Pubdate: Sun, 28 Dec 2014
Source: Denver Post (CO)
Copyright: 2014 The Denver Post Corp
Contact:  http://www.denverpost.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/122
Author: Electa Draper

LOW ON STUDIES, HIGH ON ANECDOTAL EVIDENCE: STATE WILL AID RESEARCH

After Coloradans decreed in 2000 that the cannabis plant had medical 
value, scientific evidence has had to play catch-up with the anecdotal cases.

The list of claims of healing powers of marijuana is long, while the 
list of full-scale U.S. studies on medicinal benefits is short, 
largely because pot use is still against federal law and doesn't get 
many federal research dollars.

Colorado voters approved the medical use of pot in 2000 and 
recreational use in 2012.

Now Colorado is leading the nation in state spending on studies of 
medical marijuana.

The state's Medical Marijuana Scientific Advisory Council considered 
Dec. 17 how to spend $9 million set aside by the state legislature 
for two-to three-year studies on marijuana treatment for chronic 
pain, post-traumatic stress disorder, Parkinson's disease tremors, 
pediatric epilepsy, inflammatory bowel disease and palliative care 
for pediatric brain tumors.

"You can't ignore the anecdotal evidence. It's compelling," said Dr. 
Larry Wolk, director of the Colorado Department of Public Health and 
Environment. "I wouldn't want to deprive families' hope or treatment. 
But medical effectiveness still needs to be verified. With these 
studies, we could have some answers within the next year."

There were 116,287 people holding medical marijuana cards in Colorado 
at the end of September- about 3,400more than at the end of last year 
before recreational pot became legal- and 816 physicians with medical 
pot patients. About 66 percent are male, the average age is 42 and 
427 patients are under age 18.

Most patients, 93 percent, are using medical marijuana to treat 
severe pain. Muscle spasms are the reason given by 15 percent of card 
holders. Some patients have listed both as a reason.

Conditions recognized for medical cannabis use in Colorado are 
cachexia (or wasting syndrome), cancer, chronic pain, chronic nervous 
system disorders, epilepsy and other seizure disorders, glaucoma, HIV 
or AIDS, multiple sclerosis and other muscle spasticity disorders and nausea.

"It's unlikely that marijuana is effective for the wide range of 
health problems approved under Colorado law," said the University of 
Colorado's Dr. Andrew Monte, who co-wrote a viewpoint piece on 
legalizing marijuana published Dec. 8 in the Journal of the American 
Medical Association.

Yet hope and desperation can be stronger than scientific evidence. 
Colorado has become a beacon for those seeking a marijuana cure for 
their illnesses and suffering.

Boulder County medical marijuana caregiver Jason Cranford said he and 
others are flooded with requests from around the country to treat 
cancer, seizure disorders and countless other conditions in children 
and adults.

Teri Robnett, with the Cannabis Patients Alliance, was the only 
nonscientist, non-medical person named to the Medical Marijuana 
Scientific Advisory Council.

Robnett has suffered 27 years with fibromyalgia, a disorder 
characterized by widespread musculo-skeletal pain and fatigue and 
sleep, memory, mood and digestive issues. In 2009 she began 
experimenting with cannabis.

"It completely changed my life," Robnett said. It's the only thing 
that's alleviated her symptoms without serious side effects, she said.

She discerns a recent shift in the medical community's attitudes 
toward marijuana. Scientists are less interested in questioning 
whether it has value as medicine, she said, and more interested in 
determining just how effective it is and how patients should be dosed.

Studies going back 40 years showed marijuana can be used to treat and 
prevent glaucoma, an eye disease that increases pressure in the 
eyeball, damaging the optic nerve and causing loss of vision.

More recent research has found that chemicals in marijuana can lessen 
the incidence of epileptic and Dravet's syndrome seizures, alleviate 
the chronic pain of cancer, arthritis and nerve pain- and may be 
safer than opioids. It lessens the nausea of chemotherapy and is an 
appetite stimulant.

Marijuana likely has anti-inflammatory effects and appears to benefit 
some patients with inflammatory bowel disease, other studies show.

Claims that cannabis limits tumor growth, slows the progression of 
Alzheimer's disease or eases muscles spasms, alleviating symptoms of 
multiple sclerosis or the tremors of Parkinson's, among other 
conditions, are not substantiated by research, said Monte, who works 
in CU's emergency medicine department and with the Rocky Mountain 
Poison and Drug Center.

Medical professionals point out that smoking or ingesting a plant is 
not "pharmacological" and that it's impossible to administer a 
consistent dose and predict a consistent result.

"Something given in a known and consistent dose, that's medicine," 
Wolk also said. "I'm uncomfortable with a plant as a medical model."

Medical marijuana generally means the whole unprocessed marijuana 
plant or crude extracts, which are not approved as medicine by the 
U.S. Food and Drug Administration.

The National Institutes ofHealth has funded some investigations into 
therapeutic uses of plant constituents, THC, CBD and other active 
chemicals called cannabinoid.

Studies have led to the development of two FDA-approved medications, 
dronabinol (brand name Marinol), which contains THC, and nabilone 
(brand name Cesamet), which has a synthetic form of THC. They are 
used to treat the nausea caused by chemotherapy and the weight loss 
and muscle atrophy caused by AIDS.

A CBD-based drug called Epidolex has been created to treat certain 
forms of childhood epilepsy, and clinical trials are underway.
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom