Southeast
Asians oust
Indochinese
refugees
Wonttnuedfrom Page 9
BUT THE THAIS' greatest anger is
directed at the Vietnamese. Military
Chief of Staff Sen. Saiyud Kerdphol
described the exodus of Chinese from
Vietnam and Cambodia as a "racist
expulsion that resembles those of the
Nazis during World War II."
The refugees say Hanoi has per-
secuted and intimidated Chinese for the
past two years. The plight of ethnic
Chinese in Vietnam was one cause for
the current hostility between China and
Vietnam.
Southeast Asian officials also cite
security as a reason for barring future
Indochinese refugee
terntory. Already fearfi
military muscle-flexing
refugees are a conveni
communist infiltrators
insurgencies in such
Thailand and Malaysia.
AND OFFICIALS sa
manpower, money, and
needed to take care of t
become intolerable.
What has particul
Southeast Asian official
relations with Vietna
evidence that Hanoi has
goal "refugee program
The Michigan Daily-Friday, June 15, 1979-Page 11
s from their This, according to refugees and
ranking authorities in the region,
ul of Vietnam's allegedly includes getting rid of anti-
, many say the communists who cannot adjust to the
ent conduit for new system, emptying Indochina of its
who might fuel 2 million-plus ethnic Chinese, and
countries as filling official coffers by extracting
"exit fees" from the refugees.
y the drain on SOME OFFICIALS in the region
other resources claim Hanoi is purposely creating
he refugees has strains in Southeast Asia in order to
throw the region off balance and
arly angered facilitate eventual Vietnames
s and worsened domination.
m is growing Hanoi has agreed to a U.N.-assisted
forged a multi- program of direct emigration from
'of its own. Vietnam to other nations,
Senate may approve pot
as cancer, glaucoma drug
Bly ADRIENNE LYONS
Marijuana may be used as a
therapeutic drug to treat patients suf-
fering from the effects of cancer
chemotherapy and glaucoma although
it is still illicit, according to resear-
chers. However, the drug's legal status
may soon change if the state Senate ap-
proves a bill which would establish a
research program in Michigan to study
the uses of marijuana.
According to Dr. Charles Koller, an
oncologist at University Hospital,
"Nothing else works quite as well as
this drug (in the prevention of side ef-
fects of cancer chemotherapy treat-
ments."
DR. BARNETT Rosenberg, a
Michigan State University bio-
physicist, said patients receiving
chemotherapy generally experience
severe nausea and vomiting. According
to Rosenberg, this occurs because the
blood carries the drug to a certain por-
tion of the brain which reacts to the
substance as if it were a harmful
chemical consumed by the patient.
Doctors can only speculate how
marijuana helps, Rosenberg cautioned.
"The marijuana blocks the sites (por-
tions of the brain) or desensitizes these
areas," Rosenberg said. "Some people
suggest marijuana makes you so high,
you don't care if you are nauseous."
Rosenberg, however, said he disagrees
with this claim.
In the treatment of glaucoma, a
disease in which intra-ocular pressure
is increased, marijuana "dilates veins
in the eye," said Roger Winthrop, state
coordinator for the National
Organization for the Reform of
Marijuana Laws (NORML).
"Glaucoma isn't curable or reversible.
If left undiagnosed or untreated, it can
lead to blindness," Winthrop said.
IF THE BILL is passed, doctors will
obtain the marijuana from a federal
farm in Mississippi which -grows
marijuana legally for research pur-
poses. Currently 12 other states have
legalized marijuana for therapeutic
use.
The Senate Health and Social Ser-
vices Committee, chaired by Sen. Ed-
ward Pierce (D-Ann Arbor), sent the
bill to the Senate floor Tuesday. A vote
is expected soon from the Senate,,
"perhaps even Monday," said Pier-
ce's aide Terry Redford. Michigan's
program would be modeled after one in
New Mexico, and would be run by the
State Public Health Department.
Discoveries of the use of marijuana in
arresting glaucoma first occurred in
1971 at UCLA, Winthrop, said. The
discovery became public in 1974.
WINTHROP CITED the case of one
man arrested for cultivating his own
marijuana crop. UCLA tested him and
his sight stabilized from taking
marijuana. "He should be blind," Win-
throp said.
The use of marijuana as an antidote
to chemotherapy's side effects was
discovered in a patient being treated
for testicular cancer with cis-platinum,
a drug Rosenberg said normally causes
nausea in 100 per cent of its users.
Rosenberg said the man told the doc-
tors the reason he never felt ill after the
treatment was because he was smoking
marijuana.
Rosenberg cautioned that marijuana
does not work for all paitents, but reac-
tions to chemotherapy, especially cis-
platinum, "have been so severe, that
some patients have been refusing
treatment."
IN TREATING a victim of glaucoma
or chemotherapy side effects, experts
agreed that smoking marijuana seems
to work better than taking the drug in
the form of capsules or injections,
although both currently are being
developed. "It's better, or more stable
(when) controlled in smoking form,"
Winthrop said. "Marijuana is not water
soluble, and blood is mostly water."
Problems have arisen in treatment of
persons who are antagonistic toward
marijuana smokers, or persons who
have never smoked it, Rosenberg said.
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