Marijuana Gets Research Nod

The Clinton administration Friday released new guidelines to ease the availability of marijuana for medical research. In a move that officials believe will quicken the pace of studies into the drug's possible beneficial uses.

The new guidelines, "an extension of an existing process," will make it easier for academic researchers to obtain samples of research-grade marijuana grown by the government, said Campbell Gardett, a spokesman for the Department of Health and Human Services.

The White House Office of National Drug Policy as part of an effort to more thoroughly understand the benefits and risks of using marijuana to treat medical conditions endorsed the guidelines. "Such research will allow us to better understand what benefits might actually exist for the use of cannabinoid-based drugs," they said in a statement. "This decision underscores the federal government's commitment to ensuring that the discussion of the medical efficacy and safety of cannabinoids takes place within the context of medicine and science."

The drug policy office, in the past, has resisted efforts by some groups to make medical marijuana more readily available, but officials at the agency insisted Friday that the new directive is "not a reversal of policy."

There has been increasing pressure from organizations, researchers and physicians for more research into the medical uses of marijuana.

In California, voters passed an initiative in 1996 that would allow patients to grow and use marijuana if their doctors prescribed it. The federal response was to warn that doctors could be penalized if they helped their patients get the drug.

Some federal scientists have conducted marijuana research in the past, but many academic and private researchers have complained of the difficulty of getting research-grade marijuana from tightly controlled government supplies.

The new guidelines will ease the process, while assuring that the drug is available only to legitimate researchers, Gardett said.

The guidelines say that HHS has determined that it will make research-grade marijuana available "on a cost reimbursement basis," which means that researchers or their sponsors will help defray the government cost of raising the weed on government lands.

The intent of the policy, also, is to ensure that the marijuana used in research is of high quality.

Valid research, the guidelines say, requires that "the substance ... must have a consistent and predictable potency, must be free of contamination and must be available in sufficient amounts to support the needs of the study."

In the last few months, committees of experts have recommended in two major studies a more extensive program of scientific research into marijuana. Committees for both the National Academy of Sciences and the National Institutes of Health concluded there is evidence that marijuana can be useful in the treatment of some patients who have not respondd well to other therapies.

Many cancer patients and people with AIDS have said that marijuana, often obtained illegally, is able to relieve nausea and restore appetite. Other patients have used marijuana to combat glaucoma, the sight-robbing disease caused by a buildup of pressure in the eye.

Written By Paul Recer