legalize marijuana

This is cool but a little weird since I always get the munchies when I smoke pot, hah. ;]

Every good thing that comes from pot is just another reason why it should be legalized.

http://money.cnn.com/2007/01/30/news/international/bc.gw.reut/index.htm?cnn=yes

Drugmaker to test fat-fighting marijuana drug
GW Pharmaceuticals says it has a cannabis-derived treatment to suppress hunger; company plans to start human trials.
January 30 2007: 8:41 AM EST

LONDON (Reuters)—Britain’s GW Pharmaceuticals Plc said Tuesday it plans to start human trials of an experimental treatment for obesity derived from cannabis.

Cannabis is commonly associated with stimulating hunger. Several other companies, including Sanofi-Aventis with Acomplia, are working on new drugs that try to switch off the brain circuits that make people hungry when they smoke it.

GW Pharma, however, says it has derived a treatment from cannabis itself that could help suppress hunger.

Big Pharma’s drug wish list for 2007
“The cannabis plant has 70 different cannabinoids in it, and each has a different affect on the body,” GW Managing Director Justin Gover told Reuters.

“Some can stimulate your appetite, and some in the same plant can suppress your appetite. It is amazing both scientifically and commercially,” he said in a telephone interview.

GW said it plans to start clinical trials of the new drug in the second half of this year. Medicines have to pass three stages of tests in humans before being assessed by regulators in a process that takes many years.

Sanofi-Aventis’ (Charts) Acomplia, which it believes can achieve $3 billion in annual sales, is already on sale in Europe and it is waiting for a U.S. regulatory decision in April.

Several other big drug companies also have similar products to Acomplia already in clinical trials.

GW is best known for developing Sativex, a treatment derived from cannabis that fights spasticity in multiple sclerosis patients. Sativex, an under-the-tongue spray, has been approved in Canada, but has hit delays with regulators in Britain.

GW, which competes with rivals such as AstraZeneca (Charts), submitted Sativex for assessment by several European regulators in September, and hopes to secure approval for the UK, Denmark, Spain and the Netherlands in the second half of this year at the earliest, the company said Tuesday.

GW said revenue for the year ended Sept. 30 was slightly ahead of expectations at £1.98 million, £1.35 million of which came from Sativex.

The firm posted a pre-tax loss of £13.9 million, in line with forecasts. According to a poll of analysts by Reuters Estimates, the loss in 2007 will be £13.5 million.

GW’s marijuana plants are grown indoors in a secret location in Southern England.

“With a U.S. partnering deal and a European approval both expected this year, we remain very comfortable with our Buy recommendation,” Investec analyst Ibraheem Mahmood said.

GW shares were up almost 5.5 percent, valuing the company at £92.5 million.

The active ingredient of marijuana could be considerably better at suppressing the abnormal clumping of malformed proteins that is a hallmark of Alzheimer’s than any currently approved drugs prescribed for the treatment of the disease.

Scientists report the finding in the Oct. 2 issue of the journal Molecular Pharmaceutics.

About 4.5 million Americans suffer from Alzheimer’s disease, which gradually destroys memory. As more people survive into old age, cases of Alzheimer’s disease are expected to triple over the next 50 years. There is no known cure.

The researchers looked at THC, the compound inside marijuana responsible for its action on the brain. Computer models suggested THC might inhibit an enzyme with the tongue-twisting name of acetylcholinesterase (also called AChE) that is linked with Alzheimer’s.

AChE is known to help accelerate the formation of abnormal protein clumps in the brain known as amyloid plaques during Alzheimer’s. This enzyme also helps break down the brain chemical acetylcholine, which is linked to memory and learning. Acetylcholine levels are reduced during Alzheimer’s.

In lab experiments, the scientists found THC was significantly better at disrupting the abnormal clumping of malformed proteins. THC could completely prevent AChE from forming amyloid plaques, while two drugs approved for use against Alzheimer’s, donepezil and tacrine, reduced clumping by only 22 and 7 percent, respectively, at twice the concentration of THC used in the tests.

“We’re not advocating smoking dope, but if we can make analogues of THC, it could play a role in treating Alzheimer’s,” researcher Kim Janda, a chemist at the Scripps Research Institute in La Jolla, Calif., told LiveScience. “It would be nice to do more animal studies along these lines.”

Past research on human brain tissues and experiments with rats have suggested that synthetic analogues of THC can reduce the inflammation and prevent the mental decline associated with Alzheimer’s disease.

However, marijuana is not necessarily good for the mind. Prior investigations have shown that years of heavy marijuana use, consisting of four or more joints a week, can impair memory, decision making, and the ability to pay attention to more than one thing at a time.

I hope everyone had a lovely holiday yesterday.

Let’s get down to business.
Someone should let the FDA know that Marinol and other synthetic-THC medicines aren’t just like THC and do not feel the same. Also, someone should let them know that pot does not always have to be smoked. I mean, they’ve never heard of pot brownies before?

FDA Rejects Marijuana for Medical Uses
By LOU KESTEN

WASHINGTON (AP) – The Food and Drug Administration said Thursday that it does not support the use of marijuana for medical purposes.

The FDA said in a statement that it and other agencies with the Health and Human Services Department had ``concluded that no sound scientific studies supported medical use of marijuana for treatment in the United States, and no animal or human data supported the safety or efficacy of marijuana for general medical use.’‘

A number of states have passed legislation allowing marijuana use for medical purposes, but the FDA said, ``These measures are inconsistent with efforts to ensure that medications undergo the rigorous scientific scrutiny of the FDA approval process and are proven safe and effective.’‘

The statement contradicts a 1999 finding from the Institute of Medicine, part of the National Academy of Sciences, which reported that ``marijuana’s active components are potentially effective in treating pain, nausea, the anorexia of AIDS wasting and other symptoms, and should be tested rigorously in clinical trials.’‘

Bruce Mirken, director of communications for the Marijuana Policy Project, said Thursday: ``If anybody needed proof that the FDA has become totally politicized, this is it. This isn’t a scientific statement; it’s a political statement.’‘

Mirken said ``a rabid congressional opponent of medical marijuana,’’ Rep. Mark Souder, R-Ind., asked the FDA to make the statement.

Souder, chairman of the House Government Reform subcommittee on drug policy, has said the promotion of medical marijuana ``is simply a red herring for the legalization of marijuana for recreational use. Studies have continually rejected the notion that marijuana is suitable for medical use because it adversely impacts concentration and memory, the lungs, motor coordination and the immune system.’‘

The FDA statement noted ``there is currently sound evidence that smoked marijuana is harmful.’’ It also said, ``There are alternative FDA-approved medications in existence for treatment of many of the proposed uses of smoked marijuana.’‘

Mirken responded, ``There is abundant evidence that marijuana can help cancer patients, multiple sclerosis patients and AIDS patients. There is no scientific doubt that marijuana relieves nausea, vomiting, certain kinds of pain and other symptoms that don’t respond well to conventional drugs, and does it more safely than other drugs.

``For the FDA to ignore all that evidence is embarrassing,’’ Mirken said. ``They should be red-faced.’‘

On the Net:

Food and Drug Administration: http://www.fda.gov/

Marijuana Policy Project: http://www.mpp.org/

souce = netscape.com