CORPORATE DRUGS USELESS AGAINST ALZHEIMER'S

Eli Lilly, Johnson & Johnson, and AstraZeneca have been making $2
billion a year selling useless pills to Alzheimer's patients
(including almost a million Medicare "beneficiaries"). This is the
bottom line of a study published this week in the New England Journal
of Medicine that evaluated the effectiveness of Seroquel, Risperdal
and Zyprexa, drugs known as "atypical antipsychotics," which are
routinely prescribed to Alzheimer's patients. A group led by Lon
Schneider, MD, at the University of Southern California School of
Medicine found that 80% of Alzheimer's patients they studied stopped
taking the drugs before the trial ended due to ineffectiveness and
side-effects.

The study was funded by the National Institute of Mental Health,
whose director, Thomas R. Insel, commented "We need to come up with
better medications." Indeed -more than 4.5 million Americans have
been diagnosed with Alzheimer's. Its environmental causes remain
unknown (the fake food must factor in) and it is occurring with
increasing frequency.

The rage associated with Alzheimer's is one of the conditions for
which Oregon doctors can authorize cannabis use. Perhaps Dr. Insel
should fund a study of its efficacy there -it's just a matter of
collecting the data.

Paul Armentano of NORML has summarized the recent scientific
literature on cannabinoid therapy for Alzheimer's patients. It looks promising:

. Writing in the February 2005 issue of the Journal of Neuroscience,
investigators at Madrid's Complutense University and the Cajal
Institute in Spain reported that administration of the synthetic
cannabinoid WIN 55,212-2 directly to the brain prevented cognitive
impairment and decreased neurotoxicity in rats injected with
amyloid-beta peptide (a protein believed to induce Alzheimer's).
Other cannabinoids were also found to reduce the inflammation
associated with Alzheimer's disease in human brain tissue in culture.
"Our results indicate that ... cannabinoids succeed in preventing the
neurodegenerative process occurring in the disease," investigators concluded.

. Investigators at The Scripps Research Institute in California have
reported that THC inhibits the enzyme responsible for the aggregation
of amyloid plaque -the primary marker for Alzheimer's disease-in a
manner "considerably superior" to approved drugs such as donepezil and tacrine.

. "Our results provide a mechanism whereby the THC molecule can
directly impact Alzheimer's disease pathology," researchers
concluded. "THC and its analogues may provide an improved therapeutic
[option] for Alzheimer's disease [by]... simultaneously treating both
the symptoms and the progression of [the] disease." Previous
preclinical studies have demonstrated that cannabinoids can prevent
cell death by anti-oxidation. Some experts believe that cannabinoids'
neuroprotective properties could also play a role in moderating Alzhemier's.

. Clinical trials also indicate that cannabinoid therapy can reduce
agitation and stimulate weight gain Alzheimer's patients.
Investigators at Berlin 's Charite Universitatmedizin, Department of
Psychiatry and Psychotherapy have reported that the daily
administration of 2.5 mg of synthetic THC over a two-week period
reduced nocturnal motor activity and agitation in Alzheimer's
patients in an open-label pilot study.

. Clinical data presented at the 2003 annual meeting of the
International Psychogeriatric Association previously reported that
the oral administration of up to 10 mg of synthetic THC reduced
agitation and stimulated weight gain in late-stage Alzheimer's
patients in an open-label clinical trial. Weight gain and a decrease
in negative feelings among Alzheimer's patients administered
cannabinoids had been reported by investigators in the International
Journal of Geriatric Psychiatry in 1997.

The U.S. now has a two-tier system of medical expertise; there are
doctors who have educated themselves about the endocannabinoid system
and the drugs that affect it, and doctors who have not.
Unfortunately, the head of the National Institute of Mental Health is
in the lower tier. A soon-to-be published survey of California
doctors who have approved cannabis use by more than 100,000 patients
asked, among other things, "What drugs has cannabis enabled your
patients to discontinue or use less of?" All the respondents
mentioned atypical antipsychotics. No wonder the pharmaceutical
companies -and the corporations they interconnect with, i.e.
petrochemicals, agribiz, banks- are committed to Prohibition.