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No 'high' from cannabis pain drugs?

BBC Online

Wednesday 05 Jul 2000


Subject: No 'high' from cannabis pain drugs?

Date: Wed, 5 Jul 2000 17:51:47 +0100

Source: BBC Online

http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/health/newsid_819000/819249.stm


Scientists believe they may have found a way for cannabis chemicals to
relieve chronic pain - without the "high" linked with the drug.

The team, based at Imperial College, London, has shown that the active
ingredients of cannabis, called cannabinoids, actually work on the spinal
cord as well as the brain.

Cannabinoid drugs could in theory be developed to target only the spinal
cord, but not the brain.

Dr Andrew Rice, a member of the team, said: "We have achieved the really
important step in terms of divorcing the psychoactive side-effects of
cannabis from their pain-relieving effects.

"In order to develop clinically-useful drugs based on cannabis, it is
important to show that the receptors for cannabinoids are found in the
spinal cord, particularly in the areas concerned with pain processing."
The research was reported on Tuesday in the journal Molecular and Cellular
Neuroscience.

Dr Rice is hopeful that the receptors to cannabinoids on the spinal cord
could be targeted directly.

Opium discovery

This breakthrough mirrors that made in the case of opium-based drugs - or
opioids - in the 1970s.

Opioid receptors were also found in the spinal cord as well as the brain,
leading to the development of epidural pain killers, frequently now used
during childbirth, after operations and for chronic pain.

Cannabinoid receptors might even be better at this job than opioid
receptors, said Dr Rice, as nerve injuries caused the latter to disappear.
One of the few studies currently underway to test the effects of cannabis on
volunteers has found that patients do not have to take much to gain a
therapeutic benefit.

The dose was lower than that needed to "get high".

 

 

 

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