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Big Mike

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PALS
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12/2008
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Fairfield
foodconsumer.org - AMA urges clinical studies of marijuana

By Sheilah Downey

The American Medical Association may have helped push marijuana further into the medical mainstream when it urged the federal government to allow the herb to be used for studies in the development of cannabis-based medicines.

In a meeting in Houston on Tuesday, the AMA voted to urge the changing of marijuana from a Schedule 1 controlled substance, the same category as heroine, cocaine and methamphetamine, so that access to the herb would be easier for scientific studies.

The AMA statement was clear in suggesting marijuana's change of status -- for reasons of science -- and distancing itself from other uses currently in fashion.

"This should not be viewed as an endorsement of state-based medical cannabis programs," the statement reads, "the legalization of marijuana, or that scientific evidence on the therapeutic use of cannabis meets the current standards for a prescription product."

Marijuana was first criminalized with passage of the Marihuana Tax Act of 1937. Many activists and marijuana legal scholars have claimed for years that pot is illegal because major pharmaceutical companies would lose profits once people learned of the medical benefits of pot.

Marijuana has been slowly sliding into mainstream America for years, perhaps beginning with the legalization of medical marijuana in California in 1996. Medical marijuana has since been legal in 13 other states as well as Canada, Spain, the Netherlands and Austria.

In 2004, the United Nations estimated that 162 million people throughout the world use marijuana annually, and more than 2.5 million people use it everyday.

The scientific community has also taken notice. Early in this decade there was a trickle of scientific studies done on cannabis, according to the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws (NORML).

In 2008, says their website, there were 2,100 published scientific studies on the potential medical uses and benefits of marijuana, all published on the National Library of Medicines PubMed website.

Besides combating nausea and treating pain, its two most common uses, scientists are also looking at the role of cannabis in treating Alzheimer's disease, multiple sclerosis, rheumatoid arthritis, Lou Gehrigs disease, and as an anti-cancer drug.

An emerging pharmaceutical cannabis company, Cannabis Science Inc., based in San Francisco, has been trying to get public health officials to "take medical cannabis seriously," according to CEO Steven Kubby.

In a statement last month, Kubby discussed the company's efforts to market a cannabis-based lozenge for treatment of the H1N1 virus.

"For decades, governments have ridiculed and suppressed overwhelming evidence that cannabis has many important medical uses," said Kubby, "but in the present public health crisis we should no longer tolerate this malign neglect. Our government ought to take medical cannabis seriously, just as voters in 14 States have voted overwhelmingly for medical marijuana legalization."
 
"Smoke two joints and call me in the afternoon"
 
Great article Mike and Thank you for posting it! :]
 
Great article Mike and Thank you for posting it! :]

Thank you, indigosd. I've communicated with a few pALS who absolutely swear by cannabis for not only symptomatic relief but slowing progression as well. It's absolutely absurd that the Federal government continues to ban the substance while more harmful substances, such as alcohol and tobacco, enjoy legal status. Fortunately, some states allow the legal use for medical purposes, such as the one I live in.
 
In my work helping folks consider potential therapeutics, I've referred to THC-related treatments as 'no-brainers' (pun intended) as they essentially met the minimal qualifications for consideration in a disease where there are no established drugs to give significant benefit against the relentless progression. These would be: 1) is there a reasonable science-based rational and/or some evidence for benefit against progression and 2) is there good potential for quality of life (QoL) benefit. The answer for THC-related approaches is yes for 1) (there are a fair number of publications suggesting benefit – but understand the caveat that such is not uncommon for MND-related research) and for 2) – while a very personal opinion, many people would find such from THC in coping with the symptoms of ALS.

I can still remember the first time I discussed this in one of the 101 seminars Sean Scott and I gave – he thought is was pretty funny; I always very appreciated Sean's sense of humor and miss that about him.
 
The prize would be getting insurance to pay for it.
 
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