Washington, DC: The US Food and Drug Administration has granted permission for investigators funded by California’s Center for Medicinal Cannabis Research (CMCR) to conduct the first ever human trial comparing inhaled marijuana to vaporized cannabis. The clinical trial, which will be conducted by Dr. Donald Abrams of the University of California at San Francisco, will commence in early 2004, according to a news release issued by the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies (MAPS).
The pending study will compare subjective effects, cannabinoid blood levels, and carbon monoxide levels in inhaled breath in volunteers following both smoking and vaporizing marijuana.
MAPS President Rick Doblin said that the use of vaporizer technology in clinical research “will demonstrate that we can address all reasonable concerns about the safety of marijuana as medicine.”
According to a previous laboratory analysis study completed earlier this year by California NORML and MAPS, toxins in marijuana smoke produced by combustion are eliminated by the use of a vaporization device. In that study, marijuana vapors produced by the Volcano vaporizer were found to consist overwhelmingly of THC, and contained only minute amounts (less than 5 percent) of a suspected carcinogen, according to a gas chromatography mass spectrometer (GCMS) analysis of the vapor. By contrast, combusted smoke contained over 100 other chemicals, including several polynuclear aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs), carcinogenic toxins that are common in tobacco smoke.
In general, the respiratory hazards of marijuana smoke are due to toxic byproducts of combustion, not the active ingredients of the plant, known as cannabinoids. Vaporizers heat marijuana at a temperature sufficient to vaporize cannabinoids (about 200° C), but short of the point of combustion, which is approximately 250° C.
For more information, please contact either Allen St. Pierre, Executive Director of The NORML Foundation, at (202) 483-5500 or Rick Doblin at (617) 484-9509.