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. A cigarette 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. But even if Haney and others show marijuana is a uniquely useful medicine, many doubt that packs of marijuana cigarettes will ever become standard items at the pharmacy. The job of making marijuana an official prescription medicine would be daunting.