Strain For Pain

University of Mississippi researchers are zeroing in on new ways to administer cannabis medicine

You can say that Dr. Mahmoud ElSohly has a unique job.

He is the director of the University of Mississippi’s Marijuana Project (UMMP), a research laboratory dedicated to growing and studying cannabis for the purposes of scientific research. And, according to the National Institute on Drug Abuse, this heavily-guarded, incredibly secure installation is also the one place in the entire country where federally-funded officials can obtain cannabis at all. Dr. ElSohly’s current work involves studying tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) and its effects on the human body, particularly its propensity for pain relief.

“There are many indications for which THC would be a good medicine if you have the right formulations and dosing,” says Dr. ElSohly. THC and other cannabinoids are the chemical compounds largely responsible for the plant’s beneficial effects. But while some rely on smoking for the relief of pain, nausea, anxiety, depression and insomnia, the doctor believes that such methods aren’t advisable. “There’s an inherent problem with the smoking of marijuana as a delivery system,” Dr. ElSohly says.

“There are so many variables in the smoking process,” he adds. “It’s ludicrous to think you could come up with a dosage. The problem with smoking marijuana is that when you take even a single puff, you absorb so much all at once, which rushes into the brain and causes the side effects of smoking marijuana. If the high is too high, then you actually end up with the opposite activity of the high, which is the paranoia, the dysphoria and the problems associated with that.”

So while patients across America might be puffing to ease the pain, researchers at the UMMP are studying cannabis in order to isolate the precise compounds that have beneficial properties so that people don’t have to light up. For scientists like Dr. ElSohly, the question of whether or not cannabis is beneficial isn’t an issue. “Does it lower intraocular pressure for glaucoma patients? Yes it does. Does it reduce anxiety? Yes it does,” he says.

One recent breakthrough developed by Dr. ElSohly and his UMMP team is a THC patch (similar to a nicotine patch) that can be placed in your mouth, along the gum line, to administer a dose. Because the UMMP’s formula for the patch is much less synthetic than drugs like Marinol (a synthesized form of THC), it is a more reliable way to deliver the medicine.

“We’re not really introducing anything strange to the body, other than the THC itself,” he says.

“Because of the way it is absorbed it’s almost like it’s absorbed through the lungs, like the smoke. When you smoke, it goes to the lungs, to the whole, entire body before going to the liver. Unlike the oral [which] goes to the liver first and then goes to the rest of the body,”

That means that MMJ patients may have another option in finding measurable relief without lighting up. “It looks like we have a successful product with good bioavailability and blood levels,” ElSohly says. “We have observed absorption for up to 10 hours.” For a lot of patients—especially asthma sufferers—that’s a great way to manage the pain without having to go up in smoke.

www.mpp.org/states/mississippi

Formula For Success

Dr. ElSohly has not only been the director of the UMMP since 1981, he is also the principal investigator for ElSohly Laboratories, Inc., a private organization currently working on patented formulas for various other THC delivery systems. In 2010, the doctor was awarded more than $200,000 in federal funds for his cannabis research.