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Smokable Marijuana Is a Safe and Effective Medicine for People With AIDS Press Release Marijuana Policy Project Thursday 13 Jul 2000 THE SCIENTIFIC RESULTS ARE IN: Smokable Marijuana Is a Safe and Effective Medicine for People With AIDS DURBAN, SOUTH AFRICA -- Smoking marijuana helps people with AIDS gain weight, without causing adverse virologic effects, according to the results of a study released Thursday at the XIII International AIDS Conference. Dr. Donald Abrams, a world-renowned AIDS researcher at the University of California at San Francisco, has finally completed his study after *six years* of navigating federal obstacles. The study was originally designed as an "efficacy" study to focus on marijuana's medical benefits to people wasting away from AIDS. Because the National Institute on Drug Abuse has a stranglehold on the legal supply of marijuana for research purposes, the federal agency was able to force Dr. Abrams to change his research proposal into a "safety" study, focusing instead on the potential *negative* health effects of marijuana in people with AIDS. "The federal government manipulated the study design to increase the likelihood that the results would reveal that marijuana harms the immune system and doesn't boost the appetite," said Chuck Thomas, director of communications for the Washington, D.C.-based Marijuana Policy Project. "But the government's plan backfired -- smoking marijuana did not cause any immunological problems, while it increased caloric intake and weight gain." THE RESULTS REVEALED GREATER WEIGHT GAIN AMONG THE MARIJUANA- SMOKING PATIENTS THAN THE PLACEBO-USING CONTROL GROUP. "If the federal government would finally allow researchers to focus on marijuana's medical *benefits*, we could get natural marijuana approved by the FDA within a couple of years," said Thomas. "That's what the Clinton administration fears, and that's why they continue to make it more difficult for researchers to study medical marijuana than it is for pharmaceutical companies to study their synthetic compounds." (See http://www.mpp.org/guidelines for more details on the federal government's excessive restrictions on medical marijuana research and the growing coalition of medical groups, members of Congress, researchers, and celebrities who are calling for change.) "There are countless people across the nation smoking marijuana to treat AIDS-related nausea and appetite loss," said MPP's Chuck Thomas. "This study shows that they're not harming themselves or imagining their weight gain, and certainly they should not continue to be subject to arrest and imprisonment." MPP HAS BEEN PRESSURING THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT FOR THE PAST FIVE YEARS TO MAKE IT EASIER TO STUDY MARIJUANA'S MEDICAL BENEFITS. Important coverage about the obstacles facing researchers who want to study medical marijuana appeared in the June 2 issue of "The Chronicle of Higher Education." MPP helped with the two articles ("The Dope on Medical Marijuana" and "Avoiding the Obstacles: Studying AIDS Patients Who Use Their Own Marijuana") and was cited as follows: "The federal government was able to stall progress on the medical-marijuana issue for almost a decade simply by approving the THC pill in 1986," says Chuck Thomas, the director of communications at the Marijuana Policy Project, a Washington- based lobbying organization. The articles are available on-line: http://www.chronicle.com/free/v46/i39/39a02101.htm http://www.chronicle.com/free/v46/i39/39a02201.htm To join the ongoing on-line discussion, please see: http://www.chronicle.com/colloquy/2000/marijuana/marijuana.htm ------------------------- From the Marijuana Policy Project
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