DOCS FOR DOPE

Ohio Senate Considers New Medical Marijuana Legislation Backed by Doctors

Marijuana is a medicine. Not many doctors are willing to make that
kind of statement publicly, especially when U.S. Drug Enforcement
Administration raids result in the jailing of physicians, terminally
ill patients and statelicensed marijuana growers in states where the
medicinal use of marijuana is permitted by law.

But Richard J. Wyderski, a physician at Miami Valley Hospital in
Dayton, believes the benefits of the herbal therapy far outweigh the
risks of pushing for legalization. In this case he's publicly backing
Senate Bill 343, most commonly referred to as the Ohio Medical
Compassion Act sponsored by Sen. Tom Roberts (D-Dayton).

"I provided testimony to the Senate Judiciary Committee," Wyderski
says. "I talked about the historical aspects of marijuana - it was a
medicine back in the 1800s and early 1900s - and the regulatory stuff
that happened that led to it no longer being used medicinally even
though it was on the U.S. pharmacopoeia until the early 1940s.

Patients who have chronic, debilitating conditions do benefit and
should have access to medical marijuana to be able to use it in a
safe manner under medical supervision unadulterated by other
substances that might be supplied if they obtain it illegally."

SB 343 is similar to the medical marijuana legislation proposed by
State Sen. Robert F. Hagan (D- Youngstown) in 2005 (see "Toking the
Cure," Issue of March 2, 2005). That law never received a hearing,
but the new bill was the subject of expert testimony in November.

The bill would create a "registry identification" card for
individuals who use medical marijuana for specific medical
conditions. Those with a diagnosis that fits the definition of
"debilitating medical condition" outlined in the legislation would be
able to apply for the card and use marijuana under the supervision of
a licensed medical doctor.

Those conditions include cancer, positive status for HIV, AIDS,
hepatitis C, Krohn's disease, Alzheimer's, multiple sclerosis, spinal
cord injuries and other chronic pain syndromes.

The Institute of Medicine report reviewed all the scientific evidence
of the effectiveness of marijuana used as a medication for a variety
of conditions," Wyderski says. "Muscle spastisity for multiple
sclerosis is one of the most commonly used examples, but there's
evidence it works for nausea - cancer patients who have nausea with
chemotherapy."

Under SB 343, the doctor would not actually prescribe marijuana or
even supply the patient with the medicine. She would be able to
advise the individual of the benefits and risks, recommend dosage,
monitor reactions and provide the required diagnosis for patient
registry. The patient, doctor, primary caregiver and individuals who
work at sites that cultivate medical marijuana would all be protected
from arrest and prosecution under state law.

That's important, Wyderski says, because it begins to differentiate
between drug use and drug abuse. In his case, he received a verbal
reprimand from his own hospital for treating patients who were
self-medicating with marijuana.

I was the medical director for our outpatient clinic here in Miami
Valley, and we had a lot of patients who used marijuana for pain
control, to alleviate anxiety symptoms and so forth, and they were
seen as bad drug abusers by our nursing staff and the administration
of our clinic," he explains. "Even though I didn't have a lot of
heartburn about it, literally they would dismiss people from the
clinic. I was called out because I was allowing them to use marijuana
and also prescribing other medications they needed despite the fact
that they were 'drug abusers.

In our policy if anybody is using an 'illicit drug,' marijuana being
one of them, we cannot prescribe another controlled substance for
that same individual. So I'm practicing bad medicine because I
prescribe controlled substances for people that are using illegal drugs."

Wyderski says that mixing the use of different drugs can cause
dangerous side effects. Prescribing a "controlled substance" like
codeine - a powerful painkiller - to someone taking heroin would be a
bad idea, which is why his clinic requires drug screening before
prescriptions are written. Disregarding the relative safety of
marijuana as a medicine and putting it on par with drugs like heroine
or cocaine keep a legitimate drug out of reach.

The FDA came out with a statement in 2006 that, despite the
scientific evidence of its effectiveness, marijuana's ineffective,"
Wyderski says. "So I don't have any hope that the FDA would ever
approve marijuana for prescriptive use by physicians.

There's a lot of marijuana research that's missing in part because
it's so hard to do research on the medical marijuana. There are very,
very few comparative studies with other drugs that are available that
are FDA-approved. In some cases there have been head-to-head trials
where other drugs are more effective than marijuana, which is also
important information to know. It's not just that marijuana is
ineffective, just that other medications sometimes are more effective."

The U.S. Supreme Court's refusal to hear a case let stand a lower
court ruling that a doctor is allowed to discuss the benefits and
risks of marijuana, so Ohio doctors are allowed to discuss this
medical option. But when it comes to pain management and quality of
life for terminally ill people, doctors need more freedom and protection.

Using unregulated herbal therapies as his example, Wyderski makes his
case for passage of SD 343.

We already have people using all kind of herbal therapies for all
kinds of other things, and herbal therapies are not regulated by the
FDA," he says. "We have black cohosh for menopausal symptoms. People
use ginco biloba thinking it might help their memory.

(Marijuana) is a special plant because of abuse potential, and it
probably should be controlled in some way. I think SB 343 reasonably
puts into place those kinds of controls while at the same time
allowing individuals to have access to a plant that does have
medicinal value. It sets parameters where that substance use is
supervised by a clinician."