HIV patients have hope for Foot Pain if the DEA doesn't arrest them!
Peripheral neuropathy - foot pain - suffered by HIV patients has had no specific drugs to help with the pain - until now. A small study in San Francisco from 2003-2005 resulted in proof that there is help for those in need of it, according to Dr. Donald Abrams, the University of California, San Francisco professor who headed the study.
Smoking three cigarettes each day, a group of 50 people were involved in the study - half smoking marijuana - with tetrahydrocannabinol and the others a placebo - without tetrahydrocannabinol. A whopping 34% of reduction of pain of the people who smoked pot was recorded, while the folks who were given the placebo had half that. This top notch study cost over 1 million dollars, funded by the U of C, who has sponsored many studies on medical marijuana.
California, along with several other states, are working hard to protect their medical marijuana patients. As a locality - state - they have voted on making it legal for people who are prescribed marijuana to use it without fear of repercussions. The Federal governmant doesn't recognize the states law and arrests these people in need because a US Supreme Court judgement said they could!
The Feds should be ashamed of themselves..
On that note - we can understand why the Office of the National Drug Policy is trying to discount this new study. They fail in their arguments, as this is a study was done in one of the most highly regarded ways, by the scientific community, that it could be done. Let these naysayers walk a mile in the shoes of an HIV patient with pain before they discard something that may help! Any chance of relief for people in need should be embraced!
