You rang?
" He gave half actual marijuana cigarettes to smoke three times a day, the other half smoked placebo cigarettes."
I don't smoke marijuana. No secret there. But even I could tell the difference between marijuana and a placebo just by the smell alone. The "study" is a joke.
"But he says smoking the actual plant works better than taking the pill"
Yeah, doing a study using Marinol (the THC pill) and a placebo wouldn't be fair, now would it? Oh, Dr. Donald Abrams has long been associated with the movement to legalize drugs.
"Dr. Kenneth P. Mackie, a professor of anesthesiology at the University of Washington, has devoted 15 years to studying the brain's response to cannabinoids through specialized brain receptors called CB1 and CB2. "There's a whole bunch of theoretical reasons suggesting there would be a benefit for marijuana on a variety of conditions relating to pain and neuroinflammation," Dr. Mackie said. "But the clinical studies just aren't there."