U.S. APPROVAL SOUGHT FOR POT STUDY

Goal is to clarify medicinal benefits

Hoping to break California's political stalemate over the use of medicinal
marijuana, San Mateo County officials decided Tuesday to seek federal
approval for a major clinical study of marijuana's medicinal benefits.

The San Mateo County supervisors voted 3-1 to approve $50,000 in initial
funding for a three-year, $500,000 study that would follow between 500 and
1,000 people who use marijuana to control such medical problems as nausea
triggered by cancer treatment and AIDS-related weight loss. County health
officials said they would contract with a researcher to file a study
application within six months, asking the U.S. Food and Drug Administration
to authorize marijuana as an investigative drug in the clinical trials.

Supervisors Mike Nevin, Mary Griffin and Rich Gordon voted for the study.
Supervisor Tom Huening said he supported medicinal marijuana in principle,
but found the study too costly.

County officials said the ultimate hope is that a first-class, strictly
controlled study could convince the federal government to reclassify
marijuana as a prescription medication for seriously ill people.

Under federal law, marijuana is classified as an illicit drug on a par with
heroin and cocaine. It can only be prescribed by doctors in a pill form,
called Marinol, which contains a synthetic version of marijuana's active
ingredient. But some patients find smoking ``natural'' marijuana more
effective and complain that Marinol is so powerful, it leaves users in a
stupor.

In November 1996, California voters passed Proposition 215, which legalized
marijuana for medicinal use under certain circumstances. But when so-called
cannabis centers distributed marijuana under the new state law to patients
with a doctor's approval, federal, state and local authorities repeatedly
acted to shut down the centers for improper sales. This left people
suffering from cancer, AIDS and other diseases able to obtain marijuana
legally only if their ``primary caregiver'' grows it for them.

Given the battle over the state law, San Mateo County officials want to
fund a study to get a definitive answer to the controversy over marijuana's
effectiveness as a medicine.

``We see this as the best and only alternative to legitimizing the use of
medical marijuana,'' said county Health Director Margaret Taylor.

Like many local jurisdictions across California, San Mateo County has been
legally thwarted from complying with Proposition 215.

Supervisor Nevin has already lobbied state Attorney General Dan Lungren for
approval of a pilot study to dispense contraband marijuana to patients at
county health clinics. But that plan died in January when federal officials
filed civil lawsuits to shut down six Northern California cannabis clubs,
saying they violated federal laws against marijuana possession, cultivation
and distribution.

``We can't do anything without the full support and cooperation of the
federal government,'' Nevin said. ``We need the Clinton administration's
blessing to be able to move on these clinical trials.''

County officials said their support for medicinal marijuana is rooted in
personal experience with sick friends. Taylor, the county health director,
said her late colleague Joni Commons, who died in January, used marijuana
to combat chemotherapy-related nausea in a 20-year battle with breast
cancer.

``She is what inspired me,'' Taylor said. ``Joni . . . found it to be the
best possible drug to alleviate her symptoms.

``She got it from her caregivers -- her kids.''

She added, ``If you talk to people on the street, most think this
(marijuana study) is a great idea, especially if you do it legally and
don't make people go to cannabis clubs.''

Nevin, a former police investigator, firmly believes most Californians
support medicinal marijuana and distinguish it from recreational drug use.

``We're trying to find a compassionate way of getting this drug to the sick
and dying people who need it,'' he said.

Marijuana's medical effects have been studied for decades. But last year, a
National Institutes of Health workshop reviewed past research and found it
lacking in the scope and size necessary to prove anything definitive about
the drug's benefits. Also last year, the White House drug policy director
announced $1 million in funding for the Institute of Medicine to review
studies already done on the medical use of inhaled marijuana.

The only current research into the medicinal benefits of smoking marijuana
is a two-year, $1 million study of 63 AIDS patients at the University of
California-San Francisco, according to the National Institutes of Health.
Researchers want to determine whether marijuana alters the concentration of
AIDS drugs, making them toxic or ineffective.

A state bill to fund study of medicinal marijuana nearly passed the
Assembly floor last August but stalled amid last-minute political
wrangling. Sen. John Vasconcellos, D-San Jose, the bill's author, said he
hopes to win its passage this summer.

``I think it's great that San Mateo County is helping to raise the
visibility of an issue that the people have spoken on,'' said Vasconcellos,
who has invited federal and state officials to a summit on medicinal
marijuana May 26 in Sacramento.

Checked-by: jwjohnson@netmagic.net (Joel W. Johnson)