Washington Blade - February 23, 2007
Ryan Lee

Over the years, Dodson has been prescribed countless drugs that her body rejects, and the medicines she is able to take come with unbearable side effects, or "sometimes just put me in a stupor," Dodson said. One of the main medicines Dodson credits with not only keeping her alive, but providing her an acceptable quality of life, is illegal: marijuana.

"Without being able to ingest cannabis in a smoked form there's times that there's no way I can keep my medications down," Dodson said. "It controls my pain and it allows me to function."

Dodson was one of 50 HIV-positive individuals who participated in a University of California at San Francisco study that found patients who smoked marijuana were twice as likely to find relief from HIV-associated sensory neuropathy - a painful and debilitating condition that can cause a numbing, stinging or burning sensation, usually in a person's feet.

The UCSF study was published in the Feb. 13 issue of the journal Neurology, and sparked calls for the federal government to reexamine its blanket prohibition of marijuana - calls that federal drug officials flatly reject.

"The UCSF study validates what doctors and patients have already known for years," said Thomas Kujawski, deputy director of development for the National Association of People With AIDS. "The bottom line is that individuals living with HIV and AIDS deserve access to medication that supports their highest quality of life [and] research on medical cannabis is a fundamental step toward that goal."

But David Murray, chief scientist at the Office of National Drug Control Policy, countered that the risks of smoking marijuana outweigh any potential benefits, including for people with HIV.

"People who smoke marijuana are subject to bacterial infections in the lungs," Murray told the Associated Press. "Is this really what a physician who is treating someone with a compromised immune system wants to prescribe?"

The U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency categorizes marijuana alongside drugs such as heroin and LSD as a Schedule I drug, meaning it has no medicinal value, but a likelihood of becoming addictive.

Since 1996, 11 states have passed "effective" medical marijuana laws that allow at least some degree of access despite the federal prohibition, according to the Marijuana Policy Project, a lobbying group that supports medicinal use of the drug.

'Wake-up call'?

Participants in the UCSF study were split into two groups, with individuals in one group smoking three marijuana cigarettes per day for five days, while the people in the other group smoked an equal number of placebo cigarettes.

Marijuana cut the daily pain experienced by patients in the first group by an average of 34 percent, compared to an average of 17 percent for the placebo group, according to the study, which is being heralded as the most solid scientific evidence of marijuana's medicinal effectiveness.

Barbara Roberts spent 10 years working for the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy, but is now convinced the government's position on marijuana is both illogical and uncompassionate.

"We really see [the UCSF study] as a wake-up call for Congress to hold hearings to investigate the therapeutic use and encourage further research [of medical marijuana]," said Roberts, who is now the director of medical and scientific affairs at Americans for Safe Access, a group that advocates medicinal marijuana.

A pill form of marijuana known as Marinol is legal and sometimes used to treat people living with HIV/AIDS, but does not provide the full therapeutic value of smoked cannabis, said Steph Sherer, executive director of Americans for Safe Access.

"Marinol is made of one compound - THC - [whereas there are] multiple compounds found in the plant," Shere said. "And so, what [researchers] believe this shows is it's not just the THC that helps with neuropathic pain, it's a combination of those compounds."

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