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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.
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