MARIJUANA STUDY GIVES ADVOCATES NO CAUSE FOR GLEE

Marijuana does have its advocates, people who want it to be legalized
generally. Some clearly think that permitting the drugís medical use would
advance this cause. They may be rejoicing, then, over a scientific panelís
recent report saying the active ingredients in marijuana can whet the
appetite, reduce pain and counteract nausea. This report, however, is
scarcely a paean to pot.

It is true, as the advocates are sure to stress, that the report does not
conclude that patients treated with marijuana will graduate from limited
puffs in a hospital to buying wholesale quantities in the streets or
mainlining heroin. Nor does the report do what the nationís drug czar, Barry
McCaffrey, presumably hoped it would when he commissioned it. It does not
say marijuana is without any medical benefits at all.

What the report does stress, though, is that marijuana smoke is toxic, worse
than the smoke from cigarettes ñ a deadly threat to the lungs. Meanwhile it
says, the benefits of smoking marijuana are modest and can be obtained by
most patients from other treatments. It cites a relatively few
circumstances under which patients should be treated with marijuana, and
says the treatments should only be for short periods of time and ought to be
closely supervised. The most likely candidates for treatment, according to
the report, are those who fear no long-term consequences, such as the
terminally ill.

Even then, the treatments would not be justified unless they were studied to
gain still more information about the drug, the authors of the report
believe. Any medical use of marijuana beyond these recommendations, the
report says, should await the development of such risk-free delivery
mechanisms as inhalers.

If Congress modified federal law in accord with the reportís advice ñ and
thatís deemed unlikely ñ the legal doors would scarcely be flung wide open
for the medical use of marijuana. In the seven states that have already
approved prescribed use for health reasons ñ and California is one of the
seven ñ doctors would still have to work about federal prosecution if they
did not heed the tight guidelines. This report makes it perfectly clear that
marijuana is dangerous.