U.N. DRUG BOARD URGES RESEARCH ON MARIJUANA AS MEDICINE

UNITED NATIONS -- The board that oversees international drug control
treaties for the United Nations has recommended that governments sponsor
impartial research into the medicinal benefits of marijuana, which some
users say alleviates the pain and nausea associated with AIDS, cancer and
other diseases.

But the International Narcotics Control Board stressed that such research
must not become a pretext for legalizing cannabis, as marijuana is called
in many parts of the world.

If the drug is determined to have medicinal value, the board said, its use
should be subjected to the same stringent controls applied to cocaine and
morphine, the opiate from which heroin is derived. "Any decision on the
medical use of cannabis should be based on clear scientific evidence," the
board said in its latest annual report, which was made public on Tuesday
through the United Nations.

"Political initiatives and public votes can easily be misused by groups
promoting the legalization of all use of cannabis and/or the prescription
or cannabis for recreational use under the guise of medical dispensation,"
the board said.

Its report appeared in advance of an American study of medicinal properties
of marijuana that the National Institute of Medicine, an arm of the
National Academy of Sciences, is expected to release next month.

The White House Office of National Drug Control Policy commissioned that
study, prompting groups that favor marijuana to complain that it would be
biased. The president of the international board, Dr. Hamid Ghodse, alluded
in a statement to the debate in the United States, where voters in eight
states have approved referendums expressing varying degrees of support for
medicinal uses of marijuana.

"The increasingly politicized battle over cannabis must end, since it has
had a negative effect on attitudes toward drug abuse, particularly from
young people," said Ghodse, an Iranian-born psychiatrist working in
Britain. "Should the medical usefulness of cannabis be established, it will
be a drug no different from most narcotic drugs and psychotropic
substances. Cannabis, prescribed for medical purposes, would also be
subject to licensing and other control measures under the international
drug control treaties." The International Narcotics Control Board reported
that marijuana abuse had become widespread in virtually all countries and
that it was the most commonly abused drug in North America. The agency
noted a trend toward higher potency in marijuana cultivated in greenhouses
in Canada and the United States.

While reserving its opinion on the benefits, the board, whose mandate
includes ensuring an adequate world supply of drugs for medical purposes,
said many poor countries had a severe shortage of morphine-based
painkillers needed by patients suffering from terminal diseases. "You're
dealing with terrible physical pain, and the situation in the poorest
countries is a tragic situation that continues to go unnoticed," said
Herbert S. Okun, the sole American on the 13-member board. Its report
simultaneously described a mounting dependence on prescription stimulants
by Americans and on tranquilizers by Europeans. The study said the United
States consumed 85 percent of the methylphenidate, a stimulant marketed
under the trade name of Ritalin. It is prescribed for children, adolescents
and adults who have been given diagnoses of attention deficit and
hyperactivity disorders.

The board further expressed concern about the computer-assisted engineering
of more powerful designer drugs and about drug recipes that circulate on
the Internet. The treaties supervised by the board include the Single
Convention on Narcotic Drugs of 1961, ratified by 166 countries; the
Convention on Psychotropic Substances of 1971, ratified by 158 countries;
and the Convention Against Illicit Traffic in Narcotic Drugs and
Psychotropic Substances of 1988, ratified by 148 countries.