Source: Albuquerque Journal

Author: Steve Jenison, M.D.

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

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.