THAT RESEARCH JOINT

Country's Only State-Funded Medical Marijuana Research Wraps Up

Four years after California legalized the use of marijuana for
medical conditions in 1996, the state legislature established and
funded the Center for Marijuana Research housed at the University of
California-San Diego.

Over the next decade, the state provided nearly $8 million, and the
center distributed it to researchers throughout the state who
conducted scientific studies to determine the safety and efficacy of
cannabis as medicine. They recruited patients to smoke cannabis
cigarettes, provided by the National Institute on Drug Abuse, and to
inhale vaporized marijuana. Effects were recorded, measured and the
findings published in academic journals. Some studies included lab
work and animal studies and looked at synthetic cannabis and its
effect on learning and memory. A few studies were discontinued for a
lack of participants - in one case not enough cancer patients could
be found to test cannabis' effectiveness in reducing nausea and
vomiting due to chemotherapy because the current anti-nausea drugs
were working.

In general, the center's studies found that cannabis "is a promising
treatment in selected pain syndromes caused by injury or disease of
the nervous system, and possibly for painful muscle spasticity due to
multiple sclerosis," according to a report sent to the California
legislature earlier this year.

Funding now has run out, and the legislature hasn't re-authorized any
monies for the center, says J. Hampton Atkinson, a co-director. Two
projects will finish by early 2011, and the center will remain as an
informational clearinghouse.

Whether the center will act as a model for other states that are
considering the medical marijuana issue remains to be seen.
"California is the only state to put up a nickel for research,"
Atkinson says. "As far as I know, these have been the only and most
complete studies conducted on the therapeutic aspects of cannabis in
this country ever."

Atkinson talked with Metro Times about some of the research, the
findings and the dynamics of medical marijuana and science.

Metro Times: How did the U.S. government - which doesn't officially
recognize medical or therapeutic uses for marijuana - respond to your
requests for approval for research?

Atkinson: They were always very accommodating. They worked very hard
and were very helpful. They did a good and efficient job.

MT: The Center's work not only dealt with if marijuana is effective
for some medical conditions but what type of delivery - smoking or
vaporizing - the patients used. Tell us about the vaporization
studies, as they're not as well-known.

Atkinson: They're vaporized delivery systems. The actual plant
product is heated to below the point of combustion so the THC is
vaporized. It's collected in a rubber bag and the person inhales the
contents, the vaporized material, without the problem of combustion.
Smoking combusted materials is bad for you and releases all kinds of
. harmful chemicals. This vaporization was an attempt to bypass that
problem and it turns out that in the one study that we have already
completed, the vaporization delivers comparable levels of THC to the
bloodstream as does smoking. It's not perfect - there's a bit of
carbon monoxide generated by this process - but it's much less than
what's generated by lighting up a joint and smoking the material.

MT: Your studies involving the treatment of nausea for chemotherapy
patients was aborted because of a lack of participants. What happened?

Atkinson: Some very talented investigators wanted to study smoked
cannabis for relief of chemotherapy-induced nausea and vomiting in
cancer patients. That was actually one of the target conditions
specified by the Institute of Medicine and the National Institute of
Health in the late 1990s. It turns out that, as of roughly 2005,
2006, a range of very new, very effective compounds to treat
chemotherapy-induced nausea and vomiting had come along. These were
brought to market, they do a very, very good job, and most people got
relief - and so, on the one hand, it was difficult to find people who
didn't respond to the first-line therapy. On the second instance is
the cancer patients ... had to be in a clinical research center
during their participation in the study - that is, a hospital
setting. Cancer patients aren't interested in spending more time in
the hospitals. So that protocol simply didn't accrue as rapidly as anticipated.

MT: Did the center set new protocols and standards for medical
marijuana research?

Atkinson: That's a No. 1 aim. We're at a major research university,
so discovery is the name of the game. There are only three important
things in life: publish, publish and publish. So we've brought all of
the studies that have been completed to presentation or publication.
(They are on the website at cmcr.ucsd.edu) The language we developed
as a mission statement was to be a model resource for collaboration
between federal, state and academic entities. To the extent that
that's reflected in standardization, that was an aim of the center
from the start.

MT: Has the center changed medical marijuana law in California?

Atkinson: We've just taken the position that we've published our
findings. We've distributed them to the state Legislature and we'll
see what the policymakers do about the science, if anything. I don't
know what the impact is.

MT: How much application does the center's work have to the "average"
medical marijuana user, assuming there is one?

Atkinson: We couldn't take these studies and say, "All right, medical
marijuana is wonderful. Go down to your outlet." We had very highly
regulated, standardized product and we knew what we were getting in
each cigarette and that's probably not true on the street.

MT: The center's research is wrapping up because the funding is
running out. What happens now with all your work?

Atkinson: The next step is what the policymakers want to make of the
results, the scientific results. It's a shame that of all the states
that have approved medicinal marijuana haven't been interested in
supporting research into the cannabinoid system. There's a lot to be
learned, and it would be nice if they were to pitch in, but these are
hard times.