The United States should begin scientific trials to determine marijuana’s medicinal value, a United Nations report recommended this week.
The U.N. “renews its call for additional scientific research to be carried out on … the use of cannabis for certain medical purposes,” states the report, released Tuesday by the International Drug Control Board. The 13-member board oversees U.N. drug treaties.
The Board’s request comes one week after leaders of 17 national AIDS organizations demanded that White House officials allow doctors to prescribe marijuana to people suffering from the disease.
NORML Foundation Executive Director Allen St. Pierre said that U.S. officials typically refuse to conduct medical marijuana research, even when their own commissions recommended it. “Similar requests made by the National Academy of Sciences and the National Institutes of Health Workshop on the Medical Utility of Marijuana have gone unanswered,” St. Pierre said.
The National Academy of Sciences is scheduled to release an updated report on medical marijuana next month, he said.
The U.N. board remained unyielding on the use of marijuana for recreational purposes. However, it concedes that, “The abuse of cannabis has become widespread in virtually all countries of the world … in recent decades,” despite international efforts to prohibit the drug.
The report also said that new technologies like the Internet pose a significant threat to drug prohibition. “Governments … should work in close cooperation with the Internet industry, community organizations, families and educators to set up a framework that will ensure that such emerging technologies are not misused for the proliferation of drug abuse,” it said.
For more information, please contact Allen St. Pierre of The NORML Foundation @ (202) 483-8751. Excerpts of the report are available online from: http://www.marijuananews.com/.