Pubdate: Sun, 17 Feb 2008
Source: Atlanta Journal-Constitution (GA)
Copyright: 2008 The Los Angeles Times
Contact: http://www.ajc.com/opinion/content/opinion/letters/sendletter.html
Website: http://www.accessatlanta.com/ajc/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/28
Author: Eric Bailey, Los Angeles Times
Referenced: The American College of Physicians position paper 
http://drugsense.org/url/RTJp0V7l
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/topic/American+College+of+Physicians
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/mmj.htm (Marijuana - Medicinal)

DOCTORS GROUP CALLS FOR END OF POT BAN

Sacramento, Calif. -- A large and respected association of physicians 
is calling on the federal government to ease its strict ban on 
marijuana as medicine and hasten research into the drug's therapeutic uses.

The American College of Physicians, a 124,000-member group that is 
the nation's largest for doctors of internal medicine, contends that 
the long and rancorous debate over marijuana legalization has 
obscured good science that has demonstrated the benefits and 
medicinal promise of cannabis.

In a 13-page position paper approved by the college's governing board 
of regents and posted Thursday on the group's Web site, the ACP calls 
on the government to drop marijuana from Schedule I, a classification 
it shares with illegal drugs such as heroin and LSD that are 
considered to have no medicinal value and a high likelihood of abuse.

The declaration could put new pressure on lawmakers and government 
regulators, who for decades have rejected attempts to reclassify 
marijuana. Bush administration officials have aggressively rebuffed 
all attempts in Congress, the courts and among law enforcement 
organizations to legitimize medical marijuana.

Clinical researchers say the federal government has resisted full 
study of the potential medical benefits of cannabis, instead pouring 
money into looking at its negative effects. A dozen states have 
legalized medical marijuana, but the federal prohibition has led to 
an enforcement tug-of-war.

The ACP position paper calls for protection of both doctors and 
patients from criminal and civil penalties in states that have 
adopted medical-marijuana laws.

Medical-marijuana advocates embraced the position paper as a 
watershed event that could help turn the battle in their favor.

Bruce Mirken, a San Francisco spokesman for the Marijuana Policy 
Project, said the ACP position is "an earthquake that's going to 
rattle the whole medical marijuana debate."

The ACP, he said, "pulverized the government's two favorite myths 
about medical marijuana -- that it's not supported by the medical 
community and that science hasn't shown marijuana to have medical value."

But officials at the White House Office of National Drug Control 
Policy said calls for legalizing medical marijuana are misguided.

"What this would do is drag us back to 14th-century medicine," said 
Bertha Madras, the drug czar's deputy director for demand reduction. 
"It's so arcane."

She said guidance on marijuana as medicine ought to come from the 
U.S. Food and Drug Administration, which is unlikely ever to approve 
leafy cannabis as a prescription drug. Two oral derivatives of 
marijuana's psychoactive ingredient, THC, have won FDA approval, and 
the agency is also in the early stages of considering a marijuana spray.

An FDA spokeswoman referred reporters to a 2006 news advisory noting 
that the agency has never approved of smoked marijuana as a medical treatment. 
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MAP posted-by: Richard Lake