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Smoking marijuana may relieve pain from nerve damage
By Elizabeth Lopatto
Feb. 12 (Bloomberg) — Smoking marijuana may relieve
persistent pain from nerve damage, researchers say.
The substance reduced pain by at least 30 percent for more
than half of the patients who smoked it in a scientific trial,
according to a study in the Feb. 13 issue of Neurology. That
topped the 24 percent reduction recorded for a placebo, or
inactive drug. The 50 people in the experiment all had nerve
damage from the virus that causes AIDS.
Marijuana, often called pot, weed or mary jane, is the most
commonly used illegal drug in the U.S,, with about 6,000 people a
day trying it the first time, according to National Institute of
Drug Abuse data from 2004. Marijuana in the U.S. is a Schedule I
drug under federal law, meaning the substance has no accepted
therapeutic use, according to the Justice Department.
“We set the bar for success fairly high,” said Donald
Abrams, a professor of clinical medicine at the University of
California, San Francisco, and the study’s lead author, in a
telephone interview on Feb. 9. “There are drugs that are
approved for pain reduction of 20 percent, but we felt we should
be more conservative since it’s such an emotionally charged
drug.”
Nerve damage is a common complication of infection with the
human immunodeficiency virus, or HIV, and symptoms include
aching, painful numbness and burning, according to the study.
Patients were given either marijuana cigarettes, containing what
Abrams called “not the most-potent cannabis,” or the placebo,
consisting of marijuana minus its key ingredient, known as THC.U.S. Clearance
The study had clearance from the Drug Enforcement Agency,
and the researchers obtained the marijuana from the National
Institute of Drug Abuse, the only legal source of the substance
in the U.S., Abrams said. The research was funded by the National
Institutes of Health and the University of California Center for
Medicinal Cannabis Research.
“Donald Abrams is someone whose name is on a lot of these
articles with marijuana and AIDS patients,” said David Murray,
the chief scientist for the White House Office of Drug Control
Policy, who has a Ph.D. in anthropology, in a phone interview
Feb. 9. “He does difficult, challenging research, but there are
reasons why these results are not compelling.”
Murray said some aspects of the study, such as the size of
the patient group, were “deeply limiting.”
“It’s very well established that smoked weed is an enormous
risk,” as it can interfere with lung function, Murray said.Symptoms
“Marijuana smokers do exhibit some of the symptoms of lung
obstruction,” such as persistent coughing, said Jeanette
Tetrault, an ambulatory care fellow at the Westhaven VA Hospital
Yale University of School Medicine, both in Connecticut. She is
the primary author of a review article, appearing in today’s
Archives of Internal Medicine, saying there isn’t consistent
evidence to associate marijuana use with emphysema, a potentially
deadly lung disorder.
More research will be necessary to determine the risk
involved, as many of the studies didn’t control adequately for
tobacco use or use standardized measurements of lung capacity,
Tetrault said.
“Right now there’s inconclusive evidence,” she said. “We
can’t really say whether smoked marijuana is safe or not.”
In California, under the state’s Compassionate Use Act, a
physician may recommend that a seriously ill patient use
marijuana to treat illness. Such a patient may use marijuana
without criminal prosecution by the state, as distinct from the
federal government.Trouble Walking
“I have had HIV 21 years,” said Diana Dodson, a study
participant. “In 2000, I moved to California to be protected
under the Compassionate Use Act. I smoked marijuana because I
couldn’t keep my AIDS medication down.
“I went home to visit my mother and didn’t bring my
marijuana with me because I didn’t want to bring it across state
lines. After two weeks without smoking, I couldn’t walk. I didn’t
realize how much it had been protecting me.”
Dodson said she was in the group receiving THC, a fact she
learned only after the study. She said she preferred marijuana to
other drugs, such as Vicodin and morphine, because she could
control the dosage by deciding “how many puffs” she wanted, and
because marijuana didn’t put her “in a stupor.”
Barbara Roberts, former associate deputy director of the
White House Office of National Drug Control Policy, said
researchers need to look at all possible means of delivering pain
relief.
“We need to get as much science as we can out on the
table,” Roberts said in a telephone interview today.–Editor: J. Tannenbaum
(ingen lank)
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