PANEL CHALLENGES IDEAS ABOUT MARIJUANA AS MEDICINE

Marijuana eases pain and quells nausea in cancer patients and others,
but research is needed to find alternatives to smoking it, an advisory
panel to the federal government said Wednesday in a report that
reignited the national debate over medical marijuana.

Contradicting administration policy that marijuana has no medical
value and can lead to using harder drugs, a panel of experts found
that marijuana is not addictive and said there is no clear evidence
that smoking it leads to consumption of heroin, cocaine or other narcotics.

For patients "who suffer simultaneously from severe pain, nausea and
appetite loss, cannabinoid drugs might offer broad spectrum relief not
found in any other single medication," concluded the report, issued in
Washington, D.C., by the Institute of Medicine, a division of the
National Academy of Sciences. Cannabinoids are the group of compounds
related to THC, the main active ingredient in marijuana.

The panel said clinical trials are needed, both to definitively
determine marijuana's medical benefits in easing the symptoms of some
diseases, and to develop inhalers or other means of administering the
drug. The authors said they were not calling for the legalization of
medical marijuana.

Despite the caveats, medical marijuana advocates welcomed the
findings.

"This report undercuts the government's position on marijuana," said
Bill Zimmerman, director of Americans for Medical Rights, a medical
marijuana lobbying organization. "In fact, it reveals that most of
what the government has been telling us about marijuana is false." In
February 1997, an advisory panel to the National Institutes of Health
concluded that marijuana might have promising therapeutic uses and
called for clinical trials of its effectiveness. But Wednesday's
report went further, recommending that some patients "with
debilitating symptoms" be allowed to smoke marijuana under carefully
controlled conditions for less than six months.

"Until a nonsmoked, rapid-onset cannabinoid drug delivery system
becomes available, 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 said.

But it does not appear that the 290-page report will lead to a change
any time soon in federal law, which classifies marijuana as a
controlled substance illegal to possess or sell.