Important note: Information in this article was accurate in 1999. The state of the art may have changed since the publication date.
The Bay Area Reporter - Thursday, May 20, 1999
Liz Highleyman
Abrams is chairman and principal investigator of the Community Consortium, a local community-based HIV/AIDS clinical trials group, assistant director of the AIDS Program at San Francisco General Hospital (SFGH), and professor of clinical medicine at the University of California, San Francisco. He received a $1 million grant to conduct the study from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) in October 1997, after years of seeking federal approval to conduct such a trial.
Abrams's earlier attempts to study medical marijuana were stymied, first by the NIH and then by the Drug Enforcement Administration, which refused to allow access to government-grown cannabis, the only officially approved source of marijuana for research purposes.
The trial -- which is still recruiting participants -- is designed to study the safety of using medicinal cannabis along with protease inhibitors, antiviral medications that are part of the drug "cocktail" used by an increasing number of people with HIV/AIDS. Marijuana and the protease inhibitors are metabolized by the same liver enzymes, and Abrams and colleagues hope to determine whether using the substances together will result in any adverse reactions or drug interactions. The trial is also looking at the effectiveness of medical marijuana in promoting weight gain in people with AIDS-related wasting, as well as the drug's effects on the immune system.
Participants in the study are housed for 25 nights at SFGH. They are selected by chance to receive smoked marijuana, Marinol pills (an oral drug that contains THC, one of the active ingredients in marijuana), or a placebo pill. Due to space limitations, only three or four people can participate at a time; the study is expected to last for two years, with a total of about 60 subjects.
Tuesday's forum, sponsored by the Lindesmith Center, will begin at 5 p.m. and will include a review of the medical uses of marijuana and the differences between smoked marijuana and oral THC pills. Abrams will also describe the long and arduous process he went through to gain approval for the current study.
Abrams will speak at the San Francisco Medical Society offices, located at 1409 Sutter Street (near Franklin). Call (415) 921-4987 to reserve a space. Those interested in Abrams's study can call (415) 502-5705 for further information and eligibility requirements.
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