SCIENTISTS URGE STUDY OF MEDICINAL MARIJUANA

To Ease The Pain Of Patients With Cancer, Aids Marijuana; Rebut That It
Leads To Other Drugs

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 it for medicinal purposes 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, says marijuana's active ingredients could ease pain, nausea
and vomiting. It urged the development of a standard way to use the
drug.

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

The institute said in its report 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 for AIDS patients.

It also said there was no evidence that use of marijuana leads to
other drug use. But the panel warned that smoking marijuana could
cause respiratory disease and called for the development of
standardized forms of the drug, called cannabinoids, that can be
taken, for example, by inhaler.

Even so, the panel said, there may be cases where patients could in
the meantime get relief by smoking marijuana. The panel's report
immediatelly spurred debate.

"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 was "deeply concerned"
that the report might encourage people to smoke marijuana.

Barry McCaffrey, the White House drug adviser, 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 patients.

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 is already under way at the National Institutes of Health, which
is conducting three studies of smoked marijuana and expects to approve
a fourth this year.

The National Cancer Institute is looking into the comparative value of
a pill form of marijuana, as opposed to 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.

Ben Cohn, president of St. Louis chapter of NORML, said he was glad
that the report counters claims that marijuana is a gateway to harder
drugs such as heroin and cocaine. Cohn said the report's authors also
"recognize that marijuana has strong medical capabilities."

But he said he was "a little disapointed that there is so little focus
on smoked marijuana as a way of helping those people."

"We think it is quite evident that mountains of anecdoctal evidence
and clinical evidence show that smoking marijuana helps people
medically right now and is available right now without further years
of research," Cohn said.

Ken Bush, a spokesman for the Missouri Libertarian Party, said the
report is a vindication for the party, which has long advocated the
legalization of drugs.

"This will be a campaign issue in the next election," Bush said,
adding that "the report and its adoption would absolutely" be a step
toward legalization of marijuana.

"It's a very positive step," Bush said. "Even during the height of
prohibition, we didn't ban the industrial and medical uses of alcohol."