STUDY EXAMINES MEDICAL POT USE

80 Per Cent Of Patients Surveyed Willing To Try It

Even though they have a terminal illness, some patients are worried about
the health risks of using medicinal marijuana as a pain relieving drug,
says a recent BC study.

The study, done as part of a grant application to Health Canada, surveyed
60 patients to better understand their feelings about marijuana.

"We wanted to know how people felt about trying it out for pain and
nausea," said Romayne Gallagher, a UBC clinical medicine professor and
author of the study. "People had a lot of concerns about the use of
cannabis and a lot of them centred around actually smoking it."

Although the patients had a short life expectancy, they were concerned
about possible lung damage.

"People didn't really want to smoke it, they'd much prefer a pill or some
kind of liquid form," said Gallagher, adding that patients were also
concerned about endangering the health of those around them by smoking the
drug.

Gallagher also discovered that 80 per cent of patients were willing to try
the drug simply because they needed relief from their symptoms.

"I just found it interesting that people were quite willing to try
something even though they had a lot of worries about it; it just goes to
show you that when people are sick they are pretty vulnerable and are
willing to try just about anything," she said.

Marijuana has been available for medicinal purposes since July of 2001,
when the Marijuana Medical Access Regulations were established by Health
Canada. Approximately 700 people in Canada are now registered in the
program and are legally allowed to possess or grow less than 30g of marijuana.

But Gallagher says Health Canada did not do their homework before making
medicinal marijuana legal.

"The problem with the way Health Canada has gone about doing it is that
they've kind of released it before it's really been tested," she said.

Because it has not been properly tested, groups like the Canadian Medical
Association (CMA) have come out in opposition to the program. Since Health
Canada gives no guidelines on what amounts to prescribe, there is the
possibility of lawsuits against doctors, said Gallagher.

Gallagher does prescribe marijuana and refers patients to the BC Compassion
Club Society. The Compassion Club, established in 1996 in Vancouver by
activist Hilary Black, now has over 2700 terminally ill or chronically ill
members who receive varying amounts of medicinal marijuana.

With only about 70 people legally allowed pot in BC for medicinal uses,
there are a lot of people in the club who haven't gone through Health
Canada's lengthy approval process.

Rielle Capler, a spokesperson for the Club, admits, "We've always existed
in kind of a grey zone...We've always done things in a way that the
government and enforcement feel comfortable with."

The Compassion Club provides its members with safe and clean marijuana but
leaves it up to the patients to determine what amount is right for them.
All the members at the Compassion Club have a doctor's referral and suffer
from illnesses like HIV/AIDS, multiple sclerosis or cancer.

Capler says many come to the Compassion Club because they don't want to buy
drugs off the street or because they don't respond well to conventional
painkillers. "A lot of people who come here are coming here because they
don't get the relief that they want from pharmaceutical drugs and they get
side effects from the pharmaceutical drugs," she said.

Gallagher's study also looked at patients' perceptions of existing painkillers.

"[The study] also points out that they have a lot of worries about the
[painkillers] that we already know are safe, she said.

Marijuana can work very well as a pain reliever, especially for illnesses
that entail spasms, said Gallagher. But she pointed out that marijuana is
not as effective as some of the conventional painkillers.

"I don't see it as a wonderful new painkiller that's going to work for
everybody," said Gallagher. But she also said she would like to see
marijuana as an option for people in pain.

Trials on the effects of medicinal marijuana are currently being done in
the United Kingdom and Gallagher said she will watch with interest to see
if patients really benefit from marijuana.