MARIJUANA RESEARCH

The human brain naturally produces and processes compounds closely
related to those found in Cannabis sativa, better known as marijuana
[see "The Brain's Own Marijuana," by Roger A. Nicoll and Bradley E.
Alger.] These compounds are called endogenous cannabinoids or
endocannabinoids. As the journal Nature Medicine put it in 2003, "the
endocannabinoid system has an important role in nearly every paradigm
of pain, in memory, in neurodegeneration and in inflammation." The
journal goes on to note that cannabinoids' "clinical potential is
enormous." That potential may include treatments for pain, nerve
injury, the nausea associated with chemotherapy, the wasting related
to AIDS and more.

Yet outdated regulations and attitudes thwart legitimate research with
marijuana. Indeed, American biomedical researchers can more easily
acquire and investigate cocaine. Marijuana is classified as a
so-called Schedule 1 drug, alongside LSD and heroin. As such, it is
defined as being potentially addictive and having no medical use,
which under the circumstances becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Any researcher attempting to study marijuana must obtain it through
the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA). The U.S. research crop,
grown at a single facility, is regarded as less potent--and therefore
less medicinally interesting--than the marijuana often easily
available on the street. Thus, the legal supply is a poor vehicle for
studying the approximately 60 cannabinoids that might have medical
applications.

This system has unintended, almost comic, consequences. For example,
it has created a market for research marijuana, with "buyers" trading
journal co-authorships to "sellers" who already have a marijuana
stockpile or license. The government may also have a stake in a
certain kind of result. One scientist tells of a research grant
application to study marijuana's potential medical benefits. NIDA
turned it down. That scientist rewrote the grant to emphasize finding
marijuana's negative effects. The study was funded.

Some may argue that researchers do not need to study the drug--after
all, there is Marinol, a synthetic version of marijuana's major active
compound, tetrahydrocannabinol, or THC; it relieves nausea and
stimulates appetite. But patients are often disappointed with Marinol
as compared with marijuana. A 1997 editorial in the New England
Journal of Medicine noted that "it is difficult to titrate the
therapeutic dose of this drug, and it is not widely prescribed. By
contrast, smoking marijuana produces a rapid increase in the blood
level of the active ingredients and is thus more likely to be
therapeutic."

The reasonable course is to make it easier for American researchers to
at least examine marijuana for possible medical benefits. Great
Britain, no slacker in the war on drugs, takes this approach: the
government has authorized a pharmaceutical firm to grow different
strains of marijuana for clinical trials.

This call for marijuana research is not a closet campaign for drug
legalization--easing research barriers would not require that
marijuana be reclassified, nor would it have any bearing on individual
states' decisions to approve limited use of medical marijuana. As a
1995 editorial in the Journal of the American Medical Association
said, "We are not asking readers for immediate agreement with our
affirmation that marijuana is medically useful, but we hope they will
do more to encourage open and legal exploration of its potential."
After almost a decade of little progress, we reiterate that sentiment.