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Medical Use of Marijuana Divides Italy |
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By Francesca Colombo*
Patients
with incurable diseases defend the controversial initiative to use
marijuana to alleviate pain. The Italian Parliament has the final
word.
MILAN, Dec 2 (Tierramérica) - In Italy just
10 ill people have authorization to use marijuana as therapy against
pain. But that number could grow in the coming months if Parliament
approves a law for using this usually illegal plant for medical
purposes.
Federico Fantoni, 58, is a doctor -- and a quadriplegic. For the
past eight years he has used a wheelchair and suffers pain his arms
due to muscle contraction caused by his illness. To fight the pain
he tried all possible medications, including opium patches, but
he couldn't stand the side effects.
After learning more about the therapeutic use of marijuana (Cannabis
sativa), he decided to try it. "In five hours I didn't feel any
discomfort," he said in testimony for the Italian Association for
Therapeutic Cannabis.
That group is part of the International Association for Cannabis
as Medicine, whose objective is to improve the legal framework around
the world for utilizing marijuana and its pharmacological components
in therapeutic applications.
The bill in Italy to legalize medical use of marijuana, presented
in October by the Council of Ministers, triggered reactions in favor
and against among politicians, experts and citizens.
Those opposed to medical marijuana doubt its therapeutic effects,
warn about a potential increase in general use of the drug, and
are calling for lawmakers to vote against the bill.
According to official figures, there are three million marijuana
users in Italy, who are allowed to possess one gram for personal
use. Because of the drug's psychotropic properties, and because
some see its use as a gateway to more dangerous drugs, consumption
of marijuana is banned in most countries.
But alternative medical clinics and patients with incurable diseases
defend its use, pointing to its properties for alleviating pain.
"Doctors don't know much about the use of marijuana for medicinal
purposes. (The plant) has never been included in pharmacology. Italy
is one of the countries lagging farthest behind in Europe when it
comes to alternative cures, but we already have cases of ill people
who discovered it and assure that they live better," Pietro Moretti,
a consulted for the Association for the Rights of Users and Consumers,
told Tierramérica.
Marijuana's defenders argue that it is less destructive than alcohol
or tobacco. In Italy, cigarette smoking leads to 90,000 deaths per
year, and alcohol abuse to 20,000 deaths.
"Marijuana can be used for therapeutic purposes. If science provides
clear answers, we're behind it. But politics in Italy functions
with ideological and propagandistic stimuli, not based on scientific
data. For example, morphine is a stronger drug than marijuana and
is used by terminal patients," Alessandro Litta, representative
in the region of Lombardia for the socialist party Rosa nel Pugno,
told Tierramérica.
Numerous studies indicate that marijuana is effective for treating
some pathologies. In 1985, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration
approved the sale of synthetic cannabinoids -- laboratory-produced
substances with the chemical components of marijuana -- to fight
nausea in cancer patients caused by chemotherapy.
A report in the British Medical Journal, the journal of the British
Medical Association, demonstrated the effectiveness of the controversial
plant in alleviating neuropathic pain caused by muscle spasms in
people with multiple sclerosis.
Marijuana can also be used to alleviate pain related to treatments
for AIDS, to lower blood pressure and to dilate the lungs.
Giampiero Tiano, 27, is a mathematician. When he was 19 he was run
over by a car, spent two months in coma, and one year later suffered
an epileptic seizure. He took medications for a year, until he read
that marijuana could be used to prevent epileptic crises. He decided
to try it, and smoked up to eight marijuana cigarettes a day. He
hasn't had an episode in four years.
But in 1996, the police seized the 11 cannabis plants Tiano had
in his house, and arrested him. Two years later he was sentenced
to 18 months in prison. The sentence was annulled in 1999 by the
appeals court. The defense demonstrated that marijuana has therapeutic
effects in cases of epilepsy.
According to doctors who have experimented with the plant, like
Antonio Mussa, director of surgical oncology at Le Molinette Hospital
in Turin, and former member of the European Parliament, marijuana
reduces pain, boosts the appetite and produces a sense of euphoria
in patients. "If I can't extend their lives, at least I can improve
the quality of life. How can a patient with six months to live become
an addict?" he told Il Manifesto newspaper in a Jun. 13 interview.
But consumption of marijuana for medical purposes also has other
effects and, according to detractors, the dosage cannot be controlled
and it is no better than morphine as an analgesic.
"If the active ingredients of marijuana serve to reduce the suffering
of terminal patients, its use is a good thing, but should be controlled,"
Maurizio Crestani, pharmacologist at the University of Milan, said
in a Tierramérica interview.
"I don't agree with indiscriminate liberalization, because that
could unleash drug trafficking or a black market. It should only
be used under a doctor's prescription and in specific cases," he
said.
* Francesca Colombo is a Tierramérica contributor.
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