MEDICAL-MARIJUANA ADVOCATES MEET

Researchers at conference in Charlottesville are talking about new
developments.

Still being studied: a "pot patch" that would deliver the active
ingredients in marijuana through a skin patch for patients who are
prescribed medical marijuana.

Also in development: alternative delivery methods for therapeutic
marijuana, such as a marijuana vaporizer and a marijuana-based spray
squirted under the tongue.

None has made it to the market and that, medical-marijuana advocates
say, is a tragedy for patients who could benefit from the medically
proven, pain-dulling and appetite-increasing effects of cannabis.

"Our hope is that . . . public-health and health-care officials are
made aware of the science and, once they understand the science,
realize there is no excuse for it being prohibited," said Mary Lynn
Mathre.

She is a nurse and president and co-founder of Patients Out of Time,
one of the sponsors of the third National Clinical Conference on
Cannabis Therapeutics being held in Charlottesville yesterday and today.

On the other side of the argument is the federal government, which
classifies marijuana as an illegal drug and advises that marijuana's
active ingredient, THC (delta-9-tetrahydrocannabinol), is "up to no
good in the brain," creates learning and memory problems, makes
driving dangerous and can lead to lung cancer.

Marijuana, called pot, reefer, ganja and weed on the street, is the
most commonly used illicit drug in the United States, according to the
National Institutes of Health.

Federal law prohibits marijuana from being used or sold but, in nine
states as of the end of last year, including California, it can be
prescribed for medical uses.

Some cancer patients say it helps reduce nausea caused by chemotherapy
treatments, for instance. Some multiple-sclerosis patients say it
helps control painful muscle spasms. A court case in California is
challenging the federal government's efforts to prosecute patients who
use marijuana for prescribed medical purposes.

Medical-marijuana advocates say the herb has medicinal properties that
synthetic drugs created to mimic the herb's active ingredients do not
have.

Mathre said about 150 people have signed up to attend the conference,
fewer than she hoped.

"I think it's still the stigma," she said. "People are afraid of being
associated with it. That is a big challenge."

Researchers, including the University of Kentucky pharmacist working
on the transdermal patch, are scheduled to talk about new
developments.

"New research is going to be discussed in its use to limit damage from
traumatic brain injury," Mathre said. "Some other new clinical data is
going to be discussed in its use in [attention-deficit disorder], mood
disorders and other behavioral and mental-health issues."

Dr. Billy Martin, a Virginia Commonwealth University professor and
pharmacologist who has studied cannabis for years, gave a presentation
yesterday about the risk of dependence.

"Almost any drug that makes people feel good is going to produce
dependence," he said in an earlier interview. "I think it's become
much clearer in the last five to 10 years that marijuana does produce
dependence . . . certainly not the intensity which develops to
cocaine, heroin and things like that."

Martin said research on cannabis in the past decade has helped uncover
the neurological systems that marijuana affects. That, in turn, has
led to the development of animal models to study the drug's effects.

Spinoff research is looking at drugs, called cannabinoid antagonists,
that act on the same pleasure or dependence pathways affected by
marijuana's active ingredients. One of those drugs, Martin said, is
being developed as a treatment for obesity and smoking.

"We have this compound when you give it to people, it causes weight
loss and helps people quit smoking," he said.

"The discovery of this . . . biological system that marijuana acts on
has really caused an explosion in research."