Ole Miss home to medical marijuana lab

Jared Robert Senseman, The (Jackson, Miss.) Clarion-Ledger | USA TODAY

OXFORD, Miss. -- The only reason 73-year-old Elvy Musikka still has her sight, she says, is she's been smoking pot for the last 30 years.

"In 1975, my doctor told me if I didn't start using marijuana, I'd go blind," said Musikka. "Shortly thereafter I found out that, indeed, it was the only thing that would help me with my glaucoma."

Musikka is one of only four people still enrolled in the federal government's Investigational New Drug program, which allows a small number of patients to use medical marijuana grown at the University of Mississippi. The program stopped accepting new participants in 1992 but allowed patients already in the program to continue receiving their prescriptions. At its peak, the program provided pot for 30 patients.

"All of us admitted in the program were required to prove to the FDA, DEA and NIDA that marijuana was the safest and most efficient treatment available for us," she said. "The bottom line for me was that I was losing my sight."

For more than 30 years Musikka has had glaucoma, a disease that causes a gradual increase in eye pressure and can ultimately lead to blindness. Pot relieves pressure in the eye caused from glaucoma and has been shown to occasionally reverse some of the damage caused by the disease.

Musikka recently moved from Florida to Oregon to enroll in a state-run medicinal marijuana program but said she found it to be very expensive. Now that Colorado and Washington have legalized the drug, Musikka thinks access to medical marijuana may be easier and that the marijuana may be cheaper.

"There is no state, no place, where people do not seriously need this medicine. There is public support for all of us, everywhere," she said.

Inside the marijuana research lab at Ole Miss, the potent smell of marijuana lingers in the air. The grow room, housing plants that are up to six feet tall, buzzes with the sound of heat lamps and ventilation systems. The entire complex is surrounded by multiple guard towers, two enormous barbed wire fences and countless security cameras.

Ole Miss was selected in 1968 as the United States' first, and only, legal marijuana farm since the drug became illegal in 1937 under the Marijuana Tax Act. The pot was grown for research being done by the National Institute on Drug Abuse, and was supplied to a small number of patients who were able to prove marijuana was the only therapeutic drug that would alleviate symptoms from their varying illnesses.

Acceptance of marijuana for medical use has come a long way since 1968. Currently, 18 states and Washington D.C. all offer prescription pot. The change has been slow, yet gradual, over recent years.

Arkansas came incredibly close to becoming the 19th state last month by trying to legalize marijuana for medicinal use. The measure, known as Issue 5, would have made medical marijuana legal for the first time in a Southern state. The initiative was voted against by 51 percent.

Mahmoud ElSohly, the head of the marijuana research program since 1981, said he doubts the new laws in Washington and Colorado will make a big difference to his work, but he said it may cause an increase in drug abuse, particularly among young people.

"The danger of high-potency marijuana is not necessarily with people that are chronic users of the drug. They probably know how to limit themselves to the right amount of smoke. The problem is with young people who are trying marijuana," ElSohly said. "The psychoactivity of high-potency marijuana is really not a pleasant thing. People get paranoid and very irritable, almost violent sometimes. They get the opposite of the activities sought by the user."

While high-potency marijuana can be dangerous for some, Musikka believes it's the only reason she still has her vision. She said one of the main reasons she moved to Oregon was to have access to stronger marijuana.

ElSohly is concerned about the unregulated market for marijuana. He said that without some type of regulation in place people are subjected to dangerously high levels of THC, the main psychoactive chemical in marijuana.

"They get something off the street without knowing the potency of what they are smoking, and before they realize they've had too much, it's already too late."

ElSohly said it's also important to remember marijuana is still illegal on the federal level.

"The United States government is obligated under national treaty to treat marijuana as a Schedule 1 drug," he stated. "We have to make the distinction that this is an approval by referendum, rather than an approval by regulatory testing and due process."

"The people that are pro-legalization, they don't want that, they just want to grow their own stuff and smoke it and be happy. That's it," ElSohly said.

Michael Wigginton Jr., former DEA agent and professor of Criminal Justice at Ole Miss, isn't sure that legalization on a federal level will ever happen, much less anytime soon.

"Federal law is supreme in the United States, it will always override state and local law. Despite Oregon and Washington having legalized and decriminalized possession of marijuana, it doesn't negate federal policy," Wigginton said.

"I don't see any of these legalization measures making any major inroads anytime soon. I don't think the American public as a whole would want to entertain that."

ElSohly and his team at Ole Miss are working on a new method of administering THC, the main therapeutic component in marijuana. They hope the new approach will decrease some of the unwanted psychological effects and offer a safer way to attain the therapeutic effects of pot, without having to inhale smoke.

"What we are working on right now is a transmucosal — a small patch that will be put inside the mouth above the gum line. We have support from the National Institute of Health and also from my private lab," he said. "We've concluded the first couple phases, and we are working on releasing it soon with a pharmaceutical partner."

Right now, an estimated more than 1 million Americans have legal prescriptions for pot, and ElSohly said attitudes about medical uses of marijuana do appear to be changing.

"In the past, companies were kind of shying from the idea because it was associated with marijuana, and marijuana is a 'bad word,' so nobody was actually getting into that," he stated.

As for Musikka, her hope is attitudes about the use of medical marijuana are changing, too.

"We have five generations of lies and misinformation keeping us incapable of rendering rational decisions as individuals, or as a nation, on this issue," she said.