Important note: Information in this article was accurate in 1997. The state of the art may have changed since the publication date.
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United Press International; Wednesday, October 08, 1997 18:17:00
Today's approval comes after several attempts by researchers to secure funding and the government-supplied marijuana required for the study.
Researchers will compare patients who smoke marijuana or take marijuana pills with a control group that takes neither to monitor the interaction between pot and the drugs HIV patients take to bolster their immune systems.
The participants will be taking one of the most commonly prescribed protease inhibitors for the HIV infection, which are metabolized in the liver.
Smoking marijuana or taking Marinol could change the concentration of the protease inhibitor in the blood, either creating a highly toxic level or too low a level and making the protease inhibitor ineffective.
Researchers say they believe there are a number of HIV-infected patients in the Bay area who already use marijuana, so it is "important that we get some answers about the safety of using THC," the active ingredient in marijuana.
The NIH will contribute $1 million to the two-year study, which will begin at the end of 1997 and study 63 patients during a 21-day trial at the San Francisco General Hospital.
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