Appeal To Congress For Marijuana: Schedule II

From: http://www.norml.org/index.cfm?Group_ID=4449

Although more research is needed, it is clear from available studies and rapidly accumulating anecdotal evidence that marijuana is a valuable therapeutic in the treatment of a number of serious ailments7 and that it is both less toxic and costly than the conventional medicines for which it may be substituted. In many cases it is more effective than the commercially available drugs it replaces. Groups such as the American Public Health Association8 and the Federation of American Scientists9 have recently endorsed the medical use of marijuana.

Marijuana is an effective means of overcoming the nausea and vomiting associated with cancer chemotherapy, and the nausea and appetite loss in the wasting syndrome of AIDS. It is useful for various spastic conditions including multiple sclerosis, paraplegia, and quadriplegia. It also lowers intraocular pressure in people who suffer from open-angle glaucoma. For some people with epilepsy it is the only anticonvulsant that works. For centuries, it has been used as an analgesic and is considered by many to be the best approach to migraine. It is also useful to some patients for the symptomatic treatment of depression, menstrual cramps, asthma and pruritus.

Many seriously ill patients in this country are already using marijuana to reduce their pain and suffering, even though it means they and their families must risk arrest. Informal buyers' clubs, which supply marijuana to the seriously ill, have been formed in many cities. Some of these clubs are small and clandestine; a few, such as the one in San Francisco10, operate openly and serve several thousand clients on a regular basis. Despite these heroic efforts, the underground emergency distribution system reaches only a small proportion of the tens of thousands of patients who could benefit from legal marijuana.

NORML first raised this issue in 1972 in an administrative petition asking that marijuana be moved from schedule I to schedule II of the federal Controlled Substances Act, so that it could be prescribed as a medicine. After 16 years of legal battles and appeals, in 1988, the DEA's own administrative law judge, Judge Francis Young, found that "marijuana has been accepted as capable of relieving distress of great numbers of very ill people, and doing so with safety under medical supervision. It would be unreasonable, arbitrary and capricious for DEA to continue to stand between those sufferers and the benefits of this substance in light of the evidence in this record."11 Judge Young recommended "that the Administrator transfer marijuana from Schedule I to Schedule II, to make it available as a legal medicine". The DEA Administrator overruled Judge Young, and the Court of Appeals allowed that decision to stand, denying medical marijuana to seriously ill patients. Congress must act to correct this injustice.