RESEARCHERS FIND STUDY OF MEDICAL MARIJUANA DISCOURAGED

Despite the Obama administration's tacit support of more liberal
state medical marijuana laws, the federal government still
discourages research into the medicinal uses of smoked marijuana.
That may be one reason that -- even though some patients swear by it
- -- there is no good scientific evidence that legalizing marijuana's
use provides any benefits over current therapies.

Lyle E. Craker, a professor of plant sciences at the University of
Massachusetts, has been trying to get permission from federal
authorities for nearly nine years to grow a supply of the plant that
he could study and provide to researchers for clinical trials.

But the Drug Enforcement Administration -- more concerned about abuse
than potential benefits -- has refused, even after the agency's own
administrative law judge ruled in 2007 that Dr. Craker's application
should be approved, and even after Attorney General Eric H. Holder
Jr. in March ended the Bush administration's policy of raiding
dispensers of medical marijuana that comply with state laws.

"All I want to be able to do is grow it so that it can be tested,"
Dr. Craker said in comments echoed by other researchers.

Marijuana is the only major drug for which the federal government
controls the only legal research supply and for which the government
requires a special scientific review.

"The more it becomes clear to people that the federal government is
blocking these studies, the more people are willing to defect by
using politics instead of science to legalize medicinal uses at the
state level," said Rick Doblin, executive director of a nonprofit
group dedicated to researching psychedelics for medical uses.

On Monday, his last full day in office, Gov. Jon S. Corzine of New
Jersey signed a measure passed by the Legislature last week that made
the state the 14th in the nation to legalize the use of marijuana to
help with chronic illnesses.

The measure was pushed by a loose coalition of patients suffering
from chronic illnesses like Lou Gehrig's disease and multiple
sclerosis who said marijuana eased their symptoms.

Studies have shown convincingly that marijuana can relieve nausea and
improve appetite among cancer patients undergoing chemotherapy.
Studies also prove that marijuana can alleviate the aching and
numbness that patients with H.I.V. and AIDS suffer.

There are strong hints that marijuana may ameliorate some of the
neurological problems associated with such degenerative diseases as
multiple sclerosis, said Dr. Igor Grant, director of the Center for
Medicinal Cannabis Research at the University of California, San Diego.

But there is no good evidence that legalizing the smoking of
marijuana is needed to provide these effects. The Food and Drug
Administration in 1985 approved Marinol, a prescription pill of
marijuana's active ingredient, T.H.C. Although a few small-scale
studies done decades ago suggest that smoked marijuana may prove
effective when Marinol does not, no conclusive research has confirmed
this finding.

And Marinol is no panacea. There are at least three medicines that in
most patients provide better relief from nausea and vomiting than
Marinol, studies show.

Buddy Coolen, 31, of Warwick, R.I., said he tried or continued to use
some of those medicines. "Smoking for me is as good as any medicine I
have," he said.

Eight years ago, Mr. Coolen contracted gastroparesis and cyclic
vomiting syndrome. He lost 50 pounds and, despite being 5 foot 11,
weighed 120 pounds.

His doctors gave him myriad anti-emetics, many of which he still
takes. They also prescribed Marinol, but it did not work for him, Mr.
Coolen said.

"My stepdad is old school and was really against marijuana, but then
he saw what it did for me and totally changed his way of thinking,"
Mr. Coolen said.

Some doctors and law enforcement officials say such anecdotes should
not drive public policy. Dr. Eric Braverman, medical director of a
multispecialty clinic in Manhattan, said legalizing marijuana was
unnecessary and dangerous since Marinol provided the medicinal
effects of the plant. "Our society will deteriorate," he said.

Patients who call Dr. Braverman's clinic are, when put on hold, told
that the clinic may prescribe supplements and other alternative
treatments that have even less scientific justification than
marijuana. Dr. Braverman said such alternatives rendered marijuana
unnecessary, but his embrace of alternatives is a reminder that
medicine has long been driven by more than science.

About 20 percent of drug prescriptions are written for uses that are
not approved by federal drug regulators; about half of the nation's
adults regularly take supplements; herbal and homeopathic remedies are popular.

The nation's growing embrace of medical marijuana has stemmed from
these alternative traditions.

The University of Mississippi has the nation's only federally
approved marijuana plantation. If they wish to investigate marijuana,
researchers must apply to the National Institute on Drug Abuse to use
the Mississippi marijuana and must get approvals from a special
Public Health Service panel, the Drug Enforcement Administration and
the Food and Drug Administration.

But federal officials have repeatedly failed to act on marijuana
research requests in a timely manner or have denied them, according
to a 2007 ruling by an administrative law judge at the Drug
Enforcement Administration. While refusing to approve a second
marijuana producer, the government allowed the University of
Mississippi to supply Mallinckrodt, a drug maker, with enough
marijuana to eventually produce a generic version of Marinol.

"As the National Institute on Drug Abuse, our focus is primarily on
the negative consequences of marijuana use," said Shirley Simson, a
spokeswoman for the drug abuse institute, known as NIDA. "We
generally do not fund research focused on the potential beneficial
medical effects of marijuana."

The Drug Enforcement Administration said it was just following NIDA's
lead. "D.E.A. has never denied a research registration for marijuana
and/or THC if NIDA approved the protocols for that individual
entity," a supervisory special agent, Gary Boggs, said by e-mail.

Researchers investigating LSD, Ecstasy and other illegal drugs can
use any of a number of suppliers licensed by the Drug Enforcement
Administration, Dr. Doblin said. And if a researcher wants to use a
variety of marijuana that the University of Mississippi does not grow
- -- and there are many with differing medicinal properties -- they are
out of luck, Dr. Doblin said.

Law enforcement tends to emphasize the abuse potential of medicines
without regard to their positive effects. Bureaucratic battles
between the D.E.A. and the F.D.A. over the availability of narcotics
- -- highly effective but addictive medicines -- have gone on for decades.

So medical marijuana may never have good science underlying its use.
But for patients in desperate need, the ethics of providing access to
the drug are clear, said Dr. Richard Payne, a professor of medicine
and divinity and director of the Institute for Care on the End of
Life at Duke Divinity School.

"It's not a great drug," he said, "but what's the harm?"