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About The Battalion. (College Station, Tex.) 1893-current | View Entire Issue (Nov. 18, 1996)
/'"'"I The Battalion g~\ 'W' "W” H PI VW P V M! 11 1? A T T fl ^ ® i " • ' ^ m i Ei AL I 11 Monday • November 1i Taxpayers provide marijuana for patient The same agencies that rally against legalization of marijuana for medicinal uses, provide joints as “compassionate use.” (AP) - The small silver canister that looks like a cookie tin arrives promptly once a month for Florida stockbroker Irvin Rosenfeld. Its contents: 300 tightly rolled marijuana joints. His supplier: the U.S. govern ment. “The quality is satisfactory,” Rosenfeld says appreciatively. “And I don’t have to buy it on the street.” The 44-year-old suffers from a rare bone disease and is one of eight people legally supplied with marijuana under the govern ment’s longstanding “compas sionate use” program. It is run by the same health and drug agencies that condemn mari juana as part of the national war on drugs. And this fall, top government officials from those agencies cam paigned against ballot measures in California and Arizona to legalize marijuana for medical purposes. The issues passed in both states, al though the courts likely will deter mine their fate. ‘‘Research shows that marijuana is harmful to one’s brain, heart, lungs and immune system,” wrote Health and Human Services Secre tary Donna Shalala in a recent statement. “Any law premised on the notion that marijuana or these other illicit drugs are medically use ful is suspect.” So why does the government continue supplying it? “When we have a compassion ate-use situation, out of feeling for the patient, we don’t take that away,” says Don McLearn, a spokesman for the Food and Drug Administration. “We just don’t add to it.” The federal marijuana program started in the 1970s and was discon tinued in 1992 — partly because of a huge increase in applications from AIDS patients. The 13 people already receiving monthly pot ship ments were allowed to continue. Five have since died. The others will be supplied — at taxpayer expense — for as long as they want. They suffer from cancer, glauco ma, multiple sclerosis and rare ge netic diseases. Marijuana, they say, helps con trol nausea and muscle spasms, ease eye pressure and pain, and stimulate appetites. Pot patients insist it works better than other drugs, including the highly expen sive Marinol, a pill form of mari juana that has the same active in gredient, THC. “We are sick people. We are des perate people,” says Elvy Musikka of Florida, who has glaucoma and car ries her daily ration of marijuana “brownies” in her pocketbook. She bakes them from the 300 joints the National Institute on Drug Abuse sends her every month. “This medicine gives us quali ty of life.” The government crop is harvest ed on a 7.5-acre pot farm at the Re- ire By' The New tests planned for drug search Institute of Pharma: Sciences at the Universityo!| sippi. From there, the marii^ shipped by airplane toE: N.C., where the cigarettesar: by machine, packed inca: and delivered to medical cer the eight patients to pickup The entire operation cos As Aggie w $200,000 a year. :11 dove for It’s a tiny — but thornyiwn grab wit for the various agencies in turday’s gai the FDA, which adminisi esent at Ky program, and its parent ;ard a big thi partment of Health and irsons Morn Services; the National Instre cannon. Drug Abuse, which actsass It may have and the Drug Enforcemem klahoma I which must approve theunake’s jaw controlled substance. ound as the :am converte Memory medicine may improve life for Alzheimer’s patients WASHINGTON (AP) — A new drug, which in some tests of healthy elderly men restores memory almost to that of young people, soon will be tested on patients with Alzheimer’s, the fa tal brain disorder that destroys the mind. Dr. Gary Lynch of the Univer sity of California at Irvine said Sunday the drug called am- pakine CX-516 accelerates sig nals between brain cells and ap pears to significantly sharpen the memory. The drug, used in only mild doses, was tested on students in their early 20s and on men aged 65 to 70 and the results were “particularly striking” among the older people, Lynch said. He delivered a report on the drug Sunday at a national meeting of the Society for Neuroscience. Lynch said clinical trials of the drug consisted of memory tests conducted with and with out CX-516. Before taking the drugs, the subjects were read a series of nonsense syllables, then asked five minutes later to recall as many of them as possible. The elderly could recall, on average, only one of the sylla bles. The score for the young men averaged four out of 10. The subjects later were given mild doses of ampakine CX-516, then retested. “The results for the 65- to 70- year-old men was particularly striking,” said Lynch. “They scored near the range of young people.” In some tests even the young ex perienced improvement in memo ry by about 20 percent, he said. Lynch said the hope is that the drug will improve the mem ory of patients with Alzheimer’s disease, a progressive disorder that destroys memory and other functions of the brain and even tually kills. About 5 million Americans, mostly elderly, have Alzheimer’s, and it is estimated that the number will climb to 15 million over the next quarter- century as the nation’s popula tion ages. Ampakine CX-516 has been tested only on small groups in clinical experiments to detect any toxic effects. A more defini tive test will start next year at the National Institutes of Health, when 16 patients with mild to moderate Alzheimer’s disease will be given the drug. Dr. Donald Price, a neuro science researcher at Johns Hop kins University in Baltimore, said the new drug is “intriguing and innovative” and that it will influence “a very important synapse” in the brain. However, he said, “I have reservations about its use in Alzheimer’s, because it does not directly address the disease mechanism. It is a palliative.” “I would suspend my enthu siasm until I see the results of the clinical trials. It is quite ear ly” in the drug development process, Price said. Lynch and co-workers at the University of California, Irvine, discovered the drug in 1991 while searching for compounds to improve communications be tween neurons in the brain. iay to cap c /en the Soone Russia runs low on rublel.% Money problems plagued space program before Mars f I Jt ^e clock Jo Taillh the ground MOSCOW (AP) —With the biggest launch since the Soviet breakup, Russia’s space scientists had hoped to revitalize the ailing space program with Mars ’96, an ambitious mission to the Red Planet. But the unmanned craft never made it out of Earth’s orbit Sunday, and disappointed scientists are now looking at a bleak future of shrinking budgets, aging facilities and dim prospects for any new missions. The space probe, which would have reached Mars in September, was already two years behind schedule by the time it lifted off late Saturday night at the Baikonur cosmodrome in the former Soviet republic of Kazakhstan. Scientists blamed the delay on chronic money problems in a program that is receiving only one- fifth the cash it got in Soviet times. The Russians spent $64 million over the past two years preparing for Mars ’96 — a large sum for the impoverished Russians, spare change for the American space program. One example: the United States is paying Rus sia $335 million just to sublet the Mir space sta tion, where U.S. astronaut John Blaha currently has a four-month, time-share deal with two Russ ian cosmonauts. Mir, which is nearing the end of its life after 10 years, is a shining example of Soviet-era success es. But the Russian space program has been “run ning on the brink of cbllapse for several years,” said James Oberg, an American specialist on Russ ian space activities. C. Slocum v Oberg described Mars ’96 as “a strikinf uLpunch anc bitious mission even for a healthy spat l a Y to Connel gram.” But, he added, “you can’t keep flat The play was the odds indefinitely.” talon point i Even before Mars ’96 left the ground, f le nts suppose space officials warned it could be Russi bout the A&IV Mars mission in the foreseeable future. e el, and also I “There aren’t any booster rockets. Thejarge betwe< any money,” one of the scientists on the) tiring pregame Vladimir Utkin, told reporters last week. “1 was com] Against long odds, Russian space offici; 1 my commei hoped that this year would showcase their oma team ai to move ahead with cutting-edge projei locum said. “I stead, it has highlighted the painful limitat iani was mue their resource-strapped program. tey started w At the Star City space compound oJd a s the year Moscow, officials in February hailed the"rt Jani has progi able achievement” of keeping Mir in orbi in better and I decade. It was launched Feb. 20, 1986. 11 excellent co; In April, the Russians celebrated the35i: However, B1 niversary of the flight that made Yuri Gagar Uote d as sayir first person in space. 0 . n °f the Sooi Mars ’96 was to provide the proof that ijmself) in ca would still have a first-rate space program ens > an h hi; ing into the 21st century. l0rc talented, The craft had several innovative featuresas the Soo was designed to investigate the evolutiont Martian atmosphere, its surface and theinttf of a planet where some scientists say thereis idence of life. MSC VARIETY SNOW PRESENTS: Featuring. 4DZ lewis Debbie Lucas CHAIN GANG The Porn Stan £““<£; The Reveliers JEREMY VALDEl B 'g 1 Superstructure Jorge Bazan THE (AP) — It come down t< giving Day dt AK'M and Texa I Texas clain place in the B urday with a Kansas. Mear throwaway PEOPite'.ri 1 ) jSooners out ol SuperBand Wasteuanc Aggies- Logan Brothers Bani hands next Sat needs an Okf xas Tech to cr Nov. 29 in At MasterCard a c AMUtUN tUtlUilA It 1 ATechvicto out in the Big the Red Raider the cruel real tyould be that the team that Bated them — l&M defeats h; I The Longln driver’s seat reek: A win ar “We took the |ere,” Texas gua Baylor’s bow Jrhen Missouri (49-42 in three |(4-6, 1-6) colla] fftfter starting 3 ftrconference t I The Longhc pured a bowl Sheir win over