Looking For The Perfect Bogus Joint

Researchers have been given the green light to go ahead with clinical
trials of medicinal marijuana but must first overcome a pungent problem:
perfecting a bogus joint.

Health Canada will "spend several million dollars" funding clinical trials
and longer-term research on the therapeutic value of smoking pot, Health
Minister Allan Rock announced Wednesday. The clinical trials, said a
government release, are to involve 250 patients in a "double-blind,
randomized design."

Double-blind tests require giving one test group the real goods and another
a placebo, or fake, to determine the drug's effectiveness.

"If we want to do a scientifically rigorous study it has to be a
double-blind placebo control trial," said James Austin, a researcher with
the Community Research Initiative of Toronto.

"There are ways of coming up with a placebo marijuana cigarette. One of the
suggestions from some clinician scientists is that we should develop a
placebo and then pilot test it before we do a major study. That's something
we're considering."

Both the Community Research Initiative of Toronto and the Vancouver-based
Canadian HIV Trials Network will handle clinical studies comparing smoked
cannabis with a pill containing the synthetic version of the weed's active
ingredient, THC.

Both organizations work with HIV-positive or AIDS patients. Pot may relieve
the wasting effects of these illnesses -- or the drugs used to combat them
- -- by suppressing nausea and stimulating appetite.

Health Canada notes that despite research by the Netherlands, Britain, the
United States and the World Health Organization, "evidence of potential
therapeutic effectiveness of marijuana is heavily anecdotal and inconclusive."

Double-blind testing is "the standard that all other new therapies are
measured against," said Austin, and that's why past research on pot has
been inconclusive.

But Austin recognizes the problems inherent in creating a perfect fake joint.

"We may have to use the bigger clinical trial for people who are just
naive," he said.

Despite the medical conundrum, another 14 Canadians were officially granted
federal exemptions Wednesday to use pot for medical purposes under Section
56 of the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act. Two others were given
exemptions by Rock in June.

The Health Canada release suggests there may be room for some leniency in
prosecuting those who supply marijuana to people with medical exemptions.

The department also announced it has a business plan in place providing
"all the necessary details with respect to the potential establishment of a
legal and reliable source of affordable, quality, standardized marijuana
products to meet Canada's needs."

Initially, pot for the clinical trials will be bought from U.S. and British
companies but a Canadian source is Health Canada's ultimate goal. Public
Works may eventually put out tenders for suppliers.

But the idea of using confiscated marijuana for clinical trials won't fly,
Health Canada said.

On the downside for those with exemptions, Health Canada announced
Wednesday they could be revoked once trials get underway early next year.

"The applications of patients who had received an exemption will be
revisited in order to determine whether or not they could now be enrolled
in a clinical trial and the Section 56 exemption revoked," said Health
Canada.