Post date: Oct 30, 2010 11:45:26 PM
One of the most closely-watched items on the ballot in Tuesday's US mid-term elections will be the controversial Proposition 19 which will ask California voters if marijuana should be legalised, regulated and taxed by the state. The drug has already been legalised for medical use, largely as a result of state-sponsored scientific studies validating cannabis' pain-reducing benefits.
LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA REUTERS - 72-year-old Frances Gallman suffers from the same malignant hypertension that killed her twin sister. Dawn Spencer gravely injured her knee while in the military and almost had to have her leg amputated. Elease Dewey, a cancer survivor, cannot keep her weight on and the pain away.
For these three women, marijuana is the only thing that can relieve their discomfort.
"Because my systems override the doctors' medication after a while and you can only take what's prescribed to you, so if it's midnight and your blood pressure is up, what are you going to do? You can't go to the doctor, you can't take any more pills than what has been prescribed to you. Therefore, I fire up, and my pressure is down within minutes," says Frances. Frances says she smokes two joints before going to bed every night.
Buying and smoking marijuana is legal in California and in 13 other US states - as long as it for medicinal use.
On November 2nd, Californians will vote on whether or not the production and consumption of non-medicinal marijuana should become legal as well. Cannabis will remain classified as an illicit drug by the federal government.
California Alternative Caregivers is the oldest marijuana dispensary in Los Angeles and one of the few with an actual business license. Sales associate Kristen Yoder shows Gallman different hybrid varieties of marijuana's two strains: indica for relaxation, and sativa for energy.
"We have Sugar Cush which is a little bit more for pain relief without being it too sleepy. But then if you need something more for anxiety but you need to function or work, then that's the Big Bud Hash Plant which is also a really classic strain. That one is my favorite actually, it's really good for sleep."
"I would say the majority of the people come to us after they have gotten away from the chemical aspect of medicine," says dispensary owner Carl Clines. Either it becomes ineffective or they just got tired of the side effects, and they want something that's going to help them with the pain."
For a long time, marijuana's pain-relieving powers were considered a myth. But a series of state-financed studies from the Center for Medicinal Cannabis Research (CMCR) at the University of California, San Diego is finally bringing some scientific data to the debate. According to CMCR co-director Dr J.H. Atkinson the latest study, published early in 2010 was conclusive.
"In a series of clinical trials, we were able to demonstrate that for painful neuropathies, that is painful conditions due to diseases or direct injury of the nervous system, cannabis had pain relieving effects which were equivalent to those of standard painkillers," said Dr Atkinson in March soon after the study was completed.
Researchers found that volunteers received the same amount of pain reduction with low doses of THC, the psychoactive ingredient in marijuana, compared with high doses of THC.
Atkinson's study focused on neuropathic pain resulting from HIV infection and treatment, which can induce painful sensations in toes and hands, and on pain from muscle spasms in multiple sclerosis patients. Other on-going research is studying pain due to nerve injury from diabetes and pain due to spinal cord or other direct physical nerve injuries.
But based on Gallman's, Spencer's and Dewey's experience, marijuana can potentially have an effect on many other different types of pain. And they don't need to wait for it to be proven scientifically, because they say, for them, it works.