AIDS GROUPS URGE U.S. TO APPROVE MEDICAL MARIJUANA

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - A coalition of AIDS organizations petitioned U.S.
anti-drug chief Barry McCaffrey Thursday for help in securing ``fast track''
approval of the medical use of marijuana.

``We urge you to help break the bureaucratic logjam that is keeping a
potentially life-saving medicine, marijuana, virtually inaccessible to
thousands of people living with AIDS,'' the 17 groups said in a letter,
their first joint call for the legalization of medical marijuana.

The groups, which include the AIDS Action Council, the San Francisco AIDS
Foundation and the Latino Commission on AIDS, said the established
fast-track procedures that led to quick approval for AIDS-fighting drugs
such as protease inhibitors should now be applied to marijuana.

``Making marijuana immediately available on a quasi-experimental basis to
people living with AIDS ... is a moderate step that can add to the federal
government's responsiveness to the epidemic,'' the groups said.

Copies of the letter were sent to the Secretary of health and human
services, the director of the Food and Drug Administration, the Office of
National AIDS Policy, and the majority and minority leaders of the House and
Senate.

In 1996, voters in California and Arizona approved the first state laws
allowing doctors to prescribe marijuana to people with AIDS, cancer and
other serious diseases to relieve symptoms such as pain and nausea.

Last November, Alaska, Nevada, Oregon, Washington, Colorado and the District
of Columbia also approved medical marijuana laws. But the federal
government, saying national narcotics laws still applied to the drug,
intervened to block implementation of the state initiatives.

McCaffrey, head of the Office for National Drug Control Policy, has been a
strong opponent of medical marijuana, saying that marijuana reformers were
using bogus science in a drive aimed at legalizing all use of the drug.

The AIDS groups said Thursday that medical research backed their position.
They suggested that a study of marijuana due out next month from the
National Academy of Sciences could bolster their cause.

But AIDS patients should not have to wait while the science is sorted out,
the groups said.

``Science and compassion should dictate our nation's policy regarding
medical treatment,'' the letter said. ``However, politics has stood in the
way of the approval of marijuana as a legal medication, and the full
development of a science base leading to FDA approval could still be years
away.''