DISSEMBLING ON MEDICAL POT

The federal government has a long and dismal record of fighting the
idea that marijuana has any medical value, and it is not about to let
mere facts force a change in policy.

The Food and Drug Administration's new pronouncement on the subject
is just the latest disgraceful effort to maintain an unconvincing
position that has long been rejected by most Americans--not to
mention 11 states that have legalized medical marijuana. Besides
failing to offer any new evidence for denying cannabis to patients
who might benefit from it, the agency also ignores the best
information available.

The FDA statement came in response to a request from Rep. Mark Souder
(R-Ind.), chairman of the House Government Reform subcommittee, an
opponent of medical marijuana. It declares that "no human or animal
data supported the safety or efficacy of marijuana for general
medical use." Measures allowing it, says the agency, "would not serve
the interests of public health because they might expose patients to
unsafe and ineffective drug products."

Souder, who perceives efforts to permit cannabis therapy as a Trojan
horse for legalizing the drug entirely, seconded the FDA. Marijuana
can't be a good treatment, he asserted, "because it adversely impacts
concentration and memory, the lungs, motor coordination and the immune system."

It may surprise Souder to learn that all sorts of valuable, federally
approved medicines may have serious adverse effects, which is not
grounds for banning them entirely. As it happens, there is ample
evidence that pot can ameliorate some serious ailments that don't
always respond to conventional treatments.

A 1999 analysis by the Institute of Medicine at the National Academy
of Sciences concluded that it is "moderately well suited for
particular conditions, such as chemotherapy-induced nausea and
vomiting and AIDS wasting." Medical marijuana has earned the
endorsement of The New England Journal of Medicine, the American
Academy of Family Physicians and numerous oncologists.

Its side effects, meanwhile, are exaggerated. In 1988, Francis Young,
the Drug Enforcement Agency's own administrative law judge, called
cannabis "one of the safest therapeutically active substances known to man."

The FDA stoically pretends all this expert analysis doesn't exist.
Its statement is equally dishonest when it says there are no
scientific studies proving the value of marijuana--without
acknowledging that the government has generally declined to cooperate
with scientists who want to conduct clinical trials.

It's a classic scam. Says University of Massachusetts agronomist Lyle
Craker, who was refused permission to grow marijuana for his
research, in place of the low-quality stuff offered by the
government, "The reason there's no good evidence is that they don't
want an honest trial."

There is plenty of room for serious debate about the therapeutic
potential of cannabis. But the government clearly thinks that what it
doesn't know can't hurt it.