The federal government’s continuing denials of the medical efficacy of cannabis may soon come to an end, thanks to action by Americans for Safe Access, who filed a lawsuit in federal court Feb. 21 demanding that the Food and Drug Administration and the Department of Health and Human Services stop spreading misinformation on medical cannabis and correct the information they have published.

The ASA case specifically challenges the government position that “marijuana has no accepted medical value.” This key claim has been trotted out by federal authorities every time a legislative body considers cannabis reform, and those same officials and agencies have the data showing it is not accurate.

"The FDA position on medical cannabis is incorrect, dishonest and a flagrant violation of laws requiring the government to base policy on sound science,” said Joe Elford, Chief Counsel for ASA.

The ASA lawsuit charges the federal agencies with a violation of the little-known Data Quality Act (DQA). That law requires federal agencies to rely on sound science in the information they disseminate and the policies they make. The DQA also allows citizens to challenge government information believed to be inaccurate or based on faulty, unreliable data.

"The science to support medical cannabis is overwhelming, yet the government continues to play politics with the lives of patients desperately in need of pain relief,” said ASA Executive Director Steph Sherer. “Americans for Safe Access is filing this lawsuit on medical cannabis to demand that the FDA stop holding science hostage to politics.”

The court filing is the outcome of a more than two-year petition process and comes on the heels of a recent University of California, San Francisco study demonstrating the effectiveness of medical cannabis in treating pain in people living with HIV/AIDS.

ASA first filed a petition to force HHS — the FDA’s parent agency — to correct statements about the medical value of cannabis in October 2004. Under the DQA, agencies must respond or file for an extension 60 days from the date of the first petition filing. The government response was a statement saying that it would not act on the petition, a position it has maintained despite ASA’s May 2005 appeal. Using the DQA’s judicial review provisions, the Oakland-based organization is now taking its cause to the courts.

"Citizens have a right to expect the government to use the best available information for policy decisions. This innovative case turns the Data Quality Act into a tool for the public interest,” said case co-counsel Alan Morrison, a preeminent legal scholar who founded Public Citizen’s Litigation Group and currently serves as a senior lecturer at Stanford Law School.

"I had side effects from morphine patches, oxycontin, and oxycodone before starting a medical cannabis regime that has allowed me to get off prescription drugs and live virtually pain-free,” said Blackfoot, Idaho resident Victoria Lansford, a named patient in the lawsuit who suffers from fibromyalgia.

"The government’s refusal to face up to the science is irresponsible and harms citizens like me for whom this treatment is a lifeline.”

* The DQA complaint is posted online at: AmericansForSafeAccess.org/downloads/DQA_Complaint.pdf. Background info: AmericansForSafeAccess.org/DQA