NATIONAL ORGANIZATION FOR THE REFORM OF MARIJUANA LAWS
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        NEWS RELEASE ** NEWS RELEASE ** NEWS RELEASE ** NEWS RELEASE
                              January 9, 1997
      ONDCP To Fund Review Of Scientific Evidence On Medical Marijuana
        NORML Expects Institute Of Medicine To Reaffirm Marijuana's
                             Therapeutic Value
      January 9, 1996: Washington, D.C.: Responding to public opposition
over the Clinton administration's proposal to arrest physicians who
recommend or prescribe marijuana as a medicine in accordance with state law,
the Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP) has committed $995,639 to
fund a comprehensive review by the National Academy of Sciences' Institute
of Medicine (IOM) of the efficacy of the therapeutic use of marijuana for
specific medical conditions such as glaucoma, cancer chemotherapy, multiple
sclerosis, and AIDS wasting syndrome.  NORML Deputy Director Allen St.
Pierre announced that he was encouraged by administration's decision to
review existing medical marijuana research, but criticized the plan for
failing to authorize contemporary studies such as Dr. Donald Abrams'
FDA-approved protocol to examine the effects of marijuana on the AIDS
wasting syndrome.
      "Nothing in the administration's announcement addresses granting the
marijuana necessary to complete Dr. Abrams FDA-approved study in San
Francisco or the 1996 state-sponsored study at Washington State University
to evaluate marijuana's therapeutic value in the treatment of cancer
chemotherapy.  It is solely a backward-looking proposal," said St. Pierre.
"We believe that a comprehensive review of the existing scientific evidence
regarding the use of marijuana as a therapeutic agent by the Institute of
Medicine will demonstrate that marijuana has legitimate value as a medicine,
just like the Australian government's National Task Force on Cannabis
concluded in 1994 and the IOM itself determined in 1982."
      The following excerpts are taken from the summary conclusions of
those committees:
      "Cannabis and its derivatives have shown promise in the treatment of
a variety of disorders. [Emphasis added. --ed.]  The evidence is most
impressive in glaucoma, where their mechanism of action appears to be
different from the standard drugs; in asthma, where they approach
isoproterenol in effectiveness; and in the nausea and vomiting of cancer
chemotherapy, where they have compared favorably with phenothiazines.
Smaller trials have suggested cannabis might also be useful in seizures,
spasticity, and other nervous system disorders.
      "... Although marijuana has not been shown unequivocally superior to
any existing therapy for any of these conditions, several important aspects
of its therapeutic potential should be appreciated.  First, its mechanisms
of action and its toxicity in several diseases are different from those of
drugs now being used to treat those conditions; thus, combined with use of
other drugs might allow greater therapeutic efficacy without cumulative
toxicity.  Second, the differences in action suggest new approaches to
understanding both the disease and the drugs used to treat them.  Last,
there may be an opportunity to synthesize derivatives of marijuana that
offer better therapeutic ratios than marijuana itself.
      "The committee believes that the therapeutic potential of cannabis
and its derivatives and synthetic analogues warrants further research... ."
                     -- Marijuana and Health, page 150
                         Institute of Medicine, 1982
                        National Academy of Sciences
      "First, there is good evidence that THC is an effective anti-emetic
agent [for patients undergoing cancer chemotherapy.]  ... Second, there is
reasonable evidence for the potential efficacy of THC and marijuana in the
treatment of glaucoma, especially in cases which have proved resistant to
existing anti-glaucoma agents.  Further research is clearly required, but
this should not prevent its use under medical supervision in poorly
controlled cases. [Emphasis added. --ed.]  ... Third, there is sufficient
suggestive evidence of the potential usefulness of various cannabinoids as
analgesic, anti-asthmatic, anti-spasmodic, and anti-convulsant agents to
warrant further basic pharmacological and experimental investigation, and
perhaps clinical research into their effectiveness.
      ... Despite the positive appraisal of the therapeutic potential of
cannabinoids ..., they have not been widely used.  ... Part of the reason
for this is that research on the therapeutic use of these compounds has
become a casualty of the debate in the United States about the legal status
of cannabis.  ... As a community we do not allow this type of thinking to
deny the use of opiates for analgesia.  Nor should it be used to deny access
to any therapeutic uses of cannabinoid derivatives that may be revealed by
pharmacological research."
 -- The health and psychological consequences of cannabis use, pages 198-199
                       National Task Force on Cannabis
               Australian Government Publishing Service, 1994
      NORML's report: "Review Of Human Studies On The Medical Use Of
Marijuana" by Dale Gieringer, Ph.D. cites well over 100 research articles on
marijuana's pharmacological effects.  NORML possesses many of these articles
and scientific studies "in-house" and will provide them to both the ONDCP
and the IOM committee when it convenes this spring.
      " ... There is no question about the use of cannabis for certain
[medical] conditions," said government marijuana researcher Dr. Mahmoud
ElSohly in a recent interview conducted by the Journal of the International
Hemp Association (JIHA).  ElSohly is the current director of the National
Institute on Drug Abuse's (NIDA's) Marijuana Project at the University of
Mississippi and one of the federal government's premiere marijuana experts.
"It does have a history.  It does have the utility and so on," he concluded.
      NORML Executive Director R. Keith Stroup said he hopes the
administration's announcement will encourage McCaffrey to finally meet with
NORML to discuss the subject of medical marijuana.  In the past, McCaffrey
has publicly stated that he "welcomes" NORML's participation in the national
debate on drug policy, but has denied repeated requests for meetings.  "If
the General genuinely wants to explore the issue of medical marijuana, then
NORML will gladly supply his office with scientific studies, expert
physicians, and patients," said Stroup.
      "In a 1990 survey, 44 percent of oncologists said they had suggested
that a patient smoke marihuana (sic) for relief of the nausea induced by
chemotherapy," wrote Dr. Lester Grinspoon of Harvard Medical School in the
June 21, 1995 issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association
(JAMA).  "If marihuana (sic) were actually unsafe for use even under medical
supervision, as its Schedule I status explicitly affirms, this
recommendation would be unthinkable.  It is time for physicians to
acknowledge more openly that the present classification is scientifically,
legally, and morally wrong."
      For more information, please contact Allen St. Pierre or Paul
Armentano of NORML.  Copies of the summary conclusions of the Institute of
Medicine's or the National Task Force on Cannabis' report, as well as
additional scientific studies demonstrating marijuana's therapeutic value
are available upon request from NORML.
                                    -END-
  MORE THAN 10 MILLION MARIJUANA ARRESTS SINCE 1965 . . . ANOTHER EVERY 54
                                  SECONDS!
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