Souce: Wired.com/Danger RoomKatie Drummond
An Arizona psychiatrist is tantalizingly close to federal approval
for a groundbreaking study of marijuana’s potency in treating PTSD — if
only the National Institute on Drug Abuse would stop stonewalling her.
Dr. Sue Sisley, an assistant professor of psychiatry at the
University of Arizona College of Medicine and a psychiatrist whose
practice treats mostly war veterans, wants to add evidence-based science
to the ubiquitous anecdotal reports, not to mention animal research,
that point to marijuana’s effectiveness at quelling symptoms of
post-traumatic stress. Although plenty of vets smoke up, medical
marijuana can only be prescribed to PTSD sufferers living in New Mexico —
where 27 percent of those with an approved ID card suffer from PTSD,
making it the state’s number one qualifying diagnosis — and nary a study
has evaluated whether the illicit drug actually works.
“Plenty of the veterans I’ve treated use marijuana, only they usually
buy it illegally and use it covertly,” Sisley told Danger Room. “With
research, we can actually figure out which symptoms it might help with,
and what an optimal dosing strategy might look like.”
