Marijuana

[Birdbomb]

http://www.fda.gov/bbs/topics/NEWS/2006/NEW01362.html

FDA Statement

Inter-Agency Advisory Regarding Claims That Smoked Marijuana Is a Medicine

Claims have been advanced asserting smoked marijuana has a value in treating various medical conditions. Some have argued that herbal marijuana is a safe and effective medication and that it should be made available to people who suffer from a number of ailments upon a doctor's recommendation, even though it is not an approved drug.

Marijuana is listed in schedule I of the Controlled Substances Act (CSA), the most restrictive schedule. The Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), which administers the CSA, continues to support that placement and FDA concurred because marijuana met the three criteria for placement in Schedule I under 21 U.S.C. 812(b)(1) (e.g., marijuana has a high potential for abuse, has no currently accepted medical use in treatment in the United States, and has a lack of accepted safety for use under medical supervision). Furthermore, there is currently sound evidence that smoked marijuana is harmful. A past evaluation by several Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) agencies, including the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) and National Institute for Drug Abuse (NIDA), concluded that no sound scientific studies supported medical use of marijuana for treatment in the United States, and no animal or human data supported the safety or efficacy of marijuana for general medical use. There are alternative FDA-approved medications in existence for treatment of many of the proposed uses of smoked marijuana.

FDA is the sole Federal agency that approves drug products as safe and effective for intended indications. The Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic (FD&C) Act requires that new drugs be shown to be safe and effective for their intended use before being marketed in this country. FDA's drug approval process requires well-controlled clinical trials that provide the necessary scientific data upon which FDA makes its approval and labeling decisions. If a drug product is to be marketed, disciplined, systematic, scientifically conducted trials are the best means to obtain data to ensure that drug is safe and effective when used as indicated. Efforts that seek to bypass the FDA drug approval process would not serve the interests of public health because they might expose patients to unsafe and ineffective drug products. FDA has not approved smoked marijuana for any condition or disease indication.

A growing number of states have passed voter referenda (or legislative actions) making smoked marijuana available for a variety of medical conditions upon a doctor's recommendation. These measures are inconsistent with efforts to ensure that medications undergo the rigorous scientific scrutiny of the FDA approval process and are proven safe and effective under the standards of the FD&C Act. Accordingly, FDA, as the federal agency responsible for reviewing the safety and efficacy of drugs, DEA as the federal agency charged with enforcing the CSA, and the Office of National Drug Control Policy, as the federal coordinator of drug control policy, do not support the use of smoked marijuana for medical purposes.

[ellgee]

And liver and kidney problems to other FDA approved drugs aren't considered 'HARMFUL"

[Birdbomb]

What a contradictory load of crap that FDA statement is.

Do these guys really believe this? More likely the big pharma wouldn't make a profit from it, just the US government. Right now there are only like 5 people left in the country who recieve medical marijuana from the US Gov. None have been added to the list in over 20 years. They are just waitng for these last few to die off.

Read an interesting article about that just last month. If I can find it, I'll post the link.

In the meantime, read this one....


http://www.cbc.ca/news/background/ma...marijuana.html

[Birdbomb]

Found it!

It is an episode Season 2: "War on Drugs"
of "Bullshit!", a.k.a. "Penn & Teller: Bullshit!"

http://www.sho.com/site/ptbs/prevepi...isodeid=s2/war

If you can rent this video I highly recommend it.

[Bernard]

Marijuana Compound May Intensify Epileptic Seizures

Tuesday, August 10, 2004 - Researchers with the University of Saskatchewan's new Neural Systems and Plasticity Group have found that although a component of marijuana suppresses grand-mal type epileptic seizures in rats, it may intensify the severity of the most common seizures -- those starting in the temporal lobes of the brain.

Epilepsy is conventionally treated with anticonvulsant drugs that can cause nausea, headaches, hair loss, swollen gums, impotence, depression, liver failure, and in some extreme cases, psychosis.

Some epileptics who can't tolerate these medications use marijuana or cannabinoids (synthetic forms of THC -- the psychoactive ingredient of cannabis) to control seizures -- with no previously identified side effects.


But initial findings from a U of S study suggest that in some cases, cannabinoids may do more harm than good.

With funding from the Canadian Institutes of Health Research and the Saskatchewan Health Research Foundation (SHRF), group leader Michael Corcoran is using rats to study the effects of a new generation of cannabinoid drugs on "kindling" -- a small electrical stimulus in the brain that triggers a burst of epileptic-like activity that eventually generates seizures.

Discovered in Canada by Graham Goddard at McGill University in the 1960s, kindling works in a way similar to epilepsy and is one of the best models for studying temporal lobe seizures.

"The brain is caught in a constant tug of war maintaining a balance between factors that excite electrical activity and those that restrict it," says Corcoran. So to protect itself, it relies on built-in systems that act as firewalls, limiting the spread of electrical activity.

During a seizure, the firewalls crash and electrical discharges spread in abnormal patterns to groups of neighboring cells, causing a storm of intense synchronized electrical activity that can manifest itself as convulsions. After two seizures, a person is diagnosed with epilepsy.

Kindling is a simulation of that same kind of electrical firestorm. To induce kindling, Corcoran's team applies a low current (about 20 microamperes or one one-millionth of an amp) to a specific site in a rat's brain for about 120 milliseconds. With repetition, the electrical discharge spreads from cell to cell and the brain is permanently changed in a way that resembles epilepsy's electrical activity.

In Corcoran's study, kindling gets worse when the rats are given compounds that act at the same cellular receptor as THC.

He thinks that may mean the cannabinoid compounds increase epileptic seizures by reducing inhibition in the brain and drastically increasing excitatory electrical activity, but more research needs to be done before he can explain exactly what's happening when epileptic mechanisms affect brain function.

The neural systems group is composed of 13 researchers from the U of S departments of psychology, physiology, biology, neurosurgery, mechanical engineering, neurology, pharmacy, nutrition and dietetics, kinesiology and veterinary biomedical sciences. There are also more than 45 post-doctoral fellows and graduate students with the group, as well as more than 10 undergraduates and summer students.

Corcoran's kindling study is only one of a number of innovative neuroscience projects the group has been undertaking for some time.

The group is also one of five new U of S human health research groups established through a funding partnership between SHRF (www.shrf.ca) and Saskatchewan universities. The funding program encourages health researchers from a variety of disciplines to form research groups, thereby increasing U of S research intensity.

Marijuana Compound May Intensify Epileptic Seizures - Research at the University of Saskatchewan

[Birdbomb]

Damned if you, damned if you don't.

During the last Epilepsy comference I attended, someone in the audience asked about marijuana. The neurologists were from Stanford University, very impressive credentials, blah, blah, blah... Their reply was, "There was one very bad side effect from using marijuana, jail time."






Snakes on a plane. :wink:

[Bernard]

Here's an Op-Ep piece regarding the FDA statement BB started this thread with:

The FDA statement was not preceded by any new studies or surveys of the literature, it was simply posted on the agency’s Web site. It represents a willful determination to ignore science to buttress the harmful policy of marijuana prohibition. Politics over science. Sad.

http*//www.themonitor.com/SiteProcessor.cfm?Template=/GlobalTemplates/Details.cfm&StoryID=12878&Section=Opinion

(Drug Debate: FDA denies medical value of marijuana)

Editorial Responses to the FDA's April 20, 2006 Press Release Regarding Medical Marijuana <-- contains snippets of several newspaper op-eds

[Bernard]

The same brain machinery that responds to the active substance in marijuana provides a central "on-demand" protection against seizures, researchers have found. They said their discoveries suggest that the "endocannabinoid" system might constitute a prime target for drugs against seizures of epilepsy and other neurodegenerative diseases.

The endocannabinoid system controls key epileptogenic circuits in the hippocampus

[Terry Parker Jr.]

Most disgraceful that the government is using propaganda research
to condemn marijuana for the treatment of epilepsy. The medical profession condemns marijuana based upon the synthetic cannabinoid psycho-active property tetrahydrocannabinol delta nine (THC-9) which is noted for paradoxal results, for seizure disorder.
Another property in marijuana is Cannabidiol, (CBD) which has been found to be 90% effective for temporal lobe epilepsy.
There is no excuse to condemn marijuana, when CBD compensates for THC's paradoxal effect.
Due to the PARKER decision, marijuana is legal in Canada. Yet there is on-going court proceedings, when our medical profession will not sign the
Medical Marijuana Access Regulations forms, who require marijuana for medical necessity.
Those who want to survive epilepsy, are best to vote for the Marijuana party in the next federal election.
A joint in front me, is better than a unauthorized lobotomy
Yours,
Terry Parker
www.cyberclass.net/turmel/timeline.htm
www.geocities.com/terryparkerjr/

[flashbakx]

Marijuana is by far the best medicine I had taken before i had my surgery. I had complex partial seizures. When i had my auras i would have it and not once did I black out. It gave me my life back. I could go out and not live in fear that i may hurt some one as I used to go violent for some reason when i was unconscious. I would recommend it to anyone with complex partial seizures if surgery is not an option.

[Bernard]

Hi flashbakx, thanks for sharing your experience. How often did you smoke it to control your seizures?

[flashbakx]

I smoked it when ever I got my aura before i went unconscious. My neurologist was fine with it. It never let me down once. I stopped blacking out for a whole month.

[Bernard]

This just came across the news wire. Is this really new? I posted a link to an article on this subject a year ago!

Discovery of novel nerve cell modulator offers potential for mood disorders, epilepsy treatments

Study shows link between gut protein and brain's natural marijuana-like compounds

Irvine, Calif. — The discovery of a novel molecular switch that powerfully modulates nerve cell activity offers the potential for new mood disorder and epilepsy treatments, University of California, Irvine researchers report.

The researchers looked at the role of the natural substance cholecystokinin (CCK) in modulating communication between cells in the brain. CCK, originally isolated from the digestive tract, is one of the most abundant small proteins, or peptides, in the brain, and it is linked to psychiatric disorders such as anxiety, depression, and schizophrenia.

The study appears as an Advanced Online Publication in Nature Neuroscience.

Using sophisticated electrophysiological measurements, the UC Irvine team showed that CCK functions in the brain as an extremely specific switch with a highly unusual, dual action. On the one hand, CCK enhances the synthesis and release of natural marijuana-like (endocannabinoid) substances from a particular class of nerve cells known to modulate neuronal excitability in brain circuits critical for cognition and mood. On the other hand, CCK robustly increases electrical activity in a different class of nerve cells that play critical roles in learning and memory.

“These results reveal a new mechanism for CCK to regulate nerve cell activity in a highly specific manner,” said Csaba Foldy, postdoctoral researcher in anatomy and neurobiology and lead author of the study.

The study looked at the hippocampus, the region of the brain involved in learning, memory and emotion. Damage or alterations to the hippocampus can cause cognitive disorders, epilepsy, and mental illness.

“By linking CCK actions to endocannabinoids, the study provides novel possibilities for the future development of therapies for a number of neurological diseases,” said Ivan Soltesz, professor and chair of the Department of Anatomy and Neurobiology and senior author of the study. “Cannabinoid compounds are interesting because they act through special receptors on nerve cells to modulate these cells’ behavior.”

“This discovery offers the potential for new drug therapies because the link between CCK and cannabinoids can now be further investigated to determine how its modulation by either pharmacological or genetic means alters excitability in the hippocampus,” he added.

~~~

Contact: Tom Vasich
tmvasich@uci.edu
949-824-6455
University of California - Irvine

[brain]

No it's not new, it's been going around circles,
almost like they can't make up their own minds,
heck, it's been going on for years.

But they're always finding stuff with that stuff,
and yet - my question is:

IT IS FEDERALLY ILLEGAL TO OBTAIN THAT STUFF
SO EXACTLY WHERE ARE THEY GETTING IT?

[brain]

Damned if you, damned if you don't.

During the last Epilepsy comference I attended, someone in the audience asked about marijuana. The neurologists were from Stanford University, very impressive credentials, blah, blah, blah... Their reply was, "There was one very bad side effect from using marijuana, jail time."

EXACTLY!!!
And down here you can loose your house
too if they keep catching you use it!

So what option is a person with Epilepsy is
supposed to do if they (or a person with Cancer
or in Terminal Stages, etc) is supposed to do
when it's working for them???

[POSITIVEPERSON]

In Oregon its ok to use ,but the feds can bust you. This week a man was arrested for growing plants for 45 pple ,even though the state ok'd his garden and he had a license for growing . There is a huge fight now between the state and the feds . But here you can also get a pill to die if you have a fatal disease. Time will tell how this is going to develop , the pple are for are hoping to override the feds and than go cross country lobbying state by state license to grow and smoke for medical reasons.

Riva

[RanMan]

I don't have any research or anything like that to back up my statement but based on my own opinion only ~ Since my seizures are 95% under control with my anti-epileptic drug's, my side affects are massive. Believe it or not, Marijuana totally makes the side affects go away.

No more mood swings, more aware of my surroundings, much better co-ordination and dexterity and gait ( that's hard to believe eh) to name a few.
Randy

[POSITIVEPERSON]

Thats wonderful Randy , I am glad you found something to help with your side effects. I sure hope your using home grown verses the street marijuana. I say this because home grown is chemical free .

Riva

[Birdbomb]

I don't have any research or anything like that to back up my statement but based on my own opinion only ~ Since my seizures are 95% under control with my AED's, my side affects are massive. Believe it or not, Marijuana totally makes the side affects go away.

No more mood swings, more aware of my surroundings, much better co-ordination and dexterity and gait ( that's hard to believe eh) to name a few.
Randy

Actually no that's not hard to believe. The doctors did discuss the use of MJ and all of them agreed it was benificial to those suffering with epilepsy. As Randy states, it eleminated the side effects from the medications, and many individuals had a lot less seizure activity. But because of legal ramifications, they really couldn't suggest their patients indulge in illgeal drugs, even if they did help!

IMHO I believe what you do in your own home is no one's business but yours. The government needs to get the hell out our homes.

[brain]

So what's the objection here?

How

HIGH

we can go??