---<br /> <br /> Pot Shots<br /> <br /> Marijuana smoking -"even heavy longterm use"- does not cause cancer of the <br /> lung, upper airwaves, or esophagus, Donald Tashkin reported at this year's <br /> meeting of the International Cannabinoid Research Society. Coming from <br /> Tashkin, this conclusion had extra significance for the assembled <br /> drug-company and university-based scientists (most of whom get funding from <br /> the U.S. National Institute on Drug Abuse). Over the years, Tashkin's lab <br /> at UCLA has produced irrefutable evidence of the damage that marijuana <br /> smoke wreaks on bronchial tissue. With NIDA's support, Tashkin and <br /> colleagues have identified the potent carcinogens in marijuana smoke, <br /> biopsied and made photomicrographs of pre-malignant cells, and studied the <br /> molecular changes occurring within them. It is Tashkin's research that the <br /> Drug Czar's office cites in ads linking marijuana to lung cancer. Tashkin <br /> himself has long believed in a causal relationship, despite a study in <br /> which Stephen Sidney examined the files of 64,000 Kaiser patients and found <br /> that marijuana users didn't develop lung cancer at a higher rate or die <br /> earlier than non-users. Of five smaller studies on the question, only two <br /> -involving a total of about 300 patients- concluded that marijuana smoking <br /> causes lung cancer. Tashkin decided to settle the question by conducting a <br /> large, prospectively designed, population-based, case-controlled study. <br /> "Our major hypothesis," he told the ICRS, "was that heavy, longterm use of <br /> marijuana will increase the risk of lung and upper-airwaves cancers."<br /> <br /> The Los Angeles County Cancer Surveillance program provided Tashkin's team <br /> with the names of 1,209 L.A. residents aged 59 or younger with cancer (611 <br /> lung, 403 oral/pharyngeal, 90 laryngeal, 108 esophageal). Interviewers <br /> collected extensive lifetime histories of marijuana, tobacco, alcohol and <br /> other drug use, and data on diet, occupational exposures, family history of <br /> cancer, and various "socio-demographic factors." Exposure to marijuana was <br /> measured in joint years (joints per day x 365). Controls were found based <br /> on age, gender and neighborhood. Among them, 46% had never used marijuana, <br /> 31% had used less than one joint year, 12% had used 10-30 j-yrs, 2% had <br /> used 30-60 j-yrs, and 3% had used for more than 60 j-yrs. Tashkin <br /> controlled for tobacco use and calculated the relative risk of marijuana <br /> use resulting in lung and upper airwaves cancers. All the odds ratios <br /> turned out to be less than one (one being equal to the control group's <br /> chances)! Compared with subjects who had used less than one joint year, the <br /> estimated odds ratios for lung cancer were .78; for 1-10 j-yrs, .74; for <br /> 10-30 j-yrs, .85 for 30-60 j-yrs; and 0.81 for more than 60 j-yrs. The <br /> estimated odds ratios for oral/pharyngeal cancers were 0.92 for 1-10 j-yrs; <br /> 0.89 for 10-30 j-yrs; 0.81 for 30-60 j-yrs; and 1.0 for more than 60 j-yrs. <br /> "Similar, though less precise results were obtained for the other cancer <br /> sites," Tashkin reported. "We found absolutely no suggestion of a dose <br /> response." The data on tobacco use, as expected, revealed "a very potent <br /> effect and a clear dose-response relationship -a 21-fold greater risk of <br /> developing lung cancer if you smoke more than two packs a day." Similarly <br /> high odds obtained for oral/pharyngeal cancer, laryngeal cancer and <br /> esophageal cancer. "So, in summary" Tashkin concluded, "we failed to <br /> observe a positive association of marijuana use and other potential <br /> confounders."<br /> <br /> There was time for only one question, said the moderator, and San Francisco <br /> oncologist Donald Abrams, M.D., was already at the microphone: "You don't <br /> see any positive correlation, but in at least one category [marijuana-only <br /> smokers and lung cancer], it almost looked like there was a negative <br /> correlation, i.e., a protective effect. Could you comment on that?"<br /> <br /> "Yes," said Tashkin. "The odds ratios are less than one almost <br /> consistently, and in one category that relationship was significant, but I <br /> think that it would be difficult to extract from these data the conclusion <br /> that marijuana is protective against lung cancer. But that is not an <br /> unreasonable hypothesis."<br /> <br /> Abrams had results of his own to report at the ICRS meeting. He and his <br /> colleagues at San Francisco General Hospital had conducted a randomized, <br /> placebo-controlled study involving 50 patients with HIV-related peripheral <br /> neuropathy. Over the course of five days, patients recorded their pain <br /> levels in a diary after smoking either NIDA-supplied marijuana cigarettes <br /> or cigarettes from which the THC had been extracted. About 25% didn't know <br /> or guessed wrong as to whether they were smoking the placebos, which <br /> suggests that the blinding worked. Abrams requested that his results not be <br /> described in detail prior to publication in a peer-reviewed medical <br /> journal, but we can generalize: they exceeded expectations, and show <br /> marijuana providing pain relief comparable to Gabapentin, the most widely <br /> used treatment for a condition that afflicts some 30% of patients with HIV.<br /> <br /> To a questioner who bemoaned the difficulty of "separating the high from <br /> the clinical benefits," Abrams replied: "I'm an oncologist as well as an <br /> AIDS doctor and I don't think that a drug that creates euphoria in patients <br /> with terminal diseases is having an adverse effect." His study was funded <br /> by the University of California's Center for Medicinal Cannabis Research.<br /> <br /> * * *<br /> <br /> The 15th annual meeting of the ICRS was held at the Clearwater, Florida, <br /> Hilton, June 24-27. Almost 300 scientists attended. R. Stephen Ellis, MD, <br /> of San Francisco, was the sole clinician from California. Los Angeles <br /> Farmacy operator Mike Ommaha and therapist/cultivator Pat Humphrey showed <br /> up to audit the proceedings... Some of the younger European scientists <br /> expressed consternation over the recent U.S. Supreme Court ruling and the <br /> vote in Congress re-enforcing the cannabis prohibition. "How can they <br /> dispute that it has medical effect?" an investigator working in Germany <br /> asked us earnestly. She had come to give a talk on "the role of different <br /> neuronal populations in the pharmacological actions of delta-9 THC." For <br /> most ICRS members, the holy grail is a legal synthetic drug that exerts the <br /> medicinal effects of the prohibited herb. To this end they study the <br /> mechanism of action by which the body's own cannabinoids are assembled, <br /> function, and get broken down. A drug that encourages production or delays <br /> dissolution, they figure, might achieve the desired effect without being <br /> subject to "abuse..." News on the scientific front included the likely <br /> identification of a third cannabinoid receptor expressed in tissues of the <br /> lung, brain, kidney, spleen and smaller branches of the mesenteric artery. <br /> Investigators from GlaxoSmithKline and AstraZeneca both reported finding <br /> the new receptor but had different versions of its pharmacology. It may <br /> have a role in regulating blood pressure.<br /> <br /> Several talks and posters described the safety and efficacy of Sativex, <br /> G.W. Pharmaceuticals' whole-plant extract containing high levels of THC and <br /> CBD (cannabidiol) formulated to spray in the mouth. G.W. director Geoffrey <br /> Guy seemed upbeat, despite the drubbing his company's stock took this <br /> spring when UK regulators withheld permission to market Sativex pending <br /> another clinical trial. Canada recently granted approval for doctors to <br /> prescribe Sativex, and five sales reps from Bayer (to whom G.W. sold the <br /> Canadian marketing rights) are promoting it to neurologists. Sativex was <br /> approved for the treatment of neuropathic pain in multiple sclerosis, but <br /> can be prescribed for other purposes as doctors see fit.<br /> <br /> A more detailed report on the ICRS meeting will appear in the upcoming <br /> issue of O'Shaughnessy's, a journal put out by California's small but <br /> growing group of pro-cannabis doctors. To get on the mailing list, send a <br /> contribution of any amount to the CCRMG (California Cannabis Research <br /> Medical Group) at p.o. box 9143, Berkeley, CA 94709. It's a 501c3 <br /> non-profit and your correspondent's main source of income.<br /> <br /> Meanwhile, Back in San Francisco...<br /> <br /> The California contingent was en route to the ICRS meeting when Marian Fry, <br /> M.D. and her husband, attorney Dale Schafer, were arrested on federal <br /> charges of conspiring to provide marijuana to a patient. On the same day, <br /> three San Francisco cannabis clubs were raided by the DEA and 19 people <br /> -all Asians and a few Latinos- charged with conspiracy to cultivate and <br /> distribute marijuana. Affidavits allege that they grew cannabis in rented <br /> houses in S.F., the East Bay and the Peninsula for sale to dispensaries and <br /> on the black market. Three men were charged with intent to sell ecstasy. <br /> (An undercover agent allegedly had purchased 1,000 tabs from a man named <br /> Enrique Chan. During the raids on 26 locations, a total of 50 tabs were <br /> found on one individual.) The two alleged ringleaders, Richard Wang and <br /> Vincent Wan, were charged with money laundering. Defense lawyers say the <br /> alleged money laundering consisted of using dispensary proceeds to <br /> underwrite the grow ops. At a July 1 detention hearing, bail for Wang was <br /> set at million. Wan has not yet been apprehended or turned himself in.<br /> <br /> Former district attorney Terence Hallinan is representing Sergio Alvarez, <br /> who hired him several months ago after police raided a house in the Sunset <br /> district where Alvarez was allegedly cultivating marijuana. "I didn't know <br /> at the time that that would become part of a conspiracy case," Hallinan <br /> said after the detention hearing. Alvarez's bail was set at 0,000; his <br /> working-class parents are putting up their modest Sunnyvale home as surety. <br /> Hallinan says that every cannabis dispensary has links to a network of <br /> growers, and that the decision to take down these three was an attempt to <br /> exploit anti-Asian sentiment. "They asked themselves, 'Who will we start <br /> with now that we've been given permission [by the U.S. Supreme Court's <br /> ruling in the Raich case]? Let's go after the Chinese!' San Francisco has <br /> more than a hundred-year history of anti-Chinese attitudes and policies." <br /> Contemporary resentments towards Asians in San Francisco center around <br /> their apparent economic successes. It's an impossibly expensive housing <br /> market, and one occasionally hears non-Asians say, with mixed admiration <br /> and envy, things like: "How can they arrive from Hong Kong in 1995 and buy <br /> a house in the Sunset in 1996?" The answer is: by pooling resources <br /> (conspiring) with friends and family to make the down payment.<br /> <br /> <br /> <br /> <br />Aurora Indica |  B52 |  Big Bud |  California Orange Bud |  Citral |  Four Way |  Haze |  Hindu Kush |  Indoor Mix |  Jock Horror |  K2 |  Maroc x Afghan |  Northern Light x Big Bud |  Northern Light x Haze |  Northern Light x Shiva |  Shiva |  Skunk #1 |  Skunk Red Hair |  Skunk Special |  Papaya |  White Rhino |  Haze 19 x Skunk |  Afghan |  Master Kush |  Northern Light |  Super Skunk |  Top 44 |  Durban Poison |  Early Bud |  Early Girl |  Early Misty |  Early Special |  Hawaii x Maui Waui |  Hawaii x Skunk #1 |  Hollands Hope |  KC 33 x Master Kush |  Mixed Sativa |  New Purple Power |  Swazi |  Swiss Miss |  Northern Bright |  Snow White (fem.) |  Supergirl |  Venus |  Wonder Woman |  Kaya |  PPP (fem.) |  Medusa |  Blue Mystic |  Chrystal |  Ice |  Misty |  PPP |  White Widow |  Nirvana Special |  White Rhino |  Snow White |  AK-48 |  Bubblelicious |  Silver Pearl |  Haze |  Jock Horror |  Northern Light x Haze |  White Rhino |  Haze 19 x Skunk |