03/07/2007 00:00:00
Marijuana Gains Wonder Drug Status
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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 -- and US drug policy -- 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
smoked marijuana to be 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 and that 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.
Of course, 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 kind of 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, who after all
is the best judge, 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 US 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. The new Congress could go
far in establishing its bona fides as both reasonable and compassionate
by immediately moving on this issue.
Such legislation would bring much-needed relief to millions of Americans
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."
© 2007 Independent Media Institute. All rights reserved.
View this story online at: http://www.alternet.org/story/48749/
Source:
http://www.ukcia.org/news/shownewsarticle.php?articleid=12666
Author:
Boston Globe via UKCIA
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