Source: Los Angeles Times Page 1
Author: ERIC BAILEY, Times Staff Writer

Contact: letters@latimes.com
Fax: 2132374712

Lungren Backs Study on Medical Marijuana Use

SACRAMENTOAtty. Gen. Dan Lungren, the most vocal
critic of California's new medical marijuana law, announced
his support Tuesday for a $3million research program intended to
settle the decadeslong dispute over the drug's benefits and failings
for the ill.

The decision by the state's conservative top lawman to back a bill
by liberal state Sen. John Vasconcellos (DSanta Clara) unifies two
political opposites who have clashed repeatedly over medical
marijuana. Although hundreds of studies have been conducted on
marijuana since it was declared illegal in 1937, most of that
research has been dismissed either by fans or foes of the drug as
being biased. Lungren, a gubernatorial hopeful who boasts a long
history as an antidrug warrior, decided to back Vasconcellos' bill
only after it had been sufficiently modified to ensure that the
statefunded research, slated to be conducted over three years by the
University of California, would be unassailably objective.
"California needs a definitive study," Lungren said at a news
conference. "I do not fear the findings of an unbiased research
project." Gov. Pete Wilson, who must approve the funding, continued
to express qualms Tuesday. But the bipartisan push for research in
the nation's most populous state could mark a sea change in the
battle over marijuana as medicine. If studies go forward in
California and produce solid results one way or another, it could
have significant ramifications for the state's new medical marijuana
law, Proposition 215, as well as the nationwide debate on the drug.
The California law legalized marijuana possession by patients and
doctors if the drug was recommended by a physician. "In many ways
Lungren's endorsement today was like Nixon going to China," said Dave
Fratello, spokesman for the group that sponsored Proposition 215.
"Evidence that could lead to federal [Food and Drug Administration]
approval would change the debate on this fundamentally. But the
opponents are gambling that the studies will come out ambivalent, if
not negative." The bill (SB 535), currently in the Assembly
Appropriations Committee, would provide $1 million for the first year
of study and recommend similar financing the next two years.

* * *
Research would explore the effectiveness and medical hazards
of administering marijuana as a therapeutic drug for AIDSrelated
wasting, nausea and vomiting from cancer chemotherapy,
neurological disorders such as epilepsy and problems associated
with glaucoma.
Vasconcellos and Lungren both expressed hope that the state
testing program could attract additional funding from the federal
government and private philanthropists but emphasized that any
donations must have no strings attached.
Earlier this month, an expert panel urged the National Institutes
of Health to help design and fund new clinical trials of medical
marijuana. But federal officials, who for years have been politically
reluctant to back research into marijuana's uses as medicine, have
not made it clear how big a player they will be in such a research
effort.
Lungren, who opposed Vasconcellos' bill when it was
introduced earlier this year, changed his mind after the senator
agreed to several changes. One of the most significant concessions
is meant to ensure the objectivity of research personnel through
peer review, including evaluations of past public statements on the
issue.
But the attorney general also gave a little. If the federal
government, which controls the one farm producing researchgrade
marijuana, balks at requests for the drug, Lungren's office would be
required to turn over suitable marijuana seized by state drug agents.
Lungren's endorsement contrasts sharply, at least on the surface,
with his very vocal opposition to Proposition 215 and his actions
prior to election day. He earned headlines and was lampooned in
the Doonesbury comic strip after he ordered state agents to raid a
San Francisco marijuana buyers club run by a chief advocate of
Proposition 215.
The attorney general emphasized Tuesday that he has never
opposed good research into medical marijuana. His early rejection
of the Vasconcellos bill, he said, sprang from concerns that it was
too broadly written and would produce flawed research.

Lungren also said he still believes Proposition 215 "was a dumb
idea" and that California voters failed to recognize that the measure
was a smoke screen for the drug legalization movement. Some foes of
the drug war suggested that Lungren was playing politics. "When
Proposition 215 gets more votes in California than Clinton did, you
don't get much mileage from continuing to oppose it," said Ethan
Nadelmann, director of the Lindesmith Center, a drug policy think
tank. "It's very hard to be opposed to research. I think that is what
it boiled down to."

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