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A Hit

Or miss. Marijuana as medicine? The legal and religious
controversies keep smoldering.

D.J. BRADLEY SPECIAL TO THE JEWISH NEWS

army Grinspoon lies curled up on Ms
side looking down at a bucket of vom-
it. He has lymphatic leukemia and is
undergoing drug treatments which up-
set his stomach. His parents stand help-
lessly as they watch their 14-year-old
son lean forward toward the pail on the
floor.
Two weeks later: Danny undergoes
the same drug treatment. This time,
he doesn't vomit. In fact, he eats an en-
tire submarine sandwich just hours be-
fore consuming a full dinner.
Conclusion: The drug treatment is
no longer making him sick.
No, says Dr. Lester Grinspoon, an
associate professor of psychiatry at Har-
vard Medical School and an active
leader in the legalization of marijuana
for medicinal purposes.
According to Dr. Grirkspoon, the sick
boy's father, the difference was Dan-
ny's smoking of cannabis, or marijua-
na.
"Before the treatment, my wife had
him smoke marijuana. I saw how com-
fortable Danny was. He did not protest
as he was given the medicine, and when
he got home, he began his usual activ-
ities instead of going straight to
bed. I couldn't believe my
eyes. This was the same
boy who would vomit un-
controllably for eight
hours," Dr. Grinspoon
says.
According to the Na-
tional Institute on Drug
Abuse (NIDA), almost
70 million Americans
older than 12 years of
age have tried marijua-
na at least once in their
lives. More than 5 million
smoke pot at least once a
week.
Still others, like Danny, have relied
on marijuana as a medical alternative
for traditional legal therapeutic relief.
Evidence, which Dr. Grinspoon dis-
cusses in his book, Marijuana: The For-
bidden Medicine, suggests that
smoking cannabis can restore the ap-
petites of AIDS patients; help control
the side effects of chemotherapy, such
as nausea and vomiting; reduce inte-
rocular pressure for glaucoma suffer-
ers; and alleviate painful spastic
seizures for individuals with multiple
sclerosis.
Yet a vast majority of mainstream

medical professionals point to the lack
of co nprehensive scientific research as
a reason to discount the documented
anecdotal data collected by physicians
like Dr. Grinspoon.
He, along with James B Bakalar, re-
cently co-authored an article in the
Journal of the American Medical As-
sociation urging physicians to discuss
the issue of medicinal marijuana open-
ly. They also reprimand opponents for
not admitting that pot can be a safe and
an effective medicine.
wIthe ostensible indifference of physi-
cians should no longer be used as jus-
tification for keeping this medicine in
the shadows," they say.
According to the JAMA article, be-
tween the years 1840 and 1900, Euro-
pean and American medical journals
published more than 100 articles on the
therapeutic use of the drug. However,
the early-20th century marked its de-
cline because dosages were hard to pre-
scribe, and alternatives, like aspirin,
became more readily available.
By 1937, after passage of the Mari-
juana Tax Act, obtaining the herb for
medical purposes was virtually impos-
sibk. Today, the Drug Enforcement
Agency (DEA) lists marijua-
na as a "Schedule I" drug
under the Controlled Sub-
stance Act. This ranks
marijuana with LSD and
heroin, drugs with a high
- potential for abuse.
Schedule I drugs are
considered unsafe for
use under medical su-
pervision and lack an ac-
cepted medical use.
Advocates ask for the op-
portunity to study marijuana
% in a controlled scientific setting.
' They also want the DEA to
downgrade pot to a Schedule II status.
As such, it would be listed with such
drugs as cocaine and morphine, which
have high abuse potential but proven
therapeutic value. The DEA refuses to
do so until scientific, not just anecdotal
proof, is established.
Dr. Donald Abrams, assistant direc-
tor of the AIDS Program of the Uni-
versity of California-San Francisco, has
tried for more than a year to secure a
legal supply of marijuana from the
NID A, the only organization that can
legally distribute samples of the drug
for study.

Above: Dr. Lester Grinspoon taking time
out with his boys (Danny at the far right).

Right
Danny Grinspoon's parents urged him to
smoke marijuana during chemotherapy.
They say it lessened his nausea.

Dr. Abrams had hoped to compare
the safety and effectiveness of
smoked marijuana and THC (delta-
9-tetrahydrocannabinol, the syn-
thetic component of the most active
ingredient of marijuana), in stimu-
lating the appetites of AIDS pa-
tients.
"We are still moving forward,"
says Dr. Abrams, who blames drug
enforcement politics for the long de-
lay.
In another study 10 years earlier,
Dr. Harry Greenberg of the Univer-
sity of Michigan studied how mari-
juana affected the balance of people
with multiple sclerosis, a disease which
causes stiffness in the legs and disin-
tegrates the nerve endings that main-
tain an individual's coordination.
"My conclusion found that people
who smoked the drug actually did
worse when compared to those who did
not smoke marijuana," Dr. Greenberg
says.
But that doesn't stop Renee Emry
from using the herb. In fact, the Ann
Arbor resident was arrested for pos-
session of pot in 1994. Sixteen years
ago, Ms. Emry was diagnosed with
multiple sclerosis. After trying numer-
ous medications, she found that smok-

ing marijuana provides the relief she
needs.
The fines and penalties after her ar-
rest were eventually dropped when a
doctor at the University of Michigan,
who wishes to remain anonymous,
wrote a letter on her behalf stating that
Ms. Emry's use of the drug was for med-
icinal value only.
Today, she still smokes, but no longer
grows or buys it herself
'When I need the drug, I can find it
in my mailbox," she says elusively. "I
don't know how it gets there, but I know

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