Discovery is touted as alternative to marijuana

Friday, July 27, 2001 | 11:03 a.m.

SUN STAFF AND WIRE REPORTS

Nevada has yet to be daunted by the troubles facing the use of medicinal marijuana.

First the U.S. Supreme Court ruled marijuana possession -- even for medicinal purposes -- was illegal. Next Nevada's funding crisis left the state $30,000 short in launching its own program.

Now the controversy over the medical use of marijuana may soon be moot. Researchers say discovery of a pain-blocking enzyme similar to that found in marijuana could alleviate those concerns and allow free-spirited Nevada to forge ahead with its approved program.

Medical research in mice found that the enzyme, FAAH, allows a marijuana-like compound in the brain to trigger pain relief. The compound, anandamide, is a chemical cousin of the compound found in marijuana.

The findings by the Scripps Research Institute in California appear Tuesday's issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Supporters of Nevada's medicinal marijuana program have been hesitant to support alternative drugs in the past, because those drugs often have severe side effects, or because pill-forms of drugs are difficult for some chronically ill patients to take.

During testimony to the state Legislature in the spring, Dan Geary said smoking marijuana gives chronically ill patients the best form of relief. Geary spearheaded the citizens' ballot initiative that led to legalization of medicinal marijuana by the Legislature.

"They'd have to prove it to us that it's as effective as marijuana before we give up the fight for our medical marijuana program," Dan Hart, one of the program's proponents, said this morning.

Prosecutors, such as Washoe County District Attorney Richard Gammick, argued against such a program saying that a pill, Marinol, could be prescribed by doctors without treading on the state's drug laws.

An unidentified woman whose husband takes marijuana for relief from cancer pain told state lawmakers that marijuana proved the most beneficial for his ailment. She was granted anonymity for her testimony to keep her husband's identity unknown.

Researchers admit their current findings don't answer all the concerns.

"Anandamide reduces pain sensitivity, but it has a lot of side effects," said Benjamin F. Cravatt, an assistant professor of cell biology and chemistry at Scripps and the lead author of the research study.

"We have to see whether those can be separated, one from the other, so we get pain reduction without side effects," Cravatt added.

The importance of the report is that "it really proves that anandamide is broken down by this enzyme and no other," says Dale Deutsch, an associate professor of biochemistry and cell biology at the State University of New York at Stony Brook. Deutsch, who is president of the International Cannabinoid Research Society, played a major role in the first research describing the role of FAAH.

Deutsch is also working with anandamide inhibitors.

"The goal of our research is to understand the mechanism by which anandamide is broken down in the brain, and how cells take it up," he says. "FAAH appears to act like a straw, sucking anandamide into the cell to get rid of it."

A medication that heightens anandamide activity could have a number of uses, Deutsch says. Cannabinoids also affect mood, blood pressure and memory, he explains, and they are closely related to the brain mechanisms of drug addiction, so one possible use would be reducing the ill effects of withdrawal from addiction.

Weight reduction is another possibility, Deutsch says. Safoni, an Italian pharmaceutical company, is planning clinical trials of a compound that blocks cannabinoid receptors in the brain as an aid to weight loss.

Sun reporter

Erin Neff contributed to this report.