Pubdate: Fri, 11 Feb 2000 Source: Arkansas Times (AR) Copyright: 2000 Arkansas Times Limited Partnership Contact: (501) 375-3623 Website: http://www.arktimes.com/ Author: Mara Leveritt A SHOT FROM THE HIP AT THE HEALTH DEPARTMENT As readers of this column know, I advocate changing our laws regarding the use of marijuana as medicine. I support an effort to bring an initiated act before the voters in November that would allow physicians to prescribe marijuana for patients whom they think it would help. The process has barely begun. The petition campaign only recently began in northwest Arkansas, and it won't begin in central Arkansas for another week. There has hardly been a word of public debate. So I was surprised to learn that the Arkansas Department of Health has already announced its opposition to any change in the current law. The Arkansas Democrat-Gazette reported the health department's statement in its northwest Arkansas editions. "Scientific research has shown marijuana to be harmful to a person's brain, heart, lungs, immune system, memory, perception, judgment, and motivation," the statement said. "Use of marijuana as a beneficial medicine projects a false and fraudulent message contradicting current scientific knowledge and research." Did I say I was surprised? Flabbergasted would be more to the point. While the statement sounded familiar-we have been hearing that same litany of dangers for decades--what struck me was that whoever wrote it seemed to have been unaware of reports issued in the past few years, by a number of prestigious scientific institutions, that directly oppose the department's position. I called the department on Tuesday morning, seeking to speak with the statement's author, but the agency's spokesman, Dan McFadden, was out, and it was mid-afternoon before he called back. I explained that I wanted to ask whoever had issued the statement about a number of reports favoring marijuana as medicine-particularly the one that was issued last March by the National Academy of Sciences' Institute of Medicine. That report, which was requested by the White House, is considered the most comprehensive analysis of the medical literature on marijuana to date. Its conclusion was stated in very plain terms: "Scientific data indicate the potential therapeutic value of cannabinoid drugs for pain relief, control of nausea and vomiting, and appetite stimulation," the IOM report said. At a press conference announcing the results, one of the lead investigators added, "For patients who do not respond well to other medications, short-term marijuana use appears to be suitable in treating conditions like chemotherapy-induced nausea and vomiting, or the wasting caused by AIDS." I wanted to ask the author of our own health department's statement how its review of the science could come to such a different conclusion. I also wanted to ask what the statement's author thought about the positions, taken by such respected bodies as the American Public Health Association, the National Association for Public Health Policy, the American Academy of Family Physicians, the Federation of American Scientists, the Lymphoma Foundation of America, and the New England Journal of Medicine, all of which have announced their support for the use of medical marijuana. McFadden said he would check. But getting an answer was not to be easy. McFadden called back, not with the name of the author, but to say that the source the agency had used for its statement was the National Association of State Controlled Substances Authorities. I said I'd never heard of it. (McFadden said it had a website, but a search for that name turned up nothing.) I asked, "Can't I just speak directly to the person who issued the department's statement?" McFadden said he'd have to call back. A couple of phone calls later, I still didn't have a name, but McFadden assured me that the agency was "working on some additional research," which they'd be able to provide for me on Wednesday. I said that that was past my deadline and that, anyway, I didn't understand why more research would be needed if the agency had researched its decision before announcing its opposition. It was after 4:30, state quitting time, when McFadden called back again. This time he acknowledged that the statement had been released through the office of the department's director, Dr. Fay Boozman. He said that it was based on a department policy developed in March 1998, and that, since the statement was released, "media" had "brought up additional questions," prompting the department to conduct additional research "to make sure that there was nothing we weren't aware of when we issued our statement." I asked if that meant that the department might consider changing its position, based on more recent reviews of the science. McFadden couldn't say. I thanked him and promised to talk again on Wednesday, when the "additional research" would be ready. Will the Arkansas Department of Health stand with or against the National Academy of Sciences' Institute of Medicine? Stay tuned… - --- MAP posted-by: Doc-Hawk