CANNABIS CULTURE – A new California state-sponsored study has found that medical cannabis can reduce pain for patients suffering from HIV/Aids, multiple sclerosis, and cancer.

“This study confirms all of the anecdotal evidence that those of us who have been in the midst of this epidemic for many decades now,” San Francisco Democratic State Senator Mark Leno told Capital Public Radio, “how lives have been saved and pain has been eased as a result of medical marijuana.”

Researchers at The Center for Medicinal Cannabis Research at UC-San Diego say the experiments, which involved two-hundred people participating in five different test groups, show that cannabis was just as good or better than traditional pain medications.

A news release from The Center for Medicinal Cannabis Research says the group “was created in 2000 (through the passage of SB847) to conduct clinical and pre-clinical trials of cannabinoids, including smoked marijuana, to provide evidence, one way or the other, to answer the question ‘Does marijuana have therapeutic value?'”

“We focused on illnesses where current medical treatment does not provide adequate relief or coverage of symptoms,” said Dr. Igor Grant, CMCR director and Executive Vice-Chair of the Department of Psychiatry at the UCSD School of Medicine. “These findings provide a strong, science-based context in which policy makers and the public can begin discussing the place of cannabis in medical care.”

“These scientists created an unparalleled program of systematic research, focused on science-based answers rather than political or social beliefs,” Senator John Vasconcellos said in the release. Vasconcellos was the original author of The Medical Marijuana Research Act of 1999 (SB847), which led to the creation of the CMCR.

The study (PDF) was presented to the California legislature and public on February 17, 2010.