Washington, Nov. 22 (AP) - An AIDS patient received a Government-approved shipment of marijuana on Wednesday to help ease the pain of his disease, said a group that promotes the legalization of the drug for medical uses.

The patient, a 34-year old Virginia man, is the second person infected with the AIDS virus to receive marijuana under the approval of the Food and Drug Administration.

The agency confirmed that it had given its approval on Tuesday for such a use.

"I have a lot to be thankful for this Thanksgiving", the patient said in a statement released by the group, the Alliance for Cannabis Therapeutics.

The group, which worked with the patient in presenting his case, quoted him as saying that the drug helped him to cope better with the disease.

It said that the marijuana, supplied in cigarette form by a pharmacy in northern Virginia, had reduced the nausea, vomiting, and weight loss that are caused by infection with the AIDS virus and that it had restored his appetite.

"Marijuana's use is widepsread and rapidly growing among AIDS patients", said Robert Randall, the group's president, adding that the case would encourage the patients to demand an end to its ban in medicine.

The Food and Drug Administration has allowed marijuana use by patients in at least two dozens instances since 1976. Mr. Randall, a glaucoma patient, was the first to win such approval.

Marijuana is classified as a Schedule I drug by the Drug Enforcement Administration, maaking it available only for research. Administrators of that agency have rejected bids for more than 14 years to make marijuana available for medical purposes.

In 1988, an administrative law judge recommended that the agency make marijuana available by prescription for the tratment of life-threatening diseases and in some other cases. The agency's administrator rejected that recommendation. Advocates are appealing that decision.