UC ESTABLISHES NEW CANNABIS RESEARCH CENTER

The University of California last week announced the establishment of a new
research center to study the safety and efficacy of medicinal marijuana.

The Center for Medical Cannabis Research (CMCR) will be a collaborative
project of the University of California at San Francisco and the University
of California at San Diego, and will be housed at UCSD.

Dr. Igor Grant, a professor of psychiatry at UCSD and director of UCSD's HIV
Neurobehavioral Research Center will serve as the CMCR's director.
Co-directors include Dr. J. Hampton Atkinson, UCSD professor of psychiatry;
Dr. Andrew Mattison, USCD associate professor of psychiatry and family and
clinical medicine; and Dr. Donald Abrams, UCSF professor of medicine. Abrams
recently presented research at the 13th International Conference on AIDS in
Durban, South Africa, that showed that medicinal cannabis can be used
without detrimental effects in people taking combination antiretroviral
therapy for HIV disease.

The CMCR was granted $3 million worth of state funding for its first year of
operations, and will coordinate medical cannabis research conducted at
universities and centers throughout California. The funding is the outcome
of SB847, a state bill sponsored by state Senator John Vasconcellos (D-Santa
Clara) and signed into law by Governor Gray Davis last October. The law
calls for a three-year program of medical research to "enhance understanding
of the efficacy and adverse effects of marijuana as a pharmacological
agent." The CMCR will begin soliciting competitive grant applications this
fall, which will be reviewed by an independent national scientific review
panel. Studies may begin as early as January 2001.

Data from CMCR studies will be used to develop guidelines for appropriate
medical use of marijuana. A recent report by the National Academy of
Science's Institute of Medicine called for further study of the use of
medical cannabis for various medical conditions including HIV, cancer, and
multiple sclerosis. According to Vasconcellos - perhaps too optimistically
in light of last month's Supreme Court ruling against buyer's clubs that
distribute medical marijuana - "The politics of medical marijuana are behind
us as we begin the important work of researching the safety and efficacy of
medical marijuana. Now … the issue of medical marijuana is properly in the
hands of physicians and researchers."