Pubdate: Tue, 26 Apr 2005
Source: National Post (Canada)
Copyright: 2005 Southam Inc.
Contact:  http://www.nationalpost.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/286
Author: Colby Cosh
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/mmjcn.htm (Cannabis - Medicinal - Canada)
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/find?323 (GW Pharmaceuticals)

POT FOR SQUARES

There are few diseases as baffling and scary as multiple sclerosis (MS). 
You know this if you have it, or know someone who does -- and, since this 
is Canada, you probably do.

Our place on the globe is an MS hot zone. Around the world there is a 
noticeable "latitudinal gradient" in the incidence of MS; it is most common 
in Scandinavia, Iceland, Scotland and here. And even within countries like 
Italy, Australia and the United States, it becomes more common as you move 
north. (A recent study confirmed the existence of an equally weird 
"calendar gradient" among Brits, Canadians, Danes and Swedes; if you were 
born in November, your MS risk is almost 20% lower than if you were born in 
May.)

But despite such powerful clues, theories about the disease's cause remain 
tenuous. Is it environmental? Dietary? Genetic? Viral? There is no 
conclusive answer. Acting with a keen consciousness of medicine's 
helplessness, Health Canada announced on April 13 that it is extending 
conditional approval to a new drug for the treatment of chronic pain in MS 
patients. But the new drug has a familiar face. The active ingredients in 
GW Pharmaceuticals' Sativex are THC and cannibidiol -- which also happen to 
be the main active ingredients in marijuana.

One can only admire the lightning speed with which this U.K.-based firm has 
moved to capitalize on our national doublethink about cannabis. Canada is 
the first jurisdiction to approve the product, an oral spray said to taste 
a little like Guinness. (The price has not yet been set, but Sativex is 
expected to go on sale in June.) We were targeted first, it seems, because 
of our high MS incidence and our relative openness to marijuana.

Then again, if marijuana were actually legal here, there might not be such 
a sizable market for a new form of the stuff. Thousands of Canadian MS 
sufferers are already smoking pot on the sly, and will attest to the 
pain-relieving powers of THC.

Health Canada's approval of Sativex is based on one paltry four-week study, 
and is contingent on further research by GW. The drug was approved only 
because there are no other MS-specific pain drugs on the market. And it was 
passed despite a high incidence -- nearly 90% -- of "adverse events" in the 
GW study. The punchline is that most of these adverse events fell into two 
categories: mild pain or irritation in the mouth, which is attributable to 
the delivery method, and "intoxication," which is attributable to, uh, the 
fact that it's weed.

Sativex is billed by its maker as pot for squares: GW spokesman Mark 
Rogerson told the Edmonton Journal that "With Sativex you don't need to get 
high to manage your symptoms." It's being left to MS patients to set their 
own dosage, on the premise that they will gradually find an amount that 
relieves pain without getting them high. On the other hand, if they want to 
get high, there certainly won't be anything stopping them. (Moreover, what 
kind of sadist would begrudge them the relaxation?)

The genius of Sativex is that it takes moral pressure off the physician. 
Ever since the Liberals began to contemplate medical licensing of smokeable 
marijuana, the Canadian Medical Association and individual MDs have 
occasionally complained about being asked to prescribe a "poorly 
understood" substance in a non-titrated form. The complaint is partly 
valid, since black-market marijuana varies widely in strength. And partly, 
it has an unstated basis: Doctors don't want to become society's sole 
legitimate conduit for a recreational drug that is widely tolerated and 
used, but officially illegal.

Still, there are thousands of studies of marijuana in the medical 
literature, and it has millions of habitual users. Drugs are prescribed 
every day which are understood 1% as well as THC and other cannabinoids. 
The truth is that most doctors understand marijuana to be fairly harmless 
(which is why the CMA's journal of record officially supports 
decriminalization).

Sativex is literally just marijuana without the smoke, and while it may 
liberate doctors from the burden of cannabis hypocrisy, it will intensify 
it for the rest of us. The availability of licensed, patented pseudopot 
alternatives shouldn't open the door for renewed crackdowns on "compassion 
clubs" -- which would mean taking traditional marijuana away from patients, 
and replacing a naturally occurring substance with expensive simulacra that 
might be therapeutically inferior. Above all, it's not pot smoke that we 
need to eliminate, but cloudy thinking.
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom