DEA APPROVES UC SAN DIEGO MEDICAL MARIJUANA STUDY

Wednesday, Nov. 28, 2001 SAN DIEGO (AP) - The Drug Enforcement
Administration granted final approval Wednesday for the first university
study on medical marijuana in recent memory. The agency said it hoped to
introduce some science into what has been an emotionally-charged debate.
Two professors of neurology at the University of California, 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 out of the Center for Medicinal
Cannabis Research at UCSD, a program created by the state Legislature in
1999 to study the medical uses of marijuana.

The studies will involve about 60 people who will be studied over a period
of several weeks. All subjects will smoke marijuana cigarettes provided by
the National Institute of Drug Abuse in Washington. Half the cigarettes
will look and smell like marijuana but will lack THC, the active chemical
compound in marijuana.

THC has been available since the 1980s in a synthetic pill form called
Marinol, but scientists say it is irregularly absorbed by the stomach.

"The smoking route is being explored not because people want to legalize
pot - that's not our agenda - but because smoking is an effective way to
deliver THC into the blood," said Dr. Igor Grant, director of the Center
for Medicinal Cannabis Research, the first program of its kind in the
nation. The DEA's approval reflected the pressure from mounting public
opinion that marijuana can ease pain for those who suffer from AIDS, cancer
and other illnesses. Since California became the first state to approve
medical marijuana in 1996, six other states have followed suit.

"The question of whether marijuana has any legitimate medical purpose
should be determined by sound science and medicine," said DEA Administrator
Asa Hutchinson.

The agency maintains that past studies have shown no medical benefit to
smoking marijuana and that other substances available that can replace the
drug. Federal authorities have refused to recognize the initiatives,
reasoning that state laws do not apply to federal offenses.

"A lot of these initiatives are just smoke screens - pardon the pun - for
legalizing drugs," said Donald Thornhill, a spokesman for the DEA in San
Diego. He said the studies are part of an attempt to "put this thing to rest."

Opinions are fiercely divided over whether marijuana would help or harm
patients, but the scientific community has pointed to a lack of evidence
over whether the drug's benefits match its mystique.

The group that promoted California's medical marijuana initiative in 1996
praised the DEA's decision to approve the studies.

"We support any and all continued research into the uses of marijuana for
medicinal purposes," said Gina Palencar, a spokeswoman for Santa
Monica-based Americans for Medical Rights.

"I don't see how the DEA could hope that any study conducted right now
could put the whole issue of medical marijuana to rest," Palencar said.
"Unfortunately for the DEA, there's already a body of research that does
show therapeutic potential for marijuana for some conditions."

The final approval comes after an exhaustive review process by officials in
California and several agencies in Washington: the Department of Health and
Human Services, the Food and Drug Administration, NIDA and the DEA.

It will a year before the UCSD studies gather enough data to show whether
marijuana has any benefit, Grant said.

"If this method shows that there is something therapeutic, the next step
will be to find ways of delivering these products that are socially
acceptable," he said.