California Bill Introduced To End Organ Transplant Denials For MMJ Patients

California Legislator Introduces Bill to End Organ Transplant Denials for Medical Marijuana Patients

http://www.commondreams.org/newswire/2015/02/12/california-legislator-introduces-bill-end-organ-transplant-denials-medical

Americans for Safe Access sponsors bill introduced by Marc Levine (D-San Rafael) to end discriminatory practice

Sacramento, CA - California State Assembly member Marc Levine (D-San Rafael) has introduced AB 258, the Medical Cannabis Organ Transplant Act, a bill aimed at preventing medical marijuana patients from being unduly denied organ transplants. The Medical Cannabis Organ Transplant Act is sponsored by Americans for Safe Access (ASA), which has long advocated for patients seeking organ transplants, including Norman B. Smith, a medical marijuana patient who died in 2012 after being denied a liver transplant at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles.

Specifically, AB 258 states that, "A hospital, physician and surgeon, procurement organization, or other person shall not determine the ultimate recipient of an anatomical gift based solely upon a potential recipient's status as a qualified patient...or based solely on a positive test for the use of medical marijuana by a potential recipient who is a qualified patient." The bill simply establishes the same protections that currently exist for other transplant candidates with mental or physical disabilities.

"Arcane public health policies view medical cannabis patients as drug abusers," said Assembly member Levine in a prepared statement. "Too often, patients are denied a life-saving organ transplant solely because they are prescribed medical cannabis. These patients have died after being dropped from the list, and many more are in jeopardy right now. This legislation will save lives by ensuring medical cannabis patients are not discriminated against in the organ transplant process."

The bill's introduction comes less than two months after the California Medical Association adopted a resolution stating that medical marijuana should not be used as a criteria for denying organ transplants. Laws already exist in Arizona, Delaware, Illinois, Minnesota, New Hampshire, and Washington that explicitly protect qualified patients from discrimination when seeking organ transplants.

According to ASA, several patients have reported being denied organ transplants in California over the past few years, including patients at UCLA Medical Center, Standford Medical School, UCSF Medical Center, and Cedars-Sinai. Most transplant centers will disqualify patients from receiving organ transplants or refuse to place them on a waiting list unless they test negative for marijuana for 6 months and take drug abuse counseling for the same period of time. Smith was attempting to comply with Cedars' policy when he died.

Without national guidelines, transplant centers like those in California are left to design their own policies, most of which discriminate against medical marijuana patients say advocates. Medical centers have also refused to change their policies despite being urged to do so in the case of Smith and Toni Trujillo, another Cedars-Sinai patient seeking a kidney transplant. After being on a waiting list for 6 years, Cedars-Sinai de-listed Trujillo because her medical marijuana use was considered "substance abuse."

"Denying organ transplants to otherwise eligible medical marijuana patients is the worst kind of discrimination," said ASA California Director Don Duncan. "The Medical Cannabis Organ Transplant Act will stop legal patients in California from being denied organ transplants and will bring the state's policies up to date with a growing body of scientific evidence," continued Duncan. "It's time to change these punitive policies, and we look forward to working with the legislature to get that done."

Patients being summarily removed from transplants lists is not just a problem in California, occurring in other medical marijuana states like Hawaii, Oregon, and Washington. In 2008, Seattle resident and medical marijuana patient Timothy Garon died after being denied a liver transplant by the University of Washington Medical Center. A year later, in 2009, Big Island resident and medical marijuana patient Kimberly Reyes died at Hilo Hospital after being denied a liver transplant.




Now denying someone an organ transplant is awful, but it becomes even worse when you consider the meaning of this study!

Targeting cannabinoid receptors as a novel approach in the treatment of graft-versus-host disease: Evidence from an experimental murine model. (full – 2011) http://jpet.aspetjournals.org/content/early/2011/06/14/jpet.111.182717.long

Now since it is rather technical I'm going to translate the abstract for you-

"Allogeneic hematopoietic cell transplantation (HCT) is widely used to treat patients with life-threatening malignant and nonmalignant hematological diseases. However, allogeneic HCT often is accompanied by severe and lethal complications from graft-versus-host disease (GVHD), in which activated donor T cells recognize histocompatibility antigenic mismatches and cause significant toxicity in the recipient."

That means that they use stem cell transplants of bone marrow in cases of leukemia, etc, and sometimes the marrow "decides" the host's body is the enemy, and attacks it. This form of rejection can kill you.

"In the current study, we tested the hypothesis that activation of cannabinoid receptors on donor-derived T cells may prevent GVHD. We tested the effect of Δ(9)-tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) in an acute model of GVHD that was induced by transferring parental C57BL/6 (B6) spleen cells into (C57BL/6 x DBA/2) F(1)(BDF1) mice. Transfer of B6 cells into BDF1 mice produced severe acute GVHD in the recipient, characterized by lymphoid hyperplasia, weight loss, T helper l cytokine production and mortality.THC administration led to early recovery from body weight loss, reduced tissue injury in the liver and intestine, as well as complete survival "

They wanted to see of THC would block the GVHD attack, So they put foreign spleen cells into some mice- some of them got THC, some didn't. A lot of the "no THC" mice got sick and died. All of the THC mice lived and they weren't as half as sick.

"THC treatment reduced the expansion of donor-derived effector T cells and blocked the killing of host-derived immune cells while promoting Foxp3(+) regulatory T cells. Impaired hematopoiesis seen during GVHD was rescued by treatment with THC. The ability of THC to reduce the clinical GVHD was reversed, at least in part, by administration of cannabinoid receptor (CB) 1 and CB2 antagonists, thereby demonstrating that THC-mediated amelioration of GVHD was cannabinoid receptor-dependent."

THC toned down the attack from the new spleen cells, and blocked killing off body's immune cells. In GVHD, there is a lack of new blood cells being formed (hematopoiesis)and THC got the blood cells being made again. They know it was the THC doing it, because they used compounds that block the effects of THC (antagonists) and the GVHD started up again.

"Our results demonstrate for the first time that targeting cannabinoid receptors may constitute a novel treatment modality against acute GVHD."
 
Our results show that using THC to activate the CB receptors may be a new treatment for Graft vs Host Disease!
 
 
 
So this means that the people who use THC are more likely to have their transplant be successful! Yet because of their cannabis use, they are denied their transplant!  People are dying because of the prejudice against cannabis! Become an activist!
 
 
Granny
 
 

 

And the evidence keeps piling up! Just out at PubMed!
 
FYI-  THC activates both the CB1 (the high and more) and the CB 2 receptor (just healing). Allografts = tissue grafts from genetically nonidentical individuals of the same species. Example-  heart tissue from a white mouse is grafted on the heart of a black mouse.
 
The cannabinoid receptor 2 is involved in acute rejection of cardiac allografts.          
(abst – 2015)                   http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25744392
 
Here's the cool part-
"SIGNIFICANCE:
These results demonstrate that CB2 modulates in vitro cytokine responses via DCs and directly via its influence on T[SUB]H[/SUB]1/T[SUB]H[/SUB]17 differentiation. These findings and the fact that allograft rejection is enhanced in Cnr2^-/- mice suggest that CB2 may be a promising therapeutic target in organ transplantation."
 
 
Granny's translation-
"What the heck this means: These results show that activating CB2 receptors can damp down the immune system's attempts to reject the new heart tissue. That and the fact that GMO "knock-out" mice without CB 2 receptors had many more tissue rejections, suggests that activating the CB2 receptors looks like it might be a promising treatment in heart transplants."
 
The way that CB2 receptors help to prevent rejection is based in the immune system, so this means that these results will likely hold for other types of transplants, too!   
 
In the meantime, with most states having an irrational attitude toward cannabis use and organ transplants, there is another 100% legal plant that contains a compound that can activate the CB 2 receptors! Magnolia trees produce magnolol which will activate the CB 2 receptors! Magnolol is available online, but it is pricy.  I didn't find any studies on the effects of magnolol on transplants (it is just now being studied) , but it is well-known to be a CB2 activator.
 
If you know someone facing an organ transplant, it might be good to pass the info along. If not cannabis, then magnolol (or both?).
 
And now you guys know something most doctors don't know!    
 
If you want to start educating your doctor, you could always copy and paste my remarks on one side of a piece of paper (or do your own), and print up the abstract on the other!  You don't need a return address on the envelope, and why would (or should)  you sign an abstract and a quote from somebody else?   Use (neat) block letters to address the envelope, add a stamp and send it off.  Should take you less time than it takes to smoke a joint!
 
Quick and easy activism, that might help save a life!  
 
 
 
Granny