But many prefer smoking marijuana because the dose is much easier to control. Marinol takes a couple of hours to kick in. By then it's impossible to fine tune the level in the bloodstream, which sometimes is too high, producing an unpleasantly intense and uncontrollable high. The joint is an efficient drug delivery system. When smoked, marijuana's chemicals reach the bloodstream in seconds and hit the brain soon thereafter.
Users can regulate the effect puff by puff.
In one of the new studies, Haney will compare marijuana with Marinol in AIDS patients experiencing unwanted weight loss. Volunteers won't be told whether they are getting genuine marijuana or dummy joints, Marinol or sugar pills. Then she'll see who eats the most. The job of making marijuana an official prescription medicine would be daunting. Because the stuff cannot be patented, no drug company will pay hundreds of millions for the encyclopedic testing necessary to convince regulators.