Medical Marijuana Studies Critique

(MOLALLA, Ore.) - I had heard rumors about studies conducted in the past ten years that the California Legislature had spent several million dollars on, to confirm that marijuana/cannabis was really a safe, effective drug --but it smelled fishy to me.

As it has been used for at least 4,000 years by at least 400 million people who weren’t stoned “staring at the spots on the wall” but getting good relief, one would wonder if those studies were real.

California has about 300,000 legal users and probably a million or more who smoke it when they can get it, regardless of the legal standing.

There are so many people in California and elsewhere who are infected with the Reefer Madness Virus that such Government-paid boondoggling as this doesn’t really surprise me.

Learning about who the 22 members of the Scientific Review Board are was really a shock. Only 6 were M.D.’s who might have had some inkling of marijuana benefits, but where do the 16 Ph.D’s fit here? If they are Pharmacologists who teach that marijuana is “dangerous and addicting”, where and how did they get their scientific background on this subject?

For the 8 M.D.’s of the 23 that serve on the National Advisory Council, where did they acquire medical marijuana expertise? I see some of this group are bought and paid for Government employees who rarely have anything good to say about this DEVIL DRUG used medically by millions of people.

Don’t get me wrong, their collective approval that cannabis/marijuana is truly a safe medication has finally caught up with the U.S. Government figures which verifiably state that 70,000,000 Americans use it once in a while with little to mild detriment.

Getting to the studies and their results one-by-one:

Dr. Donald Abrams’ on HIV Peripheral Neuropathy. He has been working with these patients for about 20 years and it must have been amusing to him to participate. Smoking as in a cigarette is totally archaic but I do see he used vaporizers, the modern method. The concurrent use of Neurontin (gabapentin), Amitryptyline (Elavil), narcotics (Oxycontin?) and NSAIDS (aspirin like) are ungentle throwbacks, but yes, cannabis works better than any of the latter. The adverse effects of the latter don’t compare with the beneficial cannabis.

Dr. Ronald Ellis’ double blind study with placebos should have given him pause. Marijuana users can tell with the first puff that the placebos are NOT marijuana. He also used marijuana cigarettes. Cannabis was superior to the FAKE DRUG and even the patients use of concurrent analgesics.

Dr. Barth Wilsey’s study on neuropathic pain indicated that even low doses of marijuana were beneficial with minimal adverse effects.

Dr. Mark Wallace’s experimental pain production with dermal injection of capsaicin (from chili peppers) was really scary and cannabis didn’t work well here. After about 45 minutes it helped but higher doses (8% THC) caused worse pain? I would guess that the higher dose of cannabis elicited the “panic reaction” response. My suggestion is – don’t inject capsaicin!

Dr. Jody Corey-Bloom studied cannabis on spasticity of Multiple Sclerosis with pain. Cannabis reduced both spasms and pain which M.S. patients discovered years ago. They have found it better than “standard” M.S. drugs.

Dr. Donald Abrams’ other investigation with vaporizers in which 14 of 18 patients preferred the vaporizers. This is a standard observation.

Dr. Sean Drummond (Ph.D.) discovered that cannabis enabled sleep which is the main reason why severe chronic pain patients have been using it for years.

Dr. Thomas Marcotte (Ph.D.) studied if cannabis affected driving ability. He indicated the results are in preparation but here is a warning, we know cannabis acts like a sedative and the patients know this also. Studies in Australia found cannabis users to be more careful drivers, they didn’t want to get caught. Alcohol users didn’t care and they got caught.

Dr. Mark Wallace studied smoked cannabis on the pain of Diabetic Neuropathy. He should know that cannabis works on almost all types of pain and by the way isn’t all pain cause by sensory neuropathy.

Dr. Barth Wilsey has another study on vaporized cannabis against neuropathic pain. He shouldn’t be surprised of the beneficial results.

Dr. Howard Fields performed studies on cannabis and migraines. Other researchers have found cannabis to be very effective in migraines, Trigeminal Neuralgia and Tempo Mandibular Joint (TMJ) pain.

Dr. Mark Barad studied the effects of cannabis on Fear Extinction such as Post Traumatic Stress Disorder in mice. Battle Veterans have found that cannabis is better than any other medication for suppressing immediate Battle Stress but also for Post Traumatic Stress. His studies were with mice. I would guess that mice might think differently than humans. In Iraq, soldiers have found that their “sniffer dogs” DO get canine PTSD.

Dr. Danielle Piomelli studied if the effects of acute use of THC, the botanic cannabinoid, had any effect on Anandamide, the natural endocannabinoid. He found that THC had no effect on levels of the natural endocannabinoid. Chronic use DID cause an increase in Anandamide. It is not surprising that chronic THC use might cause a different response. Acute doses rapidly go into body fats and last only for a few hours.

Again, I congratulate these marijuana scientists. If only those with Reefer Madness Virus would read and understand them. Marijuana/cannabis is more than a miracle drug of the past. It is also efficacious for about 200 medical conditions of the present and future.

Sic Semper Cannabis

(see related story on salem-news.com by Paul Armentano)

By Dr. Phillip Leveque

Source: www.salem-news.com