Pubdate: Mon, 29 Oct 2012
Source: Times, The (Shreveport, LA)
Copyright: 2012 The Times
Contact:  http://www.shreveporttimes.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/1019
Author: Melody Brumble

In Case You Missed It

LOCALS KEEP EYE ON MEDICAL MARIJUANA VOTE IN ARKANSAS

Bossier City resident Missy Matthews is keeping a close eye on the 
Arkansas medical marijuana ballot initiative.

Arkansans will decide Nov. 6 whether patients with a limited number 
of chronic conditions can use marijuana with a doctor's 
recommendation. The proposal applies only to Arkansas residents. 
Arkansas is the first state in the South to vote on the issue.

Matthews is a member of Moms for Marijuana, a national organization 
that promotes education, discussion and research about marijuana's 
benefits. She chats online with other members who use marijuana in 
foods like cannabutter to help treat bipolar disorder, ADD and other 
mental health issues in their children.

She said she's constantly seeking anything that would help her 
12-year-old son, who has been diagnosed with ADHD and, at various 
times, bipolar disorder, mood disorder and post traumatic stress 
disorder. His issues include behavior problems. He takes four 
prescription medicines each day.

"The school calls me almost daily, and that's with him on 
medication," Matthews said. "What if this cannabutter could calm him 
where he sat through class? And if it didn't work, I'd move on. It's 
hard that I'm not able to try something."

Matthews said she would consider moving to Arkansas if voters approve 
medical marijuana.

"It's an hour away for me," she said. "I think it's a very good 
initiative. Here it takes a legislator to introduce it. From what I 
see, there's no one willing to do that.

Seventeen states and the District of Columbia allow medical 
marijuana. Voters in three states - Colorado, Washington state and 
Oregon - will decide Nov. 6 whether to allow state-regulated, 
recreational use of marijuana.

Despite the state-level laws partially legalizing marijuana use, the 
drug remains banned at the federal level. The American Medical 
Association in 2009 asked the federal government to change 
marijuana's classification to encourage research, but federal 
officials have yet to do so.

Lisa Schrott, a researcher at LSU Health Shreveport, considered using 
marijuana when she started looking at ways to decrease nausea and 
vomiting. She had the proper credentials but decided to take a 
different tack by enhancing cannabis-like chemicals that occur 
naturally in the brain. She's also looking at a ginger compound as an 
anti-nausea treatment.

Schrott's career includes studying how drug addiction affects the 
brain. She notes that people can abuse marijuana but that research 
has shown it's effective against symptoms of some illnesses and side 
effects of some treatments.

"The problem is, when you smoke marijuana, you get a lot of other 
effects," Schrott said. "The idea with our research is to get the 
medicinal value without the side effects. We took the approach, 'It's 
doubtful medical marijuana will be legalized here, so let's look at 
the endogenous cannabinoids."

Her research copies the way antidepressants like Prozac work, by 
delaying the reabsorption of natural antidepressant chemicals in the brain.

She uses a chemical to delay reabsorption of the natural cannabinoids 
in rats' brains, with good results in stopping nausea-related 
behavior. The compounds' effect on pain hasn't been as pronounced.

Schrott presented the results at the Society for Neuroscience 
conference in 2011. She plans to publish the data after she and 
colleagues finish examining brain changes in the rats.

Reseachers elsewhere are examining how cannabis compounds affect 
appetite, with an eye toward developing drugs to help people lose 
weight. There's also interest in whether cannabis can protect the 
brain after a stroke.

Also on the horizon is Sativex, a marijuana-based spray the U.S. Food 
and Drug Administration is considering as a treatment for cancer pain.

The prescription medicine is approved in Canada, the United Kingdom, 
five European countries and New Zealand to treat muscle spasms 
related to multiple sclerosis.

"It will be interesting to see what happens if the FDA actually 
approves it because it contains THC. It would actually be medical 
marijuana. It comes from marijuana that's grown in England and highly 
regulated," Schrott said.

She said she was surprised by the Arkansas ballot initiative in light 
of that state's crackdown on synthetic marijuana marketed as incense 
under names like "Spice" and "K2." Those illegal, lab-created drugs 
contain huge amounts of THC compared to the real thing, she said.

She lectures first-year medical students about marijuana each year, 
balancing information about its street-drug past, its potential for 
medical use and the consequences that come with any medicine.

"I tell them, 'It's one thing when you're 18 years old, but do you 
want your 80-year-old grandmother driving after she smokes pot?' You 
don't want your 80-year-old grandmother driving anyway."

Impaired drivers are among concerns listed by Arkansas law 
enforcement associations, which opposed Issue 5. The Arkansas 
Pharmacy Association also opposes the initiative because pharmacists 
wouldn't dispense the marijuana. The Arkansas Chamber of Commerce is 
concerned medical marijuana would lead to people getting high on the job.

A poll conducted Oct. 18 by Talk Business-Hendrix College showed that 
support has declined since July, when a similar poll was conducted.

However, with barely a week before Election Day, supporters and 
opponents have stepped up advertising to try to sway undecided voters 
and change people's minds.

Arkansans for Compassionate Care, which drafted the initiative, took 
"the best of each state's and DC's laws and improved on the bad 
stuff," spokesman Chris Kell said.

"We're close to the way Maine structures their law," Kell said. "We 
wanted to eliminate as many loopholes as possible. California and 
Colorado are two prime examples where they weren't strict enough. We 
didn't want it to be a gateway to legalized marijuana."

However, Caddo Parish District Attorney Charles Scott is concerned 
that medical marijuana could open the door to other uses. Marijuana 
possession remains illegal in Louisiana, based on federal drug classifications.

In 2007, Louisiana ranked fifth in the nation in marijuana offense 
arrests, according to Drug Science, an organization that compiles and 
analyzes statistics about marijuana laws and use in the United States.

"What you're going to see is someone going to Dr. Feelgood and 
saying, 'I don't feel so good', and the doctor says, 'Here's a 
prescription for marijuana'," Scott said.

"Then someone else goes to Dr. Feelbetter and says, 'I don't feel 
good,' and gets a prescription for marijuana, then other people say, 
'Let's go see our sick friends'. It will effectively make a mockery 
of the controlled dangerous substances law. It will be interesting to 
see what happens."
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom