Mr. McCOLLUM. Mr. Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and pass the joint
resolution (H.J. Res. 117) expressing the sense of Congress that marijuana
is a dangerous and addictive drug and should not be legalized for medicinal
use, as amended.

The Clerk read as follows:

H.J. Res. 117

Whereas certain drugs are listed on Schedule I of the Controlled Substances
Act if they have a high potential for abuse, lack any currently accepted
medical use in treatment, and are unsafe, even under medical supervision;

Whereas the consequences of illegal use of Schedule I drugs are well
documented, particularly with regard to physical health, highway safety,
and criminal activity;

Whereas pursuant to section 401 of the Controlled Substances Act, it is
illegal to manufacture, distribute, or dispense marijuana, heroin, LSD, and
more than 100 other Schedule I drugs;

Whereas pursuant to section 505 of the Federal Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act,
before any drug can be approved as a medication in the United States, it
must meet extensive scientific and medical standards established by the
Food and Drug Administration to ensure it is safe and effective;

Whereas marijuana and other Schedule I drugs have not been approved by the
Food and Drug Administration to treat any disease or condition;

Whereas the Federal Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act already prohibits the sale
of any unapproved drug, including marijuana, that has not been proven safe
and effective for medical purposes and grants the Food and Drug
Administration the authority to enforce this prohibition through seizure
and other civil action, as well as through criminal penalties;

Whereas marijuana use by children in grades 8 through 12 declined steadily
from 1980 to 1992, but, from 1992 to 1996, has dramatically increased by
253 percent among 8th graders, 151 percent among 10th graders, and 84
percent among 12th graders, and the average age of first-time use of
marijuana is now younger than it has ever been;

Whereas according to the 1997 survey by the Center on Addiction and
Substance Abuse at Columbia University, 500,000 8th graders began using
marijuana in the 6th and 7th grades;

Whereas according to that same 1997 survey, youths between the ages of 12
and 17 who use marijuana are 85 times more likely to use cocaine than those
who abstain from marijuana, and 60 percent of adolescents who use marijuana
before the age of 15 will later use cocaine; and

Whereas the rate of illegal drug use among youth is linked to their
perceptions of the health and safety risks of those drugs, and the
ambiguous cultural messages about marijuana use are contributing to a
growing acceptance of marijuana use among children and teenagers: Now,
therefore, be it

Resolved by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of
America in Congress assembled, That--

(1) Congress continues to support the existing Federal legal process for
determining the safety and efficacy of drugs and opposes efforts to
circumvent this process by legalizing marijuana, and other Schedule I
drugs, for medicinal use without valid scientific evidence and the approval
of the Food and Drug Administration; and

(2) not later than 90 days after the date of the adoption of this resolution--

(A) the Attorney General shall submit to the Committees on the Judiciary of
the House of Representatives and the Senate a report on--

(i) the total quantity of marijuana eradicated in the United States during
the period from 1992 through 1997; and

(ii) the annual number of arrests and prosecutions for Federal marijuana
offenses during the period described in clause (i); and

(B) the Commissioner of Foods and Drugs shall submit to the Committee on
Commerce of the House of Representatives and the Committee on Labor and
Human Resources of the Senate a report on the specific efforts underway to
enforce sections 304 and 505 of the Federal Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act
with respect to marijuana and other Schedule I drugs.

The SPEAKER pro tempore. Pursuant to the rule, the gentleman from

[[Page H7720]]

Florida (Mr. McCollum) and the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. Frank)
each will control 20 minutes.

The Chair recognizes the gentleman from Florida (Mr. McCollum).

General Leave

Mr. McCOLLUM. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may
have 5 legislative days within which to revise and extend their remarks on
the joint resolution under consideration.

The SPEAKER pro tempore. Is there objection to the request of the gentleman
from Florida?

There was no objection.

Mr. McCOLLUM. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Today we are about to consider a medical marijuana bill. It is a bill
probably with a misnomer because there is no initiative out there in the
country that proposes truly medical marijuana, where a doctor's
prescription is required, you have to go to the drugstore and get it, or
the Food and Drug Administration has approved the smoking of marijuana as a
drug and so forth.

But there is an awful lot of confusion in the public mind out there today.
I want to call my colleagues' attention to what this resolution actually
calls for after all of the sense of Congress is expressed in it. It
resolves that the House and Senate and Congress continue to support the
existing Federal legal process for determining the safety and efficacy of
drugs and opposes efforts to circumvent this process by legalizing
marijuana and other Schedule I drugs for medicinal use without valid
scientific evidence and the approval of the Food and Drug Administration.

I would like to point out at the beginning of this discussion that there is
a synthetic drug known as Marinol that contains the same powerful medical
ingredients found in marijuana for relieving pain and does not cause the
addiction or side effects associated with marijuana. Everybody here today
in this body is sympathetic with people who suffer from pain in this
country and the many Americans who have been told in some cases that the
smoking of marijuana will relieve that pain to them. Nobody is
unsympathetic to their cause, particularly those who are terminally ill,
but the ingredients that they need the medical profession has already laid
forth in medicine that is available and approved and is separate and apart
from the question of should we in any way provide for the opportunity to
smoke marijuana in a smoke form, which is what is in so many resolutions
around the country these days and initiatives.

Secondly, the Food and Drug Administration, which must approve all drugs,
has never approved marijuana as a prescription or over-the- counter drug.

Third, no doctor's prescription, under the initiatives that I have seen in
the States where this has been proposed and is being proposed today in the
50 States, no doctor's prescription would be required to obtain marijuana.
The only thing that would be required is for the doctor to say, ``It's
okay, I think it's a good idea, I'll sign a piece of paper.'' But you do
not have to go to the drugstore to get it. In fact, you could not get it at
the drugstore because the Food and Drug Administration has never approved it.

And fourth, there is a very important health problem that is associated
with this in terms of the body's immune system. Regularly smoking marijuana
weakens the body's immune system and doubles the speed in which the
AIDS-causing virus HIV produces AIDS symptoms.

Having made those statements, I want to discuss H.J. Res. 117 in a little
bit more detail. Congressional support, as I have said earlier, for the
current legal process is what this is all about: the process for
determining the safety and efficacy of drugs, including marijuana and other
Schedule I drugs for medicinal use.

I am pleased to say that the joint resolution we have here today is fully
supported by General Barry McCaffrey who is the head of our Office of
National Drug Control Policy, and he has a letter dated September 9, 1998
that so states that support.

At the outset, I want also to state that we personally do not possess the
medical or scientific expertise to pass judgment on whether marijuana is a
medicine. But the Food and Drug Administration does and so does the
American Medical Association, the National Institute of Drug Abuse, the
American Cancer Society and numerous other organizations. Each of them has
concluded that marijuana is not a medicine. It seems to me that their
collective expert judgment and the long-established FDA approval process
should not be lightly set aside. Either on the basis of scientific evidence
and testing or whatever other basis you might come to a conclusion on,
marijuana is not a medicine. It has got to be determined by a scientific
basis. That is all there is to it. So far it has not been. No opinion poll
or State initiative in any way can alter that status.

Simply put, this resolution before us today reflects the view that science
cannot be based upon opinion polls. This was the position taken before the
subcommittee by General McCaffrey and by numerous other witnesses. Until
agencies with the authority and expertise, through established scientific
testing and review process, find marijuana to have legitimate medical
applications, it should not be legalized by States for medicinal purposes.

This resolution takes that position and provides the House of
Representatives as an institution the opportunity to weigh in on this
debate that is going on nationally. I believe such a statement is important
for a couple of reasons. First it is timely. More than 30 States and the
District of Columbia have been targeted for possible medical marijuana
initiatives. They have already been passed in California and Arizona.

I might add that the language of this resolution has been crafted in
cooperation with the gentleman from California (Mr. Cox) and Senator Kyl
from Arizona.

The resolution is also timely because of the tragic drug crisis engulfing
our young people today. The numbers are simply shocking. From 1992 to 1997,
drug use among youth from 12 to 17 years of age has more than doubled.

{time} 1330

It is up 120 percent. That is an increase of 27 percent in the last year
alone. For kids aged 12 to 17, first-time heroin use has increased 875
percent from 1991 to 1996, and from 1992 to 1996 marijuana use increased
253 percent among eighth graders, 151 percent among tenth graders and 84
percent among twelfth graders. Overall among kids aged 12 to 17 marijuana
smoking has jumped 125 percent from 1991 to 1997 in that 6 year period.
Today in the District of Columbia 96 percent of all youth arrested for
crime test positive for marijuana. That is 96 percent of all juvenile arrests.

Marijuana users today are younger than ever before. The most recent survey
by the Partnership for Drug-free America found that among children ages 9
to 12 who were surveyed, nearly one-fourth of them were offered drugs
during 1996 with marijuana being the most prominent. That is up from 19
percent for the same age group in 1993. The University of Michigan survey
for 1996 reports that 23 percent of the seventh grade students said they
had tried marijuana, and 33 percent of the eighth grade students had done
so. Mr. Speaker, our kids are drowning in a sea of drugs.

The second reason for this resolution is to send a message that cavalier
labeling of smoked marijuana as medicine sends an unmistakable message to
our youth. How harmful can it be if it is a medicine for any ailment? The
polls that have been taken before and after State initiatives clearly
demonstrate young people have a more accepting attitude towards marijuana
after the passage of those initiatives.

Kids get it. They understand it when civic and cultural institutions and
leaders are ambivalent, and I am of the view that future prospects of our
young people are too important for such a matter of ambivalence. As a
country we need to speak out, and this House needs to speak out.

Third, we need to know much more about marijuana today, and we do no more
than we did a few years ago, and the news that we do know is sobering. The
potency of marijuana has more than doubled in the last decade through
genetic manipulation and cloning. On top of that, the typical marijuana
dose is significantly larger than in past years, laced with other

[[Page H7721]]

drugs. As a result in recent years there has been a dramatic increase in
the number of marijuana related emergency room episodes for 12- to
17-year-olds.

Marijuana's troubling gateway effect is now well understood. According to
Columbia University, youth between the ages of 12 and 17 who use marijuana
are 85 times more likely to use cocaine than those who abstain from
marijuana. The research clearly demonstrates smoke marijuana impairs normal
brain function and damages the, heart lungs reproductive and immune
systems. According to the National Institute of Allergies and Infectious
Diseases, HIV positive smokers of marijuana progress to full blown AIDS
twice as fast as non-smokers and have increased incidences of bacterial
pneumonia. In June 1997 the National Institute of Health found that long
term use of marijuana produces changes in the brain that are similar to
those seen after long term use of other major drugs such as cocaine and
heroin. It is with this disturbing back drop that we bring forward the
resolution today.

While the substance of the resolution is straightforward, I want to
highlight again a couple of points.

The resolution points out that before any drug can be approved as a
medication in the United States it must meet extensive scientific standards
established by the Food and Drug Administration to ensure its safety and
efficacy. The resolution points out that marijuana has been extensively
studied, but it has never been approved by the FDA as a medication. In fact
because of its high potential for abuse and its lack of any accepted
medical use in treatment marijuana is a schedule one drug, which means, of
course, it is illegal under federal law to manufacture, distribute or
dispense marijuana, heroin, LSD and more than 100 other schedule one drugs.

And let us be perfectly clear. This schedule one rating is not a function
of politics, it is a function of the rigorous medical scientific evaluation
process of the Food and Drug Administration. The doctors and scientists
with the greatest expertise have determined that marijuana is simply not a
medicine, however they have approved its active ingredient, THC, in a pill
form as medicine.

In light of these facts, the resolution affirms the importance of
supporting the existing Federal legal process for determining safety and
efficacy of drugs including marijuana and other schedule one drugs. It
further states opposition to efforts to circumvent this process by
legalizing marijuana and other schedule one drugs for medicinal use without
valid scientific evidence and the approval of the FDA, and it calls on the
Attorney General and the Food and Drug Administration commissioner to
report to Congress on their efforts to enforce the Federal marijuana laws
already on the books.

Again, I am as concerned and sympathetic as anyone else about
terminally-ill patients, but the scientific evidence does not support the
medicinal marijuana resolutions that are running around the country these
days, and they do not require prescriptions by doctors of these of
marijuana, there has been no approval at all to smoke marijuana by the Food
and Drug Administration as a medicine, and it is a highly dangerous thing
to do, and we need to condemn it today.

Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Mr. Speaker, I yield 5 minutes to my colleague,
the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. Delahunt).

Mr. DELAHUNT. Mr. Speaker, I thank my friend from Massachusetts (Mr. Frank)
for yielding this time to me.

As my colleagues know, this is truly a resolution that can be described as
a Alice in Wonderland resolution. Up is down and down is up. Marijuana is
dangerous for folks who are suffering, who very well may be dying, but
cocaine and morphine are okay. In other words, coke and morphine are less
dangerous than marijuana. That just does not make any sense whatsoever.

It seems to me, if we are going to ban the use of marijuana in the face of
growing medical evidence of its therapeutic value, in cases resistant to
other treatments, then we should ban morphine and cocaine as well.

What are the arguments for treating marijuana differently from these other
and arguably far more dangerous drugs? I am sure that if we ask anyone from
the law enforcement community, they will tell us that violent behavior is
far more endemic to the use and the abuse of cocaine and morphine and
related drugs than marijuana.

Well, the first argument is that whatever benefits it may have, marijuana
is simply too dangerous for us to send a single signal that it is okay. Yet
the same signal is sent by, as I said, allowing therapeutic access to
cocaine, and yet we allow it nonetheless. If we adopt a different policy
with regard to marijuana, what we will be saying is that we are willing to
allow patients to suffer excruciating, debilitating conditions so as not to
send a signal to others who might wish to use these drugs recreationally.
With all due respect, I do not believe that anyone who has watched an AIDS
or cancer patient suffer uncontrollable nausea for hours at a time could
make such an argument. That is not the signal that we want to send.

Proponents of the resolution are quick to point out that the scientific
community is divided over the medical benefits of marijuana. They are less
quick to acknowledge that both the benefits and dangers of this and
hundreds of other medicinal substances are subject to scientific dispute also.

It is not our role, I would submit, to prohibit scientists and researchers
from continuing to develop sound data regarding the safety and efficacy of
marijuana as they do with any other experimental treatment.

There is also another reason why Congress has no business legislating in
this subject. In November of 1996 Californians approved Proposition 215
which legalized the medical use of marijuana. That same year folks from
Arizona supported a measure allowing physicians to prescribe the drug. The
Californian measure was approved by a 56 percent majority, the Arizona
referendum by 65 percent. I am continually surprised and stunned really at
the capacity of some of my colleagues to preach the gospel of States rights
while doing everything they can to federalize State prerogatives. In this
Congress alone we have had legislation to deny juvenile justice funds to
States that do not comply with new Federal mandates to preempt State
authority with respect to product liability, tort and security litigation,
to curtail State court jurisdiction over class action suits, and to
override State and local land use decisions through so-called property
rights measures, to name only a few of the more notorious examples.

But if we are determined to override State authority, to really bury the
concept of evolution, if we are determined to replace sound medical
judgment with our own, at least let us not be hypocritical. Let us take
morphine and cocaine off the market as well. Let us make it clear to
patients who depend on these drugs to control their pain that they will
simply have to suffer so that we can send the right signal about drug
abuse. I am sure they will understand.

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Mr. Speaker, I yield 3\1/2\ minutes to the
gentleman from California (Mr. Waxman).

Mr. WAXMAN. I thank the gentleman very much for yielding this time to me.

Mr. Speaker, this resolution is just another effort by the Republican
leadership to substitute slogans for substance. Time after time the
leadership has ignored the facts and slapped down the work of States and
public health experts because it serves the Republican leadership's
political interests, as they see it any way.

First, they are going to take a slap tomorrow at the State of Oregon, and
they want to ban here at the federal level, any funding or any attempt to
Oregon to have a law for assisted suicide. Yet in spite of this ban, the
Washington Post reported last April that Oregon's Death with Dignity Act
has profoundly improved the end of life care given the terminally-ill
patients.

Now the House also taken a swap at States and cities across the country
this spring by banning Federal funding of needle exchange. Needle exchange
is preventing AIDS and saving lives in dozens of American cities in over 20
States. The Surgeon General, the National Academy of Sciences, the National
Institutes for Health, the American Medical Association all concluded

[[Page H7722]]

that needle exchanges save lives, prevent AIDS and do not encourage drug
use. But do not confuse the Republican leadership with the facts; they are
not interested. They want Americans to believe that the government was
going to install needle vending machines next to coke machines across the
country. They want everybody to know that the greatest wisdom in the
country is here in Washington, nowhere else in the Nation. Now the House
leadership wants to take a slap at California. The voters of California
supported Proposition 215. They support doctors prescribing or recommending
marijuana for medical uses. The voters of California have spoken on this
issue, and their judgment deserves the respect from this House.

Just as importantly, the National Institutes of Health is calling for more
research on medical uses of marijuana, the National Academy of Sciences is
due to report on this issue in the next few months, and the AMA, California
Nurses Association, California Academy of Family Physicians, the Los
Angeles County AIDS Commission all support Proposition 215. But the
gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Gingrich) and the gentleman from Texas (Mr.
Armey) and the rest of the Republican leadership do not care. They do not
want to wait for a report that will give them the facts. They want to
deprive seriously ill patients of potential therapies because they have a
political agenda. They think we should just say no to sick and dying
patients because it looks like we are getting tough on illegal drugs.

Mr. Speaker, this resolution is not about crime, it is not about legalizing
drugs, it is not about legalizing marijuana. This is about letting doctors
care for dying patients in the best way possible. This is about letting
scientific research proceed unhindered by politics.

Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues to oppose this resolution, and I want to
put into the Record a statement from the New England Journal of Medicine.
It is an editorial endorsing the physician freedom to determine the medical
uses of marijuana.

I urge that we oppose this resolution which is strictly here for political
purposes, and it should not be dignified with our votes because it deprives
the States and the people from making a decision in the local areas for
their own determination.

(continued - this is part 1 of 3)

Checked-by: Richard Lake