Marijuana - Miriam V

August 27, 2005

Marijuana Pipe Dreams
By
JOHN TIERNEY

When the Supreme Court ruled in June that states could not legalize
marijuana for medical uses, Justice Stephen Breyer voted with the majority.
But during
oral arguments, he suggested an alternative way for patients to get it: let
the federal Food and Drug Administration decide if marijuana should be a
prescription
drug.

"Medicine by regulation is better than medicine by referendum," he said. In
theory, that sounds reasonable. But what if the officials doing the
regulation
are afflicted with a bad case of Reefer Madness?

If you doubt this possibility, you should have been at a hearing that began
this week at the Drug Enforcement Administration's headquarters. Lyle
Craker,
a professor of plant and soil sciences at the University of Massachusetts,
asked an administrative judge to overrule the agency so he could grow
marijuana
for F.D.A.-approved research projects by other scientists.

Dr. Craker is a well-regarded agronomist who's being supported by the
American Civil Liberties Union and both of his senators, Edward Kennedy and
John Kerry.
But for four years he's been stymied by the D.E.A., which first stalled and
then finally denied his request for a permit.

There are precedents for his re quest, because researchers already get
supplies of other drugs - like heroin, LSD and Ecstasy - from independent
laboratories
licensed to make them. But researchers who want marijuana have only one
legal source: a crop grown in Mississippi and dispensed by the National
Institute
on Drug Abuse.

Scientists say they need an alternative partly because the government's
marijuana is of such poor quality - too many seeds and stems - and partly
because
the federal officials are so loath to give it out for research into its
medical benefits.

Discovering benefits, after all, would undermine the great anti-marijuana
campaign that has taken hold in Washington. Marijuana is deemed to be such a
powerful
"gateway" to other drugs that it's become the top priority in the federal
drug war, much to the puzzlement of many scientists, not to mention the
police
officers who see a lot of worse drugs on the streets.

People with glaucoma and AIDS have sworn by the efficacy of marijuana, and
there have been studies by state health departments showing that smoking
marijuana
is especially good at controlling nausea. Scientists would like to test
these effects, but they can't do good studies until they get good marijuana.

Critics of medical marijuana say that it's unnecessary because patients can
obtain the benefits of its active ingredient, THC, through a drug that's
already
available, Marinol. But many patients say it doesn't work as well. They
point to the case of the writer Peter McWilliams, who said smoking marijuana
was
the only way to control the nausea brought on by the mix of drugs he took
for AIDS and cancer.

He was forced to switch to Marinol after a D.E.A. investigation led to his
conviction for violating federal laws against marijuana. In 2000, several
weeks
before he was to be sentenced, he was found dead in his bathroom. He had
choked on his own vomit.

Phillip Alden, a writer living in Redwood City, Calif., told me that
marijuana was a godsend for him in dealing with the effects of AIDS. He said
it eased
excruciating pains in his fingertips, controlled nausea and enabled him to
avoid the wasting syndrome that afflicts AIDS patients who are unable to eat
enough food.

But Mr. Alden said only some kinds of marijuana worked - not the weak
variety provided by the federal government, which he smoked during a
research study.

"It was awful stuff," he said. "They started out with a very low-grade
plant, rolled it up with stems and seeds, and then freeze-dried it so that
they probably
ruined any of the THC crystals. All it did was give me headaches and
bronchitis. The bronchitis got so bad I had to drop out of the study."

Mr. Alden was scheduled to testify at this week's hearing, but he told me he
had to withdraw because the D.E.A. refused to give him legal immunity if he
admitted using marijuana not from the government. It's a shame the judge
will be making a decision without hearing him, but I can understand Mr.
Alden's
hesitancy.

D.E.A. officials have already shown they're quite capable of persecuting
someone who uses marijuana to deal with AIDS, and they may well be even more
eager
to go after someone who encourages research into their least favorite drug.
When it comes to marijuana research, the federal policy is "Just Say
Know-Nothing."
Email:
tierney@nytimes.com