Washington State considers adding ADD to medical pot list

SEATTLE — State officials will consider a request to allow medical marijuana for people with attention deficit disorder and obsessive compulsive disorder.

The petition is the latest attempt to add mental illnesses to Washington's list of qualifying conditions for medical cannabis. Three other petitions, for depression and other mental health disorders, have been denied.

Medical marijuana has been legal in Washington state since 1998. The law allows patients with terminal or debilitating conditions to use marijuana. Qualifying conditions include cancer, HIV, multiple sclerosis, glaucoma and "intractable pain." It also includes anorexia, as a disease that results in nausea, vomiting and wasting away.

The latest request involves an Edmonds man who petitioned authorities in September to include conditions he said he has suffered from for years. The Medical Quality Assurance Commission and the Board of Osteopathic Medicine and Surgery will consider the man's petition at a hearing on Jan. 11.

"What they're looking for is some clinical and scientific basis for adopting it," said Blake Maresh, the osteopathic board's executive director.

In February 2010, the medical commission denied a request from a man who had suffered from a social anxiety disorder since the fifth grade. He said cannabis had helped him more than any other treatment.

Other patients with bipolar disorder, severe depression and other anxiety disorders also told the commission that marijuana was the only thing that helped.

But the commission found insufficient scientific evidence that showed pot helped patients with those conditions. It found that no rigorous, controlled, randomized, peer-reviewed and published trial had been done on the issue.

The last qualifying condition added for medical marijuana in Washington was chronic renal failure in 2010.

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Information from: seattlepi.com, http://www.seattlepi.com