DEBATE SMOLDERS ON MEDICAL MARIJUANA

Co-Founder of Pro-Marijuana Group Travels Across New Jersey to Spread
Information on Subject

The Coalition for Medical Marijuana.

Ten years ago, the sight of those words may have prompted a response
of confusion, intrigue and maybe even snickers. Today they may still
do so, but with the growth of the Internet, changing social attitudes
and the visibility of the lucrative pain relief industry, interest in
this uncommon pain relief treatment has been picking up.

And the support that the Coalition for Medical Marijuana New Jersey
has been receiving is a testament to that, co-founder Ken Wolski said.

"People tend to agree with us," he said.

Wolski, a Lawrence resident and retired registered nurse, said he too
was skeptical of medicinal marijuana, but one vacation in Europe had
him think twice on the subject. While there, he met an American
living in the Netherlands who had glaucoma. The American began using
marijuana years ago to help save his eyesight, but the police found
out. As a result, he was thrown in jail and lost his farm and home.
After being released, he moved to Europe and began growing the plant
freely, Wolski said.

"At first I didn't really believe this guy," Wolski said. "Something
else must have been going on."

He couldn't believe the government would take such measures until he
actually confirmed the details himself, he said.

Wolski was touched by the story and began to do his own research on
medicinal uses for cannabis about 10 years ago. Around 2002, he met
Jim Miller. They were actually both going around campaigning for the
herb at the same time, but didn't know it.

Together they formed the CMMNJ, but it was Miller's wife, Cheryl, who
was its heart and soul, Wolski said.

"It was a very inspiring time," he said. "She was a really remarkable woman."

Cheryl suffered from multiple sclerosis and was confined to a
wheelchair. She was an active supporter of medicinal marijuana and an
active user until she passed away in June of 2003. Some of the
couple's feats included barging into the offices of political leaders
and holding public demonstrations of medical marijuana use.

The main focus of the coalition is to educate and inform the public
about medical marijuana, promote the study of the herb and to fight
for laws enabling the use of the treatment to alleviate suffering, Wolski said.

"We're just proud of the fact that we're for the patients," he said.
"Our main thing is to protect the patients."

The group meets on the first Tuesday of the month at the Mercer
County Library Lawrence Branch on Darrah Lane.

In their efforts to educate the public, the group also campaigns for
support from different medical groups. Their latest accomplishment
involves the New Jersey State Nurses Association, who passed a
resolution to recognize the value of medical marijuana and to support
legal action.

Medical marijuana has been used for centuries as a natural pain
reliever, Wolski said, and references to the plant appear in ancient
medical books written by scholars. But, it was prohibited in the
Unites States after 1937, when the Marihuana Tax Act was passed.

Diseases that can have symptoms treated with the use of the herb,
according to medicinal marijuana supporters, include multiple
sclerosis, cancer, AIDS, glaucoma, depression, epilepsy, migraine
headaches, arthritis and asthma, Wolski said.

There are even cannabis receptors in the brain programmed for
marijuana use, he said. Cannibanoid receptors outnumber dopamin and
serotonin receptors and are activated by endocannibanoids, found
naturally in the body, or by the ingestion of cannabis.

As you might expect, there are also many critics of cannabis use for
medicinal purposes.

Some critics argue that there is no definitive scientific proof of
the claimed therapeutic qualities.

Wolski claims that the only farm capable of enabling studies to prove
the link is located at the University of Mississippi and the Drug
Enforcement Administration has a "tight grip on it," limiting possible studies.

"I don't know what kind of proof [critics] are looking for," he said.
"It's almost impossible to do the studies because they cost several
millions of dollars."

David Hunt, a professor of chemistry at The College of New Jersey,
has worked as a research scientist in the pharmaceutical and
agrichemical fields of study prior to teaching at TCNJ. He worked in
a manufacturing environment, under the scrutiny of the Food and Drug
Administration and the Drug Enforcement Agency, that involved
controlled substances.

He said he does see a link and recognizes its therapeutic qualities.
While he said that he is in favor of allowing the use of medical
marijuana, "especially for patients that have no other recourse," he
also said there are a few areas that need consideration.

The study of marijuana, and, specifically, its synthetic alternative
Drabinol was an area of particular interest at the lab, Hunt said.
Drabinol acts like marijuana's active ingredient - Delta-9 THC- but
is packaged in a gel cap oil-based solution (a capsule) that can be
administered in carefully measured doses, he said.

The major difference between the two is that medical marijuana would
most likely be inhaled, whereas Drabinol would be ingested orally, he said.

"I think the primary concern is that [marijuana] is going to hit the
blood stream much faster [if inhaled]," he said. "If you take it
orally [as with Drabinol], it has to pass through the stomach into
the intestines and be absorbed into the blood stream that way."

Another problem area is the extra chemicals that are released when
smoking marijuana, Hunt said.

"With medical marijuana, if you ingest it by smoking, you're not just
smoking the Delta-9 THC, but any other material that may be in the
marijuana plant," he said. "Since you're smoking it, that means that
in order to vaporize it you have to heat the material to very high
temperatures.

"So, consequently, there are pyrolysis products, or products that
come about from the degradation of neutral materials due to intense
heat, and a lot of those products have little if no therapeutic use
at all," he said.

In fact, they could be harmful, he said.

Wolski points out that it could be eaten to avoid some of these issues.

"These are the kind of things that should be worked out. But the
benefits outweigh the risks," he said.

The fact that the plant can be cultivated naturally, so easily, has
its own set of complications that come into play when eating or
smoking it, Hunt noted.

The potency of the herb depends on factors like its geography,
whether it's a plant hybrid or whether it's a wild type plant and
more, he said. Hunt also brought up the example of a certain batch of
"Acapulco Gold," a potent brand of marijuana cultivated in Mexico,
that, during the '70s, had been exposed to an herbicide called
paraquat. People who had smoked it suffered various negative health effects.

"I think that's my primary concern, where it's coming from and what
it's been exposed to," Hunt said.

Hunt does think there are ways to set quality measures for marijuana
that are comparable to Drabinol, but it's not easy.

"There's really no way to control it," he said. "It's so readily
available in nature. So readily available through the black market
that, like I say, there's no way to control the quality of the
product that a patient gets."

Another worry is addiction. The jury is still out as to whether
marijuana is addictive. Wolski claims that nicotine is a more
addictive substance than marijuana, which is about as addictive as caffeine.

"It is one of the single most worst disasters of social injustice,"
he said. "You have to look at the logic. Doctors prescribe morphine,
a much stronger drug."

So why would a medicine that, according to many, has therapeutic
qualities with less side effects not be widely studied for validation?

Wolski said it all has to do with money."The pharmaceutical industry
is a very powerful industry. They give a lot of money to physicians
and politicians," he said. "To have an alternative that can be grown
by patients themselves is a threat."

Hunt also said it has to do with money, but more in the sense of
financial efficiency.

"A lot of times when you're looking at drugs, there are natural
versus synthetic derivatives and the concentrations in the natural
source may be so small as to make the extraction isolation not
commercially viable," he explained. "So if a company can actually
figure out how to make a material through a synthetic pathway, which
is much more efficient, they'll do that out of commercial and
financial reasons."

The arguments for supporting the cause and criticisms against it are clear.

For now, Wolski and the coalition remain hopeful that more
politicians and interested individuals will come to their aid.

"You can't deny the science, the knowledge, the benefits and the
compassion," he said.