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Congressmembers, media ridicule FDA cannabis statement PDF Print E-mail
Written by Chris Conrad   
    In a blatent political maneuver, the US Food and Drug Administration made an out-of-thin-air announcement on April 20 (4/20) that no studies support medical marijuana. The release was timed to coincide with the national NORML conference.

    Three weeks later, on May 15 the agency announced that it has approved Cesamet, a second drug containing synthetic THC, the primary active compound in cannabis. Marinol is the other. It seems it is not the THC but the presence of nature itself that the FDA finds offensive.

    This raised obvious questions: Why is THC medicine but not cannabis, and what happened to all the studies done over the past century? The answer, apparently, is that the US government doesn’t like to deal with logic or peer-reviewed studies.

    The 4/20 Interagency Advisory notice was intended to trump the 1999 National Academy of Science / Institute of Medicine federal report that outlined and analyzed scores of scientific studies and identified specific compounds and benefits. The National Institute on Drug Abuse has catalogued many more, and new studies are being reported in the international press on a regular basis. The New York Times decried the FDA as “disingenuous. The government is actively discouraging relevant research, according to scientists.”

    The FDA press release had a threatening political tone. “[The] FDA, as the federal agency responsible for reviewing the safety and efficacy of drugs, DEA as the federal agency charged with enforcing the CSA, and the ONDCP [drug czar’s office], as the federal coordinator of drug control policy, do not support the use of smoked marijuana for medical purposes.”

   {quotes right} “Despite the fact that you are responding to a scientific question, your press release failed to provide any scientific expertise.{/quotes} We call on you to show us the purported scientific evidence for the basis of this response. There is no evidence that you have new scientific proof or that you oversaw clinical trials,” Congressman Maurice Hinchey (D-NY) led a bipartisan group of 24 House members who wrote and signed onto a letter sent April 27 to FDA Acting Commissioner Andrew von Eschenbach. “It perplexes us that even though the FDA is responsible for protecting public health, the agency has failed to respond adequately to the IOM’s findings seven years after the study’s publication date.”

    “If anyone needs proof that the FDA has become totally politicized, this is it,” said Bruce Mirken of the Marijuana Policy Project, mpp.org. “For shame.”

    This is part of a recent US trend to force researchers to produce policy reports instead of research. Prestigious scientists, including 20 Nobel laureates and several science advisers to past Republican presidents, accused the Bush administration on Feb. 18, 2004 of manipulating and censoring science for political purposes. In an open letter and in-depth evaluation, more than 60 top US scientists alleged the administration of misusing research to further its political objectives by “suppressing, distorting or manipulating the work done by scientists at federal agencies.”


 
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