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Vapourising cannabis leaves can prevent side effects
05-12-07|The Hindu

Vapourising cannabis leaves instead of burning them can release the drug's active ingredient just as effectively while avoiding the harmful toxins inhaled through smoking, according to a study.

The result of the study could be good news for those who choose to use marijuana medicinally, Nature magazine, which reported the study, said.

The potential benefits of marijuana include pain relief for multiple-sclerosis sufferers, a treatment for glaucoma, as an appetite stimulant for AIDS patients and an anti-nausea agent for people on chemotherapy.

Rather than smoking, some use the leaves to make tea or cakes for consumption. But this means that the active agents are metabolised by the liver rather than entering the bloodstream unaltered. Others have focused on extracting active ingredients such as tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) and delivering them alone in a pill or oral spray.

However, many think that the isolated ingredients are not as effective as the whole plant, and it is more difficult to customise the dose for each individual with a pill, Nature noted.

Donald Abrams of the University of California, San Francisco, and his team decided to investigate the benefits of the 'Volcano', a commercially available vapouriser.

The device heats marijuana leaves to a temperature between 180 and 200 degree C so that THC is released from oils on the surface of the leaf but no actual combustion takes place.