NEARLY NO RESEARCH DONE ON POT

Despite ongoing controversy over marijuana's medical efficacy, almost
no research is being done on the topic.

Some proponents of medical marijuana say sufficient research was
performed in the 1970s and '80s, when the federal government provided
marijuana for studies done mostly by states.

Many of those studies were suspended in 1991 when the National
Institutes of Health concluded there wasn't enough proof that
marijuana would be better than a synthetic version of
tetrahydrocannabinol, or THC, the drug's major chemical component.

Proponents said the studies were going to prove the opposite, but the
government stopped supplying the marijuana.

Work was mostly suspended until 1996, when California and Arizona
passed initiatives to legalize marijuana and other drugs for medical
use.

An expert panel formed by the Institutes of Health found in August
1997 that existing research showed some patients can be helped by the
drug, principally to relieve nausea after cancer chemotherapy or to
increase AIDS patients' appetites. The drug also has helped some
patients control glaucoma, the panel found.

The institutes' director, Dr. Harold Varmus, said at the time that
applications for marijuana research were welcome, but the agency has
approved only one project, a study of smoked marijuana in AIDS patients.

"The government is saying out of one side of its mouth that we need
more research, but then they don't provide the marijuana," said Bill
Zimmerman, director of Americans for Medical Rights, a private
advocacy group which sponsors state initiatives to legalize medical
marijuana.

Others, however, say research isn't funded because marijuana is so
hard to study. It's difficult to create a placebo that accurately
replicates the experience of smoking the drug and to measure how much
of the drug each patient ingests from the smoke. In addition, no drug
companies are lined up to invest in it.

"There isn't a government conspiracy to discourage it," said Dr. Reese
Jones, a psychiatry professor at University of California-San
Francisco and a longtime marijuana researcher. "The issue is, what
else are we not going to do in order to pay for it?"

Checked-by: Patrick Henry