U.N. RECOMMENDS RESEARCH INTO MEDICAL MARIJUANA TO END DEBATE

UNITED NATIONS In-depth and impartial scientific studies should
be conducted into marijuana's possible medical benefits, a U.N. report
recommended Tuesday.

Only scientific evidence from the public and private sector can end
the emotion-charged political debate over using cannabis for patients,
said Herbert S. Okun, a member of the International Drug Control Board.

He stressed, however, that the board wasn't recommending easing
controls on marijuana. The Vienna-based board is a 13-member,
quasi-judicial organization overseeing implementation of U.N. drug
treaties.

Among the other findings, the board's annual report said Europeans are
the world's top users of stress-reducing drugs, while Americans hold
the record for consuming the most performance-enhancing substances.

While the reasons for such a disparity weren't known, Okun told a news
conference Monday that it may lie in cultural, lifestyle and other
forces.

The aging European population has access to more extensive health care
systems, which may be more willing to prescribe drugs to reduce aches
and pains, he noted.

The high use of performance-enhancing drugs in the Americas may be at
least partly explained by the prevalent sense of competition there,
the report indicated.

In particular, Okun said the board was concerned about
over-prescription in the United States of methylphenidate, sold as the
drug Ritalin, to treat children with attention deficit disorder.

American patients are consuming 330 million daily doses of the
substance compared to 65 million for patients in the rest of the
world, the report found.

The agency also warned that more and more North Americans are smoking
heroin and said Europe has emerged as a producer of cannabis and
synthetic drugs. Cannabis continues to be the most commonly abused
illegal drug in the United States, Canada and Mexico.

The report expressed concern about the prevalence of do-it-yourself
guides on the Internet, which teach users how to prepare certain
illegal substances.

And it repeated its concern that painkillers such as morphine are
increasingly hard to come by in the developing world, though they are
widely available in the industrialized world -- about 100 times more
available in the world's top 20 industrialized countries than in the
bottom 20.

The board, whose mission is to ensure the legal availability of drugs
for medical purposes, is launching a campaign called "Freedom From
Pain'' to make such drugs more available in the developing world.