U.S. AGENCY FINDS NO BENEFIT IN POT

WASHINGTON -- The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has concluded
that "no sound scientific studies" support the medical use of
marijuana, contradicting a 1999 review by a panel of highly regarded
scientists.

The announcement Thursday inserts the health agency into yet another
fierce political fight. Susan Bro, an agency spokeswoman, said the
statement resulted from a past combined review by federal drug
enforcement, regulatory and research agencies that concluded that
"smoked marijuana has no currently accepted or proven medical use in
the United States and is not an approved medical treatment." She said
that the agency was issuing the statement because of numerous
inquiries from Capitol Hill but would likely do nothing to enforce it.

"Any enforcement based on this finding would need to be by DEA, since
this falls outside of FDA's regulatory authority," she said.

Eleven states have legalized medicinal uses of marijuana, but the
Drug Enforcement Administration and the nation's drug czar, John
Walters, have opposed those efforts. A Supreme Court decision last
year allowed the federal government to arrest anyone using marijuana,
even in states that have legalized its use.

Congressional opponents and supporters of medical marijuana have each
tried to enlist the regulatory agency to support their views.
Representative Mark Souder, Republican of Indiana, a fierce opponent
of medical marijuana initiatives, proposed legislation two years ago
that would have required the agency to issue an opinion on the
medicinal properties of the drug.

Tom Riley, a spokesman for Walters, the White House drug czar, hailed
the agency's statement, saying that it would put to rest "the bizarre
public discussion" on legalizing the drug's use.

The agency's statement directly contradicts a 1999 review by the
Institute of Medicine, a part of the National Academy of Sciences.
That review found marijuana to be "moderately well suited for
particular conditions, such as chemotherapy-induced nausea and
vomiting and AIDS wasting ." Dr. John Benson, co-chairman of the
Institute of Medicine committee that examined the research into
marijuana's effects, said in an interview that the agency's statement
and the combined review by other agencies were wrong. The U.S.
government "loves to ignore our report," said Benson, a professor of
internal medicine at the University of Nebraska Medical Center. "They
would rather it never happened."

Some scientists and legislators said that the agency's statement
about marijuana demonstrates that politics is trumping science there.

"Unfortunately, this is yet another example of the FDA making
pronouncements that seem to be driven more by ideology than by
science," said Dr. Jerry Avorn, a professor at Harvard Medical School.

The federal agency said state moves to legalize marijuana use "are
inconsistent with efforts to ensure that medications undergo the
rigorous scientific scrutiny of the FDA approval process."

But scientists studying marijuana said in interviews that the federal
government has actively discouraged research into marijuana's benefits.

Lyle Craker, a professor in the division of plant and soil sciences
at the University of Massachusetts, said that he submitted an
application in 2001 to the drug agency to grow a small patch of
marijuana to be used for research because government-approved
marijuana, grown in Mississippi, is of poor quality.

In 2004, the drug enforcement agency turned Craker down. He appealed
and is awaiting a judge's ruling.

"The reason there's no good evidence is that they don't want an
honest trial," Craker said.

Dr. Donald Abrams, a professor of clinical medicine at the University
of California, San Francisco, said that he had studied marijuana's
medicinal effects for years but has been frustrated because the
National Institutes of Health has refused to fund such work.