POTHEADS AND SUDAFED

Police officers in the 1960's were fond of bumper stickers reading:
"The next time you get mugged, call a hippie." Doctors today could
use a variation: "The next time you're in pain, call a narc."

Washington's latest prescription for patients in pain is the
statement issued last week by the Food and Drug Administration on the
supposed evils of medical marijuana. The F.D.A. is being lambasted,
rightly, by scientists for ignoring some evidence that marijuana can
help severely ill patients. But it's the kind of statement given by a
hostage trying to please his captors, who in this case are a
coalition of Republican narcs on Capitol Hill, in the White House and
at the Drug Enforcement Administration.

They've been engaged in a long-running war to get the F.D.A. to
abandon some of its quaint principles, like the notion that it's not
fair to deny a useful drug to patients just because a few criminals
might abuse it. The agency has also dared to suggest that there
should be a division of labor when it comes to drugs: scientists and
doctors should figure out which ones work for patients, and narcotics
agents should catch people who break drug laws.

The drug cops want everyone to share their mission. They think that
doctors and pharmacists should catch patients who abuse painkillers
- -- and that if the doctors or pharmacists aren't good enough
detectives, they should go to jail for their naivete.

This month, pharmacists across the country are being forced to lock
up another menace to society: cold medicine. Allergy and cold
remedies containing pseudoephedrine, a chemical that can illegally be
used to make meth, must now be locked behind the counter under a
provision in the new Patriot Act.

Don't ask what meth has to do with the war on terror. Not even the
most ardent drug warriors have been able to establish an Osama-Sudafed link.

The F.D.A. opposed these restrictions for pharmacies because they'll
drive up health care costs and effectively prevent medicine from
reaching huge numbers of people (Americans suffer a billion colds per
year). These costs are undeniable, but it's unclear that there are
any net benefits.

In states that previously enacted their own restrictions, the police
report that meth users simply switched from making their own to
buying imported drugs that were stronger -- and more expensive, so
meth users commit more crimes to pay for their habit.

The Sudafed law gives you a preview of what's in store if
Representative Frank Wolf, a Virginia Republican, succeeds in giving
the D.E.A. a role in deciding which new drugs get approved. So far,
despite a temporary success last year, he hasn't been able to impose
this policy, but the F.D.A.'s biggest fear is that Congress will let
the drug police veto new medications. In that case, who would ever
develop a better painkiller? The benefits to patients would never
outweigh the potential inconvenience to the police.

Officially, the D.E.A. says it wants patients to get the best
medicine. But look at what it's done to scientists trying to study
medical marijuana. They've gotten approval for their experiments from
the F.D.A., but they can't get the high-quality marijuana they need
because the D.E.A. won't allow it to be grown. The F.D.A. actually
wants to know if the drug works, but the D.E.A. is following the
just-say-know-nothing strategy: as long as researchers can't study
marijuana, they can't come up with evidence that it's effective.

And as long as there's no conclusive evidence that medical marijuana
works, the D.E.A. and its allies on Capitol Hill can go on blindly
fighting it. Representative Mark Souder, the Indiana Republican who's
the most rabid drug warrior in Congress, has been pressuring the
F.D.A. to crack down on medical marijuana. Last week the agency
finally relented: in return for not having to start busting anyone,
it issued a statement stressing the potential dangers and lack of
extensive clinical trials establishing medical marijuana's effectiveness.

The statement was denounced as a victory of politics over science,
but it's hard to see what political good it does the Republican Party.

Locking up crack and meth dealers is popular, but voters take a
different view of cancer patients who swear by marijuana. Medical
marijuana has been approved in referendums in four states that went
red in 2004: Nevada, Montana, Colorado and Alaska. For G.O.P. voters
fed up with their party's current big-government philosophy, the
latest medical treatment from Washington's narcs is one more reason
to stay home this November.