Reefer Sanity (the "rush" to develope marijuana based drugs w/o giggles)

[papau]

http://www.fortune.com/fortune/thisjustin/0,15704,540400,00.html

THIS JUST IN
Reefer Sanity
The brain's cannabinoid receptor is the target of a rush (ha!) to develop new drugs.
FORTUNE
Tuesday, November 11, 2003
By Meredith Wadman

If you're among those of us who did inhale, you'll recall one of the weed's enjoyable side effects: intense attacks of the munchies that sent you scurrying for baked beans and Moon Pies faster than Pooh after honey. So you may appreciate this tasty irony: Drug companies are racing to develop pills that plug into the same brain-signaling system that once had boomers flying high—this time to help them lose weight.

Experimental drugs that block the brain receptor activated by marijuana—called the cannabinoid receptor—are showing clear promise in fighting obesity. And that's not the only vice that may soon be treatable with this new breed of mind medicine. Predilections for Marlboros and martinis are also targets of a new drug now in human trials and nearing the clinic, with imitators hot on its tail.

Farther from the pharmacist's counter but still firing up a lot of interest are experimental compounds that work not by blocking cannabinoid receptors but by activating them. These are squelching strokes, allaying anxiety, and easing pain in lab animals. There's even a suggestion that drugs that stimulate cannabinoid receptors in sperm may one day yield a contraceptive for men. If only they'd remember to take it! (All is not lost on this score—the cannabinoid system is important in the function of memory as well.)

<snip>


Of course, man-made drugs that turn on cannabinoid receptors are bound to freak out the drug police. So scientists are trying to develop compounds that fight disease without giving users the giggles. Scientists at the University of Arizona and the University of Connecticut have used an experimental drug to increase pain tolerance in rats and mice with nerve-injured paws. The drug binds to a class of cannabinoid receptors that occur only outside the brain, meaning that the furry guys get pain relief without getting high. The applications aren't trivial: Neuropathic pain from nerve injury affects millions of Americans and doesn't respond well to existing painkillers. AlexiPharma, a Connecticut startup, is hoping to move the drug into human trials within a year. <snip>

[SlavesandBulldozers]

1. a big Pharma

the only reason they wont legalize natural cannabinoids is because they couldn't sell a synthetic THC pill were they legal.

[Vogon_Glory]

2. A Plant Suited For Bio-Tech

Considering all the useful properties that cannabis seems to possess, I'm surprised that Fidel Castro isn't targeting this plant as a resource for his bio-tech operations. After all, he has little to lose by doing so--at least as long as Dubya is in the White House and as long as people like Tom DeLay control the House of Representatives.

Castro's Cuba has dozens of closed-down sugar Centrales and hundreds of people who'd appreciate new work. I'm sure those former sugar workers wouldn't mind growing hemp for industrial uses or bio tech production.

And Castro's Cuba has little to fear about the consequences. After all, what can the US drug warriors do to him? Enact a trade embargo? Prohibit US tourists from going there?