Important note: Information in this article was accurate in 1999. The state of the art may have changed since the publication date.
The Bay Area Reporter - June 4, 1999
Liz Highleyman
Government-produced cannabis, grown on a heavily guarded farm at the University of Mississippi, is currently the only legally approved source of research-grade marijuana for clinical studies. Many patients use cannabis to control AIDS-related wasting, to reduce nausea caused by cancer chemotherapy, and to alleviate a variety of other ailments.
The production and distribution of marijuana for research purposes is tightly controlled by the Drug Enforcement Agency, and scientists such as Dr. Donald Abrams of the University of California at San Francisco have been forced to undergo a long and grueling process to obtain the drug.
Under the new guidelines, the National Institute on Drug Abuse, part of the National Institutes of Health, will provide government-grown cannabis to researchers whose study proposals have been approved by a U.S. Public Health Service medical review committee. Scientists will be expected to pay for the marijuana to help defray the expenses of growing the drug. Disbursements of marijuana under the new guideline are not expected to begin until December.
General Barry McCaffrey of the Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP) supports the decision to loosen restrictions on medical cannabis research. The agency released the statement, "This decision underscores the federal government's commitment to ensuring that the discussion of the medical efficacy and safety of cannabionoids takes place within the context of medicine and science," and asserted that the new guidelines were not a reversal of existing policy.
The guidelines note that cannabis used for medical research "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."
Medical marijuana proponents hailed the administration's decision. According to Ethan Nadelman of the Lindesmith Center, the decision was "an implicit acknowledgment that the government has blocked research into medical marijuana for explicitly political reasons for the last two decades." The AIDS Action Committee issued a statement calling on the federal government and state and local officials to "act immediately and make smoked marijuana available to those who need it," even while research is underway.
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