57:40 PT End the war NOW [Getting thrown in jail] has many effects on the body, including some that are probably worthwhile. But does itsubstantially relieve human suffering, they ask? And if so, is it any better than medicines already in drugstores? [ Post Comment ] Comment #14 posted by Eastern HEMPishpere on November 19, 2000 at 15:34:21 PT: It's nature's gift >Marijuana also appears to disrupt short-term memory and suppress immune defenses.One day, during lunch i went to a friends house and smoked about 5 2 liter buckets , the class after lunch was biology and we had our final exams! i didn't study and i got a B!:-)I haven't been sick once i the last 6 years of smoking about everyday>the sense of well-being, a ravenous appetite, messed-up perception of time and distance, talkativeness and the restOh yeah i always feel better about myself after smoking, that is a good thing right???I love to play video games while i'm high (or shall i say really high) i play better high then when i'm not high. oh yeah and i'm a lot quieter after i have hit the bong, no1 better become back at me with that "you need to find some better smoke crap". i get my stash straight from holland. [ Post Comment ] Comment #13 posted by Dankhank on November 19, 2000 at 10:01:00 PT: Harsh??? anyone heard of a water pipe? Or an ICE pipe?How about a Vaporizer?I toked from Eagle Bill's vaporizer at Cannabis Cup 9 and it was like breathing air, but stoned me for sure.Beneficial technological advances have been applied to various Cannabis aero-delivery systems and promise to eliminate the sometimes deliterious effects on the throat of hot gases.Try another one, you self-proclaimed "serious medical research facility."You're all full of bovine fecal matter and should just rear your fecal-covered heads out of the muck and look around. HEMP n sSTUFF [ Post Comment ] Comment #12 posted by ripper on November 19, 2000 at 06:14:08 PT Thier eyes are open, but they can't see. Why can't the anti's ever see the truth? No money in legalizing. I talked about legalizing to the guy I get my weed from and he's all for keeping it illegal. No money in it if its legal. The more our government spends the more the dealers make. Its all about control and money. Who is the loser in this battle of the bucks? [ Post Comment ] Comment #11 posted by Dave in Florida on November 19, 2000 at 05:03:45 PT it's the money >Pot has many effects on the body, including some that are probably worthwhile. But does it substantially relieve humansuffering, they ask? And if so, is it any better than medicines already in drugstores? Why does it have to be better than medicines already on the market? Is Bayer asprin better than the generic brand? what about competition.>For the first time in at least two decades, marijuana the medicine is being put to the test. Scientists say they will try to hold marijuana to the same standards as any other drug, to settle whether its benefits match its mystique. Oh, OK. Before it seems that they always wanted to put it to a higher standard, that is to say that it would work when no other medicine would. Why is that ?>The job of making marijuana an official prescription medicine would be daunting. Because the stuff cannot be patented, no drug company will pay hundreds of millions for the encyclopedic testing necessary to convince regulators. Oh, now we know the real reason. MONEY Forget medical reasons, just legalize it, and then if people who are sick choose to use it they may and those that are not sick may choose to use it as well. It's a plant, not rocket science. [ Post Comment ] Comment #10 posted by Ed Carpenter on November 19, 2000 at 03:57:49 PT: Is Marijuana Really Medicine? "However, the drive to legalize medical marijuana is based almost entirely on the testimonials of sick peoplewho swear it makes them feel better."So what? Placebos (they only look like medicine) are routinely used by the medical profession. Is a placebo medicine? Does the FDA have to approve placebos? What's the difference?"One way to buff up a pharmaceutical's raffish image -- especially one that's a drug in more than one sense ofthe word -- is to call it something else."Right on. They got the name "marijuana" from the song "La Cucaracha" which tells of one of Pancho Villa's men searching for his stash of "marijuana por fumar" back around the turn of the century. [ Post Comment ] Comment #9 posted by CongressmanSuet on November 18, 2000 at 22:06:24 PT The original comment... Whats so wrong with getting high? Ask Georgie Bush and all the born agains for the answer... [ Post Comment ] Comment #8 posted by dddd on November 18, 2000 at 21:40:52 PT So What! Even if marijuana is not "medicine",,so what?...If it's not "medicine",then what the hell is it?...I'll tell what it is,,it's a plant,perhaps an herb,but what if the experts decide it's not "medicine"?Then we must define the term "medicine". Medicine is something that cures,or helps things that ail people.One persons "medicine",might be poison to someone else. One of the main problems about this whole thing,is the way that marijuana has been so demonized,and lied about by the overlords of misinformation,that most dicussions,and articles begin with the premise that it is "bad".In reality,there is nothing wrong or "bad" about marijuana.The only reason people consider it bad,is because it was made illegal years ago,for reasons that were questionable,to say the least. In my opinion,the "goodness or badness" of marijuana,or whether or not it is "medicine",is irrelevant.The main problem is the absurdity of the continued prohibition by an Evil Empire of lawmakers and enforcers,and others who are not necessarily evil,but have been brainwashed by those who are......dddd [ Post Comment ] Comment #7 posted by freedom fighter on November 18, 2000 at 21:06:09 PT A confession of a man who likes to get high The sun roseI took a bathI brush my teethI put my pant onI put my shirt onI smoke my favortie cigaretteI brew my coffee.I drove to work and built me a house.I am so high!I am so high that I saw a hawk floating by.I swear I saw a hawk floating by.So high that I saw 4 does chewing their late evening dinner before I left work for home.Who among you are not high with life? [ Post Comment ] Comment #6 posted by Matt Elrod on November 18, 2000 at 19:33:20 PT: Beside the point But does it substantially relieve humansuffering, they ask? And if so, is it any better than medicines already in drugstores?This is entirely beside the point. No one would callpouring hot water over ground up beans medicine andamphetamines are a far more effective stimulant than caffiene, yet we do not criminalize coffee drinkers because there are more effective alternatives or insist theytake caffiene pills to avoid the many carcinogeniccompounds in coffee.Cannabis is a medicinal herb. It should no more becompared to pharmaceuticals that valerian should becompared to valium or garlic be compared to Atalat.Matt 'Legalize It!' (FDA Blocks Herbal Medicine) [ Post Comment ] Comment #5 posted by maleksalem on November 18, 2000 at 14:39:37 PT: Why shouldn't your medicine make you feel good? Why do some Americans have such a problem accepting the "high" in cannabis as part of its healing qualities? We accept the fact that the best conventional medicine can pump up the body with synthetic drugs while soothing the mind with a good "bedside manner". Traditional herbal medicine is also often accompanied by chants and songs which are meant to sooth the spirit while the herbs work to heal the body. We do this knowing that healing is a mental as well as a physical process. The "high" is often associated with terms such as, a sense of well being, euphoria, relaxed, insightful and so on. Is this really a problem? That the sick and afflicted should soothed by such side affects? Is Marijuana Really Medicine? [ Post Comment ] Comment #4 posted by Ethan Russo, MD on November 18, 2000 at 14:14:27 PT: Really? "However, Dr. Steven Gust of the drug institute says the real issue was lack of interest. ``The fact of the matter is, there were very, very few applications to conduct research on medical applications of marijuana,'' he says." The fact is that very few researchers were foolish enough to challenge a system that made clinical research on cannabis almost impossible the last 15 years. I know from personal experience. They have shot me down now 4 years running. To the government, it is simple to say that the medicince is no good because there are no recent studies, and then block any from being perfomed.Please see these links if you have not read my viewpoint previously:URL’s of Interest to Clinical Cannabis by or about Ethan Russo:Formatted Pain article, 1998 (need Adobe Acrobat Reader):http://www.druglibrary.org/crl/pain/Russo%2098%20Migraine_%20Pain.pdfUnformatted Article:http://www.teleport.com/~omr/omr_russo.htmlMAPS Site:http://maps.org/mmj/mjrusso.htmlUSAToday.com article:http://www.usatoday.com/life/health/doctor/lhdoc227.htmMedical Cannabis Quarterly (Australia) article:http://members.nbci.com/jackalmedia/mcq/mcq.htmlChronicle Article:http://www.cannabisnews.com/news/5/thread5889.shtmlWashington Times letter:http://www.cannabisnews.com/news/5/thread5197.shtmlReuters Health:http://www.cannabisnews.com/news/5/thread5889.shtml [ Post Comment ] Comment #3 posted by DdC on November 18, 2000 at 14:03:09 PT Who Knows Better Patients or Congress? Its amazing how anyone could think a person suffering from an illness would purposely refuse pharmaceuticals that work just to use cannabis for political purposes of legalization.No Medical Value?http://www.cannabinoid.com/wwwboard/politics/binaries/27/27582.gif These same "potheads" have more honor than either presidential candidate and would choose suffering just to forward their cause? Such dedication. On the other hand most of the politicians have tried cananbis, both status weird candidates. Yet they survived the rhetoric's terrible effects, at least thats the description of the reefer mad Congress having a "sense" it wasn't medicinal. In spite of their own medical report to the contrary. In spite of the vested interest and obligation to the pharmaceutical corporations to keep this competition off of the market shelves.http://www.cannabis.com/ezine/just_say_know/2.shtml Shalala has sat on the IOM report almost 2 years, illegally. Yet Congress still has no sense. http://www.cannabinoid.com/wwwboard/politics/binaries/28/28670.gifCannabis has been medicine for centuries yet that fact is also disregarded. $20 billion a year and the majority is spent eradicating cannabis of which 99.28% is ditchweed schwagg that won't get anyone medicinal relief. http://pub3.ezboard.com/fendingcannabisprohibitionwhyitstimetolegalize.showMessage?topicID=20.topicIt is rope. So the majority of the WoD budget, not subject to anyones accountability. Is spent removing rope or financing campaigns and retreats. Cannabis food, fuel, fiber, farmaceuticals!DdChttp://www.cannabinoid.com/wwwboard/politics/binaries/29/29412.gif [ Post Comment ] Comment #2 posted by FoM on November 18, 2000 at 13:38:51 PT It Doesn't Suppress The Immune Sysytem Didn't they read this report? Study Finds Pot Safe for AIDS Patientshttp://cannabisnews.com/news/6/thread6390.shtmlStudy Finds Marijuana Use Safe for HIV Patients http://cannabisnews.com/news/thread6383.shtml [ Post Comment ] Comment #1 posted by freedom fighter on November 18, 2000 at 13:12:20 PT suppressing immune system? I get tired of hearing this.If it was true then all those people with Aids who smoke cannabis be dead by now.What is so bad about getting high? Everybody gets high on many different things. What is so evil about it? If people think they do not get high are only kidding around with themselves. I am trying to understand their thinking. I wondered if they are high when they said that. [ Post Comment ] Post Comment Name: Optional Password: E-Mail: Subject: Comment: [Please refrain from using profanity in your message] Link URL: Link Title: