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Commentary

National Families in Action's Statement on the Institute of Medicine's Report in Marijuana and Medicine March 1998

The Institute of Medicine, National Academy of Sciences, has issued a report that clarifies the science base for our present understanding of marijuana's potential use in medicine. National Families in Action applauds the IOM Report, but laments the inaccurate print and broadcast press coverage of it.

In essence, the IOM Report says the following:

• Various constituents of marijuana, called cannabinoids, show promise of becoming useful medicines and should be studied in research.
• Smoking marijuana is not a safe way to get these compounds into the body. Safe delivery systems that do not involve smoking marijuana must be developed.
• The development and testing of cannabinoid drugs and of safe delivery systems will take time. A short-term, temporary solution would be to enroll the small number of terminally ill patients and those with debilitating illnesses who do not respond to other medications in short-term clinical trials under controlled conditions that protect patients with informed consent.
• Much research suggests that marijuana smoke causes respiratory disease: it is not a "safe" drug for any use.

The report notes that cannabinoids have the potential to relieve symptoms, but not cure diseases, and that for nearly all symptoms better drugs already exist.

Nothing in the IOM Report changes these facts:

• Marijuana remains an illegal drug and is not medicine.
• Even if Congress legalized marijuana today, doctors could not legally prescribe it without FDA approval.
• Even if Congress moved marijuana from Schedule I to Schedule II today, doctors could not legally prescribe it without FDA approval.
• Certain cannabinoids in marijuana may prove to be safe and effective and may be approved as medicine by the Food and Drug Administration, but marijuana will most likely remain in Schedule I, while the approved cannabinoid drugs will be placed in Schedule II, as has already been done with dronabinol (THC).

As John A. Benson Jr., principal investigator of the IOM Report concludes, "While we see a future in the development of chemically defined cannabinoid drugs, we see little future in smoked marijuana as a medicine."