What is Glaucoma: Glaucoma, a leading cause of blindness, in the United States, afflicts nearly 2 million Americans, about 60,000 of whom are legally blind.

    Open angle closure glaucoma: In the vast majority of cases this type of glaucoma is without symptoms. It is associated with mild elevation of intraocular pressure that produces chronic damage to the optic nerve. Open angle closure glaucoma is treated medically with drugs that reduce aqueous humor formation.

    Acute angle closure glaucoma: This rare form of the disease, which may include pain, blurring of vision, halos around lights, etc., is treated with laser or surgery.

    Although elevated intraocular pressure is a common symptom of glaucoma, nearly 20 percent of those who have the disease do not experience elevated pressure. For these the traditional screening tests may miss the diagnosis and, since glaucoma patients "almost never have symptoms," damage will continue to progress in their eyes.

    Medical treatment for Open Angle Closure Glaucoma: Because the level of pressure that causes damage varies from person to person a target "normal" pressure must be determined for each patient and the treatment carefully adjusted. "Daily variations in pressure complicate the assessment of treatment, since eyes affected by glaucoma tend to have larger fluctuations than normal eyes." (New England Journal of Medicine, 328.-1103,1993)

    Prostaglandins: These drugs are being developed to improve aqueous humor outflow and are believed to "hold much greater promise for the hypotensive therapy of glaucoma."

    Beta blockers: At least four are marketed in the United States and being used successfully in the treatment of intraocular pressure associated with glaucoma. According to researchers there is "little motivation to develop new inhibitors of aqueous humor formation since the market is relatively saturated with such drugs."

    In the latest scientific evaluation of glaucoma treatment, as reported in the New England Journal of Medicine, 328:1103,1993, marijuana was not mentioned as having any role whatsoever.

    What about marijuana?: The country's leading ophthalmologists are "chagrined" and "disturbed" to hear that claims are being made touting marijuana as a treatment for glaucoma. Because of wide fluctuations in intraocular pressure, and numerous other factors which affect the course of this disease, doctors agree that using marijuana as a treatment is likely to mask problems and increase the risk of blindness.

    William T. Shults, M.D., recognized in the publication "The Best Doctors in America," for his work in ophthalmology at the Devers Eye Institute in Portland, Oregon, noted that alcohol can also lower intraocular pressure if one has ingested enough to be intoxicated. He added that no one would propose using alcohol for that purpose, however, because of its many adverse side effects. Shults stated "I can see no compelling reason whatsoever for the use of marijuana by patients with glaucoma, and believe that to propose such a use works a cruel hoax on the public and especially those with a chronic ocular disease for which many other better treatments are currently available."
 
    Even Judge Francis Young, the DEA administrative judge often quoted by advocates of medical use of marijuana, stated that he found insufficient evidence to show that marijuana is an accepted treatment for glaucoma.