MEDICINAL CANNABIS HELPS

The Compassionate Use of Medical Cannabis bill (Senate Bill 8)
currently being considered by the Legislature would provide relief
from suffering for certain people with cancer, AIDS, multiple
sclerosis (MS) and spinal cord injury by allowing them to use
marijuana as a medicine.

Physical suffering is a horrible thing to experience. It is
unpleasant also to watch someone you love suffer for months or years
with intractable nausea, unremitting pain or uncontrollable violent
muscle spasms that result from debilitating or terminal illnesses.
Fortunately, prescription medicines often control these symptoms, and
the quality of these medications continues to improve.

Unfortunately, there are always people who fail to respond to
available prescription medications or who experience intolerable side
effects. In some highly specific situations, people have found that
smoking small amounts of marijuana can bring relief when prescription
medications have not.

Available scientific data support the possibility that they may be
correct. Many people who receive potent cancer chemotherapy have said
that they can get through it more easily if they smoke a little
marijuana, maybe in addition to the prescription anti-nausea drugs
that their physicians prescribe. I have heard the wife of a man with
spinal cord injury say that one puff off a marijuana cigarette
controls her husband's violent leg spasms to where he can sleep
through the night. I've taken care of AIDS patients wasted away to
skin and bone who were able to gain weight because marijuana
controlled their nausea and made them hungry again. I believe these
people when they say that their suffering has been relieved by
smoking a little marijuana, and I think that they should be protected
from the possibility of arrest and prosecution on drug charges.

SB 8, introduced by Sen. Roman Maes, D-Santa Fe, would establish a
medical cannabis program administered by the Department of Health and
overseen by an advisory board of physicians nominated by the New
Mexico Medical Society. People with specific medical conditions
(cancer, AIDS, glaucoma, MS and spinal cord injury) would be eligible
to apply. Their personal physician would be required to attest in
writing that the patient has the specific serious medical condition,
that appropriate prescription medications have been tried and have
failed to provide relief, and that the potential risks and benefits
of medical cannabis have been thoroughly discussed.

New Mexico physicians would not prescribe marijuana to patients
because the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency prohibits that. No pharmacy
or "cannabis buyers' clubs" would provide marijuana to patients
because a recent U.S. Supreme Court decision (United States v.
Oakland Cannabis Buyers' Cooperative) prohibits that. A New Mexico
medical cannabis program would simply protect people with serious
medical conditions from arrest and prosecution on drug charges for
the possession of small amounts of marijuana for their medical use,
and it would do nothing more than that.

It is argued that there are insufficient scientific data to warrant
making cannabis more readily available as a medicine. But one form of
marijuana is already available by prescription, demonstrating that
physicians and the federal government have recognized indications for
the use of marijuana-derived medicines. The U.S. Food and Drug
Administration (FDA) has licensed an oral pill called Marinol which
is delta-9-tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) purified from marijuana plants,
dissolved in sesame oil and put into capsules. Physicians prescribe
Marinol to stimulate appetite among people with terminal AIDS and to
act as an anti-nauseant and anti-emetic (to suppress vomiting) in
people undergoing cancer chemotherapy.

Some people who find no relief from Marinol respond well to smoking
small amounts of marijuana. In some cases, this is because people who
are nauseated and vomiting do not tolerate swallowing pills. Between
1978 and 1986, the University of New Mexico Medical School conducted
studies of smoked (inhaled) marijuana versus Marinol among patient
receiving cancer chemotherapy under the Lynn Pierson Therapeutic
Program enacted by the New Mexico Legislature in 1978. Quoting from
their report to the Legislature: "Results acquired under the State of
New Mexico's Controlled Substances Therapeutic Research Act indicate
that oral THC (Marinol) and inhaled cannabis are both effective as
anti-emetics and anti-nauseants. The efficacy of the inhaled form is
superior to the oral form (Marinol), but this difference is
statistically significant for vomiting only. This may be due
partially or wholly to the tendency of the capsules to be
regurgitated during chemotherapy, or to the sesame oil vehicle
failing to consistently dissipate in the gastrointestinal tract, thus
preventing optimal absorption."

So, more and better marijuana-derived medications should be
developed, but it is likely to be years before they are available.
Meanwhile, let's protect people who know that their physical
suffering is relieved by smoking small amounts of marijuana from the
possibility of arrest and prosecution on drug charges.

What's the message we send to our children if we pass Senate Bill 8?
I think it's that we care enough about our fellow citizens who are
sick, dying and suffering to make the clear distinction between
marijuana as a medicine and marijuana as a recreational drug.

Dr. Steven A. Jenison is the administrator of the Infectious Diseases
Bureau of the New Mexico Department of Health.