Pubdate: Thu, 18 Mar 1999 Source: Charlotte Observer (NC) Copyright: 1999 The Charlotte Observer Contact: http://www.charlotte.com/observer/ Author: Sheryl Gay Stolberg, New York Times PANEL SEES VALUE IN MEDICAL MARIJUANA WASHINGTON - The active ingredients in marijuana appear to be useful for treating pain, nausea and the severe weight loss associated with AIDS, according to a new study commissioned by the government. The report, the most comprehensive analysis to date of the medical literature about marijuana, said there was no evidence that giving the drug to sick people would increase illicit use in the general population. Nor is marijuana a "gateway drug" that prompts patients to use harder drugs like cocaine and heroin, the study said. The study's authors, a panel of 11 independent experts at the Institute of Medicine, a branch of the National Academy of Sciences, cautioned that the benefits of smoking marijuana were limited because the smoke was so toxic. Yet at the same time, they recommended that the drug be given, on a short-term basis under close supervision, to patients who did not respond to other therapies. The release of the delicately worded report, at a news conference, prompted a flurry of political maneuvering. Proponents of state initiatives to legalize marijuana for medical purposes seized upon the findings as long-awaited evidence that it had therapeutic value. They called on the Clinton administration, and in particular Gen. Barry McCaffrey, director of the Office of National Drug Control Policy, to ease its opposition to the initiatives. McCaffrey's office requested the study. "This report has proved McCaffrey wrong," said Chuck Thomas, a spokesman for the Marijuana Policy Project, a nonprofit organization in Washington that lobbies for the legalization of medical marijuana. "We never said marijuana was a panacea and a be all or end all. What we have said is there are some patients who don't respond to existing medications, and this report confirms that." But the study is unlikely to change the administration's position. The Department of Health and Human Services, which is already financing some research involving medical marijuana, issued a written statement noting simply that it would continue to fund the work. And McCaffrey, in Los Angeles, said, "This study seems to suggest that there is little future in smoked marijuana." McCaffrey praised the analysis and said he would take the recommendations under advisement. But he said there was "enormous confusion in law enforcement" about how to handle the issue, adding, "We've got people with mischievous agendas at work." While the study's authors said they had been surprised to discover "an explosion of new scientific knowledge about how the active components of marijuana affect the body," they added pointedly that the future of marijuana as a medicine does not lie in smoking it. The smoke, they said, is even more toxic than tobacco smoke, and can cause cancer, lung damage and complications during pregnancy. The true benefits of marijuana, the experts said, would only be realized when alternative methods, like capsules, patches and bronchial inhalers, were developed to deliver its active components, called cannabinoids, without the harmful effects of smoke. So far, there is only one cannabinoid-based drug on the market, Marinol. It comes in pill form and was approved in May 1985 by the Food and Drug Administration for nausea and vomiting associated with chemotherapy, as well as for anorexia and weight loss associated with AIDS. - --- MAP posted-by: Derek Rea