DEA APPROVES COUNTY MEDICAL MARIJUANA STUDY

San Mateo County announced last Wednesday that the U.S. Department of
Justice and Drug Enforcement Administration had approved the first "real
world" medical marijuana study at its hospitals and clinics.

The yearlong study, scheduled to begin early next year, will test the
hypothesis that marijuana reduces pain and nausea and increases the
appetites of those suffering from HIV, cancer and other conditions.

Because of the federal and state approvals, the study is not expected to be
impacted by an expected Supreme Court decision on whether marijuana can be
prescribed for medical treatment, as currently permitted in California,
despite a federal law prohibiting its use and distribution. The court is
hearing arguments on the issue this week.

The idea for the San Mateo County study began in 1997, according to San
Mateo County Supervisor Mike Nevin, a year after California voters passed
Proposition 215, the medical marijuana initiative. The law exempts patients
who possess or cultivate marijuana and also physicians who recommend the use
of marijuana for medical treatment.

Although he doesn't believe in the legalization of marijuana for
recreational use, Nevin said that the experience of a friend who was dying
from cancer and undergoing chemotherapy got him interested in its value as a
medical treatment.

But Nevin said this and other anecdotal medical marijuana stories weren't
enough to confirm the effectiveness of the drug as medicine. That's why he
and other board members lent their unanimous support, as well as funds, to
the county administered study, which is the first study in the nation to use
AIDS patients in a public clinic setting.

"I'm very proud of the county. I think we are a very progressive county,"
Nevin said. "We are out there directly dealing with the lives of the people,
and in this case it's the lives of those people who are suffering.

"If we didn't make this available," Nevin added, "it would be a crime."

The idea behind the pilot study designed by Dr. Dennis Israelski, chief of
infectious disease and AIDS medicine and chief research officer at San Mateo
County Hospitals and Clinics, is to set up the framework for future
scientific studies that can test the medical basis of the anecdotal stories.

"As a physical scientific type, I need evidence and anecdotes don't count as
evidence," he said.

Although somewhat skeptical about medical benefits of marijuana, he said
after hearing testimony from the AIDS patients he has worked with for the
past decade, he is excited about the possibilities opened up by the DEA
approval.

"We were able to push the envelope," Israelski said.

In the county study, 60 AIDS patients who have had experience with marijuana
will be given controlled doses of the drug, grown at the University of
Mississippi, for six weeks. The study will be monitored by patient reports,
home visits and medication logs, and requires patients to return prescribed
medical marijuana cigarette butts at each clinic visit.

However, the study will not try to prove the effectiveness of the drug,
according to Israelski. To do this, he would need a much larger group to
gather statistically sound evidence of its effects on patients.

Instead, the study will focus on the feasibility of successful
self-administered, smoked medical marijuana programs.

While the scope of the pilot program is limited, Israelski said he hopes the
study will set the ground for studies that ultimately may lead to the change
in federal classification of the drug, which is now classified as having no
known medical benefits. This would make it possible for doctors to legally
prescribe marijuana under federal law. He also hopes that the study could
lift some stigma around medical marijuana that to date has prevented many
private companies from taking the lead in medical marijuana research.

"This study is really about people and taking care of people better,"
Israelski said. "It's about compassion."