SECTIONS Home Society SciTech Planet Cosmos SPECIAL Contents About Quote: [T]he federal government is finally learning... marijuana helps many patients, and we need to find ways to get its benefits to the seriously ill. -- Bill Zimmerman, Americans for Medical Rights

U.S. Eases Restrictions on Medical Marijuana Research Acknowledging that marijuana can have legitimate medical value without posing a significant health risk, the U.S. government has begun easing restrictions on marijuana research. Start Date: 5/25/99 In March of 1999, the U.S. Institute of Medicine (IOM), an arm of the National Academy of Sciences, issued a report supporting certain medical uses of marijuana. The IOM said marijuana does offer significant reduction of pain in some situations, is not dangerously addictive, and can help to control some symptoms associated with advanced cancer and AIDS, including nausea, weight loss and lack of appetite. As a result, on May 21 the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) said it was changing its rules in order to make marijuana more readily available for medical research. Prior to the change, only researchers funded directly by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) were legally permitted to acquire marijuana in the United States. Now, researchers not funded by NIH will also be able to acquire government-grown marijuana. Before the change, government-grown marijuana was given to NIH-funded researchers free of charge. Now, however, the government is going to sell the stuff. They haven't yet decided how much to charge. Government marijuana probably won't become too competitive with the illicit variety. "I think we have a reputation for not growing primo stuff," says Steve Gust, special assistant to the director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA). Gust said all the government's marijuana is grown in controlled plots at the University of Mississippi, where it is analyzed for purity and content. "It's research-grade marijuana," says HHS spokesman Campbell Gardett. "I think the stuff we grow definitely has adequate THC [tetrahydrocannobinal] content to have an effect and to be adequately tested for these effects," Gust said. Bill Zimmerman, executive director of Americans for Medical Rights (AMR), called the government's new policy an important step. "It seems the ship of state is beginning to turn on the issue of medical use of marijuana," Zimmerman said. "Today's news shows the federal government is finally learning from what scientists and physicians have been saying, and what the voters of several states have recently underscored: marijuana helps many patients, and we need to find ways to get its benefits to the seriously ill." But Zimmerman criticized the government for not acting on an Institute of Medicine recommendation to create "an experimental access program to provide smokable marijuana to seriously ill patients who have not benefited from standard medications. "We have not forgotten this key policy recommendation, and we will fight to see it implemented as soon as possible. Such a program represents the only reliable way patients across the country can obtain safe, legal supplies of medical marijuana for the next several years, before all the new studies are completed," Zimmerman said. Excelsior, Michael Lindemann's new novel (written under the pen name Michael Paul), depicts a wholly plausible near future in which human cloning is both widespread and widely abused; terrorists have access to target-specific biological weapons; recreational space travel is commonplace; and mounting pressures of global climate change, environmental decline, population growth and civil unrest inspire radical new approaches to urban security. Built by Frontier on a Macintosh on 6/17/00; 12:07:47 PM. Web Comments - Produced by Larry Lowe Served 2847 times since 5/25/99.

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