From MPP's newsletter:


Last Friday, 24 members of Congress demanded that the Food and Drug
Administration (FDA) account for its disingenuous April 20 statement
claiming that "no sound scientific studies" support the medical use
of marijuana.

In a letter co-authored by U.S. Reps. Maurice Hinchey (D-NY) and Ron
Paul (R-TX) and signed by 22 other members of Congress, the
legislators accuse the FDA of basing its statement on politics, not
science.

The FDA's claim, of course, is patently false. Numerous credible
scientific studies document marijuana's medical benefits, most
notably a 1999 Institute of Medicine (IOM) report commissioned by the
White House drug czar's office. The IOM concluded, "Nausea, appetite
loss, pain and anxiety are all afflictions of wasting, and all can be
mitigated by marijuana." But as Dr. John Benson, one of the three
authors of the IOM report, told The New York Times on April 21, the
federal government "loves to ignore our report. ... They would rather
it never happened."

The FDA's statement — which was issued in response to pressure from
notorious prohibitionist U.S. Rep. Mark Souder (R-IN), who has
demanded that the FDA's acting commissioner denounce medical
marijuana — contained no mention of new research or analysis that led
to the agency's pronouncement. Rather, the statement was simply a
rehash of the federal government's long-standing position.

But in a sign that MPP and our allies' work to educate the public and
the media is paying off, the nakedly political document has been
nearly universally derided in the media. Even Congressman Souder's
hometown paper printed an editorial criticizing Souder and the FDA,
calling the statement "just the latest disgraceful effort to maintain
an unconvincing position that has long been rejected by most
Americans."

MPP staffers were quoted in stories in The New York Times, The
Washington Post, Chicago Tribune, and Los Angeles Times, as well as
in Associated Press, Reuters, and Scripps Howard News Service stories
that were reprinted in hundreds of local newspapers. In addition, MPP
staffers appeared on CNBC, NBC's "The Today Show," and dozens of
local TV news broadcasts ... and co-authored an op-ed in The San
Diego Union-Tribune.