About Portland: In DEA's Marijuana Decision, One Doctor Sees Science Losing Out

When you spend your days dealing with sick children, you get used to a certain amount of disappointment, sadness, heartbreak.

Just ask Dr. Colin Roberts, A pediatric neurologist at OHSU’s Doernbecher Children’s Hospital, he is the director of the hospital’s Childhood Epilepsy Program. His days are filled with conversations with children and their parents about what’s known, what isn’t.

“There is a great medical need for us to know as much as we can, to learn as much as we can,” he says. “To not pursue things, to limit what we can learn, and stop us from acquiring as many tools as possible is frustrating.”

Roberts is also a member of the Oregon Cannabis Research Task Force. He is a firm believer in trying to find out what, if any, benefits there are to medical marijuana.

“There is a lot out there that points to positive effects, that it could be a useful therapy” he says. “At the same time, there is so much that we don’t know.

“But by not pursuing the research, we are hurting our ability to say what’s right, what’s not right. We need to be able to answer questions so that we can best help our patients.”

On Wednesday, the Drug Enforcement Agency rejected requests to loosen the rules when it comes to marijuana. Not only did they refuse to change its status as a dangerous drug, they did nothing to ease the red tape that scientist have to cut through to be able to do research.

“I’m not surprised but I am disappointed,” he says. “It would have been a difficult thing for them to do politically. There is so much baggage associated with both sides but we need to find a way to get to that point where science takes a front seat.”

Roberts sees irony in the federal government saying they need more data to convince them that marijuana is anything but a dangerous drug while at the same time throwing up roadblocks that prevent scientists and doctors from doing the research that would provide that data.

“There are so many Catch-22s,” he says. “We are on this ongoing quest to find out what we can, to figure out how we can best help people. There is a struggle between cultural and social issues and science.

“And science still often loses out.”

Roberts says it’s important to look at where we are now compared to forty years ago, ten years ago. Oregon is now one of 25 states in the country where marijuana is legal in some form. California might become the 26th in the fall.

“We have come so far culturally,” he says. “If you were to have told me a decade ago, that this where would we be, I would not have believed you.

“At the same time, we still have so far to go.”

Roberts says a big step would have been for the DEA to loosen the rules on research, let scientists do what they do.

“Right now, I can’t even go to a medical marijuana dispensary, get something and verify what’s actually in it,” he says. “If you go to the drug store, buy a bottle of 200 milligram ibuprofen pills, you will know that each pill has exactly 200 milligrams.

“We need to have that level of certainty when it comes to marijuana. It’s a public safety issue.”

Roberts says that almost every family that he works with asks him about medical marijuana.

“They tell me this is what they’ve heard,” he says. “They want to know what I think. And I have to be honest with them. I can tell them what I know but I let them know the fact is there is so much that we don’t know, that we won’t find out for a long time.

“That’s what’s hard, knowing that even if the rules are changed, things won’t just happen overnight.”

Roberts points out that each research project has to pick a very narrow question to address.

“It’s not a matter of asking does medical marijuana have a positive effect,” he says. “You’ll never get an answer to that. You need to ask very specific questions and if the answer is no, you have to start again.”

But that won’t begin until things change, until science is allowed to lead the way.

“I understand the people who raise cultural issues, social issues,” he says.

“I just don’t think it should interfere with the need to explore all options.