Thu-Jun11 23:08:53 1998

Subject: Potential health system cost savings from mmj

The New Zealand Drug Policy Forum Trust is embarking on an analysis of the potential cost savings to the NZ health care system if medicinal cannabis were legal and used to the fullest extent appropriate, given usual cost-effectiveness considerations.

We are looking for data concerning the extent to which cannabis might be able to substitite for currently used pharmaceutical preparations for each of the indications for which cannabis is generally considered safe and effective (at least by people who know what they're talking about). I take these to be: nausea and vomiting, especially produced by chemotherapy muscle spasms, especially associated with major neurological diseases, epilepsy, glaucoma, migraine headache, anorexia, especially but not limited to that produced by AIDS and cancer, certain psychological or mental-heath related conditions, including (some cases of) depression, anxiety, and stress-related conditions.

Obviously not all patients with the above conditions will benefit from cannabis. Indeed, that's the question: what proportion of patients wil l?

Ideally we would like to find analyses that have concluded: X percent of patients who take Y drug for Z indication could get equivalent relief fro m cannabis, properly adminstered etc.

I doubt this has been done, however. Probably the closest we will come i s reviewing and summarizing the results from studies in these settings. Ha s anyone already derived summary estimates of effectiveness rates based on these studies?

Published studies aren't the last word, however, and we are also looking for testimony from people with substantial experience in this area - not individual patient testimony, mind you - but practitioners (of whatever sort) who have had an opportunity to see cannabis succeed and fail over t ime in a substantial series of patients. Anybody like that out there?

This should be interesting.

Thanks

David