More Science for the Drug Enforcement Agency to Ignore - FDL

[WillyT]

More Science for the Drug Enforcement Agency to Ignore
By: masaccio - FDL
Sunday July 17, 2011 11:30 am

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The Drug Enforcement Agency this week said that there are no accepted medical uses for marijuana, leaving it on the list of dangerous drugs like heroin. The scientific community continues to find proof of wide-spread anecdotal reports about the medical value of marijuana. A recent report describes a mechanism that explains how marijuana might improve the appetite of chemo patients. This, along with pain reduction in glaucoma and multiple sclerosis, is one of the most common medical uses for marijuana.



Cannabis sativa


The New York Times reports on a study by researchers at the University of California Irvine and the Italian Institute of Technology in Genoa. The abstract tells us that the scientists were studying the endocannabinoid system in rats. The endocannabinoid system is a set of nerve receptors and related body chemicals that deal with appetite, pain-sensation, mood and memory. The interesting thing about the nerve receptors is that they respond to cannabinoids, one of the components of marijuana.

I have a special interest in this research because my brother Michael was a major contributor to the field. When he first started working in the field of pain transmission in the body, he explained to me that the body creates chemicals that lock into the receptors on nerve endings and prevent the transmission of pain. Nature creates other chemicals that fold up in a way that permits them to lock into the same receptors and prevent the transmission of pain. These include the opioids, like morphine, and the cannabinoids. The receptors that respond to cannabinoids are part of the endocannabinoid system. The principal difference is that the opioids work in the central nervous system, so they depress breathing and peristalsis. My brother said that the cannabinoids generally work further out in the pain transmission nerves, before they get to the spinal column. They don’t have those ugly side effects.

The NYT describes the research this way:

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More: http://firedoglake.com/2011/07/17/more-science-for-the-drug-enforcement-agency-to-ignore/

:kick:

[David Gill]

1. This has never been about policy

It's always just been politics.