How the FDA celebrated 4/20

On April 20, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) released an advisory that claimed that smoking marijuana served no legitimate medical purpose. In yet another instance of politics trumping science in the Bush administration, the advisory cited no new scientific research and blatantly contradicted the most comprehensive government review of the health benefits of marijuana that has been conducted to this date.

In that 1999 study, 11 of the nation's foremost scientists and physicians from the Institute of Medicine, a branch of the National Academy of Sciences, concluded that "marijuana's active components are potentially effective in treating pain, nausea, the anorexia of AIDS wasting and other symptoms."

Under fire for its absurd position, the FDA took to the Oped page of The New York Times, where former FDA official Henry Miller wrote that the agency's opinion was justified because the act of smoking marijuana is so harmful that it outweighs any health benefits.

Please. Give the average member of Terrace an ounce of marijuana and a free hour, and she'll come back with a dozen different ways to get high without smoking it. Marijuana doesn't have to be smoked for its health benefits to be enjoyed, and the FDA knows it.

The real motivation behind the FDA's statement is purely political. It's the latest in a long line of steps that the FDA has taken in order to protect the profits of drug companies. Every year, the FDA collects over $250 million in "user fees" from the nation's largest pharmaceutical companies, which make up a substantial portion of the agency's budget, according to The Center for Public Integrity. Furthermore, many of the FDA's scientific advisers are financed by research grants and consulting fees from drug companies, and as long as the amount is less than $100,000, the advisers are allowed to vote on the approval of drugs made by the same companies that pay them.

The return seen by drug companies on this "investment" is huge. Last year, when the FDA had to decide whether to allow sales of painkillers like Celebrex and Vioxx that had been shown to cause heart problems in many patients, 10 of the 32 members of the FDA's advisory panel were found to have received funding from Merck, Novartis or Pfizer, the companies that made the drugs in question. The panel voted to allow their sale, but if those 10 advisers had been forbidden from voting, the decision would have been reversed.

Similar conflicts of interest are at play in the medical marijuana debate. In states where medical marijuana has been placed on voter referenda, drug companies are frequently found financing the opposition. It's easy to see why. If you're a cancer patient suffering from extreme pain and for relief, you can choose either OxyContin, whose side effects include nausea, vomiting and addiction, or a pot brownie, whose side effects include euphoria and the munchies, many would choose the latter. Obviously, marijuana isn't a panacea, and drug companies have developed many excellent treatments for illnesses that have no natural cure, but in this instance, it's clear that drug companies are sacrificing the greater good to protect their bottom line.

Of course, there are a number of other political issues at play in the debate over medical marijuana at the federal level. The same religious conservative groups, like Focus on the Family, that have opposed research into a vaccine for HPV and that successfully pressured the FDA into banning the over-the-counter sale of Plan B have also voiced their hostility toward medical marijuana.

Thankfully, impassioned citizens, fed up with the subservience of the Bush administration to the interests of religious fundamentalists and Big Pharma, have moved the debate to the state level. Eleven states have passed legislative bills or voter referenda that allow to varying degrees the possession of marijuana for medicinal purposes. It isn't a simple red state/blue state divide, either. In addition to progressive states like California and Washington, traditionally conservative states like Montana and Colorado have also split with the Bush administration and chosen to allow the greatest possible relief to human suffering.

Those who would benefit from medical marijuana are some of our nation's most destitute and downtrodden citizens: AIDS and cancer patients, those with terminal illnesses and many others for whom unbearable pain is a part of everyday life. These are the people most affected by the FDA's refusal to condone medical marijuana.

The National Academy of Sciences has concluded that marijuana provides many therapeutic benefits at a minimum health risk. Why can't the FDA break free of its financial backers and accept it? Jason Sheltzer is a molecular biology major from St. Davids, Pa. He can be reached at sheltzer@princeton.edu.