FDA Issues Statement Discounting Smoked Marijuana for Medical Uses
The Food and Drug Administration issued a statement today concerning the use of marijuana smoked for medical purposes. The statement claims that "marijuana has a high potential for abuse, has no currently accepted medical use in treatment in the United States, and has a lack of accepted safety for use under medical supervision." The FDA refers to a "past evaluation by several Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) agencies," which "concluded that no sound scientific studies supported medical use of marijuana for treatment in the United States, and no animal or human data supported the safety or efficacy of marijuana for general medical use." Also, the statement only focuses on "smoked marijuana," leaving the question of other consumption methods such as eating or vaporization completely open.
A New York Times article highlights how the "statement directly contradicts a 1999 review by the Institute of Medicine, a part of the National Academy of Sciences, the nation's most prestigious scientific advisory agency." The contradictory review "found marijuana to be moderately well suited for particular conditions, such as chemotherapy-induced nausea and vomiting and AIDS wasting." While this study is apparently ignored in the statement, the FDA notes that the administration's "drug approval process requires well-controlled clinical trials that provide the necessary scientific data upon which FDA makes its approval and labeling decisions." However, at the same time, the Times article points out that "scientists who study the medical use of marijuana said in interviews that the federal government had actively discouraged research."
In the meanwhile, the ONDCP Drug Czar issued his own statement that uses the FDA's press release to reinforce the ONDCP's policies.
Comments
Well, let's see:
the FDA approved man-made THC as a "safe and effective medicine" (marinol), while clinging to the claim that "god-made" THC (in the marijuana plant) is a dangerous and addictive poison with no medical use.
How does that work?
Posted by: brian bennett | April 26, 2006 07:34 AM
That was part of the motivation for using the term "smoked marijuana" so frequently in the release. Smoking does have adverse health effects (but so do many FDA-approved drugs), but marijuana can be taken many ways other than by smoking.
Posted by: Matt Nazareth | April 26, 2006 11:46 AM
The IOM report indeed decidedly reads against smoked marijuana as medicine. It says smoked pot is not a modern medicine, and that even though components of the plant might be useful in the present and in the future, smoked marijuana is a whole other story and should "generally not be recommended for medical use."
Taking marijuana in non-smoked ways is not the issue; the issue is that medical pot has long been used as a wedge to promote more radical change.
Posted by: kevin | April 27, 2006 03:16 PM