Pubdate: Wed, 26 Aug 2015
Source: Philadelphia Inquirer, The (PA)
Copyright: 2015 Philadelphia Newspapers Inc
Contact:  http://www.philly.com/inquirer/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/340
Authors: Jayson Chesler and Alexa Ard, NEWS21
Series: America's Weed Rush an Investigation into the Legalization of Marijuana
Note: Fourth in a series

Special Report Legalizing Marijuana

ROADBLOCKS TO RESEARCH

Obtaining Marijuana to Test Its Medical Properties Can Be a Long Process.

Research on marijuana's potential for medicinal use has been hampered 
for years by federal restrictions, though nearly half the states and 
the District of Columbia have legalized the drug in some form.

An analysis by News21 shows that $1.1 billion of the $1.4 billion 
that the National Institutes of Health spent on marijuana research 
from 2008 to 2014 went to studies on marijuana abuse and addiction. 
Only $297 million was spent on its effects on the brain and potential 
medical benefits for those suffering from conditions like chronic pain.

"We don't have new things to treat for pain," said Todd Vanderah, the 
University of Arizona's chief of pharmacology. "We're still dealing 
with narcotics that have been around for thousands of years, and it's 
led to this issue of people abusing drugs and the rise of heroin."

Some parents with children suffering from seizures contend medical 
marijuana may treat their children more effectively than current 
medicine, but the Food and Drug Administration has not approved 
marijuana-based medicines for seizures.

"We're being denied that because they [federal agencies and doctors] 
don't know the longterm side effects of medical cannabis," said 
Heather Shuker of Butler County, Pa., whose daughter has a form of epilepsy.

Researchers like Vanderah have faced challenges getting federal 
approval and funds to study marijuana's medical uses. "The progress 
is a little limited, because research is done based off of grants 
that have been harder and harder to get," he said.

The federal government classifies marijuana as a Schedule 1 drug - 
like heroin and ecstasy - meaning it has potential for abuse and no 
medical benefits.

The approval process for any kind of research on marijuana is long 
and difficult - the FDA, Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) and National 
Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) all play a role. Fewer than 1,000 
NIH-supported projects studied marijuana for purposes other than 
abuse or addiction in the last seven years.

"It took me three years from the time I got funding to the time I 
could enroll my first subject," said Mark Wallace, a researcher 
studying pain treatments at the University of California, San Diego.

Spending disparity

News21 analyzed federally funded drug research projects from 2008 to 
2014 using NIH's publicly available database, Project Reporter. The 
$1.1 billion that NIH spent to study marijuana abuse and addiction 
was $200 million more than what it spent studying crystal meth, a 
highly addictive stimulant whose abuse the DEA has called an epidemic.

While NIH spent $297 million on grants for non-abuse research of 
marijuana, it provide two to four times as much for similar research 
of opiates and benzodiazepines, including drugs like Xanax, according 
to the News21 analysis. Opiates are the narcotics that Vanderah said 
can cause drug dependency that leads to heroin abuse.

The research on marijuana abuse and addiction was largely funded by 
NIDA, a branch of NIH. The research covered subjects such as how 
parents can prevent substance abuse and studies of cannabis use 
disorder, which the American Psychiatric Association calls a 
problematic pattern of marijuana use.

Mahmoud ElSohly, the director of NIDA's marijuana program, said 
NIDA's job is to fund abuse and addiction research, not examine the 
drug's potential benefits. "It's not that NIDA would take it upon 
itself to investigate the medical aspects of cannabis," he said.

That would fall to other offices within NIH. But those offices have 
not funded much marijuana research. A National Institute of 
Neurological Disorders and Stroke ( NINDS) spokesperson said that 
most NIH grants were based on what peer reviewers thought was the 
most promising science.

The National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH), for example, has 
spent just $48 million on marijuana medical research despite some 
states having approved the drug to treat PTSD.

Similarly, despite several states' approval of marijuana and 
cannabinoids to treat epileptic seizures, NINDS spent just $38 
million through 2014 researching the potential effects of marijuana, 
compared with almost $100 million spent on opiate research, largely 
to treat different kinds of pain. Researchers said the number is 
expected to increase this year as more work is done on cannabidiol 
(CBD) - a major cannabinoid in marijuana that doesn't have 
psychoactive effects - and its impact on seizures.

Applying to research

Even when researchers are cleared to do federally funded marijuana 
research, they must obtain marijuana from a Mississippi farm run 
under the authority of NIDA.

The 12-acre farm, at the National Center for Natural Products 
Research, is nestled in the 640-acre University of Mississippi campus 
and surrounded by fencing, guards in towers, and lock vaults. It is 
the only federally sanctioned marijuana farm.

Before researchers can get marijuana and start their studies, they 
need an approved investigational new drug (IND) application from the 
FDA, a letter of approval from NIDA, and a Schedule 1 clearance from 
the DEA. The last is needed to posses and transport marijuana; 
researchers must also prove they have a secure facility to store it.

Outside of the university's contract with NIDA, ElSohly said he and 
other researchers at Ole Miss are conducting marijuana research of 
their own. Even though federally approved marijuana is right outside 
their door, they still have to apply for it.

With a new $68.8 million contract, however, NIDA plans to help 
marijuana researchers by producing and growing products at the 
Mississippi farm that more closely mimic what dispensaries are 
selling to medical marijuana users. "The products were quite limited, 
as far as what we could get from them" before, Wallace said.

NIDA's marijuana farm is also growing 30 times more marijuana than it 
did under its last contract with NIDA, ElSohly said, a sign that 
researchers and NIH branches want more marijuana for studies.

Future of research

Congress could speed up the research process. Legislators have 
crafted bills to recategorize marijuana to Schedule 2 - which would 
designate it as federally accepted for medical use and ease the 
research approval process - and create more federal marijuana farms.

HHS removed the mandatory public health services review from the 
approval process to cut the steps needed for marijuana research.

Parents campaigning for a form of CBD to treat their children's 
seizures have already made strides in attracting attention. Vanderah 
said that research and treatments with CBD should pave the way for 
future research because it proves that marijuana-based medicine can 
really work.

"If you have your own child that's having 100 seizures per day and 
then they take some of this and it stops, you'll look at it very 
differently," he said.

He, and others predict future development in areas like multiple 
sclerosis, dementia, Lou Gehrig's disease, and neonatal 
hypoxic-ischemic encephalopathy (NHIE), a condition that cuts oxygen 
to infants. To treat such a variety, researchers are going to have to 
look at marijuana in many different ways, Wallace said. "It needs to 
be available in a wide range of products," he said.

About this Series

This report is part of the project titled "America's Weed Rush," an 
investigation into the legalization of marijuana.

It was produced by the Carnegie-Knight News21 initiative, a national 
investigative reporting project involving top college journalism 
students across the country and headquartered at the Walter Cronkite 
School of Journalism and Mass Communication at Arizona State 
University. For the complete project, including additional stories, 
videos and interactive elements, visit http://weedrush.news21.com.
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