DRUG POLICIES NEED RETHINKING

The most important disappointment to emerge from former Arkansas Republican
Rep. Asa Hutchinson's first week as head of the Drug Enforcement
Administration is not that he vowed that the federal government will devise
some method to enforce the federal ban on use of marijuana for medical
purposes. His position is, after all, a law enforcement job and the U.S.
Supreme Court recently affirmed (albeit on narrow grounds) the federal laws
against sale and use of marijuana, even for medical purposes.

The most disappointing aspect of Mr. Hutchinson's comments on taking office
was, as Kevin Zeese of Common Sense for Drug Policy told us, "not just the
implicit disrespect for voters in the nine states [including California]
that allow medicinal marijuana use, but his continuing peddling of the myth
that there is no scientific evidence of marijuana's medical value." He also
implied that any slackening of enforcement efforts might "send the wrong
message" to teenagers, a rhetorical flourish that should have been
discredited long ago.

Mr. Hutchinson told reporters that the scientific and medical communities
have determined that there is no legitimate medical use for marijuana but
"if they continue to study it we will listen to them." He said it is
important to "send the right signal" when dealing with medical marijuana
enforcement issues.

Those statements suggest he is completely unfamiliar with the Institute of
Medicine report commissioned by former "drug czar" Barry McCaffrey after
California and Arizona passed initiatives in 1996 authorizing medical use
of marijuana and issued in March 1999. The Institute of Medicine is a
division of the National Academy of Sciences convened to provide accurate
information when science and public policy intersect.

The IOM report ("Marijuana and Medicine: Assessing the Science Base") was
based on review of all the scientific papers extant on the subject. It
summarized its conclusions as follows:

"Advances in cannabinoid science of the past 16 years have given rise to a
wealth of new opportunities for the development of medically useful
cannabinoid-based drugs. The accumulated data suggest a variety of
indications, particularly for pain relief, entiemesis, and appetite
stimulation. For patients such as those with AIDS or who are undergoing
chemotherapy, and who suffer simultaneously from severe pain, nausea and
appetite loss, cannabinoid drugs might offer broad-spectrum relief not
found in any other single medication. The data are weaker for muscle
spasticity but moderately promising." While contending that the future of
medical marijuana does not lie in the smoked plant, the report acknowledged
that "until a nonsmoked rapid-onset cannabinoid drug delivery system
becomes available [which the report suggested might be 10 years], we
acknowledge that there is no clear alternative for people suffering from
chronic conditions that might be relieved by smoking marijuana, such as
pain or AIDS wasting." The report recommended that the federal government
set up a program to allow such use, under tightly controlled conditions for
severe illnesses only.

The IOM report also addressed the "sending the wrong message" issue. It
reported, after analyzing several cases of modest liberalization, including
the state-level debate on medical marijuana, that "there is no evidence
that the medical marijuana debate has altered adolescents' perceptions of
the risks associated with marijuana use."

Later, in an interview with Robert Novak and Al Hunt on CNN, Mr. Hutchinson
rebuffed a question about whether in a federalist system state law should
trump federal law by saying "that's not consistent with the supremacy
clause of the Constitution." But in the recent Supreme Court case the
government did not make a supremacy clause argument, an omission so
striking that Justice Ruth Ginsburg asked about it. A government attorney
responded that the supremacy clause was not at issue here, that in certain
states the federal law and state laws were simply different. Mr.
Hutchinson, a skilled and experienced attorney (probably the best member of
the House team during the Clinton impeachment trial in the Senate) should
check the transcripts.

All this means state officials are bound to enforce state laws and it is up
to federal officials to enforce federal law. Mr. Hutchinson has
acknowledged that this will be a delicate problem.

Before he addresses it, he would do well to read the Institute of Medicine
report (the summary, along with reports on other scientific studies, is
available at www.csdp.org and at www.drugwarfacts.org) and research the
legal issues more thoroughly.