Rickey Yuhre didn't need an $8.7 million California medical marijuana study to tell him that pot eased his suffering.
The 53-year-old former diesel truck mechanic and welder has pulmonary fibrosis, a chronic and debilitating disease of the lungs. He has fused vertebrae in his neck due to severe nerve damage.
Pain meds and relaxants — Oxycontin, Vicodin, Neurontin, Valium — only turned his insides out with nausea. And so he started using a special "vapor box" to medicate with marijuana without smoking.
"It brought things to a tolerable state," said Yuhre, of Sacramento.
His experiences seem to support findings of state-funded research that asserts that marijuana provides relief for a range of ailments, including neuropathic pain caused by injuries, infections, diabetes, strokes and other conditions affecting the nervous system.
Funded by the California Legislature, the Center for Medical Cannabis Research at the University of California, San Diego, since 2000 has been conducting America's first major clinical research on marijuana in two decades.
"As a result of this program of systematic research," concluded the study team, led by medical researcher Dr. Igor Grant, "we now have reasonable evidence that cannabis is a promising treatment."
But marijuana as medicine may be less than promising when it comes to gaining widespread political, social and even medical acceptance.
It seems removed from the clinical mainstream when Dr. Nora D. Volkow, director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse, writes, "The use of marijuana can produce adverse physical, mental, emotional and behavioral changes and — contrary to popular belief — it can be addictive."
Volkow's conclusions highlight the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services "Marijuana Abuse" report. The document, published in 2002 and reprinted in 2003 and 2005, suggests that research indicates that "marijuana can impair short-term memory, verbal skills and judgment ... and also may weaken the immune system."
Contradictory medical literature may well reflect different emphases of different researchers. The findings may depend on whether they're studying cannabis as a cure or a lure, as a potential treatment or a possible addiction.
"I consider it to be like the 'Blind Man and the Elephant,' " said Dr. Donald Abrams, chief of oncology at San Francisco General Hospital and a researcher who has studied the effects of cannabis since 1997. "Everybody brings their perspective."
Indeed, literature on the effects of marijuana is as varied as the perceptions of the blind men in poet John Godfrey Saxe's 19th century fable who reached conflicting conclusions about an elephant based on whether they touched its trunk, ears or tusk.
Abrams found marijuana beneficial in treating cancer and HIV patients for nausea, loss of appetite, pain, depression and inability to sleep.
He also wrote in the medical journal Integrative Oncology that "a growing body of pre-clinical evidence suggests that cannabis may not only be effective for symptom management, but may have a direct anti-tumor effect as well."
But Abrams said in an interview: "If I were an addiction researcher, I might see it from a different perspective — because I would only see people with problems with this drug."
Last year, the Journal of Psychiatric Research published a study suggesting that cannabis may adversely affect brain development in late adolescence.
In that study, led by Manzar Ashtari of the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, Ashtari and other researchers performed brain imaging studies on 14 young men at a drug treatment center in New York.
Ashtari told the LiveScience health website that the study "reinforces the idea that the adolescent brain may be especially vulnerable to risky behaviors such as substance abuse." He suggested more research.
Other studies offer interesting contrasts. They suggest that marijuana may impair formation of memories in young people. However, it may reduce mental deterioration in older people.
The National Institute on Drug Addiction report says "heavy marijuana use impairs a person's ability to form memories."
And yet investigators at California's Scripps Research Institute reported in 2006 that tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), the psychoactive ingredient in marijuana, may inhibit an enzyme responsible for Alzheimer's disease.
Reports also conflict on whether marijuana presents a greater or lesser risk of lung cancer than tobacco.
In 2006, a UCLA study, funded by the National Institute on Drug Abuse, found that even heavy marijuana smokers didn't have an increased risk of cancer. The findings seemed to contradict the National Institute on Drug Addiction's previous studies suggesting that marijuana smoke contains 50 to 70 percent more carcinogenic hydrocarbons than tobacco smoke.
A 2009 report by the American Cancer Society says research on pot's link to lung cancer is difficult because "it's not easy to gather information about the use of illegal drugs, and many marijuana smokers also smoke cigarettes."
Last June, the Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment added marijuana smoke to California's list of carcinogens under Proposition 65, the 1986 law requiring warnings on hazardous chemicals that may threaten the public's health and well-being.
A research summary published by a pot-legalization group hedges its bets while touting marijuana's benefits.
The National Organization for Reform of Marijuana Laws' 2009 review of a decade of scientific literature proclaims pot's effectiveness in providing relief for amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (Lou Gehrig's disease), diabetes, hepatitis C, multiple sclerosis, arthritis and Tourette syndrome.
But the report says some groups, including adolescents, pregnant or nursing mothers, or people with a history of mental illness, may be susceptible "to increased risks from the use of cannabis."
"Cannabis is neither a miracle compound nor the answer to everyone's ills," Dr. Gregory T. Carter, a University of Washington professor of rehabilitation medicine, wrote in the NORML report. "However, it does appear to have therapeutic benefits that are there for the asking if government barriers for more intensive study are removed."
Abrams said his experience in research and recommending marijuana to patients suggests "the benefits of this drug far outweigh the risks."
And Rahsaan Smith, 36, of Oakland said marijuana is the best remedy he found for pain from a back injury. He also uses it as an appetite booster for an intestinal disorder.
"One (marijuana) blunt will last me a day or so. I can hit it a couple of times and put it out and go back to it when I need it," he said. "Basically what it does is relax me to where pain isn't my primary concern. I use the distraction to take care of my bills and my errands. I actually get more things done after I smoke."
Dr. Barth Wilsey, a University of California, Davis, physician who studied pot's effectiveness in reducing neuropathic pain, said pain diminished among subjects who smoked marijuana with both high and low doses of tetrahydrocannabinol, the psychoactive substance in cannabis.
While the pain relief was the same, those who used the more potent pot had more problems with memory and diminished motor skills, Wilsey said.
For the others, he said, "there was a feeling of good effect, maybe feeling stoned or feeling high. But the cognitive impairment wasn't there."
Wilsey is continuing the study with a lower dose to see if subjects can still find relief, perhaps with little or no psychoactive effect.
But Wilsey laments his initial research involved only 38 people. "Ideally," he said, "it would be 300 to 400 patients."
At a time of heightened interest in the beneficial or harmful effects of cannabis, researchers say more extensive studies are essential.
Yet they are stymied by a lack of funding, and political and bureaucratic hurdles.
Approval of federal drug enforcement and research agencies is required for supervised clinical trials. Researchers complain that access to government-grown marijuana, cultivated at the University of Mississippi, is rigidly controlled and a hurdle to further medical or scientific studies.
"There is a lot of work that needs to be done, a lot more work," Wilsey said.
And more knowledge to be gleaned.
NewsHawk: Ganjarden: 420 MAGAZINE
Source: The Sacramento Bee
Author: Peter Hecht
Contact: The Sacramento Bee
Copyright: 2010 The Sacramento Bee
Website: The Conversation: Research offers contrasting views of marijuana
The 53-year-old former diesel truck mechanic and welder has pulmonary fibrosis, a chronic and debilitating disease of the lungs. He has fused vertebrae in his neck due to severe nerve damage.
Pain meds and relaxants — Oxycontin, Vicodin, Neurontin, Valium — only turned his insides out with nausea. And so he started using a special "vapor box" to medicate with marijuana without smoking.
"It brought things to a tolerable state," said Yuhre, of Sacramento.
His experiences seem to support findings of state-funded research that asserts that marijuana provides relief for a range of ailments, including neuropathic pain caused by injuries, infections, diabetes, strokes and other conditions affecting the nervous system.
Funded by the California Legislature, the Center for Medical Cannabis Research at the University of California, San Diego, since 2000 has been conducting America's first major clinical research on marijuana in two decades.
"As a result of this program of systematic research," concluded the study team, led by medical researcher Dr. Igor Grant, "we now have reasonable evidence that cannabis is a promising treatment."
But marijuana as medicine may be less than promising when it comes to gaining widespread political, social and even medical acceptance.
It seems removed from the clinical mainstream when Dr. Nora D. Volkow, director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse, writes, "The use of marijuana can produce adverse physical, mental, emotional and behavioral changes and — contrary to popular belief — it can be addictive."
Volkow's conclusions highlight the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services "Marijuana Abuse" report. The document, published in 2002 and reprinted in 2003 and 2005, suggests that research indicates that "marijuana can impair short-term memory, verbal skills and judgment ... and also may weaken the immune system."
Contradictory medical literature may well reflect different emphases of different researchers. The findings may depend on whether they're studying cannabis as a cure or a lure, as a potential treatment or a possible addiction.
"I consider it to be like the 'Blind Man and the Elephant,' " said Dr. Donald Abrams, chief of oncology at San Francisco General Hospital and a researcher who has studied the effects of cannabis since 1997. "Everybody brings their perspective."
Indeed, literature on the effects of marijuana is as varied as the perceptions of the blind men in poet John Godfrey Saxe's 19th century fable who reached conflicting conclusions about an elephant based on whether they touched its trunk, ears or tusk.
Abrams found marijuana beneficial in treating cancer and HIV patients for nausea, loss of appetite, pain, depression and inability to sleep.
He also wrote in the medical journal Integrative Oncology that "a growing body of pre-clinical evidence suggests that cannabis may not only be effective for symptom management, but may have a direct anti-tumor effect as well."
But Abrams said in an interview: "If I were an addiction researcher, I might see it from a different perspective — because I would only see people with problems with this drug."
Last year, the Journal of Psychiatric Research published a study suggesting that cannabis may adversely affect brain development in late adolescence.
In that study, led by Manzar Ashtari of the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, Ashtari and other researchers performed brain imaging studies on 14 young men at a drug treatment center in New York.
Ashtari told the LiveScience health website that the study "reinforces the idea that the adolescent brain may be especially vulnerable to risky behaviors such as substance abuse." He suggested more research.
Other studies offer interesting contrasts. They suggest that marijuana may impair formation of memories in young people. However, it may reduce mental deterioration in older people.
The National Institute on Drug Addiction report says "heavy marijuana use impairs a person's ability to form memories."
And yet investigators at California's Scripps Research Institute reported in 2006 that tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), the psychoactive ingredient in marijuana, may inhibit an enzyme responsible for Alzheimer's disease.
Reports also conflict on whether marijuana presents a greater or lesser risk of lung cancer than tobacco.
In 2006, a UCLA study, funded by the National Institute on Drug Abuse, found that even heavy marijuana smokers didn't have an increased risk of cancer. The findings seemed to contradict the National Institute on Drug Addiction's previous studies suggesting that marijuana smoke contains 50 to 70 percent more carcinogenic hydrocarbons than tobacco smoke.
A 2009 report by the American Cancer Society says research on pot's link to lung cancer is difficult because "it's not easy to gather information about the use of illegal drugs, and many marijuana smokers also smoke cigarettes."
Last June, the Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment added marijuana smoke to California's list of carcinogens under Proposition 65, the 1986 law requiring warnings on hazardous chemicals that may threaten the public's health and well-being.
A research summary published by a pot-legalization group hedges its bets while touting marijuana's benefits.
The National Organization for Reform of Marijuana Laws' 2009 review of a decade of scientific literature proclaims pot's effectiveness in providing relief for amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (Lou Gehrig's disease), diabetes, hepatitis C, multiple sclerosis, arthritis and Tourette syndrome.
But the report says some groups, including adolescents, pregnant or nursing mothers, or people with a history of mental illness, may be susceptible "to increased risks from the use of cannabis."
"Cannabis is neither a miracle compound nor the answer to everyone's ills," Dr. Gregory T. Carter, a University of Washington professor of rehabilitation medicine, wrote in the NORML report. "However, it does appear to have therapeutic benefits that are there for the asking if government barriers for more intensive study are removed."
Abrams said his experience in research and recommending marijuana to patients suggests "the benefits of this drug far outweigh the risks."
And Rahsaan Smith, 36, of Oakland said marijuana is the best remedy he found for pain from a back injury. He also uses it as an appetite booster for an intestinal disorder.
"One (marijuana) blunt will last me a day or so. I can hit it a couple of times and put it out and go back to it when I need it," he said. "Basically what it does is relax me to where pain isn't my primary concern. I use the distraction to take care of my bills and my errands. I actually get more things done after I smoke."
Dr. Barth Wilsey, a University of California, Davis, physician who studied pot's effectiveness in reducing neuropathic pain, said pain diminished among subjects who smoked marijuana with both high and low doses of tetrahydrocannabinol, the psychoactive substance in cannabis.
While the pain relief was the same, those who used the more potent pot had more problems with memory and diminished motor skills, Wilsey said.
For the others, he said, "there was a feeling of good effect, maybe feeling stoned or feeling high. But the cognitive impairment wasn't there."
Wilsey is continuing the study with a lower dose to see if subjects can still find relief, perhaps with little or no psychoactive effect.
But Wilsey laments his initial research involved only 38 people. "Ideally," he said, "it would be 300 to 400 patients."
At a time of heightened interest in the beneficial or harmful effects of cannabis, researchers say more extensive studies are essential.
Yet they are stymied by a lack of funding, and political and bureaucratic hurdles.
Approval of federal drug enforcement and research agencies is required for supervised clinical trials. Researchers complain that access to government-grown marijuana, cultivated at the University of Mississippi, is rigidly controlled and a hurdle to further medical or scientific studies.
"There is a lot of work that needs to be done, a lot more work," Wilsey said.
And more knowledge to be gleaned.
NewsHawk: Ganjarden: 420 MAGAZINE
Source: The Sacramento Bee
Author: Peter Hecht
Contact: The Sacramento Bee
Copyright: 2010 The Sacramento Bee
Website: The Conversation: Research offers contrasting views of marijuana
