MD OUT TO SETTLE POT, EPILEPSY CLAIMS

Seeking Funding For Clinical Trial

EDMONTON - Some local epilepsy sufferers believe marijuana is helping
control their seizures, but their doctor remains to be convinced.

Neurologist Dr. Donald Gross is preparing a proposal for a clinical
trial of marijuana use for epilepsy, to settle the debate once and for
all.

Gross has just completed a survey of 136 epilepsy patients.
One-quarter of them believe marijuana can help, despite lack of
scientific proof.

"Right now I think that patients are struggling with this problem,
clinicians are struggling with this problem, and the politicians are
as well," Gross said Tuesday. "Nobody really has a clear answer."

The federal government has listed epilepsy as one of the conditions
for which it will grant the right to use medicinal marijuana, if a
physician authorizes the use.

Ottawa's move was forced when an Ontario court decision ruled in 2000
that federal marijuana laws violated the charter rights of Terry
Parker, a Toronto man suffering from severe epilepsy who was arrested
for possession by police.

However, federal Health Minister Anne McLellan has emphasized that the
government is not endorsing medicinal marijuana use, because there's
no solid evidence that it works.

Gross's survey found 21 per cent of epilepsy patients had used
marijuana in the last year, triple the rate of use among the general
population. Eight per cent of them were using the drug every second
day, or more often.

Users tend to have more seizures, he said -- either because more
severely-affected people are willing to try marijuana, or because
marijuana causes more seizures.

Two-thirds of users believed the marijuana reduced the severity of
their seizures. And 24 per cent of all the patients had heard that
marijuana was a beneficial treatment.

Yet Gross hasn't written any marijuana prescriptions for his patients
because of the lack of research.

"It's an incredibly chaotic situation," he said, because patients'
enthusiasm is outstripping the evidence.

At the moment, he said, there's some animal research showing marijuana
can reduce seizures, but there's other research that shows it makes
seizures worse.

Now that Health Canada has developed a reliable supply of marijuana,
Gross hopes to do the clinical trial. He's looking for funding for the
trial.