cannabisnews.com: Is Pot More Medicinal Than a Spoon Full of Sugar





Is Pot More Medicinal Than a Spoon Full of Sugar
Posted by FoM on January 02, 2001 at 06:18:40 PT
By Daniel Q. Haney, The Associated Press
Source: Anchorage Daily News
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 phobia about drug addiction. Nine states, including Alaska, have adopted measures to legalize marijuana for medical purposes. 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 as 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. One way to buff up a pharmaceutical's raffish image 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, it 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 adopted a statewide referendum intended to make it legal. Alaska, Arizona, Hawaii, Maine, Oregon and Washington adopted similar measures, 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 of people with the disease. Animal studies suggest marijuana may be a mild to moderate painkiller, and many people with AIDS are already using it, as there is no other good treatment. 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, though some people 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 new study, 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 other researchers show marijuana is a uniquely useful medicine, many people 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," Grant says. "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 people, 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 without smoke. 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. Unimed president Robert 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. Note: Maybe the smoke is about to clear in the debate over medical marijuana. SCIENCE: Tests will prove or disprove belief in marijuana as remedy.On the Net: Center for Medicinal Cannabis Research: http://www.cmcr.ucsd.edu/home.htm Institute of Medicine Report: http://books.nap.edu/html/marimed/ National Institutes of Health Report: http://www.nih.gov/news/medmarijuana/MedicalMarijuana.htm CannabisNews Medical Marijuana Archives: http://cannabisnews.com/news/list/medical.shtml
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Comment #9 posted by Ed Carpenter on January 03, 2001 at 02:15:11 PT:
Is Pot More Medicinal Than a Spoon Full of Sugar
"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..."We also lack evidence that there is something unique about placebos which have been known to elicit miraculous cures."Marijuana is such a polarizing name. We don't want this institute to be caught in the cross fire between proponents and antagonists..."The word "marijuana" was used by the government for effect when first seeking to prohibit Cannabis hemp. It was taken from the song "La Cucaracha." 
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Comment #8 posted by Frank on January 02, 2001 at 16:48:32 PT
Smoke one Dr. Billy Martin
"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. I suggest that Dr. Billy Martin roll a joint, put on some jazz and smoke the joint and then come forward and make statements that there is no evidence that there is something unique about marijuana. “The high, in fact, is one thing that some pharmaceutical designers would like to get rid of.” “The marijuana high” is the most potent aspect of the healing action. To be in the depths of a depression and to feel lifted out of it is not a sin or wrong. The idea that someone can feel good with out some sort of sacrifice is at the root of the prejudice against marijuana. I suspect that marijuana doesn’t fit into the “Christian” model of penitence, self-denial, hair shirts and absence from sex. We will still continue to be in the dark ages if the right-Wingers, Moralists, Christian Crackpots and religious fanatics have their way. These elements have always stood in the way of truth. On an interesting note: Visit the Christian Torture Museum located in Amsterdam, Holland and you will very quickly see where these fanatics heads are at and what their true motives are. An intersting display of efforts of "God's People".
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Comment #7 posted by dddd on January 02, 2001 at 14:49:50 PT
more CRAP
"For the first time in at least two decades, marijuana as 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." This is the same bull we keep hearing,and it is still as lame of an excuse as it ever was.If they had held Ritalin,or Paxil to the same scrutiny,they would not be "approved" .I dont recall any pharmaceutical snake oils ever having to undergo 9 million dollars worth extensive,research. This is nothing more than the delay tactic that they have been using for years.Marijuana has been studied more than aspirin,and is probably safer. >"Unimed president Robert 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 spray is going to be pushed by big drug companies,because you cant grow the spray,and then they can allow the spray,by prescription only,patented by the drug companies,and still continue prohibition of smoked weed. 
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Comment #6 posted by observer on January 02, 2001 at 11:25:15 PT
This is a Re-release of Earlier Propaganda Piece
This is the same article, just a few little changes ... this (Jan 2, 2001) version dropped a leading sentence, "Maybe the smoke is about to clear in the debate over medical marijuana." (Nov 2000)Among other, more interesting changes, this version dropped mention of Dr Lester Grinspoon, and the Feds own legal US pot-farm, in Mississippi. The following was in the AP release provided to this Anchorage paper: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.'' I wonder why they dropped all of that?see:Is Marijuana Really Medicine?November 18, 2000 at 12:41:22 PTBy Daniel Q. Haney, AP Medical Editorhttp://www.cannabisnews.com/news/7/thread7705.shtml 
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Comment #5 posted by ras james rsifwh on January 02, 2001 at 09:48:56 PT
"HEALING THE NATION"
From the ETERNAL City of God,..."good news"...Cannabis Sativa has manifested as the promised TREE OF LIFE in the BOOK OF REVELATION 22:1&2. Marijuana is now bearing fruit (achenes) on both sides of our streets (in small grow rooms) each month of the year. JAH RASTAFARI! THE CONQUERING LION IS HEALING THE NATION.
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Comment #4 posted by DAC on January 02, 2001 at 09:37:51 PT:
rediculous science
Those scientists who seek to "tweek" the THC molecule inorder to remove the high as an effect will gain nothing. As with almost all other chemicals that exist, the conformational shape of a molecule is a direct cause of its properties. Therefore, if changing the THC molecule in such a way gets rid of the high, it most certainly will produce new undesireable propperties; DON't MESS WITH THE NATURAL AND EXPECT YOUR NATURAL BODIES TO ACCEPT IT. 
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Comment #3 posted by aocp on January 02, 2001 at 08:57:05 PT:
Playing Observer's Advocate
>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?What are the alternatives? Throwing those ill people who wish to self-medicate in a cell or a locked facility with guards in white lab coats? I just don't understand how so many people miss the alternative to MMJ ... if you do not allow ill folks under the law to self-administer their own MJ and in fact, make it a CRIME to do so, what do you do with the law-breakers?
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Comment #2 posted by JR Bob Dobbs on January 02, 2001 at 08:31:12 PT
Study
>>However, the drive to [stop throwing sick people in jail] 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. >>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?  Richard Cowen pointed out on one of the last of the 2000 4:20 Marijuana News on Pot TV that aspirin was grandfathered in under the FDA. We still don't understand exactly how aspirin works, and it kills thousands of people a year.
Pot TV - tune in, turn on, legalize!
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Comment #1 posted by Dan B on January 02, 2001 at 07:18:06 PT:
Get Real
Anyone who thinks that marijuana has not been studied enough and that we need yet another round of studies to "prove whether it is a useful medicine" has paid no attention to research whatsoever. I think it is important to study it to find new uses and to determine the extent of its usefulness, but to suggest that we need even more studies to prove whether or not it is useful at all is absurd. Its usefulness is well documented.Dan B
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