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#1
02-12-2007, 07:24 PM
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Unprecedented SF study finds pot helps ease pain
[ QUOTE ]
Unprecedented SF study finds pot helps ease pain Sabin Russell, Chronicle Medical Writer Monday, February 12, 2007 (02-12) 12:59 PST SAN FRANCISCO -- Doctors at San Francisco General Hospital reported today that HIV-infected patients suffering from a painful nerve condition in their hands or feet obtained substantial relief by smoking small amounts of marijuana in a carefully constructed study funded by the State of California. Although the study itself was small, it is the first of its kind to measure the therapeutic effects of marijuana smoking while meeting the most rigorous requirements for scientific proof -- a so-called randomized, double-blinded placebo-controlled trial. As such, the results of the trial are being hailed by medical marijuana advocates as the most solid proof to date that smoking the herb can be beneficial to patients who might otherwise require opiates or other powerful painkillers to cope with a condition known as peripheral neuropathy. Federal agencies oppose the use of marijuana for medical purposes on the grounds that it is harmful and that there is no scientific evidence to support medical use of marijuana for treatment in the United States. "It's time to wake up and smell the data,'' said Bruce Mirken, spokesman for the Marijuana Policy Project, a group advocating legalization of medicinal use of the drug. "The claim that the government keeps making that marijuana is not a safe or effective medicine doesn't have a leg to stand on.'' The study found that most volunteers who were given three marijuana cigarettes a day experienced a significant drop in the searing pain of peripheral neuropathy, which patients liken to a stabbing or burning sensation, usually on the bottoms of their feet. On average, the participants in the experiment reported at the start that their pain was roughly at midpoint on a 100 point scale, where zero was no pain at all and 100 was "the worst pain imaginable.'' At least half the volunteers who smoked the active marijuana experienced a 72 percent reduction in pain after smoking their first cigarette on the first day of the trial. Over the course of five days, the median reduction in pain reported by the marijuana smokers was 34 percent, compared to 17 percent reported by those who smoked placebo cigarettes that had the active ingredient THC removed in a process akin to decaffeinating coffee. "This is evidence, using the gold standard for clinical research, that cannabis has some medicinal benefits for a condition that can be severely debilitating,'' said Dr. Donald Abrams, lead author of the study released today by the journal Neurology. The trial was conducted over a two-year period during which 50 volunteers each spent a week at a secured laboratory at San Francisco General. After a two-day orientation period, during which they stopped smoking marijuana they may have been using, they were given one cigarette three times a day. Half of the volunteers received marijuana containing about 3.5 percent of THC, the active ingredient of the drug; the other half received the placebo. Abrams said that the placebo cigarettes looked and smelled identical to the ones containing active ingredients Because of the unusual nature of the experiment, Abrams first had to receive clearance from eight different government agencies, including the University of California, the federal Drug Enforcement Administration, and the National Institute on Drug Abuse. The cigarettes were made from marijuana grown on a federal marijuana farm in Mississippi, and stored in a locked freezer at San Francisco General. [/ QUOTE ] Time for over the counter joints for pain? 
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#4
02-12-2007, 07:42 PM
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Re: Unprecedented SF study finds pot helps ease pain
i find one thing questionable about this:
a placebo joint, wtf? anyone who has ever smoked will immediately know that they are smoking tobacco instead of weed. this will be BEYOND obvious. I'm sure that this will effect their "pain" rating if they receive a placebo. FWIW i believe that pot can help ease pain
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#5
02-12-2007, 08:00 PM
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Re: Unprecedented SF study finds pot helps ease pain
[ QUOTE ]
i find one thing questionable about this: a placebo joint, wtf? anyone who has ever smoked will immediately know that they are smoking tobacco instead of weed. this will be BEYOND obvious. I'm sure that this will effect their "pain" rating if they receive a placebo. FWIW i believe that pot can help ease pain [/ QUOTE ] Well, they could try to remove as much THC from the weed as possible with various methods. Possibly, they even have strains which produce little or no THC themselves. On second thought, why the hell would they be smoking joints anyways. Wouldn't this be a good time to use a vaporizer.
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#6
02-12-2007, 08:19 PM
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Re: Unprecedented SF study finds pot helps ease pain
it states in the article that the placebo is marijuana sans THC
if they just chemically remove THC then the joint they are smoking will likely taste like weed (can't say for sure, i've never smoked THC-less weed), in much the same way that Quest cigarettes taste like tobacco. the main point is that there are other cannabinoids in marijuana that have an effect on you, that they did NOT remove, or at least did not state that they removed. So it's quite likely that the pain reduction noted by those in the placebo group could well have been actual pain reduction and not placebo i'm not so sure this study isn't flawed because of this, but it's a step in the right direction. if anything, the study would end up understating the pain reducing effects of weed, if only because the placebo group did not receive a "true" placebo
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#7
02-13-2007, 08:51 AM
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Re: Unprecedented SF study finds pot helps ease pain
dur,
I was thinking the same thing. THC weed would taste like shwag most likely and I'm thinking a regualr smoker would be able to tell the diff of atleast "good weed" vs "dirt weed" In any case Dur, Ray ,RJ and I could have told you long ago that marijuana helps ease pain they didn't some fancy shamncy test. Just gimmie some that Cali Chronic. 
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#8
02-13-2007, 09:04 AM
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Re: Unprecedented SF study finds pot helps ease pain
[ QUOTE ]
The trial was conducted over a two-year period during which 50 volunteers each spent a week at a secured laboratory at San Francisco General. After a two-day orientation period, during which they stopped smoking marijuana they may have been using, they were given one cigarette three times a day. Half of the volunteers received marijuana containing about 3.5 percent of THC, the active ingredient of the drug; the other half received the placebo [/ QUOTE ] Errrr, small sample size issues? Statistical significance? One of my profs told me that pharmaceutical companies often choose a small sample size deliberately to prove the effectiveness of a certain drug they are trying to get approved. Then, they keep repeating the experiment until they "get lucky" and publish the results from that experiment.
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#10
02-14-2007, 08:03 AM
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Re: Unprecedented SF study finds pot helps ease pain
It's almost certainly mathematically significant (reject the null hypothesis) if it makes the journal.
I thought it was already quite well reported that neuropathic pain was helped by different marijuana extracts. I have no idea why they need to have actual joints, I would think they would just synthesize different extracts. The real thing I don't understand was the placebo group- why didn't they have a 3rd arm comparing it to Neurontin or whatever else they used for neuropathic pain in those patients? I assume the reason why they didn't is because they didn't really want to know- unless everyone was already on Neurontin or what not. I'll have to look at the article.. I mean, if they did a study of post operative pain where the placebo was inert, codeine would come out looking pretty good as long as you don't compare it to morphine or dilaudid or something stronger. [ QUOTE ] [ QUOTE ] The trial was conducted over a two-year period during which 50 volunteers each spent a week at a secured laboratory at San Francisco General. After a two-day orientation period, during which they stopped smoking marijuana they may have been using, they were given one cigarette three times a day. Half of the volunteers received marijuana containing about 3.5 percent of THC, the active ingredient of the drug; the other half received the placebo [/ QUOTE ] Errrr, small sample size issues? Statistical significance? One of my profs told me that pharmaceutical companies often choose a small sample size deliberately to prove the effectiveness of a certain drug they are trying to get approved. Then, they keep repeating the experiment until they "get lucky" and publish the results from that experiment. [/ QUOTE ]
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