BACKERS CALL MEDICAL MARIJUANA REPORT A VICTORY

Valley medical marijuana proponents are calling today's federal report
on pot's positive effects for pain relief, nausea control and appetite
stimulation a victory.

"This is just one more push - one more bit of pressure on the feds in
Washington," said Dr. Jeffrey Singer, spokesman for Arizonans for Drug
Policy Reform.

"This is exactly what we've been saying all along. It's a shame the
government has spent millions and millions of dollars on a literary
search."

The study's release comes months after voters in Arizona, Alaska,
Washington, Oregon, Nevada, Colorado and the District of Columbia
approved initiatives allowing doctors to prescribe pot for sick people.

However, ever since California and Arizona voters first approved the
measure in 1996, federal authorities have threatened to yank the
federal licenses of any doctors who prescribed marijuana.

After Arizona passed a second medical marijuana initiative in
November, drug policy director Barry McCaffrey, the nation's most
visible opponent of such initiatives, said he would not try to
overturn such laws but wait for results of a Food and Drug
Administration study and research from the National Institutes of Health.

The Institute of Medicine report, titled, "Marijuana and Medicine: Assessing
the Science Base," concludes that although cannabinoid drugs may offer
therapeutic relief not found in other medications, smoking marijuana
delivers "harmful substances." It suggests the development of alternative
means of ingestion.

"Until such drugs can be developed and made available for medical use,
the report recommends interim solutions," it says.

Singer doesn't buy it.

"They said that marijuana is medicine, and smoking marijuana works,"
he said. "They just have a problem recommending people smoke it. Maybe
they should get over that problem, because these are people suffering
from terminal diseases.

"Smoking marijuana gets relief to these people. Are you saying these
people can't get relief until somebody comes up with an invention for
another way to administer it?"

But Dr. Philip Kanof, medical director of the substance-abuse program
at the Veterans Affairs Hospital in Tucson and an associate professor
of pharmacology at the College of Medicine at the University of
Arizona, said the active ingredient of marijuana - THC - has been
approved by the FDA for years.

"What are the advantages of smoking it over using the oral form?" he
asked.

The White House Office of National Drug Control Policy ordered the
report in January 1997 to review the scientific evident and assess
potential health risks and benefits. Information was gathered through
scientific literature, workshops, site visits to cannabis buyers'
clubs and HIV/AIDS clinics, and consultation with biomedical and
social scientists.