Subject: Re: dronabinol (Bush on THC)
From: [email-masked] (Jyrki Kuoppala)
Date: 4 Nov 91 00:32:29 GMT
Newsgroups: alt.drugs

In article <[email-masked]>, 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 <[email-masked]>
Newsgroups: talk.politics.drugs
Date: 23 Oct 93 11:32 PDT
Subject: Docs report MJ Recommendatns
Message-ID: <1484000379@cdp>

From: Jim Rosenfield <jnr>
Subject: Docs report MJ Recommendatns

From [email-masked] Thu Oct  7 16:32:32 1993
From: the Littlest Orc <[email-masked]>
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.