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Migz420

Marijuana, the wonder drug
01.28.07|Int'l Herald Tribune|Lester Grinspoon

A new study in the journal Neurology is being hailed as unassailable proof that marijuana is a valuable medicine. It is a sad commentary on the state of modern medicine that we still need "proof" of something that medicine has known for 5,000 years.

The study, from the University of California at San Francisco, found that smoked marijuana was effective at relieving the extreme pain of a debilitating condition known as peripheral neuropathy.

It was a study of HIV patients, but a similar type of pain caused by damage to nerves afflicts people with many other illnesses including diabetes and multiple sclerosis.

Neuropathic pain is notoriously resistant to treatment with conventional pain drugs. Even powerful and addictive narcotics like morphine and OxyContin often provide little relief. This study leaves no doubt that marijuana can safely ease this type of pain.

As all marijuana research in the United States must be, the new study was conducted with government-supplied marijuana of notoriously poor quality. So it probably underestimated the potential benefit.

This is all good news, but it should not be news at all. In the 40-odd years I have been studying the medicinal uses of marijuana, I have learned that the recorded history of this medicine goes back to ancient times.

In the 19th century it became a well-established Western medicine whose versatility and safety were unquestioned. From 1840 to 1900, American and European medical journals published over 100 papers on the therapeutic uses of marijuana, also known as cannabis.

Our knowledge has advanced greatly over the years. Scientists have identified over 60 unique constituents in marijuana, called cannabinoids, and we have learned much about how they work. We have also learned that our own bodies produce similar chemicals, called endocannabinoids.

The mountain of accumulated anecdotal evidence that pointed the way to the present and other clinical studies also strongly suggests there are a number of other devastating disorders and symptoms for which marijuana has been used for centuries.

They deserve the same careful, methodologically sound research.

While few such studies have so far been completed, all have lent weight to what medicine already knew but had largely forgotten or ignored: Marijuana is effective at relieving nausea and vomiting, spasticity, appetite loss, certain types of pain and other debilitating symptoms. And it is extraordinarily safe — safer than most medicines prescribed every day.

If marijuana were a new discovery rather than a well-known substance carrying cultural and political baggage, it would be hailed as a wonder drug.

The pharmaceutical industry is scrambling to isolate cannabinoids and synthesize analogs and to package them in non-smokable forms. In time, companies will almost certainly come up with products and delivery systems that are more useful and less expensive than herbal marijuana.

However, the analogs they have produced so far are more expensive than herbal marijuana, and none has shown any improvement over the plant nature gave us to take orally or to smoke.

We live in an antismoking environment. But as a method of delivering certain medicinal compounds, smoking marijuana has some real advantages: The effect is almost instantaneous, allowing the patient to fine-tune his or her dose to get the needed relief without intoxication.

Smoked marijuana has never been demonstrated to have serious pulmonary consequences, but in any case the technology to inhale these cannabinoids without smoking marijuana already exists as vaporizers that allow for smoke-free inhalation.

Hopefully the UCSF study will add to the pressure on the U.S. government to rethink its irrational ban on the medicinal use of marijuana — and its destructive attacks on patients and caregivers in states that have chosen to allow such use.

Rather than admit they have been mistaken all these years, federal officials can cite "important new data" and start revamping outdated and destructive policies.

Such legislation would bring much-needed relief to millions suffering from cancer, AIDS, multiple sclerosis, arthritis and other debilitating illnesses.

Lester Grinspoon, an emeritus professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School, is the coauthor of "Marijuana, the Forbidden Medicine." This article first appeared in The Boston Globe.

 

Buzzby

Please write to your federal representatives and let them know your feelings about medical marijuana. The only way we're ever going to get out from under these stupid laws is to petition our legislatures to change them. This is what I wrote to my congressman:

Dear Congressman Kucinich -

In today's news I spotted an article about a study out of the University of California at San Francisco. The study was about the use of smoked cannabis as a treatment for neuropathic pain. This was a fully sanctioned study using US Government supplied marijuana. The results showed that smoked cannabis was more effective at easing this pain than dangerously addictive opiate pain killers.

For decades the DEA/NIDA/FDA/ONDCP has denied that cannabis has any medical utility and used that as an excuse to prosecute medical users and suppliers. For the most part, any access to legitimate cannabis from the NIDA grow has been refused to scientists who wanted to examine any positive uses for the drug. This is despite study after study that prove otherwise, including studies sponsored by the federal government like the Institute of Medicine study done a couple of years ago. A couple of weeks ago the DEA's own Administrative Law Judge issued a decision declaring the medical utility of cannabis with a recommendation that medical cannabis be made legal. Karen Tandy, head of the DEA and staunch drug warrior, has the option of ignoring the decision, which she undoubtedly will.

Mr. Kucinich, this has gone on far too long. The medical value of cannabis has been recognized for 5,000 years. It's demonization by the US Government and subsequent world-wide prohibition began only 70 years ago with a law that was passed without any debate at all.

Sick people need to be able to get the medicine that they need, unencumbered by laws based on racist propaganda and commercial interests. For many health problems, cannabis represents a safe and inexpensive alternative to dangerous, sometimes addictive, and always expensive medicines cranked out for the profit of big pharmaceutical corporations. With your new committee chairmanship you have the opportunity to help the nation's sick and dying obtain a better and more pain-free life. Please do whatever you can to push forward legislation that would take cannabis out of Schedule I into a less restrictive Schedule so that doctors will be able to prescribe cannabis and its derivatives to people who need it.

Thank you for your attention.

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newgrowerNY

Thanks for that great letter. I just emailed it to John Hall . We the people need to speak up for ourselves. Cast aside the fear of getting "caught" and stride forward to stand up for your rights to life, liberty , and a big fat bowl !

Thanks again Buzzby.

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