By Anne Holland
A new study, entitled ‘Medical Marijuana: Clearing Away the Smoke’, published in The Open Neurology Journal recommends that marijuana should be available to patients for chronic pain if their physicians recommend it. Researchers Igor Grant, J Hampton Atkinson, Ben Gouaux, and Barth Wilsey included prescriptive algorythmns for cannabis in a wide variety of forms, ranging from smoke inhalation to metered sprays.
With 62 detailed footnotes, the eight-page study summarizes a raft of clinical studies as well as anecdotal evidence. You can download a PDF of the study here.
One of the most interesting conclusions for MMJ proponents: although there are drawbacks to using marijuana as medicine, these aren’t any worse (and indeed may be lesser) than the drawbacks of other drugs now commonly and lawfully prescribed for similar purposes. The timing of this announcement is particularly piquant for the industry, coming just two weeks after DEA Administrator Michele Leonhart testified that as a “police officer and as a DEA agent” she largely lumped marijuana together with meth and heroin as drugs that “are illegal because they are dangerous, because they are addictive, because they do hurt a person’s health.”