Two Year Million Dollar
Study Of How Marijuana Affects AIDS Patients
Finally Begun After Five Year Delay
From the San Francisco Chronicle chronletters@sfgate.com
http://www.sfgate.com/chronicle/
May 23, 1998
(Ed. note: First, let me make very clear that I have the highest
regard for Dr. Abrams. Second, when he first proposed this study – over five years
ago – it may have made some sense. Third, who can be against research?
That said, this is really a crock!
Marinol , synthetic THC, is already approved for use by people with AIDS. There are
even FDA approved ads for it in magazines aimed at AIDS patients. Now they are going to
spend two years and a million dollars testing Marinol and a placebo, plus medical
marijuana smoked in specially ventilated hospital rooms, to see if THC interferes with the
liver’s processing of pharmaceuticals?? This is only marginally relevant to the
medical marijuana controversy.
In short, after stalling him for five years, the NIDA narks have side-tracked Abrams
and will just use him to claim that they are "researching" medical marijuana. No
wonder the head of NIDA said that he "loved" this research.
See
The
Scientist Magazine Does A Reverent Interview with the Head of NIDA
Moreover, as described here, this study will also preclude one of the major advantages
of smoked marijuana over Marinol, the ability of the patient to control dosage. Marinol,
being a pill, is all or nothing -- after about an hour’s delay, whereas a joint can
be used as needed for immediate relief. I know people who have used medical marijuana for
the intense nausea of chemotherapy who have only needed a few puffs. On the other hand,
people with the chronic nausea associated with AIDS and/or its medications may require
larger and/or more frequent doses.
Keeping people hospitalized during the use of medical marijuana and setting a daily
dose of three joints is not only uninformative of real world patient needs, it may even be
counterproductive. Unless someone has a compelling need to be in the hospital they should
not be. A major part of any recovery is psychological and this is especially true of AIDS.
In the meantime, will anyone be doing a study to see how people with AIDS are affected by
marijuana prohibition? Will anyone be doing a follow-up on homeless AIDS patients thrown
out of the San Francisco club and onto the streets? Will anyone be studying their nausea
and despair when they run out of marijuana and waste away? In the context of medical
research, a million dollars is nothing, but two years is literally a lifetime.)
Also see
Letter From David
Herrick; In Jail 1 Year; Another Reason Why Something Has To Be Done To Implement Prop 215
STUDY OF HOW POT AFFECTS AIDS PATIENTS
$1 million 2-year trial being conducted in S.F.
David Perlman, Chronicle Science Editor Saturday
May 23, 1998
The first federally funded effort to study the effects of marijuana
on AIDS patients has begun in San Francisco with a two-year $1 million grant from the
National Institutes of Health.
Physicians at San Francisco General Hospital are recruiting 63 patients for the
clinical trial examining how marijuana smoking may influence the immune system and the
levels of AIDS virus in the body. They will also seek to learn whether marijuana
cigarettes are safe for AIDS patients who are being treated with the new protease
inhibitor drugs.
One group of the volunteer patients will be smoking three
rolled marijuana cigarettes a day for 25 days; a second group will receive an oral
tablet containing Marinol, a drug made of tetrahydrocannabinol, or THC, the active
ingredient in marijuana, and the third group will receive a placebo.
The patients will live for the 25 days in specially ventilated rooms at the hospital,
and will be paid $1,000 for participating.
Both THC and the protease inhibitor drugs are broken down in the
liver, so to be eligible the volunteers must be under treatment with either indinavir or
nelfinavir, the two protease inhibitors commonly prescribed to combat HIV, the AIDS virus.
"We know many AIDS patients use marijuana to relieve nausea and loss of appetite
brought on by the disease and its treatments," said Dr. Donald I. Abrams, professor
of medicine at the University of California at San Francisco, and director of the study. "But we don’t know how THC interacts with HIV drug therapies. We
want to see if THC alters the metabolism of protease inhibitors and therefore changes the
concentration of the drug in the blood, either creating a level that is too high,
producing toxicity, or is too low and renders the drugs ineffective."
The study is a combined project of UCSF and the Community Consortium, a group of 200
physicians and other health workers who care for AIDS patients in the Bay Area.
1998 San Francisco Chronicle Page A2
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