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  Cannabis on Trial
Posted by FoM on July 26, 2001 at 10:12:14 PT
McGill Pain Centre to examine effects of Cannabis  
Source: McGill University  

medical The potential benefits of smoked cannabis as a pain-reliever will soon be examined by a group of McGill researchers. The University announced today that the McGill Pain Centre would conduct a one-year pilot study of smoked cannabis for chronic neuropathic pain at the Montreal General Hospital site of the McGill University Health Centre.

Funded through a $235,000 grant, the study is being launched to better understand the prospective therapeutic uses of cannabis and is being supported by Health Canada in partnership with the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR).

As the first study to emerge from the Health Canada/CIHR Medical Marijuana Research Program, trial results will eventually help contribute to the development of health policy to address the medical use of marijuana and cannabinoids.

"Today’s announcement is an historic step forward in the Government of Canada’s plan to conduct research on the potential health benefits of marijuana," says Federal Health Minister Allan Rock. "The grant we are announcing today is the first-ever clinical trial related to medical marijuana to be funded by Health Canada under the Health Canada/CIHR Medical Marijuana Research Program and furthers our compassionate effort to ascertain the potential of marijuana to provide therapeutic benefit to Canadians."

Adds CIHR President, Dr Alan Bernstein: "Health Canada and CIHR together have recognized the need for research into marijuana and associated cannabinoids, to determine their safety and efficacy in the management of symptoms in patients unresponsive to usual treatment methods. This initiative will address the clinical treatment of such patients with smoked and non-smoked marijuana and cannabinoids to improve our understanding of the safety and efficacy of using cannabinoids to control their symptoms."

A First of Many Kinds

The McGill Pain Centre’s study will also be the world’s first peer-reviewed clinical trial examining the effects of smoked cannabis in a non-HIV or Multiple Sclerosis population. While other studies have tested the effects of cannabis constituents on pain, this will be the first trial in which participants will smoke the substance as outpatients.

The trial will be conducted by five McGill scientists working in several fields at the McGill University Health Centre, including lead researcher Dr Mark Ware, who is also an assistant professor of anesthesia at McGill University. Study collaborators will include Gary Bennett, recently appointed as pain research director of the McGill Pain Centre, psychologist Ann Gamsa, biostatistician Stan Shapiro and epidemiologist Jean-Paul Collet.

"The McGill Pain Centre has designed this study to mirror, as much as possible, the real-life conditions under which patients can currently use cannabis," says Ware, noting trial conditions and outcomes will be based on patients’ reported experiences.

The main hypothesis of the study is that herbal cannabis containing 8 percent tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) is superior to cannabis containing lower concentrations of THC in reducing chronic neuropathic pain. THC is the ingredient that causes cannabis "high," which researchers suspect may also have beneficial effects on pain management. "One objective is to discover how much cannabis is needed to obtain pain relief and whether this amount produces any side effects," says Ware.

The McGill Pain Centre will recruit 32 patients for its cannabis study. Each patient will be followed for four weeks to evaluate four strains of cannabis. Patients will smoke a small amount of the herbal material in a single inhalation, using a pipe, according to a dosing schedule. The first dose of each period will be administered under observation at the McGill Pain Centre, with remaining doses self-administered on an outpatient basis.

The quality and intensity of pain will be assessed using the world-renowned McGill Pain Questionnaire, originally developed by McGill psychologist Ronald Melzack. Although this cannabis study is expected to take one year to complete, Ware cautions, this initial step will likely be the first among several before Canadian doctors can begin prescribing marijuana to patients. "It’s important to remember that this is a pilot study and the information we gather will help us design larger and more conclusive studies in the future," he says.

The principal objectives of the study are to:

Examine the effects of short-term, low-dose, smoked herbal cannabis on pain intensity in patients with chronic neuropathic pain.

* Study issues of safety, placebo discernment, and dose estimation for clinical effects.
* Examine the effects of cannabis on quality of life and mood in patients.
* Evaluate mechanisms of action of cannabinoids on neuropathic pain using quantitative sensory testing.
* Supply experience and data for the design of a larger clinical trial.

(1) The McGill Pain Centre, which is based at the McGill University Health Centre, was founded in 1976. The Centre’s mandate is to investigate different ways of relieving chronic pain among its patients.

(2) The CIHR is Canada’s premier agency for health research. Its objective is to excel, according to internationally accepted standards of scientific excellence, in the creation of new knowledge and its translation into improved health for Canadians, more effective health services and products and a strengthened health care system.

McGill is an international university whose main language of instruction is English. Located in Montreal, Quebec, Canada, McGill's 22 faculties and professional schools offer over 300 programs at the undergraduate, graduate and doctoral levels.

Note: McGill Pain Centre to examine effects of cannabis on neuropathic pain in world-first study.

For general information: 514-398-4455

Source: McGill University
Address: 845 Sherbrooke St. W. Montreal, Quebec, Canada H3A 2T5
Release Date: Montreal, Quebec, Canada - July 26, 2001
Copyright: McGill University 2001
Contact: info@uro.mcgill.ca
Website: http://www.mcgill.ca/

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CIHR
http://www.cihr.ca/

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http://freedomtoexhale.com/can.htm

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http://cannabisnews.com/news/thread10415.shtml

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Comment #1 posted by kaptinemo on July 26, 2001 at 11:00:59 PT:

A better title might be
CANNABIS LAWS ON TRIAL

Not a single solitary scrap of scientific information was used to justify cannabis prohibition. The laws governing its' prohibition are based upon little more than fabrications, themselves based upon the lurid tales of yellow journalism. So, for all this time, the cannabis laws have been allowed to stand, not on the merits of scientific evaluation, but racial prejudice and corporate greed.

But now, almost 80 yeas after the fact, cannabis is finally receiving the scientific scrutiny that it should have received so long ago.

So it is not cannabis that is on trial; it is the series of false asumptions and outright lies concerning its' actual nature that are on trial. For, after the inevitable conclusions about cannabis's safety are made public, as night follows day, questions will arise in the minds of the Canadian public as to why such calumnies were heaped upon such a benign substance in the first place. Why it took so long on the part of officialdom to conduct the studies proving its' relative safety (as compared to just about anything!) when the wherewithal to do so has existed since the 1960's.

Questions some people are desperately hoping they will not have to answer. Because millions of people will suddenly find themselves, literally overnight, with the possibility of becoming very wealthy.

Everyone in Canada ever convicted and/or imprisoned on the basis of cannabis's supposed public health menace threat will have grounds to sue their government for harrassment and false arrest, because the laws are based upon a lie, the government knew they were a lie, and did nothing to change the law to rectify the situation.

This, more than anything else, is what the antis fear. Not only of being proved wrong, but criminally culpable.

I can hardly wait.




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