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Westford Physician Would Not Prescribe Marijuana To Patients
URL: http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v05/n1092/a02.htmlNewshawk: Humphrey Ploughjogger www.MassCann.org
Pubdate: Thu, 07 Jul 2005 WESTFORD PHYSICIAN WOULD NOT PRESCRIBE MARIJUANA TO PATIENTS
Source: Lowell Sun (MA)
Copyright: 2005 MediaNews Group, Inc.
Contact:
letters@lowellsun.com
Website: http://www.lowellsun.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/852
Author: Katherine L. Phaneuf, MD
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/mmj.htm
(Cannabis - Medicinal)
Responding to a spate of articles and editorials prompted by the recent Supreme
Court decision regarding medical marijuana, I offer my take on the subject from
the perspective of a practicing physician. The key points for me are that,
if such products could be developed by the pharmaceutical industry, they would
be regulated for safety and efficacy by the Food and Drug Administration ( FDA )
and I could be more certain as to the dose I would be prescribing. In
addition, I believe this would already fall under the purview of the FDA, so
that we do not need the courts to intervene. I would like to make an
illustrative comparison. Let's say I had a patient with intractable pain
for whom opiate therapy would be appropriate. I would never tell him to go
out and buy a few bags of heroin. Heroin can be quite effective in easing
extreme pain, but I could never be certain of the dose he would be getting.
Heroin is a street drug, cut with any number of substances in illegal
laboratories. What adverse effects might these uncontrolled additives
have? The pharmaceutical industry provides us with a number of similar opiates (
such as Morphine ), regulated by the FDA for safety in prescribed uses, with
standardized dosing. Several routes are available, including oral,
injectable and transdermal. I would like similar availability and
regulation of various drug delivery systems for the active ingredient( s ) of
marijuana, so that I can be as sure of dosing as I am for medically available
opiates. Do I think marijuana should be legalized? That is, or should be,
a separate issue entirely. We are addressing medical uses of marijuana.
Simply put, I'm not looking to prescribe smoked marijuana, but rather a
regulated medication.
Katherine L. Phaneuf, MD
Westford
