Pubdate: Sun, 16 Jul 2000
Source: Denver Post (CO)
Copyright: 2000 The Denver Post
Contact:  1560 Broadway, Denver, CO 80202
Fax: (303) 820.1502
Website: http://www.denverpost.com/
Forum: http://www.denverpost.com/voice/voice.htm
Author: Karen Auge

LEGAL CROP EXCEEDS DEMAND

July 16, 2000 - Down in Mississippi, there are a couple of people who get 
paid to grow dope for the federal government.

The little marijuana patch, overseen by the University of Mississippi, only 
produces a crop every couple of years, according to officials at the 
National Institute on Drug Abuse.

Some of that weed goes to the handful of glaucoma, cancer and multiple 
sclerosis patients permitted to get marijuana through the 
quarter-century-old federal compassionate use program.

And some of it goes toward research.

For years, pro-marijuana activists have claimed that proving marijuana's 
effectiveness in alleviating nausea, helping AIDS patients eat again and 
easing MS patients' pain would be a cinch if only the federal government 
would turn loose a little more marijuana for research.

Last year, the Clinton administration relaxed a requirement that any 
research using marijuana be paid for by the National Institutes of Health. 
The policy change freed up legal marijuana for private researchers, if 
their studies gain federal approval.

Steven Gust, special assistant director of NIDA, said he expected the 
announcement to uncork a flood of research requests.

"But we've gotten very few, actually," Gust said.

Very few, in this case, meaning five.

Currently, the government is sharing its stash with three researchers, Gust 
said.

One, working in Chicago, is looking at how or if marijuana eases nausea.

Another, at the Medical College of Virginia, is examining marijuana's 
effect on pain.

In the third study, the only one that involves patients using marijuana 
according to Gust, Dr. Donald Abrams at the University of San Francisco 
gave 62 AIDS patients who are on protease inhibitors marijuana cigarettes, 
the legal, pill version of marijuana, or a placebo.

Abrams plans to announce the results of the study, which began in May 1998, 
at the world AIDS conference under way in Durban, South Africa.

Until then, Abrams said, his findings must remain secret. But he has 
already gone public with his criticism of what he considers the 
government's reluctance to give a green light to his study.

In a 1998 article published in the Journal of Psychoactive Drugs, Abrams 
offers his version of the transformation his study had to undergo before it 
finally got approval.

Abrams started out wanting to look at whether marijuana is really effective 
in stemming AIDS wasting syndrome. The study ended up examining whether 
there is any potentially harmful interaction between marijuana and the most 
common ingredients in the AIDS "drug cocktails." Abrams' tale has become 
folklore among pro-marijuana activists and government critics. But his 
version is just wrong, Gust said.

It often takes years, and changes, for studies to be approved.

And, he said, "There is a perception out there that government is blocking 
research. The reality is there aren't many applications out there." In the 
meantime, there are plenty of studies going on involving marijuana - if not 
the actual use of the drug.

The American Cancer Society, which is against legalizing medical marijuana, 
this year chipped in $361,000 to help find out whether the same theory 
behind stop-smoking nicotine patches can be used to deliver marijuana's 
active ingredient.

The "marijuana patch" being studied at the Albany College of Pharmacy in 
New York, would deliver cannabinoids through the skin, according to Dr. 
Audra Stinchcomb, the chief researcher.
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