USA: AIDS groups urge U.S. to approve the medical use of
marijuana
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)