NIDA To Supply Marijuana To 60 San Mateo County AIDS Patients

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The420Guy

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San Mateo County, CA: The National Institute of Drug Abuse (NIDA) will
provide 3,600 marijuana cigarettes to 60 AIDS patients in San Mateo
County for a study on the effectiveness of AIDS-related pain in the
extremities.
San Mateo County will be the first local government in the country to
distribute marijuana for a medical study. The county will distribute the
marijuana through public health clinics.
The study will be conducted for 12 weeks with the participants smoking
marijuana for six weeks and abstaining for the study's duration. The
study will be tightly monitored, including home visits, from county
health officials. Only AIDS patients who have previously used marijuana
to assist in their treatment will be allowed to participate in the study.
"We don't want to introduce marijuana to someone who hasn't smoked it
before," said study coordinator Jonathan Mesinger.
The government-grown marijuana from the University of Mississippi, which
will be used in the study, will likely contain less tetrahydrocannabinol
(THC) than the marijuana patients in California cultivate on their own,
buy through cannabis buyers' clubs or on the street. Dennis Israelski,
M.D. the chief of infectious diseases and chief research officer for the
San Mateo County Hospitals and Clinics, said the potency level of the
marijuana will not affect the study.
"Because we're not doing a (medical) efficacy study per se, it's not
important," Israelski said. "It will be more important to get feedback on
the potency, and see how it might influence how marijuana is grown on
government farms."
"The federal government has enjoyed a monopoly on growing 'research'
marijuana for almost 25 years," said Allen St. Pierre, NORML Foundation
Executive Director. "Due to public pressure from both medical patients
and the scientific community, NIDA is finally making marijuana available
for therapeutic research. None of this would be happening unless voters
in eight states had not recently passed medical marijuana initiatives.
It's a great example of the people leading and the policy-makers
logically following."
For more information, please contact Allen St. Pierre, NORML Foundation
Executive Director at (202) 483-8751.


NORML Foundation
1001 Connecticut Ave., NW
Ste. 710
Washington, DC 20036
202-483-8751 (p)
202-483-0057 (f)
www.norml.org
foundation@norml.org
 
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