Marijuana May Ease AIDS Patients' Foot Pain

The smoked drug lessens a burning numbness that accompanies the illness, study finds.

By Randy Dotinga
HealthDay Reporter
Tuesday, February 13, 2007; 12:00 AM

Copyright © 2007 ScoutNews, LLC. All rights reserved.

TUESDAY, Feb. 13 (HealthDay News) -- Adding fuel to the debate over medical marijuana, a new study suggests that AIDS patients can relieve stubborn nerve pain in their feet by smoking the drug.

On average, patients reported a 34 percent improvement in foot pain after smoking pot, twice that of those smoking a weakened form of the drug.

The study is small, and the findings don't reveal why marijuana may reduce pain. Experts also noted that there's a potentially distracting side effect to the treatment -- getting high.

Still, the study findings add support to the idea that medical marijuana isn't "like some sort of Cheech and Chong show," said study lead author Dr. Donald I. Abrams, professor of clinical medicine at the University of California, San Francisco.

After all, he said, the study has been published in the Feb. 13 issue of Neurology, a respected medical journal.

The study has also re-ignited debate on the thorny issue of medical marijuana use. In a statement released Tuesday, a variety of national HIV/AIDS advocacy groups called for congressional hearings in response to the study findings.

"It's time for Washington to stop playing politics with patients' lives and advance this important scientific discovery," Steph Sherer, executive director of Americans for Safe Access, said in the statement. "The study is a wake-up call for Congress to hold hearings to investigate therapeutic use and encourage research."

For his part, UCSD's Abrams said he has studied the medical effects of marijuana for a decade. The new research examines its effects on AIDS patients with a condition called neuropathy, a painful burning numbness that can strike the feet and hands.

The condition, which can affect about a third of patients, is often difficult to treat, Abrams said, and painkillers often fail to ease the discomfort. In some cases, patients have to resort to anti-seizure medications.

According to Abrams, research had suggested that marijuana might be able to treat nerve pain. In the new study, his team first got approvals from various agencies and then launched a study using marijuana.