<![CDATA[Marijuana and HIV Neuropathy]]>Neuropathy is a difficult thing to explain. It’s a form of pain and sensitivity in the extremities, and it affects people with long-term HIV. It can become quite severe. In the very late 1980s, I was a volunteer "buddy" to a man with AIDS in D.C. who suffered from this. Even a slight brush of a sheet against his feet would give him spasms of pain. I remember this because moving him from sofa to bed caused him to yell expletives at me. We now find that marijuana may help such neuropathy – a new clinical trial shows clearly how. What is the Bush administration’s response? Here it is:

"People who smoke marijuana are subject to bacterial infections in the lungs," said David Murray, chief scientist at the Office of National Drug Control Policy. "Is this really what a physician who is treating someone with a compromised immune system wants to prescribe?"

It seems to me that that is a decision best left to a doctor and a patient. Which means making the treatment available if necessary – and legal.

]]>