Leaders of 17 national AIDS organizations sent a letter yesterday to the Office of National Drug Control Policy demanding federal officials allow doctors to prescribe marijuana to people suffering from the disease.
“We urge you to help break the bureaucratic logjam that is keeping potentially life-saving medicine, marijuana, virtually inaccessible to thousands of people living with AIDS,” says the letter, signed by the AIDS Action Council, San Francisco AIDS Foundation, Latino Commission on AIDS, AIDS Project Los Angeles, the Whitman-Walker Clinic, the Northwest AIDS Foundation, and other health organizations around the country. They affirm that physicians specializing in AIDS care “widely recognize … marijuana … as an important component of treatment for some patients who suffer from symptoms of advanced-stage HIV disease and the multiple-drug therapies used to manage HIV.”
Signatories implore Drug Czar Barry McCaffrey to recommend immediate approval of the drug for seriously ill patients. “Terminally ill patients cannot afford to wait for years of research to prove something they already know: medical marijuana works.” They conclude, “Under these circumstances, making marijuana immediately available … to patients living with AIDS … is a moderate step that can add to the federal government’s responsiveness to the epidemic.”
The coalition notes that the Clinton administration already allows physicians to prescribe certain experimental AIDS medications prior to final FDA approval. They argue that marijuana’s relative safety and apparent efficacy warrant it similar status.
“Thousands of Americans, many of them living with HIV, use marijuana as a medicine illegally, putting themselves at risk of arrest and prosecution,” they state. “People should not have to risk their health or jail to receive needed medical care.”
Proponents sent additional copies of the letter to the Secretary of Health and Human Services, the Director of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, the Office of National AIDS Policy and the U.S. House and Senate Majority and Minority Leaders.
AIDS organizations historically have been outspoken in their support for legalizing medical marijuana. The Washington D.C. based AIDS Action Council first called for “an elimination of federal restrictions that bar doctors from prescribing marijuana for medical use” in November 1996. Several other prominent California AIDS organizations joined a successful class action lawsuit in 1997 that limited the government’s ability to sanction doctors who recommend marijuana as a therapy for their patients. This latest coalition marks the first time so many AIDS groups have united for “legal, immediate access to marijuana.”
NORML Foundation Executive Director Allen St. Pierre called the campaign significant, and representative of the broad support that exists for legalizing medical marijuana. “Patients, doctors, and nurses support granting patients legal access to medical marijuana,” he said. “It remains politicians in Washington, not voters or the medical community, who continue to support policies prohibiting the use of marijuana as a legal medicine.”
For more information, please contact either Allen St. Pierre or Paul Armentano of The NORML Foundation @ (202) 483-8751. Additional information is also available from Rachel Swain of Communication Works @ (415) 255-1946.