Medical Marijuana Study Approved

SAN DIEGO — The Drug Enforcement Administration granted final approval Wednesday for the first university study on medical marijuana in recent memory.

Two neurology professors at the UC San Diego Medical Center will study the effects of marijuana on patients with multiple sclerosis and those who suffer neuropathy, or nerve pain, associated with AIDS.

The studies are the first to emerge from the Center for Medicinal Cannabis Research at the medical complex. The center is a program created by the Legislature in 1999 to study the medical uses of marijuana.