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NORML's Weekly News Bulletin
01.25.07|NORML|

Cannabinoid Agonist Significantly Increases ALS Life Span, Study Says

Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), also known as Lou Gehrig’s Disease, is a fatal neurodegenerative disorder that is characterized by the selective loss of motor neurons in the spinal cord, brain stem, and motor cortex. An estimated 30,000 Americans are living with ALS, which often arises spontaneously and afflicts otherwise healthy adults. More than half of ALS patients die within 2.5 years following the onset of symptoms.

A review of the scientific literature reveals an absence of clinical trials investigating the use of cannabinoids for ALS treatment. However, recent preclinical findings indicate that cannabinoids can delay ALS progression, lending support to anecdotal reports by patients that cannabinoids may be efficacious in moderating the disease’s development and in alleviating certain ALS-related symptoms such as pain, appetite loss, depression and drooling.

Writing in the March 2004 issue of the journal Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis & Other Motor Neuron Disorders, investigators at the California Pacific Medical Center in San Francisco reported that the administration of THC both before and after the onset of ALS symptoms staved disease progression and prolonged survival in animals compared to untreated controls.

Additional trials in animal models of ALS have shown that the administration of other naturally occurring and synthetic cannabinoids can also moderate ALS progression, but not necessarily impact survival. One recent study demonstrated that blocking the CB1 cannabinoid receptor did extend life span in an ALS mouse model, suggesting that cannabinoids’ beneficial effects on ALS may be mediated by non-CB1 receptor mechanisms.

Preclinical data has also shown that cannabinoids are neuroprotective against oxidative damage both in vitro and in animals. Cannabinoids’ neuroprotective action may be able to play a role in moderating ALS, which is characterized by excessive glutamate activity in the spinal cord. At least one cannabinoid, delta-9-THC, has been shown to protect cultured mouse spinal neurons against excitotoxicity.
As a result, some experts now recommend that “marijuana … be considered in the pharmacological management of ALS,” and they believe that “further investigation into the usefulness of marijuana and … synthetic cannabinoid receptor agonists is warranted.”


Police Inconsistently Enforce Pot 'Warning' Policy, Study Says

A two-year-old British policy calling on police to verbally caution but not arrest individuals found in possession of small amounts of cannabis is only sporadically enforced by law enforcement, according to the findings of a study published this week by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation.

According to the report, British police issue warnings in fewer than half of all pot possession cases, despite the 2004 law change calling on law enforcement to cease arresting minor marijuana offenders unless they encounter special "aggravated" circumstances. The report also found that minorities were over-represented among those defendants arrested for marijuana violations.

Authors of the report state: "When cannabis was reclassified as a Class C drug [in January 2004], guidelines were issued advising officers to give street warnings for most possession offenses, arresting only in aggravated circumstances. [However,] we found that street warnings were issued for under half of possession offenses."

They continued: "Over half of officers were against the downgrading and many said that cannabis arrests often led to the detection of more serious crimes. In fact, we found that this occurred in less than one percent of cases."

Authors did note that despite poor police compliance, the guidelines had led to a decline in overall pot arrests, from a high of 84,000 arrests in 1998 to less than 50,000 in 2004. They estimated that the policy change had resulted in a savings of three-and-a-half million pounds ($690,000) or just over a quarter of a million officer hours among the 43 police forces surveyed.

In 2004, Parliament downgraded cannabis from a Class B to a Class C scheduled drug, marking the first substantial change to the nation's 1971 Misuse of Drugs Act in more than 30 years.

For more information, please contact Allen St. Pierre, NORML Executive Director, or Paul Armentano, NORML Senior Policy Analyst, at (202) 483-5500. Full text of the study, "Policing cannabis as a Class C drug: An arresting change' is available online from the Joseph Rowntree Foundation at: http://www.jrf.org.uk/bookshop/details.asp?pubID=857