ABSTRACT
Several U.S. states have "legalized" marijuana for medical use in the past years. For many reasons, including that marijuana is still illegal in U.S. federallaw, and due to demand from patients who claim successful relief from marijuana use, these voter-initiated bills resulted in unprecedented legal , political, and scientific repercussions. Several notable scientific meetings were held in 1997-1998 in Europe and the United States to examine the issue of medical marijuana, and reviews on the medical benefits of cannabis have been published.5•21
Marijuana continues to be used illegally for self-medication for spasticity associated with multiple sclerosis (MS) and spinal cord injury (SCI), the extent of use by patients is unknown. Dronabinol (Marinol; ,,9-THC) and nabilone (Cesamet) have been used occasionally in clinical trials for treatment of spasticity. In the preclinical area, discoveries of brain cannabinoid receptors and their endogenous ligands (see Chapter 7) and other cannabinoid mechanisms have accelerated research with the hypothesis that cannabinoids might be developed as therapeutic agents.
