San Francisco, CA: Smoking marijuana significantly alleviates pain in patients suffering from HIV-associated neuropathy, according to the results of a pilot study presented last week at the 11th Annual Retrovirus Conference in San Francisco.
Sixteen patients with HIV-associated neuropathy (nerve pain) participated in the clinical trial. Volunteers smoked three marijuana cigarettes per day for seven days. Participants’ reduction in pain were assessed using a 0-to-100 visual scale.
By the end of the week, twelve of the 16 participants had achieved at least a 30 percent reduction in pain, researchers noted. A 30 percent reduction in pain is considered to be a clinically meaningful amount of pain relief.
Although anecdotal reports regarding marijuana’s pain-mitigating effects are abundant, few clinical human trails have been conducted. Nevertheless, after reviewing a series of animal trails on cannabinoids in pain in 1997, the US Society for Neuroscience concluded that “substances similar to or derived from marijuana … could benefit the more than 97 million Americans who experience some form of pain each year.”
In addition, a 1997 National Institutes of Health (NIH) Workshop on medical cannabis concluded: “Neuropathic pain represents a treatment problem for which currently available analgesics are, at best, marginally effective. Since delta-9-THC is not acting by the same mechanism as either opioids or NSAIDS [non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs], it may be useful in this inadequately treated type of pain.”
A follow up randomized clinical trial in which participants will receive both marijuana and placebo is expected to begin shortly at the Center for Medicinal Cannabis Research at San Francisco.
For more information, please contact either Paul Armentano or Allen St. Pierre of the NORML Foundation at (202) 483-5500. To download a list of CMCR-approved clinical trials, please visit:
http://www.cmcr.ucsd.edu/geninfo/research.htm