In fact, the one thing that is missing here is any sense of the magnitude of the crime that has been committed -- and which is still being committed, for that matter.)

July 14, 1998
Opinion
Why the GP may offer you cannabis
Sufferers of MS have long campaigned for the drug to be legal for medicinal uses. Their goal may be in sight.
BY JEROME BURNE

Once we only smoked it to get high; now it looks set to be a valued addition to the medicine cabinet. The announcement last week that marijuana might reduce stroke damage and protect against Alzheimer’s is just the latest in a string of beneficial effects, recently uncovered by researchers. And there is undoubtedly more to come. Marijuana contains a rich cocktail of chemicals whose functions are only just being unravelled. Already research into its mechanisms has led to the discovery of a neurotransmitter system in the brain that was totally unexpected.

"What we have found so far suggests that cannabis could form the basis for an entirely new approach to pain," says Professor Howard Field of the University of California, San Francisco. In Britain Dr Geoffrey Guy, recently granted the first Home Office licence to grow and research cannabis, also believes that we have only just begun to tap its possible uses. "The next condition that is going to benefit is epileptic seizures," he predicts.

Until recently it was impossible to get funding to study cannabis unless you wanted to show how dangerous it was. But about 18 months ago, there was a sea change in the American research establishment’s attitude, after the residents of California and Arizona voted to legalise marijuana for medical purposes.
(Ed. note: Alas, this is a bit of an overstatement. They are just stalling faster.)

The prestigious Institute of Medicine of the National Academy of Sciences performed a U-turn and began an investigation into the claims that marijuana was beneficial for a remarkable range of disorders, including glaucoma, pain, muscle spasm in Multiple Sclerosis and loss of appetite in AIDS patients. As a result cannabinoids - the chemicals in the plant that affect particular cells in the brain - have become a hot topic. In two weeks’ time (July 23 to 25) an international conference in France on cannabinoids will be discussing why marijuana is emerging as such a panacea.

Meanwhile, in this country the BMA has thrown its considerable weight behind a campaign for the medical use of marijuana. This has encouraged the Home Office to grant Dr Guy his licence to grow marijuana for the purpose of research at a secret location in southern England and to run clinical trials. What he’s discovered so far should change your way of looking at the humble joint forever.

In evidence he recently presented to the House of Lords Committee on cannabis Dr Guy explained that THC - "the one that gets you high" - was just one of 60 cannabinoids that can affect receptors in the brain.

"In addition to them, the plant’s essential oils have a range of valuable properties - anti-fungal, anti-bacterial and anti-inflammatory."

Despite all this potent activity, cannabis has the startlingly unusual property of being incredibly safe. The difference between a therapeutic dose and a deadly one is 40,000. By comparison, the figure for aspirin is 25, while morphine is 50.

For now, Dr Guy is looking at the cannabinoids, particularly CBD, the one found to protect the brain after a stroke by mopping up dangerous free radicals. He believes it will also be useful in treating epileptic seizures. "It’s only in the past year that we have been able to separate it from its close relative CBC, so now we can begin to study it properly."

But one of the most dramatic medicinal effects of cannabis is the way it stops the pain of muscle spasms that come with MS, against which conventional opiate-based painkillers are useless. Literally a few puffs on a joint can bring relief. "This is startling in pharmacological terms," says Dr Guy. "No other painkillers work that fast or at such low doses." The latest American research into where cannabinoids work in the brain is beginning to unravel what’s going on.

For over 20 years we’ve known that the brain has its own pain-control system that uses natural chemicals called endorphins. Morphine is a painkiller because it taps into that system. There are other systems, such as the one based on serotonin, controlling mood. Now it turns out there is a system that cannabinoids can manipulate.

"We now know there are two sorts of cannabinoid receptor - CB1 and CB2", says Professor Steven Childers of Wake Forest University school of medicine in Winston Salem, New Connecticut. "CB1 is found all over the brain while CB2 is found in the body, especially in the immune system. No one would ever have predicted that receptors for marijuana would exist in such high quantities."

What’s revealing is where these receptors are found in the brain. "Motor systems are packed with them," Childers continues. "This may partly explain why cannabis is said to help with the muscle spasms of Multiple Sclerosis."