MARIJUANA HAS MEDICINAL VALUE, PANEL SAYS

Drug's Ability to Provide Relief For AIDS, Cancer Patients Should Be Studied

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.

In its report, the Institute of Medicine said that because the chemicals in
marijuana ease anxiety, stimulate the appetite, ease pain and reduce nausea
and vomiting, they can be helpful for people undergoing chemotherapy and
people with AIDS.