The concept of medical marijuana has gained broad acceptance across America’s demography even while politicians and government bureaucracies in Washington D.C. continue to stymie policy change.
National polls commissioned by Yahoo and Quinnipiac his year measured public support for federal acceptance of medical marijuana at 83 and 94 percent respectively, an overwhelming political consensus. The attitude of the Drug Enforcement Agency has been slow to change, however.
The agency so far has refused to even reschedule marijuana from its Schedule 1 status, a categorization reserved for substances with “high potential for abuse” and “no accepted medical use.” By contrast, extreme party drugs like cocaine and methamphetamine are Schedule II drugs, as both have a few accepted medicinal uses . Deadly opioids like oxycodone also are treated more liberally by the federal government than marijuana.
Regardless of the federal government’s impotence, the public is clearly behind medical marijuana. The question does remain what conditions can marijuana help and are the results demonstrable in double-blind scientific studies?
Dr. Amy Piperato, internist at Stony Point Medical on 43 S. Liberty Dr., believes she has some answers and offers her own life experience using medical cannibas to treat her son’s Dravet Syndrome-an extreme form of epilepsy-and seeing results. Dr. Piperato is not the only one. New peer-reviewed studies indicate that something in the properties of marijuana [also known as cannabinoid] helps restrain seizures in a large number of Dravet sufferers.
“The more I learn, the more science backs it up,” said Dr. Piperato, a resident of Thiells. “It is doing something to suppress seizures.”
Dr. Piperato is one of only a dozen practitioners in Rockland County currently working with medical marijuana. Of the 90,000 general practitioners in the state, about 1,000 are currently offering marijuana as a therapeutic option, serving approximately 20,000 enrollees in the state’s pot program.
The pot program came into being thanks to 2015’s Compassionate Care NY Act, a law that gave the state’s stamp of approval on medicinal marijuana. The fact pot is banned federally creates issues, however.
For example, Dr. Piperato and others working with marijuana for medical purposes cannot prescribe any of the products. The doctors can only “recommend” them.
The patient then must acquire the suggested medical product at one of the state’s assigned dispensary locations. The states that have launched such medical weed programs are arguably engaging in civil disobedience against an unpopular federal law.
“It should be between patient and doctor,” Dr. Piperato said.
One local lawmaker who agrees is State Senator William Larkin (R). Looked at as a key figure during policy debates on the issue, Larkin went against his party’s line and voted to approve New York’s nascent medical marijuana program.
Dr. Piperato was one of those in Larkin’s ear extolling the good that medical marijuana can do. Larkin came to see the issue as a non-political matter and agreed it ought to be left to the privacy of the individual in consultation with their doctor.
“Senator Larkin led the charge for Compassionate Care NY. Without him it would have died in committee,” Dr. Piperato said.
So what are some potential benefits from medical marijuana? New York State says cannabinoid medicines may have therapeutic qualities in treating the following conditions:
1. Cancer
2. HIV/AIDS
3. Parkinson’s disease
4. Huntington’s disease
5. Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS or Lou Gherig’s disease)
6. Spinal cord injury
7. Multiple sclerosis
8. Inflammatory bowel disease (Crohn’s disease or ulcerative colitis)
9. Epilepsy
10. Chronic pain
11. Neuropathy.
Dr. Piperato is very serious in her attitude toward medical
marijuana. It is about allowing patients access to something that might
help them, not joining any kind of social or cultural bandwagon.She wants to see the stigma on medical pot removed so that people can deal with it rationally.
Dr. Piperato said she has seen reduction in the severity and frequency of seizures in her own son, 6-year-old Vinny, since he began using cannabinoid-based medicinal products. For all the hoopla and controversy, she said marijuana has fewer and less severe side effects than many other medicines prescribed to restrain seizures.
The Piperatos have been through at least seven medicines in their effort to treat Vinny’s Dravet Syndrome. When Dr. Piperato tried to wean Vinny off of his cannabinoid medicinal product he immediately reacted with a series of seizures, she noted. She does not plan to try that again anytime soon.
“Yes. It’s my son. I couldn’t be more invested [in the result of therapy],” she said when asked if she was confident the cannabinoid products had a positive effect on Vinny’s health.
Dr. Piperato’s husband John, a local businessman and former candidate for Haverstraw town office, admits to having sought out cannabinoid products after reading of their potential to help his son. “You know me, I’d do anything for him,” he said.
Before having to resort to secretly acquiring an illegal product, New York’s “Compassionate Care” was passed and the state-approved program commenced shortly thereafter.
Dr. Piperato said she believes the reason medical
marijuana is not receiving a green light from the federal government is
not the culture wars. Public opinion on the issue is beyond consensus,
those wars have been fought and settled. Rather, she said it is drug
companies who stand to lose money that are lobbying to block new
treatments that could hurt their bottom lines.
Since going into the medical marijuana field, Dr. Piperato notes that
most of her patients are not stereotypical “stoners.” A lot of them are
elderly folks who never smoked marijuana in their entire lives. They
simply are people seeking relief and medical marijuana provides it for
many.Having seen the positive potential of the plant, Dr. Piperato has
chosen to be an advocate and a voice against anti-marijuana stigma.
Dr. Piperato can be reached at her 43 South Liberty Dr.,
Stony Point office, by telephone at 845-241-5700 and by email at
amypiperatomd@gmail.com. In addition to medical marijuana, she
specializes in adult primary care and treatment of osteoporosis.
Recent double-blind study measuring efficacy of cannabinoid treatment for Dravet Syndrome, specifically seizures associated with the condition, was conducted by University of Washington Alcohol and Drug Abuse Institute, the National Institutes of Health’s National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke, the National Institute on Drug Abuse, and the CURE Foundation. Pure cannabidiol was provided by GW Pharma, UK. The other authors on the study were Joshua S. Kaplan and Ruth E. Westenbroek, both from the department of Pharmacology in the UW School of Medicine.
It was reported in medical press that “The researchers found that, in mice, cannabidiol treatment effectively reduced the severity and duration of seizures, as well as their frequency. In looking at how cannabidiol affects brain neurons in the Dravet syndrome mouse model, the researchers observed that it rebalances the ratio of excitation to inhibition in the hippocampus. This is a part of the brain involved in learning and memory.
“These experimental findings suggest that cannabidiol reverses Dravet syndrome’s core deficit, which is failure of the brain’s inhibitory neurons to fire electrical signals and control the activity of nearby excitatory neurons. The researchers also found that cannabidiol may act by antagonizing GPR55, a brain receptor that remains poorly understood.
“Determining the detailed molecular mechanism that mediates the therapeutic actions of cannabidiol may suggest development strategies for new drugs aimed at GPR55, according to the researchers.
Such potential new class of medicines would ideally be more effective against seizures and cognitive deficit and would enter the brain more efficiently than the currently available therapeutics.
“Compared to many existing medications for epilepsy, cannabidiol shows fewer and milder side effects. The researchers concluded that this study contributes to the emerging data that supports the efficacy of cannabidiol in otherwise treatment-resistant epilepsy and may lead to improved therapies for these debilitating diseases.”
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