RENO: GO SLOW ON MARIJUANA

WASHINGTON, March 18 (UPI) - Attorney General Janet Reno is taking a
cautious approach to a new report that says smoked marijuana is potentially
effective for a short list of symptoms and recommends rigorous clinical
trials of a non-inhaling form.

At her weekly news conference today, Reno said further ``testing can give
information that gives a medically sound approach.''

The attorney general also refused to speculate on whether federal law should
be amended to decriminalize the use of marijuana for the terminally ill.
Voters in several states have authorized the use of marijuana for medical
purposes, but in the past Reno has said the federal law against its use
would be enforced.

Any other comment on the report will have to wait until she reads it, Reno
said.

California, Arizona, Alaska, Washington state and Oregon have passed laws
allowing at least some medical use of marijuana, and other states are
readying ballot measures. Congress has so far refused to let city officials
count the votes in a similar ballot initiative last year in the nation's
capital.

The conclusions in the new report were announced Wednesday in Washington
after an 18-month study requested by White House anti-drug czar Barry
McCaffrey.

The Institute of Medicine said marijuana possibly can be beneficial in
treating chronic pain, nausea from cancer chemotherapy, lack of appetite and
wasting in AIDS patients.

The report rejected long-held beliefs among some physicians that marijuana
is effective for treating glaucoma, saying relief of pressure on the eye is
only temporary. It did not recommend using the drug to treat Parkinson's or
Huntington's diseases, seizures, migraines and a host of other ailments
doctors believe are relieved by it.

The report also said there is no evidence that marijuana serves as a
``gateway'' for the use of harder drugs such as heroin or cocaine.