THE NEW YORK TIMES "EDITORIALS"

Friday, January 31, 1997

A MEDICAL OPINION ON MARIJUANA

The New England Journal of Medicine endorsed the medical use of

marijuana this week, thus increasing the pressure on the Clinton Administration to accelerate a fair and reasoned re-examination

of the drug's medical properties. When a leading medical journal

finds therapeutic value in marijuana, it may be hard for drug

officials to continue blocking medical uses pending conclusive

clinical studies showing marijuana to be beneficial. The journal

acknowledges that marijuana use may cause long-term adverse

effects and lead to risks are not relevant issues when the drug

is prescribed to combat intractable nausea and pain in seriously

ill patients with AIDS, cancer and other diseases. It does not

make sense to prohibit physicians to prescribe morphine and

meperidine, wrong dosages of which may hasten death, and when

there is no risk of immediate death with marijuana. While a

synthetic form of a key ingredient of marijuana is available

by prescription, the journal said, smoking marijuana provides

rapid and more effective relief. Although top drug officials are

calling for rigorous clinical trials, the journal notes nausea

and pain are extremely difficult to quantify in controlled clinical tests, and that what counts for a therapy in these circumstances is whether patients feel relief. Thousands of patients report relief

from smoking marijuana, it noted. The journal's voice is a welcome

addition to the widening national debate over marijuana as medicine.

It is rooted in compassion for the seriously ill who may be suffering

needlessly because of broader concerns about society's drug problem.