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Something New For Pain:
Psychiatrist Dr. Mary Lynch is studying the potential of cannabinoids (Page 2)

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(con't from previous page) Cannabis works, Dr Lynch says, in part because cannabis receptors are found throughout the nervous system, in areas that are significantly involved in pain transmission. Thus cannabinoids can be absorbed by these receptors for better pain control. As well, "the body has been discovered to produce endogenous [generated by the body] cannabis," she says. "Research supports that cannabis is part of the body's own pain defence network." That's something she'd like to expliot.

Given that cannabis smoke contains the same highly toxic particles as cigarette smoke, Dr. Lynch would like to minimize lung exposure, and emphasizes the need for research to develop alternate delivery systems. "But smoking marijuana is very effective; it does get the drug into the body very quickly," she says. "Until we develop better and more effective delivery systems, smoking marijuana is the best thing we have in terms of efficiency."

Not only is she looking into developing new ways of preparing and delivering cannabis which would bypass this side effect of smoking cannibis, Dr. Lynch would also like to see synthetic versions created, and their chemical characteristics changed to make them more effective. For example, a synthetic version could be more water-soluble, and thus more potent, with greater therapeutic effect.

Dr. Lynch points out that even when different methods becomes available for neuropathic pain, they will likely be expensive and thus unavailable to many patients. Cannibis, on the other hand, is affordable. Patients can fine-tune the dose to the minimum effective amount necessary for symptom control; and even if a patient is vomiting intractably due to illness, that patient can still obtain relief by breathing in cannibis smoke. This is not possible with other forms of drugs, such as pills or liquids.

As for the future, "We're planning to expand the research program for the CCIC," Dr. Lynch says. "We're involved in developing collaborative trials, and putting together a clinical trials pain research network." The group is also trying to set up a central lab to perform cannabis analysis and establishing a fundraising campaign to stimulate further pain research in Atlantic Canada.

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