REEFER MADNESS IN WASHINGTON

When the Supreme Court ruled in June that states could not legalize
marijuana for medical uses, Justice Stephen Breyer voted with the
majority. But during oral arguments, he suggested an alternative way
for patients to get it: let the federal Food and Drug Administration
decide if marijuana should be a prescription drug.

"Medicine by regulation is better than medicine by referendum," he
said. In theory, that sounds reasonable. But what if the officials
doing the regulation are afflicted with a bad case of Reefer Madness?

If you doubt this possibility, you should have been at a hearing that
began this week at the Drug Enforcement Administration's headquarters.
Lyle Craker, a professor of plant and soil sciences at the University
of Massachusetts, asked an administrative judge to overrule the agency
so he could grow marijuana for F.D.A.-approved research projects by
other scientists.

Dr. Craker is a well-regarded agronomist who's being supported by the
American Civil Liberties Union and both of his senators, Edward
Kennedy and John Kerry. But for four years he's been stymied by the
D.E.A., which first stalled and then finally denied his request for a
permit.

There are precedents for his re quest, because researchers already get
supplies of other drugs - like heroin, LSD and Ecstasy - from
independent laboratories licensed to make them. But researchers who
want marijuana have only one legal source: a crop grown in Mississippi
and dispensed by the National Institute on Drug Abuse.

Scientists say they need an alternative partly because the
government's marijuana is of such poor quality - too many seeds and
stems - and partly because the federal officials are so loath to give
it out for research into its medical benefits.

Discovering benefits, after all, would undermine the great
anti-marijuana campaign that has taken hold in Washington. Marijuana
is deemed to be such a powerful "gateway" to other drugs that it's
become the top priority in the federal drug war, much to the
puzzlement of many scientists, not to mention the police officers who
see a lot of worse drugs on the streets.

People with glaucoma and AIDS have sworn by the efficacy of marijuana,
and there have been studies by state health departments showing that
smoking marijuana is especially good at controlling nausea.
Scientists would like to test these effects, but they can't do good
studies until they get good marijuana.

Critics of medical marijuana say that it's unnecessary because
patients can obtain the benefits of its active ingredient, THC,
through a drug that's already available, Marinol. But many patients
say it doesn't work as well. They point to the case of the writer
Peter McWilliams, who said smoking marijuana was the only way to
control the nausea brought on by the mix of drugs he took for AIDS and
cancer.

He was forced to switch to Marinol after a D.E.A. investigation led
to his conviction for violating federal laws against marijuana. In
2000, several weeks before he was to be sentenced, he was found dead
in his bathroom. He had choked on his own vomit.

Phillip Alden, a writer living in Redwood City, Calif., told me that
marijuana was a godsend for him in dealing with the effects of AIDS.
He said it eased excruciating pains in his fingertips, controlled
nausea and enabled him to avoid the wasting syndrome that afflicts
AIDS patients who are unable to eat enough food.

But Mr. Alden said only some kinds of marijuana worked - not the weak
variety provided by the federal government, which he smoked during a
research study.

"It was awful stuff," he said. "They started out with a very
low-grade plant, rolled it up with stems and seeds, and then
freeze-dried it so that they probably ruined any of the THC crystals.
All it did was give me headaches and bronchitis. The bronchitis got
so bad I had to drop out of the study."

Mr. Alden was scheduled to testify at this week's hearing, but he
told me he had to withdraw because the D.E.A. refused to give him
legal immunity if he admitted using marijuana not from the government.
It's a shame the judge will be making a decision without hearing him,
but I can understand Mr. Alden's hesitancy.

D.E.A. officials have already shown they're quite capable of
persecuting someone who uses marijuana to deal with AIDS, and they may
well be even more eager to go after someone who encourages research
into their least favorite drug. When it comes to marijuana research,
the federal policy is "Just Say Know-Nothing."