Marijuana and Medicine Assessing the Science Base (1999) / Chapter Skim
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1 Introduction
1 Introduction
Pages 13-32
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From page 13... ...
Those straightforward questions are embedded in a web of social concerns, which lie outside the scope of this report. Controversies concerning nonmedical use of marijuana spill over onto the medical marijuana debate and tend to obscure the real state of scientific knowledge.
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From page 14... ...
Although many have argued that current drug laws pertaining to marijuana are inconsistent with scientific data, it is important to understand that decisions about drug regulation are based on a variety of moral and social considerations, as well as on medical and scientific ones. Even when a drug is used only for medical purposes, value judgments affect policy decisions concerning its medical use.
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From page 15... ...
; treatment and pathology of multiple sclerosis (Timothy Vollmer) ; drug dependence among adolescents (Thomas Crowley)
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From page 16... ...
The study team visited four cannabis buyers' clubs in California (the Oakland Cannabis Buyers' Cooperative, the San Francisco Cannabis Cultivators Club, the Los Angeles Cannabis Resource Center, and Californians Helping Alleviate Medical Problems, or CHAMPS) and two HIV/ AIDS clinics (AIDS Health Care Foundation in Los Angeles and Louisiana State University Medical Center in New Orleans)
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From page 17... ...
, an organization that supports decriminalization of marijuana, unsuccessfully petitioned the Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs to move marijuana from Schedule I to Schedule II. NORML argued that marijuana is therapeutic in numerous serious ailments, less toxic, and in many cases more effective than conventional medicines.~3 Thus, for 25 years the medical marijuana movement has been closely linked with the marijuana decriminalization movement, which has colored the debate.
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From page 18... ...
The results of those advances, only now beginning to be explored, have significant implications for the medical marijuana debate. Several months after the passage of the California and Arizona medical marijuana referendums, the Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP)
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From page 19... ...
has its counterpart in herbal medicine: for many generations, American Indians relieved headaches by chewing the bark of the willow tree, which is rich in a related form of salicylic acid. Although plants continue to be valuable resources for medical advances, drug development is likely to be less and less reliant on plants and more reliant on the tools of modern science.
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From page 20... ...
It is increasingly possible to identify or isolate the chemical compounds in a plant, determine which compounds are responsible for the plant's effects, and select the most effective and safe compounds either for use as purified substances or as tools to develop even more effective, safer, or less expensive compounds. Yet even as the modern pharmacological toolbox becomes more sophisticated and biotechnology yields an ever greater abundance of therapeutic drugs, people increasingly seek alternative, low-technology therapies.4 5 In 1997, 46 percent of Americans sought nontraditional medicines and spent over 27 billion unreimbursed dollars; the total number of visits to alternative medicine practitioners appears to have exceeded the number of visits to primary care physicians.5 6 Recent interest in the medical use of marijuana coincides with this trend toward self-help and a search for "natural" therapies.
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From page 21... ...
About half the patients who reported using marijuana for chronic pain also reported that it reduced nausea and vomiting. Note that the medical conditions referred to are only those reported to the study team or to interviewers; they cannot be assumed to represent complete or accurate diagnoses.
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From page 22... ...
In contrast with Mendelson's survey of San Francisco Cannabis Cultivators Club (Table 1.1) , only the primary disorder is indicated here.
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From page 23... ...
Each dominant disease represents an individual report. Patients who reported their experience with marijuana at the public workshops said that marijuana provided them with great relief from symptoms associated with disparate diseases and ailments, including AIDS wasting, spasticity from multiple sclerosis, depression, chronic pain, and nausea associated with chemotherapy.
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From page 24... ...
That is the essential medical question that can be answered only by careful analysis of data collected under controlled conditions. CANNABIS AND THE CANNABINOIDS Marijuana is the common name for Cannabis saliva, a hemp plant that grows throughout temperate and tropical climates.
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From page 25... ...
, stems, and the bracts that support the flowers of the marijuana plant. Although the flower itself has no epidermal glands, it has the highest cannabinoid content anywhere on the plant, probably because of the accumulation of resin secreted by the supporting bracteole
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From page 26... ...
. The amounts of cannabinoids and their relative abundance in a marijuana plant vary with growing conditions, including humidity, temperature, and soil nutrients (reviewed in Pate, 1994~4~.
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From page 30... ...
Chapter 2 reviews basic cannabinoid biology and provides a foundation to understand the medical value of marijuana or its constituent cannabinoids. In consideration of the physician's first rule, "first, do no harm," the potential harms attributed to the medical use of marijuana are reviewed before the potential medical benefits.
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From page 31... ...
Medical Marijuana. Washington, DC: Health Policy Tracking Service, National Conference of State Legislatures.
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From page 32... ...
. The amounts of cannabinoids and their relative abundance in a marijuana plant vary with growing conditions, including humidity, temperature, and soil nutrients (reviewed in Pate 1994~4 )
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