Pubdate: Tue, 19 Jan 2010
Source: New York Times (NY)
Page: A14
Copyright: 2010 The New York Times Company
Contact:  http://www.nytimes.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/298
Author: Gardiner Harris
Cited: Lyle E. Craker http://www.umass.edu/psis/personnel/craker.html
Cited: Rick Doblin http://www.maps.org/staff.html
Cited: The Center for Medicinal Cannabis Research http://www.cmcr.ucsd.edu/
Referenced: New Jersey Compassionate Use Medical Marijuana Act 
http://mapinc.org/url/oZbMwnit
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/find?253 (Cannabis - Medicinal - U.S.)

RESEARCHERS FIND STUDY OF MEDICAL MARIJUANA DISCOURAGED

Despite the Obama administration's tacit support of more liberal 
state medical marijuana laws, the federal government still 
discourages research into the medicinal uses of smoked marijuana. 
That may be one reason that -- even though some patients swear by it 
- -- there is no good scientific evidence that legalizing marijuana's 
use provides any benefits over current therapies.

Lyle E. Craker, a professor of plant sciences at the University of 
Massachusetts, has been trying to get permission from federal 
authorities for nearly nine years to grow a supply of the plant that 
he could study and provide to researchers for clinical trials.

But the Drug Enforcement Administration -- more concerned about abuse 
than potential benefits -- has refused, even after the agency's own 
administrative law judge ruled in 2007 that Dr. Craker's application 
should be approved, and even after Attorney General Eric H. Holder 
Jr. in March ended the Bush administration's policy of raiding 
dispensers of medical marijuana that comply with state laws.

"All I want to be able to do is grow it so that it can be tested," 
Dr. Craker said in comments echoed by other researchers.

Marijuana is the only major drug for which the federal government 
controls the only legal research supply and for which the government 
requires a special scientific review.

"The more it becomes clear to people that the federal government is 
blocking these studies, the more people are willing to defect by 
using politics instead of science to legalize medicinal uses at the 
state level," said Rick Doblin, executive director of a nonprofit 
group dedicated to researching psychedelics for medical uses.

On Monday, his last full day in office, Gov. Jon S. Corzine of New 
Jersey signed a measure passed by the Legislature last week that made 
the state the 14th in the nation to legalize the use of marijuana to 
help with chronic illnesses.

The measure was pushed by a loose coalition of patients suffering 
from chronic illnesses like Lou Gehrig's disease and multiple 
sclerosis who said marijuana eased their symptoms.

Studies have shown convincingly that marijuana can relieve nausea and 
improve appetite among cancer patients undergoing chemotherapy. 
Studies also prove that marijuana can alleviate the aching and 
numbness that patients with H.I.V. and AIDS suffer.

There are strong hints that marijuana may ameliorate some of the 
neurological problems associated with such degenerative diseases as 
multiple sclerosis, said Dr. Igor Grant, director of the Center for 
Medicinal Cannabis Research at the University of California, San Diego.

But there is no good evidence that legalizing the smoking of 
marijuana is needed to provide these effects. The Food and Drug 
Administration in 1985 approved Marinol, a prescription pill of 
marijuana's active ingredient, T.H.C. Although a few small-scale 
studies done decades ago suggest that smoked marijuana may prove 
effective when Marinol does not, no conclusive research has confirmed 
this finding.

And Marinol is no panacea. There are at least three medicines that in 
most patients provide better relief from nausea and vomiting than 
Marinol, studies show.

Buddy Coolen, 31, of Warwick, R.I., said he tried or continued to use 
some of those medicines. "Smoking for me is as good as any medicine I 
have," he said.

Eight years ago, Mr. Coolen contracted gastroparesis and cyclic 
vomiting syndrome. He lost 50 pounds and, despite being 5 foot 11, 
weighed 120 pounds.

His doctors gave him myriad anti-emetics, many of which he still 
takes. They also prescribed Marinol, but it did not work for him, Mr. 
Coolen said.

"My stepdad is old school and was really against marijuana, but then 
he saw what it did for me and totally changed his way of thinking," 
Mr. Coolen said.

Some doctors and law enforcement officials say such anecdotes should 
not drive public policy. Dr. Eric Braverman, medical director of a 
multispecialty clinic in Manhattan, said legalizing marijuana was 
unnecessary and dangerous since Marinol provided the medicinal 
effects of the plant. "Our society will deteriorate," he said.

Patients who call Dr. Braverman's clinic are, when put on hold, told 
that the clinic may prescribe supplements and other alternative 
treatments that have even less scientific justification than 
marijuana. Dr. Braverman said such alternatives rendered marijuana 
unnecessary, but his embrace of alternatives is a reminder that 
medicine has long been driven by more than science.

About 20 percent of drug prescriptions are written for uses that are 
not approved by federal drug regulators; about half of the nation's 
adults regularly take supplements; herbal and homeopathic remedies are popular.

The nation's growing embrace of medical marijuana has stemmed from 
these alternative traditions.

The University of Mississippi has the nation's only federally 
approved marijuana plantation. If they wish to investigate marijuana, 
researchers must apply to the National Institute on Drug Abuse to use 
the Mississippi marijuana and must get approvals from a special 
Public Health Service panel, the Drug Enforcement Administration and 
the Food and Drug Administration.

But federal officials have repeatedly failed to act on marijuana 
research requests in a timely manner or have denied them, according 
to a 2007 ruling by an administrative law judge at the Drug 
Enforcement Administration. While refusing to approve a second 
marijuana producer, the government allowed the University of 
Mississippi to supply Mallinckrodt, a drug maker, with enough 
marijuana to eventually produce a generic version of Marinol.

"As the National Institute on Drug Abuse, our focus is primarily on 
the negative consequences of marijuana use," said Shirley Simson, a 
spokeswoman for the drug abuse institute, known as NIDA. "We 
generally do not fund research focused on the potential beneficial 
medical effects of marijuana."

The Drug Enforcement Administration said it was just following NIDA's 
lead. "D.E.A. has never denied a research registration for marijuana 
and/or THC if NIDA approved the protocols for that individual 
entity," a supervisory special agent, Gary Boggs, said by e-mail.

Researchers investigating LSD, Ecstasy and other illegal drugs can 
use any of a number of suppliers licensed by the Drug Enforcement 
Administration, Dr. Doblin said. And if a researcher wants to use a 
variety of marijuana that the University of Mississippi does not grow 
- -- and there are many with differing medicinal properties -- they are 
out of luck, Dr. Doblin said.

Law enforcement tends to emphasize the abuse potential of medicines 
without regard to their positive effects. Bureaucratic battles 
between the D.E.A. and the F.D.A. over the availability of narcotics 
- -- highly effective but addictive medicines -- have gone on for decades.

So medical marijuana may never have good science underlying its use. 
But for patients in desperate need, the ethics of providing access to 
the drug are clear, said Dr. Richard Payne, a professor of medicine 
and divinity and director of the Institute for Care on the End of 
Life at Duke Divinity School.

"It's not a great drug," he said, "but what's the harm?" 
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MAP posted-by: Richard Lake