ALBANY COLLEGE OF PHARMACY TO STUDY MARIJUANA 'PATCH' FOR CANCER VICTIMS

ALBANY - People with cancer sickened by chemotherapy someday may have
something new to ease their pain - a marijuana patch similar to the
nicotine patches used to help smokers quit.

The first step toward that happened Thursday at Albany College of Pharmacy,
where a researcher received a $361,000 grant from the American Cancer
Society for a three-year study of whether a marijuana patch can work.

To find out, Dr. Audra Stinchcomb will use human skin salvaged from "tummy
tuck" operations to see if the active ingredients in marijuana - believed
to help control nausea, vomiting and other chemotherapy side effects, and
ease chronic cancer pain - can pass from a patch, through the skin and into
the bloodstream.

Similar patches are already used for nicotine, painkillers, estrogen (in
treating menopause) and seasickness medication.

But even if lab tests on a marijuana patch are successful, animal and human
tests would still need to be done. It would be a decade before such a patch
could be commercially available, said Stinchcomb.

This is the first time that the American Cancer Society has funded a
marijuana-related project. "We see this as an issue of helping patients
suffering from unnecessary pain," said Don Distasio, chief operating
officer of the American Cancer Society's Eastern Division. "Some people may
not approve of it, but we are going to stick to our guns on what this is
about."

However, added Distasio, "There is no way that the American Cancer Society
supports the legalization and smoking of marijuana."

A 1999 government report confirmed what some cancer patients believe - that
the active ingredients in marijuana can ease side effects of chemotherapy.

The report by the National Institute of Medicine also agreed that smoking
marijuana was more effective than the only current legal method throughout
the U.S. - a pill sold under the brand name Marinol.

Stinchcomb said a marijuana patch would be better the pill, because people
who suffer nausea can have trouble keeping down pills long enough for them
to work. And smoking marijuana doesn't yield a standard, controllable dose,
and can cause health problems.

"Smoking provides a high immediate dose . . . which some patients say makes
them drowsy, dizzy . . . or gives them a high," said Stinchcomb. Smoking
marijuana for medical reasons is illegal under federal law, and while some
states have approved its use, doctors are unable to prescribe it.

A patch, on the other hand, could be legal, and give a continuous, steady
dose that could last over several days. "It could be painless to apply and
convenient to use," she said.

Research into a marijuana patch began in the 1970s, but faded away, said
Janet Joy, coordinator of the 1999 federal National Institute of Medicine
study of medical marijuana.

"This has barely gotten any attention. This area is new," she said.

The main area of research now into an alternative way to deliver marijuana
to patients is focused on inhalers, like the kind used by people with
asthma and other breathing problems, she said.

A patch might have an easier path to federal approval, since it would be
harder than an inhaler for patients to abuse in order to get high, said
Joy.

However, she added, a marijuana patch would deliver the drug slower than
smoking or an inhaler would. That could be a problem for sick people who
want quick relief.

The government report also found that smoking marijuana can increase the
risk of cancer, lung damage and, when used by pregnant women, can lead to
low-birth weight babies.

There is already some preliminary evidence that marijuana can be absorbed
through the skin, said Dr. John Benson, a member of the panel that helped
write the federal report and a retired professor from the Oregon Health
Sciences University School of Medicine in Portland.

Some patients suffering arthritis reported pain relief after rubbing an
oil-based lotion containing marijuana onto their joints, said Benson.