FEDERAL CANNABIS PROVIDED TO SELECT FEW

Medical Marijuana Grown And Distributed Since 1989

The U. S. department of Health and Human Services is growing marijuana
for medical use, according to department officials and marijuana recipients.

Although the federal program researching medicinal applications of
marijuana was aborted in 1992, a few test subjects are still smoking
marijuana grown by the federal government.

The program was never granted an official name, according to Steven
Gust, acting director of the institute's international program.

The experimental program allowed individuals to apply for access to
marijuana, a substance the program helped redefine as an
"investigative new drug. "

"It has long been postulated that there could be medical benefits from
either marijuana or from some of the compounds, "said Campbell
Gardett, department spokesman. "Our role in all of this, as a science
agency, is to try and determine whether there is a legitimate benefit
that could be derived from marijuana. " The departmental tasked with
growing, storing and distributing federal research-grade marijuana is
the National Institute on Drug Abuse.

"The government actually has a contract with the University of
Mississippi to grow marijuana, "Gust said. "There is actually a lot of
research that's going on, on marijuana."

The research Gust referred to does not focus on marijuana's potential
applications. Instead, it examines the effects of marijuana.

"I smoke about a quarter ounce a day," said George McMahon, recipient
of the federally-produced medical marijuana and former test subject.

"It's mostly leaf." According to Gust, researching medical
applications of illegal substances is permitted if they are classified
as investigative new drugs by the FDA.

"They grow a consistent research grade of marijuana," Gardett said of
the institute. McMahon's access to the institute's medical marijuana
was approved to alleviate pain, spasms and nausea.

"I actually filed my first application in '88," McMahon said. "By 1990
they had run out of reasons why they couldn't give me marijuana."
Following a review of the medical-marijuana patient program in 1992,
the overseeing department closed access to new members.

Despite the program's closure to new patients, the few original
patients are still receiving federal marijuana as a medical treatment.

"It was decided in 1992 that the patients who existed in the program
- -- I guess for humanitarian reasons -- were allowed to continue the
program," Gust said. "One of the unfortunate things about the patient
program is that it's all individual patients."

Explaining that legitimate research requires a sample large and
controlled enough to measure the potential accuracy of its findings,
Gust said that no drug has ever been, nor will ever be approved on the
basis of a single patient.

"There were fifteen who actually made it," said McMahon. "There were
2, 000 applications and 57 of those applications were finally approved
for delivery. Fifteen of them were delivered." McMahon said there are
six former test subjects who still receive federal marijuana.

"It was determined that the program was not going to be providing
scientifically valid information," Gust said. . The department has
since shifted medical marijuana research to the private sector.
Independent entities licensed to research potential medical
applications of marijuana are legally released by the DEA, allowing
the researcher to administer the illegal substance to test subjects.

"We created a new ad hoc kind of program," Gardett said. "We say the
research is good and the DEA releases (institute marijuana)from a
legal standpoint."

The ad hoc program was announced in 1999 and was started to create a
mechanism for providing research-grade marijuana to independently
funded, private-sector researchers.

George McMahon inhales the smoke of a federally grown and provided
marijuana cigarette near his Texas home. McMahon is one of the six
people who receive federal marijuana.