vol1 - Page 238

 Merritt_s patients, following recommendations, from the
 National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA), were told to smoke their
 NIDA supplied marijuana cigarette in five (5) minutes. In 1980,
 Perez-Reyes reported that it took research subjects ten (I0) to
 twelve (12) minutes to properly smoke a NIDA supplied cigarette.
 PerezaReyes suggested that compelling a patient to inhale
 marijuana smoke at a faster rate (i_9_ five minutes) could
 trigger a dramatic decline in blood pressure and cause feelings
 of faintness. _2_/
 After documenting this effect in some detail, Dr.
 Merritt found that simple alterations in the way marijuana is
 smoked, and simply instructions on proper inhalation, totally
 eliminated the problem.
 You must understand that five of the 18
 [patients who experienced a sudden drop in
 _"
 blood pressure occurred_ in the first two
 years of the study. The last five years_ I
 didn't see any. So, the reason _- what you
 call five of 18 being 28 percents ires really
 less than I0 or ii percent because as the
 number of patients increased _- when I
 ._ changed to pipe smoking_ So ires not _
 [witness inter!_/pted by gove_Iment attorney]
 Mso Shirley: Son it was only through pipe
 smoking that you solved the problem?
 _' Dr. Merritt: Thates corrects _25/
 _2// (...continued)
 BloodPressure in Glaucoma_ _ 9DhthalmQi_Lq_, American Academy of
 Ophthaimology_ Vol. 87, No. _, Mar. 1980, pp. 222 - 228.
 ___/ ACT Official State Reports, Volume !I Exhibit I0, New
 Jersey Glaucoma Protocol at 38.
 5_/ Cross-examination Merritt Tr. 10-120 & 10-121.