REPORT SAYS MARIJUANA MAY BE MEDICALLY USEFUL

WASHINGTON -- Marijuana has medical benefits for people suffering from
cancer and AIDS and should undergo scientific trials to see how it
works best, a panel of medical experts concluded Wednesday in a report
to the federal government.

The drug remains illegal under federal law, despite ballot measures
approving its use in Alaska, Arizona, California, Nevada, Oregon and
Washington. The new report is sharpening debate over its use.

The Institute of Medicine, an affiliate of the National Academy of
Sciences, said marijuana's active ingredients can ease pain, nausea
and vomiting. It urged the development of a standard way to use the
drug, such as an inhaler.

The conclusion was greeted warmly by most marijuana advocates, but
opponents said they worry the report will encourage marijuana use.

"Let us waste no more time in providing this medication through legal,
medical channels to all the patients whose lives may be saved," said
Daniel Zingale of AIDS Action.

But Rep. Bill McCollum, R-Fla., who led the fight to get the House to
condemn medical marijuana last fall, said he is "deeply concerned" the
report might encourage people to smoke marijuana.

It's known that some of the chemicals in marijuana can be useful, he
acknowledged, but their place is in inhalers or pill form. "We should
not sanction smoked marijuana because there is no way to control
that," McCollum said.

"Providing good medicine -- not marijuana -- is the compassionate
response to patients' pain and illnesses," said Robert Maginnis of the
conservative Family Research Council. He insisted doctors have other
medicines to treat any ailment that marijuana can help.

White House drug adviser Barry McCaffrey said the findings are
unlikely to send pharmaceutical companies scrambling to do research on
marijuana. "Our experience is there is little market interest,"
McCaffrey said.

Ironically, the new analysis was requested and paid for by McCaffrey's
White House Office of National Drug Control Policy, after an expert
panel formed by the National Institutes of Health concluded in 1997
that some patients could be helped by marijuana, mainly cancer and
AIDS victims.

At the White House, spokesman Joe Lockhart said: "What we found out is
that there may be some chemical compounds in marijuana that are useful
in pain relief or anti-nausea, but that smoking marijuana is a crude
delivery system. So I think what this calls for ... is further research."

That's already under way at the NIH, which is running three studies of
smoked marijuana and expects to approve a fourth this year.

One study looks at marijuana's safety in people with AIDS, a second is
checking the extent of medical marijuana use by patients of health
maintenance organizations and the third is studying marijuana's
ability to reduce nausea. Nearing approval is a study of marijuana's
effect on pain.

The National Cancer Institute is looking into the comparative value of
a pill form of marijuana vs. a hormone in reducing nausea.

Breaking ranks with the pro-medical marijuana groups was the National
Organization for Reform of Marijuana Laws, which condemned the report
as "tepid."

"Clearly, the time has come for this administration to amend federal
law to allow seriously ill patients immediate legal access," said
Allen St. Pierre, executive director of the NORML Foundation.

The arguments over using marijuana as a medication have grown
particularly intense in the last few years in western states where
supporters got initiatives on the ballot to legalize the practice.

Voters in Alaska, Arizona, California, Nevada, Oregon and Washington
have approved measures in support of medical marijuana.

But the drug remains banned by federal law and doctors may be wary of
prescribing it, even in those states.