[FONT=book antiqua, times new roman, times]
[/FONT]
[FONT=book antiqua, times new roman, times][/FONT]
[FONT=book antiqua, times new roman, times] [/FONT]
[FONT=book antiqua, times new roman, times] [/FONT]
[FONT=book antiqua, times new roman, times]IV. Synthetic Solutions [/FONT]
[FONT=book antiqua, times new roman, times] [/FONT]
[FONT=book antiqua, times new roman, times]Rather than respond to public and political demands for marijuana's medical availability, federal drug agencies are instead promoting bureaucratically sanctioned alternatives which are synthetic, expensive and often ineffective. It is ironic that after decades of pretending marijuana is medically useless, federal drug agencies are now aggressively pushing synthetic Marinol, the so-called "pot pill," by arguing it is as safe and effective as marijuana.
(43)
Patients familiar with the synthetic "pot pill" have strongly condemned the bureaucrats for "pushing" an inferior substitute. One AIDS patient recently told a reporter, [/FONT]
[FONT=book antiqua, times new roman, times] [/FONT]
[FONT=book antiqua, times new roman, times] [/FONT][FONT=book antiqua, times new roman, times]"I tried [Marinol]. I went through five pills before I was able to keep one down....When I did manage to keep one down it took a long while to take effect, and only worked about half a day. Two or three tokes on a joint helps me immediately."
(44) [/FONT]
[FONT=book antiqua, times new roman, times] [/FONT]
[FONT=book antiqua, times new roman, times] [/FONT][FONT=book antiqua, times new roman, times]
Let'em Eat THC
Delta-9-tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) is the most powerful
psycho-active chemical in marijuana. Synthetic THC was developed for drug abuse research on rats and other animal subjects. The synthetic "pot pill" was never intended for human use in a routine of medical care. In the early 1980s, however, federal agencies were overwhelmed by demands for legal access to government supplies of marijuana cigarettes for use in legislatively authorized, state programs of patient care. FDA and DEA, unable to meet these state requests for natural marijuana, began promoting synthetic THC pills as a therapeutic substitute for marijuana.
In September 1980, federal agencies released THC through the National Cancer Institute's Group C Treatment Program. Then federal agencies frantically searched for a private-sector pharmaceutical company to sponsor a New Drug Application (NDA) for the federally-developed THC pill. In exchange, federal agencies promised the company exclusive control over the medical market for synthetic THC.
This promotion of synthetic THC was not designed to meet legitimate human needs. It had only one objective: to maintain the medical prohibition against marijuana.
The public was told "Pot Pill Approved." Federal drug agencies assisted in a misinformation campaign by saying marijuana was no longer medically needed because the modern, synthetic "pot pill" had arrived. Federal agencies knew this was a lie.
Marinol Isn't Marijuana
The problem with this synthetic strategy was most quickly evident to patients. Marinol isn't marijuana. The synthetic solution failed because Marinol is only marginally effective.
The difference between marijuana and THC was apparent from the outset. Cancer patients quickly discovered smoking marijuana is far more effective than swallowing oral THC pills.
(45) During the DEA hearings before Judge Young, one researcher, Norman Zinberg, M.D., testified that during his 1974 research nearly half the patients quit his legal, THC-based study in order to obtain illegal, but more effective, marijuana.
(46)
Zinberg's observations were amplified in an internal National Cancer Institute (NCI) memo from mid-1978. Synthetic THC is described as "erratic," "unpredictable," and finally dismissed as "unfit" for human use. Marijuana cigarettes, by contrast, are described as "reliable" and "highly predictable." After reviewing the available evidence the cancer specialists at NCI concluded, "All in all the [marijuana] cigarette may be the best means of delivering the drug."
(47) [/FONT]