PATIENTS MAY GET POT FOR STUDY

Initial OK From Regulators For AIDS Program

PENINSULA -- A plan by San Mateo County health officials to give marijuana
to AIDS patients as part of a controlled study has won tentative approval
from federal regulators.

San Mateo County officials said they see no substantial hurdles to beginning
one of the nation's few studies of the effects of medical marijuana.

County health officials proposed the study after the 1996 passage of
Proposition 215, the medical marijuana initiative. The study is seen as both
a way to find out once and for all whether marijuana relieves pain and
promotes appetite as well as proponents claim, and to discover if patients
can follow a strict regimen and control access to the drug.

If it proves effective, County Supervisor Mike Nevin said, the goal is to
distribute marijuana to people with diseases such as cancer and glaucoma,
chronic pain and other ailments.

The conditional approval came from a panel of Department of Health and Human
Services scientists who reviewed a request for ``research grade'' marijuana.
County officials must strictly monitor the doses and the recipients of the
marijuana to meet the government's conditions.

``With this approval, I think we can be distributing medical marijuana to
people who need it within a few months,'' Nevin said. ``We can do everything
they've asked of us.''

Nevin, a former San Francisco police officer, has been a leader in the
county's efforts to study therapeutic effects of marijuana for people with
chronic diseases.

When approved, San Mateo County plans to distribute research-grade marijuana
supplied by the federal government to 60 patients to relieve HIV-Associated
Distal Symmetric Poly Neuropathy. Dennis Israelski, chief of infectious
diseases and AIDS medicine at the San Mateo County Health Center, would lead
the research effort.

According to a letter to Israelski, federal officials are ``concerned
primarily about issues of safety, size of doses, and diversion potential of
take-home marijuana.''

To safeguard against the misuse of the drug, federal officials recommend
providing patients with a maximum of five marijuana cigarettes per visit and
obtaining frequent reports about the effects.

Other suggestions include ways to ensure the marijuana is used properly and
that it does not fall into the wrong hands.

They want the county to establish a ``safety monitoring board'' to oversee
any issues that arise.

If Health and Human Services review committee approves the additional safety
steps, ``the committee will then issue a formal approval for the provision
of research-grade marijuana for use in your study,'' federal officials wrote
Israelski.

The county would also need approval from the Drug Enforcement Agency and the
Food and Drug Administration before the study could proceed, but Nevin said
he is optimistic the county will receive their endorsement to begin the
study.