UC ESTABLISHES NEW CANNABIS RESEARCH CENTER

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Pubdate: Thu, 07 Sep 2000
Source: Bay Area Reporter (CA)
Copyright: 2000 The Bay Area Reporter / B.A.R.
Contact: barpaper@aol.com
Address: 395 9th Street, San Francisco, CA 94103

Author: Liz Highleyman

UC ESTABLISHES NEW CANNABIS RESEARCH CENTER

The University of California last week announced the establishment of a new research center
to study the safety and efficacy of medicinal marijuana.

The Center for Medical Cannabis Research (CMCR) will be a collaborative project of the
University of California at San Francisco and the University of California at San Diego, and
will be housed at UCSD.

Dr. Igor Grant, a professor of psychiatry at UCSD and director of UCSD's HIV
Neurobehavioral Research Center will serve as the CMCR's director. Co-directors include
Dr. J. Hampton Atkinson, UCSD professor of psychiatry; Dr. Andrew Mattison, USCD
associate professor of psychiatry and family and clinical medicine; and Dr. Donald Abrams,
UCSF professor of medicine. Abrams recently presented research at the 13th International
Conference on AIDS in Durban, South Africa, that showed that medicinal cannabis can be
used without detrimental effects in people taking combination antiretroviral therapy for HIV
disease.

The CMCR was granted $3 million worth of state funding for its first year of operations, and
will coordinate medical cannabis research conducted at universities and centers throughout
California. The funding is the outcome of SB847, a state bill sponsored by state Senator John
Vasconcellos (D-Santa Clara) and signed into law by Governor Gray Davis last October. The
law calls for a three-year program of medical research to "enhance understanding of the
efficacy and adverse effects of marijuana as a pharmacological agent." The CMCR will begin
soliciting competitive grant applications this fall, which will be reviewed by an independent
national scientific review panel. Studies may begin as early as January 2001.

Data from CMCR studies will be used to develop guidelines for appropriate medical use of
marijuana. A recent report by the National Academy of Science's Institute of Medicine called
for further study of the use of medical cannabis for various medical conditions including HIV,
cancer, and multiple sclerosis. According to Vasconcellos - perhaps too optimistically in light
of last month's Supreme Court ruling against buyer's clubs that distribute medical marijuana -
"The politics of medical marijuana are behind us as we begin the important work of
researching the safety and efficacy of medical marijuana. Now … the issue of medical
marijuana is properly in the hands of physicians and researchers."

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