Marijuana Studies to Be Aided by Likely Policy Reversal

In a major policy reversal, the Clinton administration is expected to announce today that it will release its hold on research-quality marijuana and make it available to scientists who want to study its medical effects.

For more than 20 years, the production and distribution of marijuana for clinical research has been restricted under several federal laws and international agreements, making it all but impossible for nonfederally funded researchers to obtain it.

Scientists have had to go through a cumbersome and often bureaucratic process to get it, which few have attempted.

The policy originally was established to ensure uniform quality standards for marijuana used in research. However, the substance became extremely difficult for researchers to obtain.

Under the new policy, which would loosen these restrictions, private researchers, including physicians, will be allowed to purchase and use the substance for studies. A senior administration official said that the change, to take place in December, could “open the door” to a flood of research proposals and studies.

The issue has been the subject of intense national debate and political pressure. Advocates insist that laws forbidding the medical uses of marijuana are cruel and inhumane. Opponents argue that sanctioning marijuana for any purpose only gives a green light to illegal drug use and would further encourage it.

In March, the Institute of Medicine released a report saying that marijuana did have medicinal benefits: that it eases pain and quells nausea in cancer patients. But the National Academy of Sciences study group called for more research, in part to explore alternatives to smoking pot, such as perfecting a pill form of the drug.

Contradicting administration policy that marijuana has no medical value and can lead to using harder drugs, the panel of experts found that marijuana is not addictive and said there is no clear evidence that smoking it leads to consumption of heroin, cocaine or other narcotics.

A year earlier, an advisory panel to the National Institutes of Health concluded that marijuana might have promising therapeutic uses and called for clinical trials of its effectiveness.

The news of a shift in administration policy is expected to be welcomed by medical marijuana advocates who have been clamoring for more research, a position bolstered by the recent reports.

“For the last 22 years, the federal government has had a lock on the use of whole smoked marijuana for studies--they grow it at the University of Mississippi . . . and activists and reformers and legitimate scientists have wanted to have access to it to conduct studies, and have had no luck,” said Allen St. Pierre, executive director of the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws Foundation.

“We’ve pushed very hard for this. We’ve been imploring the government to come up with a system that will allow these studies to go forward,” he added. “We want to do the science, but marijuana has become so politicized.”

A senior administration official said that the change is supported by Gen. Barry R. McCaffrey, head of the administration’s Office of National Drug Control Policy, who has in the past opposed medical uses of marijuana. The official also predicted that the accessibility will “increase the likelihood that we finally get honest-to-God scientific answers on this very important issue.

“We really believe this will make it much easier for research to go forward.”

The issue is especially volatile in California, where voters passed a 1996 initiative allowing patients to grow and use marijuana, a law that has been challenged by the administration.

The Department of Health and Human Services, in a document laying out the new policy, said that it intends “to facilitate the research needed to evaluate these pending public health questions by making research-grade marijuana available.”

The department said that researchers seeking access to the drug must be involved in studies that generally follow guidelines from the Institute of Medicine report--and must pay the government for the drug. Such studies would “be expected to yield useful data and, therefore, will be more likely to be eligible to receive marijuana under the HHS program.”

Currently, few studies funded by the National Institutes of Health use marijuana, and only a handful of individuals in the country receive government-owned marijuana for medical reasons.