MARIJUANA BENEFITS DISPUTED

AUGUSTA, Ga. A person with glaucoma would have to smoke a marijuana
cigarette every two hours -- about 4,000 a year -- to experience any
medical benefits from the drug, according to new research.

In a study published yesterday in the American Medical Association
journal Archives of Ophthalmology, Keith Green, a professor of
ophthalmology at the Medical College of Georgia, attacks what he calls
"the fallacy that marijuana is of any value at all in the treatment of
glaucoma."

Voters in Alaska, Arizona, Oregon, Nevada and Washington last week
approved measures allowing use of marijuana for medical reasons. Those
reasons include reducing side effects of cancer chemotherapy and
treating glaucoma, a degenerative eye diease.

Checked-by: Patrick Henry