CONFERENCE TO QUESTION MEDICAL CANNABIS

Pregnant women with morning sickness and children with attention deficit
hyperactivity disorder might try taking marijuana, according to experts who
will speak at an international conference in Charlottesville.

Mary Lynn Mathre, president of Patients Out of Time, said it's well known
that marijuana can reduce pain and stimulate appetite, which is helpful for
AIDS patients. But she said people who attend the Third National Clinical
Conference on Cannabis Therapeutics will hear about lesser-known benefits
of the drug.

For example, a California physician will present new research on how
marijuana might help calm children with ADHD. The youngest known cannabis
patient in the United States, who at age 2 was given cannabis to treat
hyperactivity and anxiety, also will speak.

In addition, the dean of the University of Iowa College of Nursing will
discuss how cannabis can provide relief to pregnant women with morning
sickness.

"During pregnancy, many women suffer from extreme morning sickness," Mathre
said. "They experience vomiting and nausea. There have been studies in
Canada and Jamaica showing that pregnant women benefit from therapeutic
cannabis."

Mathre, who is a registered nurse, will talk about the various ways to
ingest medical cannabis, including eye drops, vaporizers, topical salves
and suppositories.

The conference will be held May 20-22 at the Omni Charlottesville Hotel.
It's jointly sponsored by Patients Out of Time and the Office of Continuing
Medical Education at the University of Virginia School of Medicine.

Doctors and experts from all over the world will gather at the event to
discuss the medicinal uses of marijuana.

"When it comes to marijuana, everybody has the impression of people sitting
around getting high and doing wild and crazy things. So it's dismissed,"
said Dr. John Rowlingson, a UVa professor of anesthesiology.

"As a scientist, I can't dismiss the medicinal benefits of marijuana just
because it's an emotional social issue," he said. "This is an opportunity
for scientific people to get together and discuss the scientific elements,
not the emotional ones."

Al Byrne, chief operating officer for Patients Out of Time, says the most
exciting prospect for making cannabis available to the ill is a petition
seeking to have the Drug Enforcement Administration re-classify marijuana.
An update on the petition will be given at the conference.

"A petition was presented to the DEA to take cannabis off the Schedule I
list of drugs in the fall of 2002," Byrne said. "We want it to be listed as
a Schedule III or IV drug so it could be used by the medical community."

"The DEA is in the final process of reviewing the petition," he said. "They
will either pass it on to Health and Human Services for approval or deny it."

The DEA's Web site calls marijuana a "dangerous, addictive drug that poses
significant health threats to users." It further states that marijuana has
no medical value that can't be met more effectively by legal drugs.

But Rowlingson says there's no question that there are patients who would
benefit from cannabis treatment.

"I think there are select people for whom the drugs in marijuana will
work," Rowlingson said. "It's effective for people with glaucoma because it
eases high pressure in the eyes. It also controls nausea after chemotherapy."

He says more studies are needed to figure out which illnesses call for
marijuana treatment and who would benefit most.

"There is going to be a growing lack of interest in prescribing narcotics,"
Rowlingson said. "Narcotics really don't take the pain away, they just
cover up pain. I think for many people, marijuana would have less side
effects and better outcomes."

"We have to make this substance in some way more medically available," he
said. "If someone was in pain and couldn't get Motrin, no one in the world
would put up with that."