Pubdate: Sun, 16 Mar 2014
Source: Chicago Tribune (IL)
Copyright: 2014 Chicago Tribune Company
Contact: http://drugsense.org/url/IuiAC7IZ
Website: http://www.chicagotribune.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/82
Authors: Evan Halper and Cindy Carcamo Halper, Tribune Newspapers

MARIJUANA STUDY GETS GREEN LIGHT

Arizona Researcher Would Examine Use in PTSD Treatment

WASHINGTON - The Obama administration has handed backers of medical 
marijuana a significant victory, opening the way for a University of 
Arizona researcher to examine whether pot can help veterans cope with 
post-traumatic stress, a move that could lead to broader studies into 
potential benefits of the drug.

For years, scientists who have wanted to study how marijuana might be 
used to treat illness say they have been stymied by resistance from 
federal drug officials.

The Arizona study had long ago been sanctioned by the Food and Drug 
Administration, but under federal rules, such experiments can use 
marijuana only from a single, government-run farm in Mississippi.

Researchers say the agency that oversees the farm, the National 
Institute on Drug Abuse, has long been hostile to proposals aimed at 
examining possible benefits of the drug.

"This is a great day," said the Arizona researcher, Suzanne Sisley, 
clinical assistant professor of psychology at the university's 
medical school, who has been trying to get the green light for her 
study for three years. "The merits of a rigorous scientific trial 
have finally trumped politics.

"We never relented," Sisley said. "But most other scientists have 
chosen not to even apply. The process is so onerous. With the 
implementation of this study and the data generated, this could lead 
to other crucial research projects."

Backers of medical marijuana hailed the news Friday as an indication 
that the government had started coming to terms with one of the more 
striking paradoxes of federal drug policy: Even as state laws are 
allowing about 1 million Americans to legally use marijuana to treat 
ailments, scientists have had difficulty getting approval to study 
how the drug might be employed more effectively.

"The political dynamics are shifting," said Rick Doblin, executive 
director of the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic 
Studies, a group based in Santa Cruz that is raising money to help 
fund studies such as Sisley's. The group counts several prominent 
philanthropists among its backers, including two Pritzkers and a Rockefeller.

Government officials said the approval did not represent a change in 
underlying policy - just a recognition Sisley's proposal meets 
official standards for research using illegal drugs.

The research still requires approval of one more agency, the Drug 
Enforcement Administration, but Sisley and Doblin expressed 
confidence that would prove a lesser hurdle.

In its letter approving the application, a government review panel 
noted what it called "significant changes" in the study that 
justified approving it. Doblin said the changes did not affect the 
"core design" of the study.

Federal restrictions on pot research have been a source of tension 
for years. Researchers, marijuana advocates and some members of 
Congress have accused the National Institute on Drug Abuse of 
hoarding the nation's only sanctioned research pot for studies aimed 
at highlighting the drug's ill effects. They had pointed to Sisley's 
experience as a prime example of what they called an irrational and 
disjointed federal policy.

"You have impossible burdens," said Rep. Earl Blumenauer, D-Ore., who 
has enlisted other members of Congress to lobby the administration to 
give researchers more access to the drug. "These are not people who 
are going to be involved with some clandestine production of the drug 
or do something nefarious."

Scientists say more research could help determine more precisely 
which ailments the drug can treat and could eventually lead to 
regulation by the FDA as a prescription drug. That would allow 
patients to know what they are consuming.

Medical marijuana users often have little information about the 
potency and purity of the pot they buy. Physicians who prescribe the 
drug do so on the basis of anecdotal evidence.

At the core of the debate is an issue that has implications for 
research and the movement to legalize marijuana for recreational use, 
as Colorado and Washington have done. Federal law classifies pot as 
more dangerous than cocaine and methamphetamine. As a Schedule 1 
drug, marijuana is designated as having "no currently accepted 
medical use and a high potential for abuse," as well as being a drug 
that puts users at risk of "severe psychological or physical dependence."

Researchers say that classification needs to change for science to 
proceed uninhibited. Making the change, though, would be called a 
retreat in the war on drugs by some. The Obama administration could 
reschedule the drug without congressional action but has shown no 
inclination to wade into that fight.
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom