MARIJUANA STUDIES

To the Editor:

A June 1 letter said that our 1991 Harvard survey of oncologists and
medical marijuana found that a majority of respondents favored prescribing
THC pills over smoking marijuana. Actually, only 13 percent of the doctors
favored the pills, while 44 percent favored smoking and 43 percent found
them equally effective.

We appreciate that your May 25 editorial cited our work, but want to
reinforce that our survey did not establish the drug's medical value. We
asked for doctors' opinions, and even expert opinion is no substitute for
experimental data. Unfortunately, definitive experiments required by the
Food and Drug Administration have not been done, in part because the
National Institute on Drug Abuse has been using its monopoly over research
marijuana to hinder studies.

Such tests could not only resolve the question of efficacy, but also
explore means of administration other than smoking, like vaporizers.

RICK DOBLIN MARK, A. R. KLEIMAN

Belmont, Mass., June 4, 2002