The medical marijuana proposition received just enough voter approval to pass in November.
Now doctors must wade through murky waters surrounding the measure to make decisions about what patients are qualified to use the drug, and whether they will prescribe it.
Proposition 203 states that patients may qualify for medical marijuana if they have “a chronic or debilitating disease or medical condition or its treatment that produces ... severe and chronic pain.”
However, other states, including Colorado and California, have discovered a large number of medical marijuana users in those states are young males using the drug to treat pain that may or may not be from a chronic illness.
Arizona will be the 15th state to legalize medical marijuana. The Arizona Department of Health Services is expected to begin reviewing dispensary and patient applications by April 2011.
Tiffany Jenkins, the public relations manager for Cancer Treatment Centers of America in Goodyear, said the new law will require the facility to amend its policies and procedures.
“There are a lot of little things that have to be factored in,” Jenkins said.
Licensed physicians could recommend medical marijuana to patients with debilitating medical conditions, including cancer, glaucoma, HIV/AIDS, hepatitis C and Alzheimer’s disease. Patients would register for identification cards with the state health department. They could also receive up to 2½ ounces of marijuana every two weeks from dispensaries or cultivate up to 12 plants if they live 25 miles or more from a dispensary.
Doctors must certify in writing the patient’s debilitating medical condition after assessing the patient’s medical history in “the course of a physician-patient relationship,” the meaning of which is still to be determined by the Arizona Department of Health Services.
Dr. Daniel Nixon, an oncologist at the Cancer Treatment Centers of America, said it will be interesting to see what happens with the new law.
Nixon was a chairman on the board regulating the use of medical marijuana in Georgia in 1980, when that state first legalized the drug. The demand dropped dramatically after medical marijuana became accessible, and Nixon said they shut it down after just a few years.
When the Arizona law came up, Nixon said he was neutral about it after his experience in Georgia.
“I will say that it’s useful to have it available,” Nixon said.
Nixon said he has already received questions from patients about the drug. The biggest thing he has to explain is marijuana is not a cancer treatment, but it can help with the symptoms, especially loss of appetite and nausea associated with chemotherapy.
The latest anti-nausea medicines work well enough, however, that Nixon said there might not be a need for medical marijuana.
“If newer medicines don’t work, I expect that medical marijuana would be the next step,” Nixon said. He would prescribe the drug to his patients “as long as it’s legal and all the Arizona laws are complied with.”
Jenkins said Cancer Treatment Centers of America does carry and use FDA-approved medications in pill form derived from the same compound found in marijuana. The medication is called Marinol or dronabinol, which is used to treat both chemotherapy-induced nausea and stimulate appetite.
Other doctors and physicians contacted by the Daily News-Sun were reluctant to talk about their plans for prescribing medical marijuana because the law is still new and untested.
Dan Kingston, founder of the website AZmarijuana.com, said there are about a dozen doctors in the West Valley registered on the site, which offers patients a forum to ask questions or discuss the new law, and to look up doctors in their area.
The site is a marketing tool for the doctors, Kingston said, but they go through a large background check before being entered into the directory.
Kingston said 100 doctors have registered on the site since it became active in November.
“It’s not about people that are getting high, it’s about people that have been in pain,” Kingston said. “There are a lot of people that really truly need this medication.”
malcolmkyle posted at 12:42 pm on Tue, Dec 28, 2010.
Here are just some of the many studies the Feds wish they'd never commissioned:
01) MARIJUANA USE HAS NO EFFECT ON MORTALITY:
A massive study of California HMO members funded by the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) found marijuana use caused no significant increase in mortality. Tobacco use was associated with increased risk of death. Sidney, S et al. Marijuana Use and Mortality. American Journal of Public Health
. Vol. 87 No. 4, April 1997. p. 585-590. Sept. 2002.
02) HEAVY MARIJUANA USE AS A YOUNG ADULT WON'T RUIN YOUR LIFE:
Veterans Affairs scientists looked at whether heavy marijuana use as a young adult caused long-term problems later, studying identical twins in which one twin had been a heavy marijuana user for a year or longer but had stopped at least one month before the study, while the second twin had used marijuana no more than five times ever. Marijuana use had no significant impact on physical or mental health care utilization, health-related quality of life, or current socio-demographic characteristics. Eisen SE et al. Does Marijuana Use Have Residual Adverse Effects on Self-Reported Health Measures, Socio-Demographics or Quality of Life? A Monozygotic Co-Twin Control Study in Men. Addiction. Vol. 97 No. 9. p.1083-1086. Sept. 1997
03) THE "GATEWAY EFFECT" MAY BE A MIRAGE:
Marijuana is often called a "gateway drug" by supporters of prohibition, who point to statistical "associations" indicating that persons who use marijuana are more likely to eventually try hard drugs than those who never use marijuana - implying that marijuana use somehow causes hard drug use. But a model developed by RAND Corp. researcher Andrew Morral demonstrates that these associations can be explained "without requiring a gateway effect." More likely, this federally funded study suggests, some people simply have an underlying propensity to try drugs, and start with what's most readily available. Morral AR, McCaffrey D and Paddock S. Reassessing the Marijuana Gateway Effect. Addiction. December 2002. p. 1493-1504.
04) PROHIBITION DOESN'T WORK:
The White House had the National Research Council examine the data being gathered about drug use and the effects of U.S. drug policies. NRC concluded, "the nation possesses little information about the effectiveness of current drug policy, especially of drug law enforcement." And what data exist show "little apparent relationship between severity of sanctions prescribed for drug use and prevalence or frequency of use." In other words, there is no proof that prohibition - the cornerstone of U.S. drug policy for a century - reduces drug use. National Research Council. Informing America's Policy on Illegal Drugs: What We Don't Know Keeps Hurting Us. National Academy Press, 2001. p. 193.
05) PROHIBITION MAY CAUSE THE "GATEWAY EFFECT"?): U.S. and Dutch researchers, supported in part by NIDA, compared marijuana users in San Francisco, where non-medical use remains illegal, to Amsterdam, where adults may possess and purchase small amounts of marijuana from regulated businesses. Looking at such parameters as frequency and quantity of use and age at onset of use, they found the following: Cannabis (Marijuana) use in San Francisco was 3 times the prevalence found in the Amsterdam sample. And lifetime use of hard drugs was significantly lower in Amsterdam, with its "tolerant" marijuana policies. For example, lifetime crack cocaine use was 4.5 times higher in San Francisco than Amsterdam. Reinarman, C, Cohen, PDA, and Kaal, HL. The Limited Relevance of Drug Policy: Cannabis in Amsterdam and San Francisco. American Journal of Public Health. Vol. 94, No. 5. May 2004. p 836-842.
06) OOPS, MARIJUANA MAY PREVENT CANCER (PART 1):
Federal researchers implanted several types of cancer, including leukemia and lung cancers, in mice, then treated them with cannabinoids (unique, active components found in marijuana). THC and other cannabinoids shrank tumors and increased the mice's lifespans. Munson, AE et al. Antineoplastic Activity of Cannabinoids. Journal of the National Cancer Institute. Sept. 1975. p. 597-602.
07) OOPS, MARIJUANA MAY PREVENT CANCER, (PART 2):
In a 1994 study the government tried to suppress, federal researchers gave mice and rats massive doses of THC, looking for cancers or other signs of toxicity. The rodents given THC lived longer and had fewer cancers, "in a dose-dependent manner" (i.e. the more THC they got, the fewer tumors). NTP Technical Report On The Toxicology And Carcinogenesis Studies Of 1-Trans- Delta-9-Tetrahydrocannabinol, CAS No. 1972-08-3, In F344/N Rats And B6C3F Mice, Gavage Studies. See also, "Medical Marijuana: Unpublished Federal Study Found THC-Treated Rats Lived Longer, Had Less Cancer," AIDS Treatment News no. 263, Jan. 17, 1997.
08) OOPS, MARIJUANA MAY PREVENT CANCER (PART 3):
Researchers at the Kaiser-Permanente HMO, funded by NIDA, followed 65,000 patients for nearly a decade, comparing cancer rates among non-smokers, tobacco smokers, and marijuana smokers. Tobacco smokers had massively higher rates of lung cancer and other cancers. Marijuana smokers who didn't also use tobacco had no increase in risk of tobacco-related cancers or of cancer risk overall. In fact their rates of lung and most other cancers were slightly lower than non-smokers, though the difference did not reach statistical significance. Sidney, S. et al. Marijuana Use and Cancer Incidence (California, United States). Cancer Causes and Control. Vol. 8. Sept. 1997, p. 722-728.
09) OOPS, MARIJUANA MAY PREVENT CANCER (PART 4):
Donald Tashkin, a UCLA researcher whose work is funded by NIDA, did a case-control study comparing 1,200 patients with lung, head and neck cancers to a matched group with no cancer. Even the heaviest marijuana smokers had no increased risk of cancer, and had somewhat lower cancer risk than non-smokers (tobacco smokers had a 20-fold increased Lung Cancer risk). Tashkin D. Marijuana Use and Lung Cancer: Results of a Case-Control Study. American Thoracic Society International Conference. May 23, 2006.
10) MARIJUANA DOES HAVE GREAT MEDICAL VALUE:
In response to passage of California's medical marijuana law, the White House had the Institute of Medicine (IOM) review the data on marijuana's medical benefits and risks. The IOM concluded, "Nausea, appetite loss, pain and anxiety are all afflictions of wasting, and all can be mitigated by marijuana." The report also added, "we acknowledge that there is no clear alternative for people suffering from chronic conditions that might be relieved by smoking marijuana, such as pain or AIDS wasting." The government's refusal to acknowledge this finding caused co-author John A. Benson to tell the New York Times that the government "loves to ignore our report … they would rather it never happened." Joy, JE, Watson, SJ, and Benson, JA. Marijuana and Medicine: Assessing the Science Base. National Academy Press. 1999. p. 159. See also, Harris, G. FDA Dismisses Medical Benefit From Marijuana. New York Times. Apr. 21, 2006