vol1 - Page 226
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By early 1972_ the implications of Dr. Hepieres
discovery were clearly understood within the medical community_
In July, 1972/ Dr. Steven Szara_ an official with the National
Institute on Mental Health (NIMH), in a paper presented before
the International Congress on Pharmacology noted these develop-
menteo According to press accounts Dr. Szara discussed these
developments in some detail:
[E]vidence _ o . suggests that pathologically
increased intraocular pressures can be
.... reduced to normal levels for a few hours by
the administration of marijuana .... The
results confirmed preliminary findings that
marijuana [smoking] is able to decrease
intraocular pressure in normal subjects and
that the effect is definitely related to the
"_- size of the dose. The average mean pressure
drop in
_/°ptically normal subjects was 36
percent.
This was not a co__ent based on idle speculation. At
_ the same meeting, Drs. Szara and Ira Frank, both associated with
Dr. Hepler_s ongoing study_ revealed that a forty-two year old
women had become the first glaucoma patient to be evaluated in
.... the UCLA/Stein program. The woman_ though on conventional
antiglaucoma therapies_ was experiencing ocular tensions in
excess of 45 mm H_. Prior to using marijuana, she halted her
routine glaucoma medications. At the time of the test, her IOP
was 29 mm Hg_ before she smoked marijuana. Within an hour of
smoking a marijuana cigarettes her IOP had declined to 22 mm _go
L
_____/ ACT Official State Reports_ Volt_e II_ Exhibit I0_ New
Jersey Glaucoma Protocol, pol7 (quoting Scava, Steven as reported
by Anspacher_ Carolyn, _Marijuana Used to Ease Glaucoma #,
Associated Press International as carried by the San Francisco
_i
_E_li_l_, July 27_ 1972, pg_ 4°).
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