After almost three years of effort, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has granted approval to Dr. Ethan Russo, a neurologist in Missoula, Montana, to study the effects of smoked cannabis (marijuana) in the treatment of migraine.

Cannabis will be compared to oral dronabinol (Marinol) and injected sumatriptan, the current "gold standard" in the acute treatment of the disease. The study will enroll 40 patients with severe migraine, and employ a double-blind, double-dummy crossover design, using cannabis, herb devoid of THC, Marinol (synthetic THC) or placebo capsules.

Barriers to Russo's study remain. The National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) currently holds a monopoly on the domestic supply of marijuana. NIDA will only sell the drug to researchers who will pass an additional internal Public Health Service review.

Russo notes, "NIDA has thrown up a new and unnecessary barrier to this research. Their review panel has not been selected or seated, and there are no guarantees that members will have any expertise in migraine treatment. (...) There will be additional unnecessary delays. In the meantime we cannot properly raise funding for the study." The Cannabis in Acute Migraine Treatment Protocol has a projected cost of $250,000, to be raised from private sources.

Should the current problems with NIDA continue, Dr. Russo has considered a foreign source of supply, "The British government is fully supporting current cannabis research. Dr. Geoffrey Guy is already recruiting multiple sclerosis patients for clinical trials. His material is true medical grade cannabis, three to four times as potent as the best that NIDA says that it can supply."

(Source: Personal communication of Dr. Ethan Russo ptm5739@montana.com )