MEDICAL MARIJUANA ADVOCATES SLAM CLINTON ADMINISTRATION

NEW YORK, Mar 17 (Reuters Health) -- A year has passed since the
federal government's own adviser on scientific matters concluded that
seriously ill people should be allowed to smoke marijuana in limited
circumstances, but the Clinton Administration still refuses to act, a
national lobbying organization for marijuana-law reform charged this
week.

The group's attack of the administration marks the anniversary of a
landmark report, issued by the National Academy of Sciences' Institute
of Medicine (IOM) last March 17. The IOM concluded that ``there are
some limited circumstances in which we recommend smoking marijuana for
medical uses,'' noted the Marijuana Policy Project, the Washington,
DC-based lobbying organization.

As Reuters Health reported, the Department of Health and Human
Services last December issued medical marijuana research guidelines
that rejected the IOM's recommendation to allow ''compassionate use''
of medical marijuana in single-patient medical trials. A coalition of
34 members of Congress signed a statement opposing the controversial
guidelines.

According to the Medical Marijuana Project, the federal government's
compassionate-use program currently provides marijuana to only eight
patients nationwide and has been closed to new applicants since 1992.

``We find it disturbing that the Clinton Administration would
commission the IOM report and then reject its most important
recommendation,'' said Chuck Thomas, a spokesman for the Marijuana
Policy Project. ``In the war against marijuana users, it's time to
remove the sick and wounded from the battlefield,'' he said.