Marijuana May Relieve Multiple Sclerosis Symptoms

The advocates of proposition 19, the bill that tried to legalize cannabis in California, must be turning cartwheels at the news coming out of University of California, San Diego School of Medicine. It's especially ironic coming just a few weeks after the Federal raid and almost complete shutdown of Oaksterdam University, the privately run school in Oakland, California that teaches students how to grow and harvest the much derided herb.

A clinic trial of 30 adult patients suffering from Multiple Sclerosis appears to have demonstrated its ability to reduce spasticity and pain, when compared to a placebo.

Multiple Sclerosis is a degenerative disease that affects the lining of the nerve fibers and reduces their ability to transmit properly, a little like an electrical cable with worn insulation. It can also cause ulceration on the brain. Like Parkinson's and Alzheimer's it's a slow and degenerative disease, without a cure, thus the best hope for doctors is finding treatments that reduce symptoms and slow the progression.

The findings of principal investigator Jody Corey-Bloom, MD, PhD, professor of neurosciences and director of the Multiple Sclerosis Center at UC San Diego, and her colleagues will be published in Canadian Medical Association Journal this month.

In short, the trial was conducted by dividing the group in two parts, one half smoked placebo cannabis for three days, while the remaining half had the real thing. The scientists then swapped over the supply so the placebo group smoked the real thing and visa versa. The researchers didn't mention whether or not anyone cheating by scoring their own supplies on top.

Cannabis truly helps multiple sclerosis sufferers

Cannabis may loosen the stiff and spastic muscles of multiple sclerosis sufferers, and not just their minds, a follow-up study has found.

The results contradict findings from the first phase of the study, where improvements seemed to be largely due to "good moods".

"There does seem to be evidence of some benefit from cannabis in the longer term that we didn't anticipate in the short term study," says John Zajicek, at Peninsula Medical School in Exeter, UK, and one of the research team.

In 2003, Zajicek and his colleagues published results on the largest study to date of cannabinoids and MS. The trial included 630 advanced-stage MS patients who took either cannabinoid compounds or a placebo for 15 weeks.

Compared with those on placebos, patients who received active compounds said they both felt less pain and less muscle spasticity - the spasms characteristic of this neurodegenerative disease.

There have been previous studies that looked into the possibility of treating neurological conditions with cannabis, but they mainly focused on oral treatments, presumably because smoking was considered unhealthy. However, with a recent report showing that cannabis smokers are not affected nearly as badly as tobacco smokers, which has been attributed to its anti inflammatory properties, and taking into account that most people enjoy smoking cannabis far more than they do eating it, this new study makes more sense. There were also reports amongst the pot smoking community that cannabis was seen to relieve symptoms.