Dr. Donald Abrams

Donald I. Abrams, MD, is a hematologist-oncologist and integrative medicine specialist, professor emeritus of clinical medicine at the University of California, San Francisco and formerly chief of hematology-oncology at Zuckerberg San Francisco General Hospital. Abrams led the first modern U.S. randomized controlled trial demonstrating efficacy of smoked cannabis for a clinical indication: his 2007 Neurology paper "Cannabis in painful HIV-associated sensory neuropathy" (PMID 17296917) showed that 52% of patients receiving 3.56%-THC cigarettes achieved ≥30% pain reduction versus 24% on placebo, with a median daily-diary pain reduction of 34% versus 17%. Earlier, his 2003 Annals of Internal Medicine study established short-term safety of cannabis in HIV patients on protease inhibitors. Abrams and colleagues also conducted seminal pharmacokinetic work on vaporized cannabis as a smokeless delivery system (Clinical Pharmacology & Therapeutics 2007) and co-authored the 2015 CP&T review "Cannabis in cancer care." His trials were conducted under the University of California Center for Medicinal Cannabis Research. → See also: HIV-associated sensory neuropathy, Vaporization.