MARIJUANA FOR RESEARCH MADE MORE ACCESSIBLE

WASHINGTON -- The Clinton administration loosened restraints Friday on
medical marijuana research, a move that is expected to prompt more studies
to see if the drug helps people with AIDS, cancer or eye disease.

Scientists with private grants will be able to get legal marijuana from the
government's supply, grown on a small plot in Mississippi.

Until now, only scientists who had won federal grants had access to that
marijuana, and only a few such federal studies have been approved.

The new guidelines were created after Cabinet-level discussions among
agencies involved in America's war on drugs, including the Department of
Health and Human Services, the Justice Department, the Drug Enforcement
Administration and the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy,
said Steven Gust of the National Institute on Drug Abuse, part of the
National Institutes of Health.

The University of Mississippi grows the government-approved marijuana on 1.8
acres at a closely guarded site. A crop is harvested on alternate years.

Under the new guidelines, privately funded researchers conducting
"scientifically valid investigations" approved by NIH will be allowed to
purchase the government marijuana.

The price has not been set, and the drug is not expected to be ready for
researchers until December.

Many cancer, AIDS and glaucoma patients already use marijuana, often bought
illegally on the street. At least six states have passed measures to permit
the drug's medicinal use if prescribed by a physician.

Federal law, however, bans the drug, and many doctors are reluctant to
approve it for their patients because of the controversy over its benefits.

The tough federal stance on medical marijuana prompted some doctors in
California to get a court injunction to block what they said they feared
would be federal reprisals for prescribing marijuana to patients under that
state's compassionate-use laws.

Experts found in two recent reports that for some patients marijuana is
effective in relieving pain, nausea and vomiting caused by cancer and AIDS.
Some glaucoma patients also smoke the drug to help relieve pressure inside
the eye.

A 1997 report by an NIH panel concluded that there is enough evidence about
marijuana's benefits to merit further research. Earlier this year, the
Institute of Medicine, an arm of the National Academy of Sciences, also
urged scientific research.