Testing marijuana's effectiveness as an epilepsy treatment will be no easy accomplishment, a Brisbane symposium has heard.
But Griffith University neurologist and researcher Professor Roy Beran told the Queensland Epilepsy Symposium on Thursday tests were essential because there was no other effective treatment for some epileptic syndromes.
Anecdotal feedback from epilepsy sufferers and their families suggested marijuana could alleviate symptoms in some cases.
"In particular, the one everybody mentions is Dravet syndrome, which is a very horrible form of epilepsy," Professor Beran said.
But no scientific study has examined marijuana's efficacy as a treatment for epileptic seizures.
In April, the American Academy of Neurology concluded there was not enough information to show if medical marijuana was effective in treating epileptic seizures.
"Basically, there may be a component in marijuana that acts as an anti-epileptic medication emphasis on the maybe," Professor Beran said.
"We don't think it is the addictive component [THC], we think it's the other part of the marijuana.
"But we can't test it, really, because at the moment it's illegal and then if it were legal we haven't got the money to do it, so we'd have to fund it.
"The issue is the big pharma (pharmaceutical companies) can't patent it because the product is already out there.
Read the original here:
Medical marijuana: effects on epilepsy need to be tested, expert tells Brisbane symposium