Marijuana Research Funding Cut as Support for Drug Grows

[xchrom]

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-04-15/marijuana-research-funding-cut-as-support-for-drug-grows-health.html

As more states embrace legalized marijuana, the drug’s growing medicinal use has highlighted a disturbing fact for doctors: scant research exists to support marijuana’s health benefits.

Smoked, eaten or brewed as a tea, marijuana has been used as a medication for centuries, including in the U.S., where Eli Lilly & Co. (LLY) sold it until 1915. The drug was declared illegal in 1937, though its long history has provided ample anecdotal evidence of the plant’s potential medicinal use. Still, modern scientific studies are lacking.

What’s more, the federal government is scaling back its research funding. U.S. spending has dropped 31 percent since 2007 when it peaked at $131 million, according to a National Institutes of Health research database. Last year, 235 projects received $91 million of public funds, according to NIH data.

That’s left the medical community in a bind: current literature on the effects of medical cannabis is contradictory at best, providing little guidance for prescribing doctors.

[bemildred]

1. Frankly, I don't need anybody to tell me what it's good for.

I've done my own "research". I know, I know, I don't have permission from my betters in government, but they don't have mine either. And I doubt you need the advice of a doctor about it either. One thing which is perfectly clear is that if cannabis does something medically harmful to you (as opposed to turning you into a puddle of warm goo), it is sooooo subtle that the Drug War(tm) people have been unable to find it in 80 years.

To be fair, I think there is a lot of varietal phamacology of cannabis which deserves study, different varieties have quite different effects.

[green for victory]

2. Here's a bunch of research already done...that led to a Federal Patent on use of the main ingredient

6630507-- just take a peek at the footnotes

Oakland Attorney Cedric Chao gets it:

Cedric Chao, a lawyer for the city, cited a 2003 patent application (*That was awarded!-gfv) by the U.S. government that said cannabis compounds are "useful in the treatment and prophylaxis (prevention) of a wide variety of oxidation-associated diseases," including certain types of strokes and immune-system disorders.

Chao quoted another patent application, by two government scientists in 2009, that referred to the "healing properties of Cannabis sativa," or marijuana, that have been "known throughout documented history."

"How can the government credibly deny the benefits of medical cannabis when the government itself is funding cutting-edge research proving the medical benefits of cannabis and seeking patents based on such research?" Chao wrote.
http://www.sfgate.com/default/article/Oakland-cites-surprise-medical-pot-backer-4113767.php

[eShirl]

3. I wish more people understood what she explains in this part: (FDA Dilemma)

Marijuana advocates point out inherent obstacles to conducting research: the National Institute on Drug Abuse controls all the cannabis used in approved trials, but the agency’s mandate is to study abuse of drugs, not health benefits.

FDA Dilemma

This creates dilemmas. The Food and Drug Administration, for instance, has approved a clinical trial studying whether marijuana can relieve symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder. The trial, however, which is in the second of three stages of clinical testing, is blocked. NIDA, which controls the legal testing supply of the drug grown at a University of Mississippi farm, has refused to supply the researchers with marijuana.

“NIDA is under a mandate from Congress to find problems with marijuana,” said Bob Melamede, CEO of Cannabis Science Inc. (CBIS), a Colorado Springs, Colorado-based company that develops medicines derived from marijuana. “If you want to run a study to show it cures cancer, they will not provide you with marijuana,” he said. “What you cannot do are the clinical studies that are necessary.”

Attempts to expand licensed facilities beyond the University of Mississippi farm, have been denied, including a petition from University of Massachusetts agronomist Lyle Craker. The Drug Enforcement Administration denied that request in 2011, reversing a 2007 recommendation from its own administrative law judge, Mary Ellen Bittner.

[eShirl]

4. kick!

[Dreamer Tatum]

5. I don't see why we can't reach a consensus on the drug

Well, actually, I do:

It seems clear that MJ has HUGE health benefits, but I think that those get obscured by two equally ass-ignorant factions:

Faction A: Don't want it legalized because I pretty much don't like anything a hippie would like, and sticking a
burning weed in your mouth and inhaling the smoke into your lungs can't be good for you. It makes you stupid and
shiftless and might even turn you into a heroin addict.

Faction B: How DARE anyone question the OBVIOUS benefits of MJ. Why, I've smoked it for 1000 years and have
never even had the sniffles! We don't need any tests or studies! They've already been DONE, and in any case
alcohol is MUCH worse!