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controlled than it would be without marijuana.  Medical institutions in  
the Bay area where use of marijuana obtained on the streets is quite  
common, although discrete, include the University of California at San  
Francisco Hospital, the Mount Zion Hospital and the Franklin Hospital.   
In effect, marijuana is readily accepted throughout the oncologic  
community in the bay area for its benefits in connection with  
chemotherapy.  The same situation exists in other large metropolitan  
areas of the United States. 
         20.  About 50% of the patients seen by one San Francisco 
oncologist 
                                  - 15 - 
during the year l987 were smoking marijuana medicinally. This is about 
90 to 95 individuals. This number is higher than during the previous 
ten years due to the nature of this physician's practice which includes 
patients from the "tenderloin" area of San Francisco, many of whom are 
suffering from AIDS-related lymphosarcoma. These patients smoke marijuana 
to control their nausea and vomiting, not to "get high." They self- 
titrate, i.e., smoke the marijuana only as long as needed to overcome 
the nausea, to prevent vomiting. 
         21.  The State of New Mexico set up a program in 1978 to make  
marijuana available to cancer patients pursuant to an act of the State  
legislature.  The legislature had accepted marijuana as having medical  
use in treatment.  It overwhelmingly passed this legislation so as to  
make marijuana available for use in therapy, not just for research.   
Marijuana and synthetic THC were given to patients, administered under  
medical supervision, to control or reduce emesis.  The marijuana was in  
the form of cigarettes obtained from the Federal government.  The program  
operated from 1979 until 1986, when funding for it was terminated by the  
State.  During those seven years about 250 cancer patients in New Mexico  
received either marijuana cigarettes or THC.  Twenty or 25 physicians in  
New Mexico sought and obtained marijuana cigarettes or THC for their  
cancer patients during that period.  All of the oncologists in New Mexico  
accepted marijuana as effective for some of their patients.  At least ten  
hospitals involved in this program in New Mexico, in which cancer  
patients smoked their marijuana cigarettes.  The hospitals accepted this  
medicinal marijuana smoking by patients.  Voluminous reports filed by the  
participating physicians make it clear that marijuana is a highly  
effective anti-emetic substance.  It was found in the New Mexico program  
to be far superior to the best available conventional 
                                  - 16 - 
anti-emetic drug, compazine, and clearly superior to synthetic THC pills.   
More than 90% of the patients who received marijuana within the New  
Mexico program reported significant or total relief from nausea and  
vomiting.  Before the program began cancer patients were surreptitiously  
smoking marijuana in New Mexico to lessen or control their emesis  
resulting from chemotherapy treatments.  They reported to physicians that  
it was successful for this purpose.  Physicians were aware that this was  
going on. 
         22.  In 1978 the Louisiana legislature became one of the first- 
State legislatures in the nation to recognize the efficacy of marijuana  
in controlling emesis by enacting legislation intended to make marijuana 
available by prescription for therapeutic use by chemotherapy patients.   
This enactment shows that there was widespread acceptance in Louisiana 
of the therapeutic value of marijuana.  After a State Marijuana  
Prescription Review Board was established, pursuant to that legislation,  
it became apparent that, because of Federal restrictions, marijuana could  
be obtained legally only for use in cumbersome, formal research programs.   
Eventually a research program was entered into by the State, utilizing 
synthetic THC, but without much enthusiasm, since most professionals who 
had wanted to use marijuana clinically, to treat patients, had neither 
the time, resources nor inclination to get involved in this limited, 
formal study.  The original purpose of the Louisiana legislation was 
frustrated by the Federal authorities.  Some patients, who had hoped to  
obtain marijuana for medical use legally after enactment of the State 
legislation, went outside the law and obtained it illicitly.  Some  
physicians in Louisiana accept marijuana as having a distinct medical  
value in the treatment of the nausea and vomiting associated with certain 
types of chemotherapy treatments. 
                                  - 17 - 
         23.  In 1980 the State of Georgia enacted legislation  
authorizing a therapeutic research program for the evaluation of  
marijuana as a medically recognized therapeutic substance.  Its enactment  
was supported by letters from a number of Georgia oncologist and other  
Georgia physician, including the Chief of oncology at Grady Hospital and  
staff oncologist at Emory University Medical Clinic.  Sponsors of the  
legislation originally intended the enactment of a law making marijuana  
available for clinical, therapeutic use by patients.  The bill was  
referred to as the "Marijuana-as-Medicine" bill.  The final legislation
was crafted, however, of necessity, merely to set up a research program  
in order to obtain marijuana from the one legitimate source available -  
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