PUTTING POT IN ITS PLACE

* Comprehensive medical marijuana report from respected source makes case
for further study - and against widespread use

The nearly universal call during Oregon's debate over medical marijuana
last fall was for more research into the health effects of the drug.

An Institute of Medicine report released this week answers that call in
part, indicating that marijuana's active ingredients can help relieve pain,
nausea, vomiting and loss of appetite in people with cancer or AIDS.

But the report's own primary call is for more research, and rightly so.
Five of the six recommendations in the two-year study involve finding out
more about the physiological and psychological effects of the compounds in
marijuana, about how to take them safely and about the health risks of
smoking marijuana.

Beyond that, the report's endorsement of medical marijuana is quite
limited. In the vast majority of cases, it said, already-available drugs
are more effective in relieving symptoms. The study endorsed smoking
marijuana only under very narrow circumstances, such as by terminally ill
people. And it trained an eye on developing derivative drugs and a safer
way to use them, such as an inhaler.

The report gives more reason to believe that the compounds in marijuana
have some medical benefits. But it also reinforces the impression that
medical marijuana is not widely or unquestionably valuable, and that
smoking marijuana as medicine remains a crude and even dangerous practice.
There is still no way to control the dose or the quality of the smoked
drug, and smoking it can result in other health problems.

Nor does the report boost the credibility of Oregon's medical marijuana
law, which remains weak, vague and contradictory. For one thing, the law
applies to a much larger group of people than the report suggests should
use medical marijuana. For example, the law permits marijuana use for
glaucoma. The report specifically found no support for using the drug to
treat glaucoma, nor did it find much evidence that it can help with
problems such as Parkinson's disease or Huntington's disease.

The Legislature soon will consider whether to amend the law, using as a
starting point House Bill 3052 by Rep. Kevin Mannix, R-Salem, chairman of
the House Judiciary Criminal Law Committee. Mannix believes the law gives
too much cover to people who aren't ill to smoke, grow and deal marijuana.

Mannix has a point, and people who are truly interested only in marijuana's
medical effects will support efforts to tighten up the law. We still have
our doubts that good medicine is the main goal of the law's most ardent
supporters -- or its most ardent opponents -- but time, and challenges such
as Mannix's, will tell.

For the moment, the Institute of Medicine's report's call for more research
on and refinement of how the active ingredients in marijuana might help
people is welcome. Equally welcome is its clear message that the widespread
smoking of pot is not the best route.