A coalition of AIDS organizations petitioned U.S. drug czar Barry McCaffrey on 18 February for help in securing "fast track" approval of the medical use of marijuana.

"We urge you to help break the bureaucratic logjam that is keeping a potentially life-saving medicine, marijuana, virtually inaccessible to thousands of people living with AIDS,'' the 17 groups said in a letter, their first joint call for the legalization of medical marijuana.

The groups, which include the AIDS Action Council, the San Francisco AIDS Foundation and the Latino Commission on AIDS, said the established fast-track procedures that led to quick approval for AIDS-fighting drugs such as protease inhibitors should now be applied to marijuana. "Making marijuana immediately available on a quasi-experimental basis to people living with AIDS (...) is a moderate step that can add to the federal government's responsiveness to the epidemic,'' the groups said.

Copies of the letter were sent to the Secretary of health and human services, the director of the Food and Drug Administration, the Office of National AIDS Policy, and the majority and minority leaders of the House and Senate.

McCaffrey, head of the Office for National Drug Control Policy, has been a strong opponent of medical marijuana, saying that marijuana reformers were using bogus science in a drive aimed at legalizing all use of the drug.

The AIDS groups said AIDS patients should not have to wait while the science is sorted out, the groups said. "Science and compassion should dictate our nation's policy regarding medical treatment," the letter said. "However, politics has stood in the way of the approval of marijuana as a legal medication, and the full development of a science base leading to FDA approval could still be years away."

(Source: Reuters of 18 February 1999)