USING POT TO EASE MS SYMPTOMS MAY SLOW MENTAL ACUITY

TORONTO - Some people with multiple sclerosis have turned to street
marijuana in a bid to ease pain and other symptoms of the disabling
neurological disorder, but new research suggests smoking pot may
further harm already vulnerable cognitive abilities.

The study compared mental skills and emotional status of MS patients
who smoked cannabis for symptom relief against others with the disease
who did not use the illicit street drug.

"We found that the individuals who smoked cannabis performed more
poorly on the tests that measured the speed of thinking, speed of
cognition, speed of information processing," said co-investigator Dr.
Anthony Feinstein.

Feinstein, a neuropsychiatrist at Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre in
Toronto, said study subjects who partook of the weed were about 50 per
cent slower on average in cognitive tests than non-marijuana users.

"We also found that the group that smoked cannabis had a higher
lifetime prevalence of psychiatric disorders in general," he said,
referring to depression, anxiety and other mood alterations.

"Now we don't know whether it was the cannabis that led to this
disorder or the disorder was there before they smoked cannabis, so we
couldn't really attribute the direction of that relationship. It was
just an association."

Multiple sclerosis affects an estimated 55,000 to 75,000 Canadians,
the majority of them female. Depending on its severity, MS can cause
vision disturbances, pain, co-ordination problems, muscle stiffness
and spasticity, and partial or complete paralysis. The disorder can
also impair mood and cognitive abilities.

Feinstein said the researchers undertook the study of cannabis, which
is even prescribed by some MS physicians under Canada's Medical
Marijuana Access Regulations, to determine its effects on patients.

To conduct the study, published online Wednesday in the journal
Neurology, they enrolled 140 people with MS, 10 of whom had smoked
marijuana within the previous month and were defined as current users.

The pot smokers were each matched by age, sex, length of time they had
MS, and level of physical and neurological disability with four other
MS patients who did not use the drug. Subjects had a mean age of about
35 and almost three-quarters were female.

The researchers then evaluated the participants for emotional problems
such as depression, anxiety and other psychiatric disorders. They also
tested the participants' thinking skills and memory.

While pot users scored more poorly compared to non-users, Feinstein
conceded the researchers don't know for sure that it was the cannabis
and not the natural progression of MS behind the toking patients'
reduced mental acuity.

Feinstein said that while the researchers are not going to make any
"absolute statements" based on the findings from 10 patients, the
study makes it clear a larger study is needed to see if their findings
can be replicated.

Aprile Royal, a spokeswoman for the MS Society of Canada, said that
despite the study's small size, its findings are significant in that
they deal with an issue of concern to the organization that advocates
for patients -- an area she said needs much more research.

"It's been suggested that it helps things like some of the pain
syndromes, that it helps spasticity, that it helps mood," said Royal,
noting that there is no data on how many Canadians with MS use pot.
"This is all kind of anecdotal information we have out there."