Aids

Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) is contracted by passing of body fluids. Once thought to be limited to intravenous drug users and gay men, it is increasingly present in the heterosexual population as well. Additionally, many haemophiliacs are HIV-positive after receiving tainted blood products prior to routine screening being introduced. People with the virus usually go on to contract Aquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome (AIDS). The patient's diagnosis changes when either their T-cell count (the number of healthy immune cells the patient has) falls below 200 (normal range is 800-1200) or they contract one of the 30 separate AIDS diseases. These are mostly common "opportunistic infections" that prey on weakened immune systems. Testing HIV-positive is not a death sentence, as by living healthily people can anticipate a life span of 10 years or many more. Antiviral drugs, of which the best known is AZT, are used to attack HIV. Unfortunately, AZT suppresses the production of red blood cells, decreases the number of white blood cells, and has many damaging effects on the digestive system. It sometimes causes severe nausea that heightens the danger of semi-starvation for patients who are already losing weight because of the illness. About 20% of AIDS patients develop an infectious disease of the eye that can cause blindness. A drug called Foscavir is used to treat it, but this too has the side effect of nausea. The anti-emetic properties of cannabis indicate that it is likely to be useful in treating the nausea caused by the disease and these other medications. Patients with AIDS suffer from 'wasting syndrome', which is defined by the (US) Centers for Disease Control as 'the involuntary loss of more than 10% of baseline average body weight in the presence of diarrhoea or fever of more than 30 days that is not attributable to other disease processes' . This can occur by either starvation or cachexia, and chances of survival decrease significantly for the patient if as little as 5% of their body weight is lost. Existing therapy for wasting syndrome is the use of appetite stimulants (such as megestrol acetate) but few medications have proven successful. Cannabis too is an appetite stimulant (as can be seen in the 'munchies' that recreational users often get). In America, oral synthetic THC is available medically, under the trademark Marinol. Its license includes its usage as an appetite stimulant in AIDS patients. An amendment to the Misuse Of Drugs Regulations in 1995 means that it can be prescribed on a named-patient basis in the UK as well, however in practice it is not available, perhaps due to the large amount of administration, regulation and paperwork needed to be done in order to use it medically. Some concern has been shown as it seems possible that cannabis may suppress the immune system. However, it is not known whether this occurs in humans at the required dosages. If immuno-suppression occurs however, it does not seem severe enough to preclude the use of cannabis as a medicine. Certainly there is no evidence that cannabis use increases the rate of progression to AIDS from HIV-positive patients. All in all, from both research and anecdotal evidence, cannabis seems to reduce any nausea, appetite suppression and physical pain that comes from either the disease itself, or its currently-prescribed medications.