1st Medical Studies on Pot in 20 Years Find It Does Relieve Pain

Jim Finnel

Fallen Cannabis Warrior & Ex News Moderator
Even as California sinks under a massive budget crisis, the $8.7 million the state used to research the use of marijuana for medical purposes now seems money well spent. The state-funded Center for Medical Cannabis Research at the University of California, San Diego has confirmed that pot is effective in reducing muscle spasms associated with multiple sclerosis and pain caused by certain neurological injuries or illnesses, according to a report issued Wednesday [The New York Times].

In four clinical trials, participants suffering from multiple sclerosis, AIDS or diabetes, along with healthy volunteers injected with a chili pepper substance to induce pain, were randomly assigned to receive cigarettes filled with marijuana [The New York Times]. The researchers reported that not everybody who smoked marijuana felt better–but a substantial percentage of those who were in pain said they felt better, and the figure was comparable to the percentage of people who experienced relief after taking other pain medications. “I think that clearly cannabis has benefits,” said Dr. Donald I. Abrams, a San Francisco oncologist who led that study. “This substance has been a medicine for 2,700 years; it only hasn’t been a medicine for 70″ [Los Angeles Times].

The federal government currently views marijuana as an illegal substance with no medical value–but this unusual set of studies sanctioned by California could cause lawmakers to question that categorization. Said State Senator Mark Leno: “This is the first step in approaching the (U.S. Food and Drug Administration), which has invested absolutely nothing in providing scientific data to resolve the debate” [San Francisco Chronicle]. The state’s voters approved medical marijuana in 1996 (13 other states have since passed similar laws), and California has fairly open rules for who is eligible for medical marijuana. Anyone who can get a doctor to write a recommendation, based on just about any medical condition, can buy marijuana in California [Wall Street Journal].

Doctors who conducted the study, however, noted that people who smoke pot must be mindful of what they are inhaling. They pointed out that inhaling any smoke brings potential cardiovascular risks, and also mentioned that their patients reported some mild side effects, including dizziness.

The results of the study come at a time when further funding for the program seems unlikely because of California’s budget crisis. But a California ballot measure that would attempt to legalize the drug’s use by adults 21 and older is likely to come to a vote later this year [Wall Street Journal].


NewsHawk: User: 420 MAGAZINE
Source: discovermagazine.com
Author: Smriti Rao
Copyright: 2010 Discover Magazine
Contact: Discover Blogs | Discover Magazine
Website: 1st Medical Studies on Pot in 20 Years Find It Does Relieve Pain | 80beats | Discover Magazine
 
Im so glad this money was well spent finding out things we already know. If it weren't for them telling us what we already know, how can anyone know whats already readily available!

On a more positive note, i guess having a study to officially point to (well, ANOTHER) is never a bad thing.
 
I wonder if this can be used in federal court???

Legally it can't. By LAW, anyone situated with the federal government HAS to denounce any and all use of marijuana in any medical sense. So even if the biggest most important medical association, which pretty much regulates and controls most of the controlled substances in America (numero 1 group), says that it has medical uses and should be seen as such, the government HAS to say "I didn't hear you"....

I can say that confidently enough, because its what happened. If the AMA's word isn't good enough for the feds, this one study, or another thousand studies, will have no impact.
 
flank I can say that confidently enough said:
I have to completely agree with your statement and exactly what I was thinking even before reading your reply, they really don't care about studies that could impact the money they make off it being illegal, I really don't feel that it will be any study that will bring about the change we all want, I feel it will just be time, when the dinosaurs are out of office, the studies help non the less with the citizens that vote as it helps them to realize that the government has been lying to all of us, which in turn increases the support as it has over time.:peace:
 
The damage those lies have had on the entire planet for several generations is going to be the telling one. The U.S. by proxy has clamped down on the Herb around the world. When is does become legal once again(it should NEVER have been made illegal in the first place) the entire world will breathe deep (and hold it! :) )with a sigh of relief! The damage the lies have done to our honoured police forces is extreme. The corruption that prohibition has created has cut to the core of police everywhere. We see abuses of power EVERY SINGLE DAY. Those abuses are not happening in a vaccuum.
 
$8.7M to state that "marijuana" helps with pain relief and muscle spasms?

WtF?

A few bucks spent for online time at an internet cafe to surf the web - or doing the same thing at a local public library for free - would have enabled them to learn about many of the hundreds of different strains of cannabis that are common in the world today. It would have given them some clue as to which strains are considered to be more effective at relieving pain, muscle spasms, migraines, seizures, anxiety, depression, various other mental issues, etc. by reading threads on sites such as this one and actually taking a minute or two to ASK some of the people that have had to do practical research on their own dime for the past decades.

I've been hearing off and on for the past several years about how California has been teetering on the verge of bankruptcy, so this one shouldn't surprise me. But... 8.7 million dollars, and they couldn't even come up with a small list of which strains of "marijuana" help with pain - and which ones don't do much for it?
 
Forgive me if I have missed something (on other side of the Atlantic), but how have the Feds maintained cannabis as a schedule 1 drug and thus having no medical value when a handful of people have used the courts to force the Feds to supply marijuana for their respective medical conditions?
This just make no sense to me.

Why has this situation not led to a re-classification?
 
TS they were double blind studies, so personal opinion isn't nearly as recognized as double blind studies.


Also the CA. state legislature voted out the rest of their funding the next day after they didn't report negative study findings. So that alone shows the CA. legislature needs to be mostly voted out!
 
Forgive me if I have missed something (on other side of the Atlantic), but how have the Feds maintained cannabis as a schedule 1 drug and thus having no medical value when a handful of people have used the courts to force the Feds to supply marijuana for their respective medical conditions?
This just make no sense to me.

Why has this situation not led to a re-classification?

Back in the day, a medical marijuana program was set up, and you guessed it, alot of people were interested...

Well the government accepted i believe all of 5 people, kept the program still open, just never accepted anyone else....

Out of those 5 (who all had terminal or serious reasons for medicating), not that many are still around (not 100% sure on the numbers so don't quote me).

That is the ONLY time that the government as given marijuana. Every other time, by law, the government has to lie. The drug czar can be fired from his position if he doesn't lie to the people....

tell me thats not fucked up...
 
When I posted the first time in this thread I didn't realize that the $8.7M was their entire operating budget to date or that this particular study was a double-blind one (because I did not see either fact mentioned). That's somewhat more realistic.

It does have me curious, though, about how one could actually have a double-blind study with a substance like cannabis. As near as I've been able to determine, this place uses the same cannabis that is grown for the federal government for the very few people in the federal program, which by accounts tastes like shit (and isn't a whole lot better in affect). But I would still think that it's smell and taste is recognizable as that of cannabis - along with its effects. So have they found a substance that tastes and smells like cannabis? Or have they managed to import aliens from another world who had not only never tried cannabis, but wouldn't recognize its taste, scent, or the smell of it burning either? Because I always thought that in a double-blind study the participants were set up in such a way that they couldn't tell whether they were ingesting the substance that was being tested or a placebo. (It also reminds me that anyone who smoked the placebo and felt nothing at all would almost certainly realize that he/she was in the placebo group).

I also wondered at injecting someone with a chili substance to induce feelings of pain - since the very ingredient that causes the "burn" in chili is also said to be a pain-reliever. Would someone that was so injected immediately feel pain - and then later feel the pain from the injection (and any other pain in that localized area) fade?

I realize that the legal opportunities for conducting cannabis-related research in this country are severely limited by the federal government's policies. But at best this study shows that the one specific strain that is grown for the federal government is capable of providing these benefits. I do not necessarily see such a conclusion as helping the cause. I would sorely hate to wake up one morning and learn that the federal government had changed its policy on cannabis to state that the strain of cannabis that it allows to be grown - and only that particular strain - is of medical use. Such a stance would - from the government's viewpoint - give them a reason to immediately shut down medical grows and dispensaries everywhere and instead insist that people purchase their medical-use cannabis from it.

That possibility is rather frightening to me - and no harder to imagine than any one of a number of irrational things that it has done in my lifetime.
 
I know I have tried every kind of legal pain relief drugs made by man and I am highly alergic to all of them. I have major back and leg pain with severe nerve damage in my leg and I can't stand the pain I deal with on a daily basis without smoking mother natures finest. I was just in the hospital last week cause of the pain I was in and they injected me with 4 huge shots of dilaudid (which didn't take away the pain) made me so sick I puked for nearly 8 hours with no pain relief.... All of my doctors know I can't take pain meds and have even asked me if I have ever tried marijuana for pain relief to which I answer yes all the time and it helps but I didn't have any for the past couple weeks and the pain is to much to handle... Even doctors know of the benefits to medical marijuana but some are afraid to voice there opinion on the issue because they fear the AMA will come down hard on them. The AMA want the doctors to be writing out scripts for people for perc,vicodin,oxy, etc because they are making a fortune off of these drugs and they don't want weed to be legal because they will lose a lot of money!

I spent 2 hours in the emergency room and will probably be charged around $3,000-$4,000 for the emergency room and 4 shots which is a ridiculous amount of money that didn't help me at all.... If I would had a nice fat sack of mother natures finest it would have cost me around $300-$400 bucks and I would have gotten some relief.

I just hope our Gov't has enough compansion for the American people who suffer with chronic pain on a daily basis to allow them to use medical marijuana to have some pain free moments and try to live a somewhat pain free normal life, cause dealing with such chronic pain is one of the worst feelings I have ever had to deal with and I'm not getting any better....

I know if any of the senators or congressmen or women was dealing with the pain I have and weed worked they would all be smoking it up.....

We need it legalized here in the first state!!!!!
 
Even doctors know of the benefits to medical marijuana but some are afraid to voice there opinion on the issue because they fear the AMA will come down hard on them. The AMA want the doctors to be writing out scripts for people for perc,vicodin,oxy, etc because they are making a fortune off of these drugs and they don't want weed to be legal because they will lose a lot of money!

Although the AMA had maintained from '97 onwards that cannabis should remain a Schedule I controlled substance, in November of last year it changed its stance - stating its goal was "to clear the way to conduct clinical research, develop cannabis-based medicines and devise alternative ways to deliver the drug."
 
Forgive me if I have missed something (on other side of the Atlantic), but how have the Feds maintained cannabis as a schedule 1 drug and thus having no medical value when a handful of people have used the courts to force the Feds to supply marijuana for their respective medical conditions?
This just make no sense to me.

Why has this situation not led to a re-classification?

As a Canadian I have wondered the same thing. I do underestand that the U.S. Government has split personalities and all too often the right hand has no clue that that there is a left hand, much less what it is up to...

I also see that the Drug csar is forced to be a professional lier (go look at the job discription some time!) and the D.E.A. is not going to budge without the courts forcing them to. There is no clear cut way of changing the classification of a drug once it is in the #1 spot. Studies like this are just more evidence, but significant evidence. Since it was a tax law that started the prohibition, it should be very easy to just hand out the tax stamps. What am I missing?
 
TS, I too also wondered about where said cannabis came from and how they used a "Placebo" when smoking.

I think it was CA. based cannabis as the Feds know that all cannabis studies come back with positive medical effects, that is why they let no one do such studies.

From what I recall from other reading is that they had developed or used a cannabis tasting substance. That was used in the smoking tests. What ever that might have been? As yes one would notice no psychoactive effects. I am guessing Hemp? But wouldn't one still get anti-spazmatic properties from the High CBD levels within hemp, unless those test weren't for spasm relief testing, the more I think about it the more questions that come to mind.

I think in time that more info will come to light about this study. It's still early but I am looking forward to hearing more "Detailed" info about it.
 
TS, I too also wondered about where said cannabis came from and how they used a "Placebo" when smoking.

I think it was CA. based cannabis as the Feds know that all cannabis studies come back with positive medical effects, that is why they let no one do such studies.

No. I knew it was "govt. weed" when I read earlier what the strengths of the cannabis that was used actually amounted to, lol. I just hadn't found the actual complete text of the report as published (next time I'll know to just look for it at the source, the Center for Medicinal Cannabis Research) and save my fingers and Google the trouble.

From what I recall from other reading is that they had developed or used a cannabis tasting substance. That was used in the smoking tests. What ever that might have been?

Cannabis, actually. It just had the actives extracted. I wondered about that myself but wasn't sure that an extraction that removed ALL of them would still leave a convincing placebo.

As yes one would notice no psychoactive effects. I am guessing Hemp? But wouldn't one still get anti-spazmatic properties from the High CBD levels within hemp, unless those test weren't for spasm relief testing, the more I think about it the more questions that come to mind.

True; hemp does have high CBD (CBN?) levels, and would provide some medical benefits. I've actually been surprised that there hasn't been more news about hemp since it does have some of the more medically-useful compounds that cannabis has, without - as you mentioned - the psychoactive effects. It's enough to make this cynical soul wonder how many people would have their cards if the strains that became available to them were all hemp-based:grinjoint:. But I do recognize the fact that in many cases (just not all of them - by a long shot) the more psychoactive compounds provide needed benefit.

I'm also surprised that there aren't more hemp strains and first- and subsequent-generation hemp crosses available at the seedbanks. My frail 70-year old mother with many health issues (but it's the cancer that's technically killing her) might actually break down and try it and get some needed pain-relief and be able to sleep more than an hour or two at a time instead of, "Cannabis? You made it sound like it might help get me through the day - or at least the night - without crying, but then I found out that it's just another name for marijuana. And that's illegal!" (She happens to live in a non-medical state, has bought into the propaganda, and tries to follow ALL laws, even unto her own mortal peril. Well, except the laws against speeding, lmao. She's the only person I've met that's gotten off around here with a warning after getting caught north of 90mph.) But thanks to the laws, the propaganda, and the level of intolerance in her area, she has discarded cannabis as even a possible medicine. Her suffering is legion. So is her willpower; she is living proof that the will can keep a body going (and working at physical jobs) long after that body should not even be able to stand up. But not only am I rambling worse than I usually do, I suddenly find myself in danger of either gnawing a table-leg to toothpicks or doing something that would provide little benefit to anyone (except possibly, entertainment value on the evening news). So... back to the topic at hand.

I think in time that more info will come to light about this study. It's still early but I am looking forward to hearing more "Detailed" info about it.

You can read this and all of the CMCR's completed, active, and discontinued studies on its website. [EDIT: Only the completed studies have the complete text as published in .PDF. The others only seem to have an abstract.] The ones that I've looked at so far are actually pretty interesting. I find myself eating crow about some of my earlier comments. Considering the fact that they are operating openly in this country, they appear to be giving an honest effort. The studies are available in .PDF format to anyone that wishes to read them. If there were a place here to post documents I'd post all of them. (Hmm...)

Anyway...

From page 7 of A Randomized, Placebo Controlled Cross-Over Trial of Cannabis Cigarettes in Neuropathic Pain (the actual report):
The study used a randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled, crossover design employing high-dose cannabis (7% delta-9-THC), low-dose cannabis (3.5% delta-9-THC), and placebo cigarettes. Two doses of medication and a cumulative dosing scheme were employed to determine dosing relationships for analgesia, psychoactive, and cognitive effects.

The cannabis was harvested and machine-rolled into cigarettes at the University of Mississippi under the supervision of the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA). NIDA routinely is able to provide cigarettes ($8 each) ranging in strength from 3% to 7% THC, subject to the availability of current crop potency. Placebo cigarettes are made from whole plant with extraction of cannabinoids. Following overnight delivery, the cigarettes were stored in a freezer securely bolted to the floor of the Sacramento Veterans Administration Research Pharmacy."
A couple of pages later it described the smoking procedure, which basically consisted of two puffs, three puffs an hour later, and four puffs an hour after that.

Afterwards, they were accompanied home by a responsible adult, perhaps in order to keep them from doing anything that might compromise the study(*) and upon conclusion of the study, were paid $25 per hour for their participation.

(*) Like stopping to pick up some decent herb. Only the federal government would consider 7% Δ9-THC to be "high-dose" cannabis.
 
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