Medical Marijuana Trials: Pre-empted by Politics

There has been a lot of debate on the therapeutic use of marijuana. There are currently 24 states that have legalized marijuana for medical use. Most recently, two states, Washington and Colorado, have legalised the drug for recreational use.

While there is literature that suggests benefits of marijuana for medicinal use, particularly in animal models, funding and approvals for therapeutic marijuana use in clinical trials is limited. For example, Dr. Sue Sisley, a psychiatrist at the University of Arizona, lost her job over a proposal to study marijuana on posttraumatic stress disorder patients.

In this article, Applied Clinical Trials’ Moe Alsumidaie talks to Donald Abrams, MD, Cancer and Integrative Medicine Specialist at the UCSF Osher Center for Integrative Medicine at Mount Zion, and Chief of Hematology and Oncology at San Francisco General Hospital, about his experience in running therapeutic marijuana clinical trials. Click here.