Posted on 10/21/2002 1:49:40 PM PDT by Senator Pardek
Patients whose suffering has been relieved by marijuana have a suggestion for what government officials can do with their propaganda denying that the drug has any medical use. Perhaps inspired by that reaction, a pharmaceutical researcher is testing a suppository containing marijuana's main active ingredient.
Mahmoud ElSohly, the scientist who oversees the federal government's pot farm at the University of Mississippi, uses tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) extracted from the plants for his suppository. The Small Business Administration, which has supported his work with $1.3 million in loans, recently gave ElSohly Laboratories an award in recognition of its innovative extraction process.
ElSohly predicts the suppository, which has been tested for safety in humans but has not undergone clinical trials, will be available within three years. As a nausea medication and appetite booster, it will compete with Marinol, a capsule containing synthetic THC. Marinol is approved by the Food and Drug Administration for treating AIDS wasting syndrome and the side effects of cancer chemotherapy.
Like smoked marijuana, the suppository has the advantage that patients do not need to swallow it and keep it down, a challenge for people suffering from severe nausea. It also should be quicker-acting than Marinol. For speed, though, it's hard to beat smoked marijuana, which works immediately and allows patients to take exactly as much as they need to control their symptoms. (In addition to nausea, marijuana is used to control pain and muscle spasms.) The main drawback of smoked marijuana is the combustion products that accompany the THC.
To avoid that hazard, the National Academy of Sciences has recommended development of an inhaler that would deliver THC (and possibly other useful cannabinoids) without smoke. Such a product would be further proof that the federal government is lying when it calls medical marijuana "a cruel hoax" with no scientific basis--an argument it uses to justify its crackdown on organizations that dispense the drug to sick people.
Yet an inhaler also would make the medical marijuana debate moot by offering an alternative that is superior to smoked cannabis. The question is how much suffering the government is prepared to inflict in the meantime.
You know where to shove it!!
[A] pharmaceutical researcher is testing a suppository containing marijuana's main active ingredient.The ads should be very interesting.
If you can find a better pain releiver, you know where you can put it.
BTW, why don't they just shove joints up their butts?
I believe the occasional methane burst, and the resulting hard-to-explain burnmarks, have made lighting joints in this position a practice that no one would sit still for.
You know what they're going to start calling distributors and retailers of this new suppository, don't you?
Crack dealers.
In the future, please remember to complete this phrase: "... who hate God and America."
Thank you for your attention to this matter.
Drug Warriors' behavior does not indicate any limit to how much suffering they are prepared to inflict.
It's only fitting that it be inserted where the libertarian mindset originates.
Yeah, and they could call it "Doobies for booties."
ROFLMHO!!!!!!!!
This is so great, now I can tell all the potheads, that try to use medicinal marijuana as their surrogate excuse for being stoners to go blow it out their ass! (figuratively and literally!) This is just too perfect!
Wow.
Don't quit your day job, Chuckles.
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