Science Cannabis

What Next? 255mended that controlled clinical trials be undertaken with smoked marijuanain a variety of conditions, but that the drug should remain in ScheduleI pending the outcome of such studies. The United States NIH Reporton the Medical Uses of Marijuana (1997) also advocated clinical trials withsmoked marijuana, and pointed out that such research was hindered bythe Schedule I status of the drug. In Britain, the British Medical Association(BMA) published a review of the Therapeutic Uses ofCannabis (1997)which advocated further clinical research on the medical uses of syntheticcannabinoids. The BMA report was opposed to any use of herbal cannabis,however, on the grounds that it contained too many potentially active ingredientsand could not be standardized. The House of Lords Science andTechnology Committee report Cannabis. The Scientific and Medical Evidence(1998) also recommended that more clinical research was neededon both synthetic cannabinoids and herbal cannabis, and argued in favorof rescheduling cannabis to Schedule II to permit the compassionate useof the drug by doctors on a named-patient basis. The British governmentspeedily rejected this recommendation.The United States National Academy of Sciences, Institute of Medicinepublished the most comprehensive and complete review in thespring of 1999. This review took 2 years to complete and involved aseries of discussion meetings around the United States. The Institute ofMedicine report was particularly important as it was commissioned at therequest of the Untied States drug czar, General McCaffrey. It concludedthat there were genuine scientific grounds for exploring the therapeuticapplications of cannabis, and listed pain relief, control of nausea andvomiting, and appetite stimulation as the top priorities. The report calledfor research on improved delivery systems, and like the House of Lords(1998) in the previous year, recommended the approval of smoked marijuanaon compassionate grounds for certain categories of patients.Those who oppose any change in the status quo of the regulationsgoverning cannabis use view the moves to approve cannabis-based medicinesas dangerous. Some see the campaign for medical marijuana aspart of an overall campaign by some groups to legalize cannabis. As drugczar Barry McCaffrey put it in a press release, November 15, 1996: