MARIJUANA: RESEARCH, NOT FEAR

The DEA Is Right in Saying There's Not Enough Scientific Evidence
About the Medical Uses of Cannabis. But That's Because the
Government's Paranoia About the Plant Makes Legitimate Research on
Possible Benefits All but Impossible.

What is it that makes marijuana more frightening to the federal
government than cocaine or morphine? The Drug Enforcement
Administration has steadfastly, over decades, listed marijuana as a
Schedule I drug, meaning that it has no medical value and that the
potential for abuse is high. Cocaine and morphine, far more dangerous
and habit-forming, are listed as Schedule II because they have some
medical value.

Last week the DEA ruled once again, a decade after it made the same
decision, that marijuana is a potentially dangerous drug without known
medical benefits. During the intervening 10 years, though, nine more
states passed medical marijuana laws, bringing the total to 17. Two
years ago, the American Medical Assn. recommended changing the
classification of marijuana to Schedule II, which would make it easier
for researchers to obtain the drug for medical studies.
In March, the National Cancer Institute reported: "The potential
benefits of medicinal cannabis for people living with cancer include
antiemetic effects, appetite stimulation, pain relief and improved
sleep." However, it stopped short of endorsing marijuana as a medical
treatment, concluding that there was too little evidence.

The cancer institute and the DEA are right that there's not enough
scientific evidence about the medical uses of cannabis. But whose
fault is that? The biggest reason there is so little proof about
marijuana, one way or the other, is that the federal government is
paranoid about legitimate research on the drug and has refused to
relist it as Schedule II. The few and scattered studies that have been
completed, in this country and around the world, have not proved
marijuana's potential benefits, but by and large, they have produced
some promising findings. In the late 1990s, both the New England
Journal of Medicine and the Institute of Medicine, part of the
National Academy of Sciences, suggested that marijuana appeared to
have some medical uses and recommended more research.

Those recommendations went unheeded, and no wonder. All research-grade
marijuana in this country is under the control of the National
Institute on Drug Abuse, whose mission is to research the addictive
properties of drugs, not their potential medical benefits.

Our prescription is for better knowledge. Marijuana is just another
drug -- one with psychotropic effects, for sure, but one that might be
able to help sick people. Oversight of research-grade marijuana should
be shared with an agency whose primary mission is medical research.
Marijuana should be listed as a Schedule II drug to facilitate further
research. The findings should be submitted to the Food and Drug
Administration, just as clinical trials are for any other drug. Then
the nation can base its marijuana policy on information, not on
entrenched fears or a patchwork of possibly well-intentioned but
under-informed state medical marijuana laws.