Stay tuned. This is definitely good news.)

By Maggie Fox, Health and Science Correspondent

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. government said Friday it was getting into the business of selling marijuana—although only to "bona-fide" researchers.

The problem is, it doesn’t know how much to charge and has no idea how many people will be interested in buying.

(Marijuananews note: It is the mediocre stuff they give to the eight legal patients, so they should pay people to take it. However, since they have a monopoly, and a different part of the government makes money on marijuana prohibition, they will just charge replacement costs.)

The HHS’s National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) said it would open its program for selling research-grade marijuana to any researcher, not just those funded by the National Institutes of Health (NIH).

(Marijuananews note: The previous policy was designed to make it impossible for people who might find medical benefits in marijuana to do any testing. It will still be possible to stall on the research, but one major bottleneck has been eliminated.)

"We are expanding the potential availability by saying that we will provide marijuana to bona fide researchers who are not NIH-funded," Steve Gust, special assistant to the director of the NIDA, said in a telephone interview Friday.

In March the Institute of Medicine (IOM), one of the arms of the National Academy of Sciences, backed certain uses of marijuana, which is illegal for any use in most states.

The IOM study said marijuana clearly controlled some forms of pain, was not particularly addictive and appeared to help some patients with severe AIDS or cancer symptoms such as nausea, weight loss and lack of appetite.
See
Column By Authors of the IOM Report On Medical Marijuana
Shows Why The Public Does Not Trust The Medical Establishment –
And Why They Should Not! With Analysis by Richard Cowan
and links

NIDA has for years distributed specially grown marijuana to researchers studying its effects. It is grown in controlled plots at the University of Mississippi, where it is analyzed for purity and content.
(Marijuananews note: If you wanted to study something about the negative effects, marijuana was easy to get. If you wanted to study the possible benefits, it was almost impossible to get.)
See
Government Health Officials Deny Marijuana and Pain Study, Again -- NORML Press Release

"You have to provide a product that you know what it is so you can measure the results," HHS spokesman Campbell Gardett said. "It’s research-grade marijuana."

Gust said the marijuana had been given free to researchers but now his department was going to have to start charging for it. "We are still trying to cost it, given that this is a change in the way the farm contract works. It’s more complicated than you might think," he said.

(Marijuananews note: Only for a government agency!)

NIDA will not take street prices of the drug into account. "The street stuff isn’t grown in a secure environment where they do analysis," Gust said.

And he warned the government is not in the business of selling the high-grade product. "I think we have a reputation for not growing primo stuff," he laughed.

(Marijuananews note: At last, an honest man at NIDA!)

Many of the volunteers testing marijuana for medical effects are long-term users and have offered their critiques.

But the research-grade weed is good for the purpose. "I think the stuff we grow definitely has adequate THC content to have an effect and to be adequately tested for these effects," Gust said. THC, or tetrahydrocannobinal, is the main active ingredient in marijuana.

Gust said his agency has no idea how many requests it will get for the marijuana.

"I would anticipate that we might get some, based upon past history in terms of proposals that have been submitted to regular NIH channels," he said. So far that has only been a handful.

But, he added, it could be the attention surround the IOM report would generate more interest.

He said only three studies are underway now. One is looking at the safety of smoked marijuana in HIV patients, particularly those taking antiviral drugs.

May 21, 1999
By PAUL RECER AP Science Writer

WASHINGTON (AP) - The Clinton administration today released new guidelines to ease the availability of marijuana for medical research, in a move that officials believe will quicken the pace of studies into the drug’s possible beneficial uses.

The guidelines were endorsed by the White House Office of National Drug Policy as part of an effort to more thoroughly understand the benefits and risks of using marijuana to treat medical conditions.

See
The Boston Phoenix Comments On The Drug Czar’s Position On IOM Report -- Top Notch

"Such research will allow us to better understand what benefits might actually exist for the use of cannabinoid-based drugs," the drug policy office said in a statement.

"This decision underscores the federal government’s commitment to ensuring that the discussion of the medical efficacy and safety of cannabionoids takes place within the context of medicine and science."

See
Washington Post and New York Times on IOM Medical Marijuana
Compare and Contrast – A Split In The Establishment?
The Drug Czar’s Quote In The Post Wins The Prize.
and
Lester Grinspoon Attends Two Conferences On Medical Marijuana In Germany
And Our Drug Czar Says that Medical Marijuana Is A Hoax To Legalize Drugs
– Analysis Plus 2 Articles

The drug policy office, in the past, has resisted efforts by some groups to make medical marijuana more readily available, but officials at the agency insisted today that the new directive is "not a reversal of policy."

See
McCaffrey Threatens Lockyer With Arrest If California Does Research On Medical Marijuana,
But Says "A Massive Research Effort" Is Needed To See If Marijuana Has Any Medical Value;
New Stalling Begins -- 3 Articles
and
Drug Czar’s Office Endorses Arresting, Jailing Medical Marijuana Smokers;
Canada’s Parliament Resumes Historic Medical Marijuana Debate -- NORML Press Release
There has been increasing pressure from organizations, researchers and physicians for more research into the medical uses of marijuana.

In California, voters passed an initiative in 1996 that would allow patients to grow and use marijuana if it was prescribed by their doctors. The federal response was to warn that doctors could be penalized if they helped their patients get the drug.

Some federal scientists have conducted marijuana research in the past, but many academic and private researchers have complained of the difficulty of getting research-grade marijuana from tightly controlled government supplies.

The new guidelines will ease the process, while assuring that the drug is available only to legitimate researchers, Gardett said.

The guidelines say that HHS has determined that it will make research-grade marijuana available "on a cost reimbursement basis," which means that researchers or their sponsors will help defray the government cost of raising the weed on government lands.

The intent of the policy, also, is to ensure that the marijuana used in research is of high quality.

Valid research, the guidelines say, requires that "the substance ... must have a consistent and predictable potency, must be free of contamination and must be available in sufficient amounts to support the needs of the study."

In the last few months, committees of experts have recommended in two major studies a more extensive program of scientific research into marijuana.

Committees for both the National Academy of Sciences and the National Institutes of Health concluded there is evidence that marijuana can be useful in the treatment of some patients who have not responded well to other therapies.