Marijuana: Medicine or Myth?

 By Patricia Smith

There has been much debate over the legitimacy of marijuana as a therapeutic medicinal treatment.  Advocates swear that it relieves a myriad of symptoms, finding it especially helpful for treating nausea that accompanies chemotherapy, increasing the appetite of AIDS patients, reducing pain for arthritis sufferers, and reducing intraocular eye pressure for people with glaucoma.  Protagonists claim that there are already prescription drugs available that address all these problems adequately and that there is no clinical evidence to support that marijuana is effective.

Medical marijuana (MMJ) is caught in a bureaucratic catch-22.  The FDA must approve all studies before a clinical trials can begin.  Then the DEA must approve the research project before they can receive marijuana from the government run NIDA (New Investigational Drug Agency) farm in Mississippi.  Researchers claim that it is next to impossible to get approvals for their work – unless the intent of the study is to find something harmful with marijuana.  This was verified when a spokesperson for the NIDA told the New York Times that the agency “does not fund research focused on the potential medical benefits of marijuana.”

The U.S. government initiated the Compassionate Care Program in 1978 after being sued by Robert Randall for the right to use marijuana to treat his glaucoma as a medical necessity.  His ophthalmologist prescribed Bob all the prescription drugs that were available to treat his condition, but his eye pressure kept rising.  He was advised that he would be totally blind by the time he was 30.  Quite by accident, Bob discovered that using marijuana eased the pressure in his eyes and eliminated the visual halos caused by his glaucoma.

The day before his trial was set to begin, the government made Bob an offer to supply him with 300 NIDA-supplied marijuana cigarettes each month if he withdrew the suit.  Others sued as well and they were accepted into the program, but not without a lot of red tape.

Irv Rosenfeld displays his monthly supply of marijuana provided by the US Government.

Irvin Rosenfeld was next to get approved after fighting the system for 10 years!!  He has a very rare bone disorder that grows tumors throughout his body.  He wasn’t expected to survive his teenage years; but since using marijuana, his tumors have remained stable and no new ones have appeared.  He has been on the NIDA program for over 25 years now.

Elvy Musikka was the next patient accepted into the program, again for glaucoma.  She tried conventional medicines, but they did not slow down the deterioration of her eyesight.  Her next step was surgery which resulted in total blindness in her right eye.  Marijuana was the only medicine that actually reduced her eye pressure.  Elvy feels that she would be totally blind if it were not for the healing benefits of cannabis.

Once she was approved, her doctor tested her IOP (intraocular eye pressure) before she medicated for the first time with the marijuana that the government supplied her.  Elvy’s IOP registered forty, normal is around fourteen.  After smoking one marijuana cigarette, they waited one hour before retesting her.  Her IOP had dropped to fifteen!

In 1990, George McMahon was approved by the FDA to use marijuana therapy to treat his muscle spasms, pain and nausea caused by a rare hereditary disease known as Nail-Patella Syndrome.  Later that year, two patients, Kenny and Barbara Jenks, were approved for relief of conditions caused by HIV/AIDS.  Kenny was a hemophiliac that contracted the disease through a transfusion and passed it on to his wife.

The HIV/AIDS epidemic was rampant at the time and many patients started applying for the Compassionate Care Program.  The program had been instituted in 1978 under the Carter administration, but it went directly against President Bush’s (the first) War on Drugs.  On March 19, 1992, HHS Secretary Louis Sullivan signed the order to shut down the program.  The thirteen people already in the program would be grandfathered in, but no new patients would be accepted.

To this day, the Federal government’s position is that marijuana is such a dangerous drug that it must remain classified as a Schedule I drug  – meaning that it has a high likelihood of causing dependence and that it has no medicinal value.  It is on the same schedule as heroin and LSD.  Cocaine and morphine are on Schedule II meaning that they are highly restricted, but they have a recognized medicinal value.

Of the many claims made by anti-drug activists, the gateway theory is the most misleading.  If marijuana is truly a gateway to harder drugs, it is an extremely poor one.  It is estimated that upwards to 50,000,000 people smoke marijuana daily in the U.S. alone.  However, there are only an estimated 600,000 people who use cocaine on a daily basis and somewhere between 750,000 – 1,000,000 lifetime heroin addicts in this country.

Claims that a drug is “dangerous” usually mean that it has the potential to be lethal if taken in excessive amounts.  This is certainly truly of heroin and cocaine.  However, not one death has been attributed to a marijuana overdose.  One would have to consume 15 pounds of marijuana in 15 minutes to reach a fatal dose level.  This is physically impossible.  A normal dose is less than .5 grams.  On the other hand 7,200 died from Nsaids last year (like aspirin, tylenol, and ibuprofen) which are sold over the counter.

In 1972, NORML (the National Organization to Reform Marijuana Laws) petitioned the DEA to reschedule marijuana as a Schedule II drug.  They refused to accept the petition until mandated to do so by the U.S. Court of Appeals in 1974.  The DEA still managed to stonewall any efforts to act on the petition until again order by the Court to hold public hearings in 1982.  It took four more years before those hearings were held.  After taking it under advisement for  two additional years, the DEA  judge, Francis Young, came back with the following recommendation: “Marijuana has been accepted as capable of relieving distress of great numbers of very ill people, and doing so safely under medical supervision.  It would be unreasonable, arbitrary and capricious for the DEA to continue to stand between these sufferers and the benefits of this substance in light of the evidence of this record.”  He went on to say “marijuana, in it’s natural form, is one of the safest therapeutically active substances known to mankind.”  He recommended that it be moved to Schedule II so that doctor’s could prescribe it legally to their patients.

The head of the DEA, John Lawn, ignored his own judge’s advice and rejected the petition.  Marijuana still remains a Schedule I drug.  When patients are arrested for simple possession of this life-saving drug, they do not have a medical defense in Federal Court even when using cannabis under the recommendation of their physician so convictions are nearly assured.  Many defendants accept plea bargains in an effort to reduce mandatory sentences of up to 20 years to life.

U.S. Representative, Sam Farr (D-CA), has introduced a bill that would allow patients to enter a medical defense in Federal Court when the patient is using cannabis under a doctor’s supervision and is in compliance with a state’s medical marijuana program.  Nearly 40 health organizations are endorsing the bill including patient advocacy groups, Americans for Safe Access, NORML, National Association for People with AIDS, and reform groups such as Drug Policy Alliance, ACLU, and others.  Patients and supporters can contact their representatives and urge them to support the “Truth in Trials” bill.  Members of the House can be reached at 202-224-3121.