FDA denies patients benefits of medical marijuana

On April 20, the Food and Drug Administration released an
advisory claiming that smoking marijuana serves no legitimate
medical purpose. In yet another instance of politics trumping
science in the Bush administration, the advisory cited no new
scientific research and contradicted the most comprehensive
government review of the health benefits of marijuana that has been
conducted to date.

In that 1999 study, 11 of the nation’s foremost scientists
and physicians from the Institute of Medicine, a branch of the
National Academy of Sciences, concluded that
“marijuana’s active components are potentially
effective in treating pain, nausea, the anorexia of AIDS wasting
and other symptoms.”

This is the latest in a long line of steps that the FDA has
taken in order to protect the profits of drug companies. Every
year, the FDA collects over $250 million in “user fees”
from the nation’s largest pharmaceutical companies, according
to the Center for Public Integrity. Many of the FDA’s
scientific advisers are financed by research grants and consulting
fees from drug companies. As long as the amount is less than
$100,000, the advisers are allowed to vote on the approval of drugs
made by the same companies that pay them.

Similar conflicts of interest are at play in the
medical-marijuana debate. In states where medical marijuana has
been put on voter referenda, drug companies are often found
financing the opposition. Drug companies have developed many
excellent treatments for illnesses that have no natural cure, but
in this case, drug companies are sacrificing the greater good to
protect their bottom line.

There are also political issues at play at the federal level.
The same religious conservative groups that opposed research into a
vaccine for HPV and pressured the FDA into banning over-the-counter
sale of Plan B have also voiced hostility toward medical
marijuana.

Impassioned citizens have moved the debate to the state level.
Eleven states have passed legislative bills or voter referenda that
allow, to varying degrees, the possession of marijuana for
medicinal purposes. It isn’t a simple red/blue state divide.
In addition to progressive states like California and Washington,
traditionally conservative states like Montana and Colorado have
also split with the Bush administration on this issue.

Those who would benefit from medical marijuana include AIDS and
cancer patients, those with terminal illnesses and many others for
whom unbearable pain is a part of everyday life. These are the
people most affected by the FDA’s refusal to condone medical
marijuana.

The National Academy of Sciences has concluded marijuana
provides many therapeutic benefits at a minimum health risk. Why
can’t the FDA break free of its financial backers and accept
this conclusion?

Sheltzer is a student at Princeton University.