From: jkp@cs.HUT.FI (Jyrki Kuoppala) Newsgroups: alt.drugs Subject: Re: dronabinol (Bush on THC) Message-ID: <1991Nov4.003229.18928@nntp.hut.fi> Date: 4 Nov 91 00:32:29 GMT In article <9971@spdcc.SPDCC.COM>, dyer@spdcc (Steve Dyer) writes: >No doctor in hir right mind is going to prescribe a C-II drug for any >purpose other that one which is generally accepted by the medical profession, >and glaucoma isn't such an indication. That's a simple fact. A quote from the July 6-12, 1991 issue of the Economist, reproduced without permission (thanks to Gary Condon for posting this earlier): Drugs can be medicinal or recreational: marijuana is both. For nearly 20 years advocates of its medicinal use- to relieve the nausea of chemotherapy, to treat glaucoma and to help AIDS patients gain weight- have fought in the American courts to have the drug reclassified so that doctors can prescribe it. Currently marijuana is grouped with the most disapproved of drugs, such as LSD and heroin. The government argues it must remain so because it has no "currently accepted medical use in treatment". A new study by researchers at Harvard refutes this. Mainly because of its effectiveness in treating the vomiting common among cancer patients during chemotherapy, tetrahydrocannibinol (THC), the main psychoactive ingredient in marijuana, was approved for medical use in America in 1985. A synthetic form of THC is sold in pill form under the trade name Marinol; last year almost 100,000 doses were prescribed. Smokable marijuana, however, is available to just 34 people through a "compassionate use" programme. To the confusion of many a police officer, these patients are given a supply of marijuana cigarettes rolled by government hands at a research farm in Mississippi. Proponents claim that smoking marijuana works better than taking oral THC. In 1988 Francis Young, a judge who examines administrative issues for the Drug Enforcement Agency, recommended that marijuana be reclassified on the ground that "current acceptance" of a drug is present if a "respectable minority" of doctors endorse it. The administration disagreed, claiming that the vast majority of doctors believe oral THC is as reliable and effective as smokable marijuana and produces fewer side-effects. Enter Rick Doblin and Mark Kleiman, two drug-policy researchers at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government. To test the administrations thesis, they conducted a random survey of members of the American Society of Clinical Oncology. Some 1,035 responded, about 10% of America's oncologists. The results, published in the July 1st issue of the Journal of Clinical Oncology, surprised even Mr. Doblin and Mr. Kleiman; nearly half of the respondents said they would prescribe smokable marijuana if it were legal. Indeed 44% of them said they had, in effect, done so already by recommending it to one or more of their patients, despite the possibility of prosecution. Nearly two-thirds of the oncologists agreed that marijuana was an effective anti-emetic, while 77% of the 157 who expressed a preference said that smokable marijuana is more effective than oral THC. A majority said that marijuana was no worse than Marinol in terms of producing bad side-effects. ============================================================================= From: Jim Rosenfield Newsgroups: talk.politics.drugs Date: 23 Oct 93 11:32 PDT Subject: Docs report MJ Recommendatns Message-ID: <1484000379@cdp> From: Jim Rosenfield Subject: Docs report MJ Recommendatns From vicka@wrq.com Thu Oct 7 16:32:32 1993 From: the Littlest Orc Organization: Walker Richer & Quinn, Inc., Seattle, WA AU Doblin-R-E. Kleiman-M-A. IN Kennedy School of Government, Cambridge, MA 02138. TI Marijuana as antiemetic medicine: a survey of oncologists' experiences and attitudes [see comments] CM Comment in: J-Clin-Oncol. 1991 Nov. 9(11). P 2079-80. SO J-Clin-Oncol. 1991 Jul. 9(7). P 1314-9. LG eng. PT journal-article. AB A random-sample, anonymous survey of the members of the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) was conducted in spring 1990 measuring the attitudes and experiences of American oncologists concerning the antiemetic use of marijuana in cancer chemotherapy patients. The survey was mailed to about one third (N = 2,430) of all United States-based ASCO members and yielded a response rate of 43% (1,035). More than 44% of the respondents report recommending the (illegal) use of marijuana for the control of emesis to at least one cancer chemotherapy patient. Almost one half (48%) would prescribe marijuana to some of their patients if it were legal. As a group, respondents considered smoked marijuana to be somewhat more effective than the legally available oral synthetic dronabinol ([THC] Marinol; Unimed, Somerville, NJ) and roughly as safe. Of the respondents who expressed an opinion, a majority (54%) thought marijuana should be available by prescription. These results bear on the question of whether marijuana has a "currently accepted medical use," at issue in an ongoing administrative and legal dispute concerning whether marijuana in smoked form should be available by prescription along with synthetic THC in oral form. This survey demonstrates that oncologists' experience with the medical use of marijuana is more extensive, and their opinions of it are more favorable, than the regulatory authorities appear to have believed. MJ ANTIEMETICS: tu. ANTINEOPLASTIC-AGENTS: ae. ATTITUDE-OF-HEALTH-PERSONNEL. CANNABIS. MEDICAL-ONCOLOGY. NAUSEA: pc. NEOPLASMS: dt. VOMITING: pc. MN HUMAN. NAUSEA: ci. QUESTIONNAIRES. RANDOM-ALLOCATION. UNITED-STATES. VOMITING: ci. RN 0 Antiemetics. 0 Antineoplastic-Agents.