cannabisnews.com: UC To Put Pot to The Test 





UC To Put Pot to The Test 
Posted by FoM on March 10, 2001 at 23:25:09 PT
By Teri Sforza, The Orange County Register
Source: Orange County Register
The University of California is beginning clinical investigations into marijuana as medicine, hoping to end the roiling controversy over its medical usefulness once and for all."It's very exciting -- a first in the country," said Drew Mattison, co-director of the newly formed Center for Medicinal Cannabis Research, headquartered at UC San Diego. Last month, the center announced the first of $3 million in research grants. 
Researchers at UC San Diego and UC San Francisco will examine marijuana's effect on HIV- related pain; on the spasticity caused by multiple sclerosis; and on the driving abilities of patients with AIDS and MS. The studies should start enrolling patients in April or May, after federal regulatory approval. Patients who want to take part can add their names to a waiting list.Local medical marijuana activists laud the studies, but don't plan to join them. "I'm glad they're going in the right direction," said Marvin Chavez, director of the Orange County Patient, Doctor, Nurse Support Group Cannabis Co-op. "But from my point of view, it's a waste of taxpayers' money. We don't need a study. We're living testimony that it works."The new research center was formed in August. It's the product of a bill introduced by Sen. John Vasconcellos, D-Santa Clara, who has been trying to make Proposition 215 work for years. Vasconcellos hopes the center's research will finally prove what other studies have shown: That the active ingredient in marijuana helps spur appetite and deaden pain.Prop. 215 is California's medical marijuana law, which has been trapped between state and federal drug laws since it passed in 1996. While Prop. 215 gave patients in California the right to grow and use marijuana for a variety of illnesses with a doctor's recommendation, federal drug law still classifies it alongside heroin and LSD, drugs that have no medical use.Vasconcellos hopes that the center's research will leave the politics of medical marijuana in the past. "It's UC's ball now," said Rand Martin, chief of staff for Vasconcellos. "We need to let them do what they are well-equipped to do."Study results will be reported to the Legislature and the governor, to help them decide how to implement Prop. 215.The research is not only supposed to help California with this task -- it will help the eight other states which have approved medical marijuana in its wake. They are Alaska, Arizona, Colorado, Hawaii, Maine, Nevada, Oregon and Washington. Many of them are farther along when it comes to implementing the laws than California, and that's part of the burden of being the trailblazer, said the people who crafted Prop. 215."California was the first state to pass a medical marijuana initiative, and some problems weren't anticipated," said Bill Zimmerman, who was campaign manager for Prop. 215 and is now executive director of the Campaign for New Drug Policies in Santa Monica, which has sponsored drug-reform initiatives in several states. The big problems here: Prop. 215 didn't address how the drug would be distributed, or how the state would keep track of who was legally allowed to use it.In the other states, the most important change was to write state-controlled patient registries into the law, Zimmerman said. Such registries, which usually issue identification cards, make it easy for law enforcement to separate legitimate patients from lawbreakers.That language was used in Oregon, Alaska, Washington, and most recently, Colorado, Zimmerman said. For more information about the medical research, and to get on the list of prospective patient participants, see the center's Web site at: http://www.cmcr.ucsd.edu/ Note: Researchers hope to resolve some of the controversy about the therapeutic value of the drug. Source: Orange County Register (CA)Author: Teri Sforza, The Orange County RegisterPublished: March 10, 2001Copyright: 2001 The Orange County RegisterAddress: P.O. Box 11626, Santa Ana, CA 92711Fax: (714) 565-3657Contact: letters link.freedom.comWebsite: http://www.ocregister.com/Related Articles:New Research on Medicinal Cannabis Usehttp://cannabisnews.com/news/thread6878.shtmlCalifornia Center Will Explore MMJ Potentialhttp://cannabisnews.com/news/thread6870.shtml
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Comment #1 posted by dddd on March 18, 2001 at 02:28:29 PT
Dont Miss This
I hope that someone out there still thinks that marijuana is a potentially dangerousdrug,and feels it has not been researched enough to be legally used medicinally.Ifanyone is seriously not convinced that marijuana is relativly harmless,then pleasetake a moment to compare it to a few of the legally availiable drugs in the followinglink.For those who think marijuana is not so bad,this is also an excellent source to compareit with some of the legal drugs that PLAGUE the nation.Check it out....I think you will agree that it is astounding! 
http://www.coreynahman.com/antidepressantdrugsdatabase.html
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