SMOKING POT REDUCES PAIN, STUDY SHOWS

Marijuana Better Than Prescriptions, It Says

AIDS patients suffering from debilitating nerve pain got as much or
more relief by smoking marijuana as they would typically get from
prescription drugs -- and with fewer side effects -- according to a
study conducted under rigorously controlled conditions with
government-grown pot.

In a five-day study performed in a specially ventilated hospital ward
where patients smoked three marijuana cigarettes a day, more than half
the participants tallied significant reductions in pain.

Less than one-quarter of those who smoked "placebo" pot, which had its
primary psychoactive ingredients removed, reported benefits, as
measured by subjective pain reports and standardized neurological tests.

The White House belittled the study as "a smoke screen," short on
proof of efficacy and flawed because it did not consider the health
impacts of inhaling smoke.

But other doctors and advocates of marijuana policy reform said the
findings, in today's issue of the journal Neurology, offer powerful
evidence that the Drug Enforcement Administration's classification of
cannabis as having "no currently accepted medical use" is outdated.

"This should be a wake-up call for Congress to hold hearings to
investigate the therapeutic use of cannabis and to encourage more
research," said Barbara T. Roberts, a former interim associate deputy
director in the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy,
now with Americans for Safe Access, which promotes access to marijuana
for therapies and research. Countless anecdotal reports have suggested
that smoking marijuana can help relieve the pain, nausea and muscular
spasticity that often accompany cancer, AIDS, multiple sclerosis and
other ailments. But few well-controlled studies have been conducted.

The new study enrolled 50 AIDS patients with severe foot pain caused
by their disease or by the medicines they take.

Grown on the government's official pot farm in Mississippi, the drug
was about one-quarter the potency of quality street marijuana.