SCIENCE - THE DRUG WAR'S LATEST VICTIM

Despite a wealth of new information regarding the therapeutic
potential of marijuana, the U.S. government refuses to alter its
prohibitionist restrictions.

The war on drugs is an attack on rationality. Reason lost yet another
skirmish recently when the Food and Drug Administration (FDA)
announced on April 20 that "no sound scientific studies" supported
the medical use of marijuana.

The announcement flatly contradicts the conclusion of virtually every
major study on the efficacy of medical marijuana, including two
performed by the government. In a New York Times article the
following day, Dr. Jerry Avorn of Harvard Medical School said "this
is yet another example of the FDA making pronouncements that seems to
be driven more by ideology than science."

Avorn's criticism is one regularly leveled at the Bush
administration, namely, that it is using politics to trump science.
Last year, for example, the ACLU released a report titled "Science
Under Siege" that detailed efforts by the Bush administration to
hamper scientific inquiry in the name of ideology and national security.

The report found the administration has censored and prescreened
scientific articles before publication, suppressed environmental and
public health information, and increased restrictions on materials
commonly used in basic scientific research.

For two years the Union of Concerned Scientists has circulated a
petition statement which now contains the signatures of 9,000 U.S.
scientists, including 49 Nobel Prize winners and 63 National Medal of
Science recipients. The statement complains that the Bush
administration advocates "policies that are not scientifically
sound," and sometimes has "misrepresented scientific knowledge and
misled the public about the implication of its politics." This comes
on the heels of a host of other accusations against the
administration--charges of censoring a NASA scientist on issues of
global warming and burying data on the morning-after Plan B contraceptive.

But the FDA announcement on marijuana is perhaps the most blatant
effort to ignore scientific reality. Critics charge that the
statement was issued to bolster opponents of various medical
marijuana initiatives that have passed in 11 states.

The Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) and John P. Walters, the
director of national drug control policy (the Drug Czar) oppose the
use of medical marijuana. The Times quoted Walters' spokesman Tom
Riley, who said the FDA's statement would put to rest what he called
"the bizarre public discussion" that has helped legalize medical
marijuana. But Riley failed to note that some of that discussion was
sparked by an exhaustive DEA investigation into cannabis (the
scientific name for marijuana) from 1986 to 1988. The comprehensive
study examined evidence from doctors, patients and thousands of
documents regarding marijuana's medical utility.

Following a hearing on the study's findings, the DEA's administrative
judge Francis L. Young released a ruling on Sept. 6, 1988, that
noted, "Nearly all medicines have toxic, potentially lethal effects.
But marijuana is not such a substance ..." Marijuana in its natural
form, he said, "is one of the safest therapeutically active
substances known to man. By any measure of rational analysis,
marijuana can be safely used within a supervised routine of medical care."

He recommended that "(The) provisions of the (Controlled Substances)
Act permit and require the transfer of marijuana from Schedule I to
Schedule II. It would be unreasonable, arbitrary and capricious for
the DEA to continue to stand between those sufferers and the benefits
of this substance."

The New England Journal of Medicine, the American Academy of Family
Physicians, the American Public Health Association, AIDS Action
Council and dozens of other medical groups have endorsed medical
marijuana. Anecdotal evidence from Oregon, one of the states that
legalized marijuana's medical uses,"adds to the mountain of data
supporting the medicinal value of pot," according to a May 1
editorial in the Eugene (Ore.) Register-Guard.

Despite this and a growing wealth of new information (particularly
new research on cannabanoid medicine by Dr. Raphael Mechoulam out of
Hebrew University in Jerusalem) regarding the therapeutic potential
of marijuana and its various analogues, the U.S. government refuses
to alter its prohibitionist restrictions on marijuana use or research.

Although the Bushites' rejection of scientific reality is
particularly egregious, governmental irrationality about marijuana
has been bipartisan. Indeed, more people suffered pot arrests during
the Clinton administration than in any other before or since.
Washington, in general, seems particularly susceptible to distorted
reasoning or magical thinking when considering this ancient herb.

Isn't it a sign of mental disorder when distorted reasoning is
unchanged by empirical evidence? What is it about marijuana that
drives our politicians insane?

Salim Muwakkil is a senior editor of In These Times, where he has
worked since 1983, and an op-ed columnist for the Chicago Tribune. He
is currently a Crime and Communities Media Fellow of the Open Society
Institute, examining the impact of ex-inmates and gang leaders in
leadership positions in the black community.