Marijuana committee reports

Cannabis in the New World Committee Reports on Marijuana Epidemiology Methods of Use Active Ingredients Pharmacokinetics Absorption... 

After the enactment of the CSA there followed a period of uncertainty as the use of illicit drugs increased. Because of conflicts between the philosophy of enforcement and that of treatment or toleration, a presidential National Commission on Marijuana and Drug Abuse (NCMDA) was established in 1972. Its task was to report within a year on marijuana, its highest priority, and within 2 years on drug abuse in general. The committee s first report recommended that possession of small amounts of marijuana should be decriminalized (i.e., a finable offense not subject to incarceration). The final report appeared in March 1973 and reconfirmed its original recommendation. Despite these recommendations, President Nixon remained opposed to decriminalization. 

It might be best to respond to such charges by citing the conclusions from the most recent marijuana study, undertaken by the National Academy of Sciences and sponsored by the National Institute of Health. The report took over fifteen months to compile. Dr. Arnold Reiman, chairman of the study committee and editor of the New England Journal of Medicine, has called it "the broadest, most comprehensive, least biased assessment yet made of marijuana s effects on human health. 

The U.S. National Academy of Sciences, the federal sponsor of much of the scientific research that occurs in the United States, created the lOM in 1970 to provide politically independent scientific advice to the government. McCaffrey s ONDCP paid the lOM 896,000 to create a committee of unbiased scientists to evaluate all the research on marijuana and produce a comprehensive report on its dangers and medical value. The committee released the study, titled Marijuana and Medicine Assessing the Science Base, in 1999. 

McCaffrey must have been shocked after reading the report. The lOM study, the most comprehensive government smdy of marijuana to date, took an opposing view of almost every one of McCaffrey s own beliefi about the drug. The smdy reported, for example, that the committee found no proof that marijuana use leads to use of... 

Among those criticized by McCaffrey was neurobiologist Janet Joy, the scientist heading the lOM committee. She publicly expressed embarrassment at McCaffrey s public attack on the report and defended it, saying the lOM report reflected the most rigorous academic standards. She told reporters that the committee s scientists and physicians, among the best in the country, had thoroughly analyzed more than two thousand scientific studies on marijuana over a two-year period. She also stated that the lOM report was based solely on medical evidence that measured the ways people are affected by cannabis, evidence that has been duplicated and confirmed numerous times by other researchers. 

After studying the research on these issues, the lOM committee came to some conclusions. First, they said that marijuana was helpful, particularly for AIDS and cancer patients. The introduction to the lOM report states ... 

The lOM report concluded by stating that marijuana offers substantial therapeutic advantages. Nevertheless, the lOM committee felt that more research is needed to confirm the scope of the drug s usefulness and its side effects and to discover alternative delivery methods that are as effective as but less harmful than smoking. 

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