MEDICAL MARIJUANA CAN SAVE LIVES

A new study, just published in the journal Neurology, confirms the
value of medical marijuana for people with HIV/AIDS, proving
scientifically what many of us have seen first-hand or through the
experiences of friends. This new data should rouse our community, and
the organizations that represent us, to action.

This particular study dealt with peripheral neuropathy, a painful
condition caused by damage to the nerves of the feet and other
extremities caused by HIV or by some of the medications used to treat
it. It can range from mild tingling to pain so extreme that, as writer
and AIDS activist Phil Alden puts it, "It can feel like you're being
stabbed with a knife, or like your feet and hands are on fire."

Imagine living with pain like that every day. Imagine knowing that the
medications you must take daily to stay alive are making it worse.
Imagine that nothing your doctor can give you-not even the strongest
painkillers that leave you feeling dizzy or drugged-helps very much.
That's what Phil and hundreds of thousands of other people with HIV
have had to endure. About one third of people with HIV eventually get
neuropathy.

Neuropathic pain-also experienced by many suffering from multiple
sclerosis, diabetes and other ailments-is notoriously difficult to
treat. Indeed, there are no FDA-approved drugs to treat HIV
neuropathy. None. Zero.

BUT IN THE NEW study, conducted by Dr. Donald Abrams of the University
of California, San Francisco, marijuana clearly helped.

To be sure the effect they were seeing was real, Abrams and colleagues
tested the effects of marijuana against both neuropathy and against a
special type of lab-induced experimental pain. In both cases,
marijuana clearly reduced the pain for most patients. And bear in mind
that most participants were already on other medications for their
pain, and getting little enough relief that they felt the need to
participate in an experimental study.

Phil, who wasn't in the study but who uses marijuana to ease his
neuropathy, says simply, "Marijuana works. It doesn't make the pain go
away completely, but it reduces it to the point where it's bearable."
The White House reaction was as predictable as it was dishonest. David
Murray of the Office of National Drug Control Policy called medical
marijuana "a fraud and a dangerous one." The danger, he claimed, is
because "people who smoke marijuana are subject to bacterial
infections in the lungs." In fact, marijuana's safety in people with
AIDS has already been studied, and no such problems have been found.
Indeed, if such safety concerns were real, Abrams' study would never
have been allowed in the first place.

THE ABRAMS STUDY should be the final nail in the coffin of the U.S.
government's lies about medical marijuana, but it is far from the only
evidence. A study published in the January 2005 issue of the Journal
of Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndromes looked at individuals
experiencing moderate to severe nausea from their anti-HIV drug
cocktails. Those who used marijuana were 3.3 times more likely to
consistently take their medications than those not using marijuana-and
it's well established that better HIV medication adherence means
increased survival.

For patients being treated for the hepatitis C virus (HCV), the
results are even more dramatic, according to a study published last
October in the European Journal of Gastroenterology and Hepatology.
Again, marijuana helped them stay on their anti-HCV drugs-which, like
anti-HIV medicines, cause nausea and other unpleasant side effects.
But unlike HIV, successful HCV treatment can completely clear this
deadly virus from the body. In this study, the marijuana-using
patients were three times more likely to rid themselves of HCV.

There is no doubt: Medical marijuana doesn't just ease suffering. It
literally saves lives. We can be silent no more. The LGBT community
must speak up, and LGBT and HIV/AIDS organizations-some of which have
taken supportive positions on medical marijuana but few of which have
done very much about it-must make this a high priority, now.

Thirty-nine states still give no legal protection to people with AIDS
and other serious illnesses who use medical marijuana with their
doctor's recommendation. And even in the 11 states that do have
medical marijuana laws, that protection remains incomplete because of
the federal ban on medical marijuana. The lives of our brothers and
sisters with AIDS are literally being held hostage to bad,
unscientific laws. To paraphrase the old ACT UP slogan, our silence on
this issue literally equals death.

Bruce Mirken has written about HIV/AIDS for AIDS Treatment News, The
Advocate and other LGBT and HIV/AIDS publications. He now serves as
director of communications for the Marijuana Policy Project, mpp.org.