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The Best Science Writing Online 2012
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Preliminary clinical trials show marijuana might be useful for pain, nausea and weight loss in cancer and HIV/AIDS and for muscle spasms in multiple sclerosis. Medical marijuana studies in the U.S. are dwindling fast, however, as funding for research in California—the only state to support research on the whole cannabis plant—comes to an end this year and federal regulations on obtaining marijuana for study remain tight.
In July the Drug Enforcement Administration denied a petition, first filed in 2002 and supported by the American Medical Association, to change marijuana’s current classification. So marijuana remains in the administration’s most tightly controlled category, Schedule I, defined as drugs that “have a high potential for abuse” and “have no currently accepted medical use in treatment in the U.S.” Many medical cannabis proponents see a catch-22 in the U.S.’s marijuana control. One of the DEA’s reasons for keeping marijuana in Schedule I is that the drug does not have enough clinical trials showing its benefits. Yet the classification may limit research by making marijuana difficult for investigators to obtain.
Even as prospects for whole-plant marijuana research dim, those who study isolated compounds from marijuana—which incorporates more than 400 different types of molecules—have an easier time. The drug’s main active chemical, delta 9-tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), is already FDA-approved for nausea and weight loss in cancer and HIV/AIDS patients. The Mayo Clinic is investigating the compound, trade-named Marinol, as a treatment for irritable bowel syndrome. Researchers at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston are studying Marinol for chronic pain.
Compared with smoked or vaporized marijuana, isolated cannabis compounds are more likely to reach federal approval, experts say. Pharmaceutical companies are more likely to develop individual compounds because they are easier to standardize and patent. The results should be similar to inhaled marijuana, says Mahmoud ElSohly, a marijuana chemistry researcher at the University of Mississippi, whose lab grows the nation’s only research-grade marijuana.
Other investigators say a turn away from whole-plant research would shortchange patients because the many compounds in marijuana work together to produce a better effect than any one compound alone. Inhaling plant material may also provide a faster-acting therapy than taking Marinol by mouth. While ElSohly agrees that other marijuana compounds can enhance THC, he thinks just a few chemicals should re-create most of marijuana’s benefits.
This article was originally published with the title Clearing the Smoke.
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34 Comments
Add CommentHaving MJ be illegal is just a huge waste of resources.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisBesides the medicinal values we are also keeping some Hemp farmers from being able to grow their crop of choice.
By removing whole plant use patients are forced to buy expensive drugs rather than grow their own medicine. Without research into whole plant efficacy showing it's harm it's unethical to force people to buy what they can grow.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisImagine a law prohibiting a vegetable garden in your back yard but store bought produce is fine.
Evil,
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisImagine a garden of vegetables that cause chronic and irreversible changes to ones' brain chemistry.
Medical marijuana would be OK if it were available ONLY to the tiny percentage of people who need it medically. As it is, much of the stuff is finding its way to seventh eighth and ninth graders, who will never have a chance to grow up knowing what a "normal" childhood is like.
I see the devastating effects of chronic long term use every day, and that population dwarfs, "medical" population my several orders of magnitude.
But you are welcome to light up any time you want. After all, it's a free country, right?
Timbo555:
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisLet me be clear upfront: I don't want school kids getting their hands on such drugs either. But I also don't want kids to get their hands on prescription drugs (legal), alcohol (legal), and cigarettes (legal).
The fact is, ALL illegal drugs besides heroin (I think) have medicinal uses, and ALL illegal drugs are available across most of society.
Meanwhile, legal drugs, such as alcohol and cigarettes were grandfathered in because they go back thousands and hundreds of years respectively.
Would you want a drug that YOU needed to be denied to you because of the chance that it would fall into the wrong hands? Wouldn't it be better to allow research into ANY drug, and to spend our money wisely on keeping kids away from them thru better enforcement? Wouldn't it be better to deny the drug barons access to all that money in the first place? How do you keep something from being produced and sold illegally when the markup is measured in the thousands of times the cost to produce?
Timbo,
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThat's a separate issue than the one I was raising.
IMO if you want to reduce child drug use you treat it as we treat booze in Ontario Canada, make it legal for sale in liquor stores. It's far easier for kids to get their hands on weed than beer, dealers don't check ID and are willing to meet them in a local ravine. I agree underage use is a big problem, certainly in my neighborhood. Prohibition hasn't helped that at all and is putting the profits into the hands of gangs.
But that's not the point of my comment, I was pointing out that the current system is limiting peoples access medically to that of the pharmacy system whether it's intentional or not.
Free country? That's a third issue I'm not going to get into.
heroin does have a medicinal use, that's why it was created. In fact, most drugs aren't created for a specific medicinal purpose, that one was. Morphine is still used in hospitals. Every drug on this earth has an ability to help as well as hurt, it's all in the intentions and usage.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAnd how does marijuana usage not get grandfathered in, it was used for thousands of years as well, and more than just a drug.
and WTF, kids will smoke pot if they want regardless. they will try alcohol too. don't you remember being a little kid? educate them, don't sanction them.
I have thought for a long time MJ is illegal due to numerous drugs and drug classes it could replace (and more safely as well). Pain meds-check, anti-anxiety drugs-check, sleeping medications-check, glaucoma drugs-check, Anti-nausea compounds for chemo-check, you get the idea. I think the big picture is big pharma doesn't want a relatively safe and relatively cheap substance around until they can make a drug of one its compounds. NO one can argue it is completely safe, but neither is motrin and aspirin, the Feds continue this travesty for a number or reasons, but mostly it boils down to money.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisCigarettes and alcohol are no older or younger that marijuana, just much, much worse for you. A long time ago I asked my doctor which was the least 'harmful' - without hesitating he said, take away the legal complications, and marijuana is the least harmful. Cigarettes and alcohol can, and, through over-use, will kill you; marijuana just relaxes you and makes the colors nicer, the music better, and the food tastier.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIn these days of economic brink-of-disaster considerations, there's plenty for the government to just stop bothering with; letting people grow and enjoy this extremely inexpensive weed (literally, it is a weed) for free; life would just be better.
People can [and do] have all the opinions they want. That's what 'free country' is about. Even Iran is 'free' by that definition; [you just wouldn't want to express those opinions if they differed from the state's]. But wishy-washy opinions do not apply to the major issues here. Absolutes do.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAbsolutely, without question, the state has NO business prohibiting, restricting, sanctioning,or otherwise controlling marijuana. The ludicrous 'drug war' is an absolute fiasco, destroying the Mexican government, and being run by Keystone Kops in the process. Any and all departments of the U.S., state or local governments that apply restrictions to marijuana are 1) absolute fools, or 2) profiting handsomely from their intentional lies about the value of marijuana.
Dance around as much as you like. Spin all you want. Nothing you say changes the FACTS. One of those facts was briefly mentioned in the article: patents. Pharmaceutical companies are not devoting their labs to the study of the whole plant because the plant cannot be patented. But as soon as one of them wakes up and realizes that components can [especially if they become GMOs], that will quickly change.
Tell me Republicans; tell me Democrats, just exactly how does it serve the population that a source of [potentially] large revenue instead costs billions? Absolute idiocy, that's how.
Which is the summation of the U.S. drug policy as it pertains to marijuana: absolute idiocy run by kowtowing know-nothings funded by decrepit old [bought & paid for] congressional representatives. Is that what you voted for?
timbo555, you wrote:
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this'Imagine a garden of vegetables that cause chronic and irreversible changes to ones' brain chemistry."
What "chronic and irreversible changes" would those be?
'Medical marijuana would be OK if it were available ONLY to the tiny percentage of people who need it medically. As it is, much of the stuff is finding its way to seventh eighth and ninth graders, who will never have a chance to grow up knowing what a "normal" childhood is like.'
Medical usage and recreational usage are not comparable. No reputable medical marijuana supplier deals to kids. Yeah, I know, you will cavil that "reputable" cannot apply to any pot dealer.
As for a "normal" childhood. what does that mean? Being subjected to the cruel whims of alcohol-addicted jocks?
'I see the devastating effects of chronic long term use every day, and that population dwarfs, "medical" population my several orders of magnitude.'
What devastating effects would those be? Why are these effects not known from marijuana's extremely long history of use before it first was criminalized in the early 1900's?
'But you are welcome to light up any time you want. After all, it's a free country, right?'
No, it's not. I am not free to choose to recreationally use a drug which is documented to cause far less harm (if any) than any variety of legally available alcohol.
You might consider not parroting the urban legends and outright lies used to justify criminalization of marijuana, and instead do a little research:
http://www.drugwarrant.com/articles/why-is-marijuana-illegal/
Read it while enjoying another beer or glass of wine. Oh, and when your liver fails, don't be surprised if Obamacare doesn't cover you because you knowingly destroyed it.
Timbo,
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI first used marijuana in 7th grade, years before alcohol. I was able to get it because it was illegal, so anyone was willing to sell it. Alcohol was harder to come by because it was regulated.
As a current engineering graduate student, with friends who also first used in 7th, 8th, and 9th grade (who are now in medical school, graduate school, or own their own businesses), I can't say we feel devastated due to irreversible changes in brain chemistry.
To retrieve my tangent, I'll leave you with this. Kids will get their hands on it if they want to, and prohibition makes that an easier feat. Denying a chemo patient marijuana that he/she needs to keep a meal down is wrong. Marijuana is cheap and effective for many uses, and is far less deleterious than alcohol or tobacco.
since when was marijuana classified as a weed?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisJust a quick follow-up; meth-amphetamines are FAR more available to school children, because it is a far more serious problem and with far more serious consequences than a little pot smoking behind the dugout. So here's a way to get a perspective: make a chart - list all the drugs on the Y-axis, list the amount of deaths attributable to the drugs on the X-axis. There's your proof; marijuana will have next to zero, all the others will be ranked as pretty darn serious and frightening. So, to paraphrase Eddie Izard, "Toke, or Death?"
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisin real life, it's a weed - it'll grow anywhere, just like hemp; quality is a separate issue, grown in bad soil with inadequate sunlight I'm sure it would only give a smoker a headache, but in practical terms, it's just a weed like dandelions; the gummit may think it's this big thing; it's just a weed.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisSomeone already has made that chart:
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisCause of death[2009] Number
All causes 2,436,652
Cardiovascular diseases 779,367
Malignant neoplasms 568,668
Drug induced2 37,485
Suicide 36,547
Motor vehicle accidents 36,284
Septicemia (infections) 35,587
by Firearms 31,224
Accidental poisoning 30,504
Alcohol induced 23,199
Homicide 16,591
HIV 9,424
Viral hepatitis 7,652
Cannabis (Marijuana) 0
Source:
Beittel, June S., "Mexico's Drug-Related Violence," Congressional Research Service (Washington, DC: Library of Congress, May 27, 2009), pp. 7-8.
http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/row/R40582.pdf
ZERO deaths; I stand corrected.
The current attitude on the part of the federal government against drugs in general and marijuana specifically is an indication of how corrupt the political process has become. Of course the DEA is not going to reconsider its position. Regardless of what the truth is, they do not care. They will continue to ruin lives by following the letter of laws that have no business even existing. While the constitution says nothing about citizens having the right to pursue happiness, certainly we should have the right (as adults) to enjoy the use of any mind altering substance we choose that can not be proven to be at least as harmful as what is already legal. Stealing property, incarceration and ruining peoples lives because they choose to ignore a law which is fundamentally draconian and has no place in a free society are the actions of thugs and despots. Add to this the failure of elected officials to live up to their promises and what you have is a window into a future that makes many of the dire futures depicted by some very insightful writers pale by comparison. The system cares only about form and not about function. This is mindlessness of the worse kind and guarantees that what few freedoms we enjoy will continue to be eroded by zealots. The continued criminalization of drugs like marijuana is a travesty and shows that the US government truly does not care about its citizenry. Criminalizing people for using mind altering substances is a senseless practice. People who want to escape reality by being altered all the time are ill-not criminals. People who use drugs recreationally and go about their daily lives being productive citizens are by far the norm and the state has no business making criminals out of them. If there is harm it is self induced and the last time I looked this was not really any of the States business. If they think it is, then lets criminalize bad grades in school, bad attitudes, and lying politicians. When people get trapped by their own weaknesses and in the case of some drugs, it is a chemical trap compounded by an individuals apathy, treat them with dignity and help them. Making work for lawyers and keeping less then honorable agencies funded by stealing property does more harm to the fabric of society by far then the drug use. These are not opinions, but are facts supported by years of study. No one is saying that Marijuana is harmless. That is not the point. The point is that the government should not be meddling in our lives and screwing millions of people.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe prohibition of "drugs" is a legal and cultural leftover from the era of prohibition of alcohol. It comes from the common idea that a society can control an unwanted behavior by passing a law against it. It did not succede then, it is nor succeeding now.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIn general, history shows clearly that this kind of approach does not work or that, at best, it works poorly and is usually accompanied by a host of negative and unintended consequences.
Many of the "accepted truths" about illegal drugs are not true at all; most do have legitimate medical uses and most are potentially quite harmful. Yes, even marijuana.
We need a totally new approach to this problem that will mitigate harm and increase the potential benefits that psychoactive drugs might have.
Somewhere in the middle, between "illegal" and "legal" we might try a system of "controlled availability" similar to that now employed with alcohol and nicotine, only perhaps more tightly controlled.
First, we need to allow access for qualified research on those drugs that may have potential benefits and allow medical use of those drugs that are known to be beneficial. These latter would include heroin (pain) and THC (pain, nausea, etc.).
Second we need to provide medically supervised access for addicted individuals who can be assured prescription grade, known dosage drugs on demand.
This might be administered through clinics and/or the offices of specifically trained and licensed physicians. Possession, use, or sale outside this system would still be illegal.
The whole thing would be paid for, easily, by taxes and money saved on the current legal and enforcement costs.
Basically, we need to begin to view this as a social and public health problem, not primarily a legal problem.
Will this eliminate the harmful use of psychoactive drugs in America? Of course not, but it might be a step toward reducing the damage.
The one thing that we can say for sure is that the current "war on drugs" that was first declared, not by Richard M.Nixon but by Warren G.Harding, is not the solution to the problem.
It has been said that insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. Are we, as a nation, "insane" on this issue?
I will keep reading this thread and would welcome ideas that might help address this issue. Just please don't bore me with the idea that doing more of what does not work today is the answer.
Thanks for reading all this.
CCC
The entire war on drugs is an expensive failure. Marijuana's lost medicinal use is just one side-note.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisLegalise the drugs. Sell them through licensed pharmacies. Tax them.
You get drug dealers out of the loop, make sure addicts get a clean supply, and enable community support for drug users. At the moment, we allow alcohol and tobacco use while knowing their physiological and psychological effects are far worse than many of the "illegals".
Legal Cannabis will be sold by store clerks who check IDs for adulthood. You see ninth graders with the herb because their dealer/classmates do not.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAre you seeing a lot of alcoholic schoolchildren every day, Timbo?
It is not "just a huge waste of resources". The prohibition of Earth's most potentially beneficial plant species is nothing short of a crime against humanity.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisGood, so we can all agree that the introduction of tetra-hydro-cannabinol into the still developing brains of children is a bad idea.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI like the idea of legalization if it will help keep it out of their reach. But when I assess a person for drug and alcohol dependence they invariably talk about their first high on pot rather than their first drink.
This is not because of availability; booze is still much more available; it is because it has already become much more widly accepted as a drug and "much less harmful" than booze or tobacco, both of which quickly become part of the "coming of age" cycle for nine, 10, and 11 yerar olds in any event.
Marijuana changes the chemical make-up of the brain. This is inarguable. The longer the use, tyhe more permanent the change. Yes so does booze, so do cigarettes; The question is, what about your life predisposes you to change the way you think or feel?
What makes it necessary? That's the question that should be asked, not whether it provides analgesiac relief for a relatively tiny group of people. And if you think that every one those people who are prescribed pot for their "pain" are legitimate users,
Then you must be pretty high yourself.
I am interested in what negative effects you see every day from long term use of cannabis. In my work I frequently see patients who use or have used it but have to date been able to discern no ill effects.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisStuball,
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisLet's talk first about the hundreds of thousands (millions?) of middle class stoner kids who couldn't find their hometown on a map of their hometown. These are kids who spend most of their time loitering at the mall with their skateboards, or in mom’s basement trying to beat some record on x-box. Their state dependent learning extends to getting high and getting high again, and begging or stealing money from their parents to buy more chronic.
They disdain all forms of work, are profoundly ignorant of History, Math, English, Geography, Social Studies Civics, and are never going to get into college because they lack the motivation, let alone the skills. They harbor contempt for the police and a cynical disregard for most laws, having so blithely broken the drug laws of their state.
They will wind up at the age of thirty, unable to form meaningful relationships, having never read a book, having never been of real help to another human being. If you don’t see these people it’s because you’re not looking.
We could talk also about the state dependent learning of the African American in the inner city or the Chicano, whose right of passage is a constant daily high with the same results. These young men and women didn’t create this culture and then introduce pot into it; it was in large measure that marijuana helped to create this culture.
I’m an alcoholic and a drug addict. I also work with that population at a long term treatment center. I have an alcoholic brother whom I may never see alive again.
My extraordinarily talented second brother lives downstairs. This brother has had a very exiting career, but he got high virtually every day for twenty five years. He is now socially inept, isolative, non-committal, and mildly paranoid. Much of his “Boo Radley” demeanor can be traced back to his pot use.
I was at a cookie store at the mall a couple of days ago and asked for a half dozen oatmeal raisin cookies. The stoner who was waiting on me had to ask the manager how much a half-dozen is. Just today one of my clients allowed that he didn’t know who Charles Darwin was. Marijuana didn’t somehow wipe that knowledge out of the kid’s mind; marijuana fed into the pervasive apathy and boredom that kids in their early teens are prone to feel anyway.
There is no redeeming social good that can come from young kids getting stoned.
bunk
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisTimbo My Boy: Everyone agrees Ganja shouldn't be consumed by children, so I don't know what point you are trying to make with all your rambling on about stoner skateboarders ? I get VERY tired of the argument that activities and substances need to be banned for everyone because "we must protect the children." Big Macs and fries must be banned because "we must protect the children." Bicycles are dangerous and must be banned because "we must protect the children." Aspirin must be banned because "we must protect the children." Swimming must be banned because children drown and "we must protect the children." ______ must be banned because "we must protect the children." (fill in your own activity or substance.) I have smoked ganja off and on for 40 years, and reading your non-sensical posts makes me wanna fire up a spliff right now. Ganja SHOULD be legal for ADULTS !! ..end of debate...
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this"Good, so we can all agree that the introduction of tetra-hydro-cannabinol into the still developing brains of children is a bad idea."
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisOh yeah! I don't think so.
http://www.november.org/stayinfo/breaking06/DreherStudy.html
Thank you for your responses. I have no argument against them. By all means fire up.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThanks to all of you for your contributions to this discussion. It's clear that I have a lot to learn about marijuana and its many uses.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThank you for your responses. I have no argument against them. By all means fire up.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI agree with everything you say but would like to add that every alcoholic who knowingly destroys their liver should not receive a replacement under Obamacare or any other kind of healthcare either. Same for tobacco smokers and lung transplants. Rare organs for transplants should not go to the irresponsible who will in almost every case just ruin the replacements and deprive some responsible person of the chance at a better life.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisMarijuana is apparently PROTECTIVE against cancer, my recommending doctor told me that pot smokers contract lung cancer at a lower rate than NON-SMOKERS (of either tobacco or pot) and recent rat studies have shown marijuana to be protective against other types of cancer too. So if you have cancer or have a friend who does, get them started smoking pot right away if they don't already!
Politicians are getting their reelection coffers and their pockets full by keeping Cannabis illegal. Cannabis is a commodity that could put thousands to work. Food, fuel, the strongest natural fiber, the list goes on.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI have smoked it for over half a century, far longer than the tests required by the FDA. I have experienced no cognitive or memory impairment from this practice. Old timers have a saying: "Marijuana will get you through times of no money better than money will get you through times of no Marijuana." A growing brain reacts to many drugs differently than an adult brain (re. Ritalin) so kids should avoid it. If you have a stroke, smoke it for it's abundant anti-oxidants (or just to cheer up).
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisRegarding the medicinal value of marijuana, the government seems to be engaged in the "left hand not knowing what the right is doing". Classified by the law enforcement arm as having no medical use, the National Institutes of Health side of the government disagrees and has found even anti-tumor effects among other benefits. Please see here --->
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thishttp://www.cancer.gov/cancertopics/pdq/cam/cannabis/healthprofessional/page4
Legalize it.
I'm astounded at your proficiency in parroting the anti-pot propaganda that's been with us since the days of "Marijuana- Assassin of Youth" and "Reefer Madness". I suppose I shouldn't be though given that you've stated that you're "an alcoholic and a drug addict". Without a doubt you had that propaganda hammered into your head while you were undergoing treatment for your addictions. (BTW I'm very happy for you that the treatment seems to have worked.)
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisYou are of course aware that there is such a thing as the addiction-prone personality? You are aware that alcoholics tend to be those with the genetic abnormality that causes them to metabolize alcohol to acetaldehyde?
Are you aware that those are small segments of the general population, that there is no corresponding genetic trait putting pot smokers at extra risk of addiction, and that despite the DEA's propaganda, pot is simply not biochemically addictive?
(BTW I'm still waiting for a cite backing up your claim that pot use "changes the chemical make-up of the brain". Please cite somebody other than the DEA. To my knowledge the mere fact that receptors in cerebral neurons sensitive to THC exist is very recent news.)
No, given that you counsel addicts you likely have a rather foreshortened view of the proportion of addicts in the general population.
I'm not attacking you, I'm trying to get you to understand that your, and your brother's, experience is not everybody else's, nor is it a sensible basis for legislating behavior.
As for those "stoner kids", let's go a bit deeper and look at their schooling and upbringing, shall we? Moral relativism is now the undercurrent in our public (and private) schools; there is no longer any acceptable basis for right vs. wrong except what our benevolent political leaders tell us it is. Schools are not permitted to hold back failing students, grades are becoming meaningless (can't have losers and winners) and parents are finding it increasingly difficult to meaningfully discipline their kids in any way without some government agency taking them to task.
(No, I'm not promoting religion-based morals, I'm just pointing out that not having any at all trashes a culture.)
I already explained why I started using pot, and I still use it for the same reason; it steadies my mind so I can think linearly for those times I find it useful. I am "high" right now- could you tell, or did my eloquence fool you?