MARIJUANA: MONKEY SEE, MONKEY DO

Monkeys repeatedly dosed themselves with the main active ingredient of
marijuana in a new federal study. The researchers say that result
emphasizes the idea that people can get hooked on pot and provides a new
way to test therapies.

Lab animals will actively dose themselves with most drugs abused by people,
but marijuana has been an exception, said researcher Steven Goldberg of the
National Institute on Drug Abuse, called NIDA.

Some people might interpret that as suggesting it has little potential for
addiction, he said. But the new work found that squirrel monkeys repeatedly
pushed a lever to get injections of the marijuana ingredient THC, Goldberg
and colleagues report in the November issue of the journal Nature Neuroscience.

The animals pushed the lever about as much as other monkeys did to get
cocaine, but Goldberg said that does not necessarily mean marijuana is as
addictive as cocaine in people.

NIDA says marijuana causes compulsive and often uncontrollable craving and
use, despite health and social consequences, and is therefore addictive.

Not everybody agrees.

"This drug is not addicting. Clinical experience says that," said Lester
Grinspoon, a Harvard Medical School emeritus professor of psychiatry.

The monkey study doesn't prove otherwise, said Grinspoon, who is chairman
of the board of the NORML Foundation, which promotes medical use of
marijuana and ultimately its legalization.