LdyLunatic
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New York -- Marijuana-like chemicals are part of our physiology; usurping their cellular pathways for medical research and treatment is decades old.
In the early 1980s, Steven J. Gould, Professor of Zoology at Harvard and curator of its Museum of Comparative Zoology, explained publicly how smoking marijuana was the only thing that made his cancer chemotherapy tolerable.
Gould was one of last century's landmark thinkers in evolutionary biology and paleontology. He penned hundreds of essays for the layperson in Natural History magazine, and collected his entertaining musings in The Panda's Thumb, Ever Since Darwin, The Mismeasure of Man, and many other books.
Gould's revelation impressed me, partly because he was admitting to a federal crime, but mostly because one wouldn't mess with a cerebrum like his lightly. Indeed, it is said he shunned drugs, including alcohol, for that reason. Gould won his cancer battle back then, which bought him two more decades; he succumbed to another onslaught in 2002.
Thousands of people have used marijuana to alleviate symptoms of grave illnesses or to quell side effects of treatments, inspiring several panels of medical experts over the years to scrutinize existing clinical trials and testimony of patients and doctors to discern any promise for marijuana or its components as medicine. In 1999, the Institute of Medicine, a part of the revered US National Academy of Sciences, explained its findings in a 250-page document (an exceptionally educational read for lay people about many aspects of health and medicine). The report concluded that marijuana and its most-studied component, THC, were moderately effective for some conditions and in some patientsenough so that more studies were warranted. Further, the suite of drug effects offered multiple benefits that existing drugs did not.
Also in the late 1990s were reports from the American Medical Association, British Medical Association, US National Institutes of Health, World Health Organization, and the British House of Lords Science and Technology Committee; all echoed the Institute's conclusions, noted a dearth of studies, and encouraged more.
But earlier this year, the FDA reiterated its position in response to discussions in Congress about medical marijuana. An April 20 interagency advisory and press release cited a "past evaluation by several Department of Health and Human Services agencies" (including the FDA, Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, and National Institute for Drug Abuse), which concluded that "no sound scientific studies supported medical use of marijuana for treatment in the United States, and no animal or human data supported the safety or efficacy of marijuana for general medical use." The statement is the second of two recent federal-level punches to the notion of legalization of marijuana for medical use. The first was a 2005 decision by the Supreme Court that marijuana use for any purpose would remain a federal crime, including in those eleven states that allow medical exemptions.
The Institute of Medicine agrees that "there is little future in smoked marijuana as a medically approved medication [emphasis added]," faulting it as "a crude THC delivery system that also delivers harmful substances," meaning the abundant toxins and carcinogens in marijuana smoke. But it clarifies: "The argument against the future of smoked marijuana for treating any condition is not that there is no reason to predict efficacy but that there is risk. That risk could be overcome by the development of a nonsmoked rapid-onset delivery system for cannabinoid drugs." Specifically, an inhaler would be a good idea. Since that could be years and hundreds of millions of research dollars away with our drug approval system, says the report, "there is no clear alternative for people suffering from chronic conditions that might be relieved by smoking marijuana, such as pain or AIDS wasting."
In the early 1980s, Steven J. Gould, Professor of Zoology at Harvard and curator of its Museum of Comparative Zoology, explained publicly how smoking marijuana was the only thing that made his cancer chemotherapy tolerable.
Gould was one of last century's landmark thinkers in evolutionary biology and paleontology. He penned hundreds of essays for the layperson in Natural History magazine, and collected his entertaining musings in The Panda's Thumb, Ever Since Darwin, The Mismeasure of Man, and many other books.
Gould's revelation impressed me, partly because he was admitting to a federal crime, but mostly because one wouldn't mess with a cerebrum like his lightly. Indeed, it is said he shunned drugs, including alcohol, for that reason. Gould won his cancer battle back then, which bought him two more decades; he succumbed to another onslaught in 2002.
Thousands of people have used marijuana to alleviate symptoms of grave illnesses or to quell side effects of treatments, inspiring several panels of medical experts over the years to scrutinize existing clinical trials and testimony of patients and doctors to discern any promise for marijuana or its components as medicine. In 1999, the Institute of Medicine, a part of the revered US National Academy of Sciences, explained its findings in a 250-page document (an exceptionally educational read for lay people about many aspects of health and medicine). The report concluded that marijuana and its most-studied component, THC, were moderately effective for some conditions and in some patientsenough so that more studies were warranted. Further, the suite of drug effects offered multiple benefits that existing drugs did not.
Also in the late 1990s were reports from the American Medical Association, British Medical Association, US National Institutes of Health, World Health Organization, and the British House of Lords Science and Technology Committee; all echoed the Institute's conclusions, noted a dearth of studies, and encouraged more.
But earlier this year, the FDA reiterated its position in response to discussions in Congress about medical marijuana. An April 20 interagency advisory and press release cited a "past evaluation by several Department of Health and Human Services agencies" (including the FDA, Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, and National Institute for Drug Abuse), which concluded that "no sound scientific studies supported medical use of marijuana for treatment in the United States, and no animal or human data supported the safety or efficacy of marijuana for general medical use." The statement is the second of two recent federal-level punches to the notion of legalization of marijuana for medical use. The first was a 2005 decision by the Supreme Court that marijuana use for any purpose would remain a federal crime, including in those eleven states that allow medical exemptions.
The Institute of Medicine agrees that "there is little future in smoked marijuana as a medically approved medication [emphasis added]," faulting it as "a crude THC delivery system that also delivers harmful substances," meaning the abundant toxins and carcinogens in marijuana smoke. But it clarifies: "The argument against the future of smoked marijuana for treating any condition is not that there is no reason to predict efficacy but that there is risk. That risk could be overcome by the development of a nonsmoked rapid-onset delivery system for cannabinoid drugs." Specifically, an inhaler would be a good idea. Since that could be years and hundreds of millions of research dollars away with our drug approval system, says the report, "there is no clear alternative for people suffering from chronic conditions that might be relieved by smoking marijuana, such as pain or AIDS wasting."