Narconon PSA  

Cindy McCain's well-publicized addiction to prescription painkillers cost a doctor his medical license and led to the shutdown of the charity where she illegally obtained her drugs, the Washington Post reported Sept. 12.

McCain has publicly acknowledged her addiction and recently has said that she plans to raise awareness about the issue if her husband, John McCain, becomes president. "I think [recovery] made me a better person as well as a better parent, so I think it would be very important to talk about it and be very upfront about it," McCain said, pledging to "to talk about it as much as possible because I don't want anyone to wind up in the shoes that I did at the time."

Less widely discussed, however, is the damage that McCain's addiction in the late 1980s and early 1990s caused to others. McCain convinced a doctor with the charity she founded, the American Volunteer Medical Team, to write phony prescriptions for prescription painkillers in the names of three staff members and give her the drugs. The staff members didn't know their names were being used.

The charity, which sent volunteer doctors and nurses on overseas mercy missions, kept supplies of prescription drugs like Vicodin, Percoset and Tylenol 3 to support its charitable mission.

After a Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) investigation, the doctor, John Max Johnson, lost his medical license and has never practiced medicine again. The publicity and controversy around the McCain case also led to the charity shutting down.

Cindy McCain's parents confronted her about her addiction in 1992, and her recovery began shortly thereafter. However, in 1993 a former employee told the DEA about the drug diversion, and McCain was soon facing federal charges of falsely obtaining prescription drugs, which could have led to a 20-year prison sentence. A plea deal allowed her to avoid the charges and enter a diversion program, where she attended treatment and performed community service.

Researchers at Imperial College London demonstrated a method for the treatment of acute pain by using cannabis in ways that will not affect the brain, Science Daily reported Sept. 14. 

The study showed that drugs targeting CB2 cannabinoid receptors -- found in the peripheral nervous system but not in the human brain -- can block the transmission of pain signals. Previous studies have focused primarily on the cannabis-activated CB1 receptors, which are involved in pain relief but are located in the brain and thus prone to side-effects and potential abuse.

The mechanism by which CB2 receptors provide pain relief is similar to the way opiate receptors work under the effects of morphine, and may be an alternative acute-pain treatment, the researchers found.  "It suggests we could alleviate pain by targeting the cannabinoid receptor CB2 without causing the kinds of side-effects we associate with people using cannabis itself," said lead study author Uma Anand.

Further clinical trials of drugs that target the CB2 receptors are planned. The research appears in the September 2008 issue of the journal Pain.