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 23. in 19_30 the State of Georgia enacted legislation authorizing a
 therapeutic research program for the evaluation of marijuana as a medica_}y
 o= _ . •
 recognized therapeutic substance, Its°enactment v_as supported by _etg.ec:s fro_F a .
 number of Georgia encologists, and other Georgia physicians, including the Chief.
 of Onco_ogy-at Grady Hospital and .staff oncologists at Emery University: Medical
 Clinic. Sponsors of the _egislatio_. orginai]y _ntended _he enactment of a law
 making marijuana available for clinical, therapeutic use by patients. The bill
 was referred to as the "Marijuana-asrMedicine" bi]_o The f_nal leg_siation
 was crafted, however, of necessity, merely to set up a research program in order
 to obtain marijuana from the one legitimate source available - the Federal Govern-
 ment, which would not make the substance available for any purpose other than
 conducting a research program. The act _as passed by an overwhe}ming majority in
 the lower house of the legislature and unanimously in the Senate. In January
 ]983 an evaluation of the program, which by then had had 44 eva]uable marijuana
 smoking patient-participants, accepted marijuana smoking as being an effective
 anti-emetic agent.
 24. In Boston, Massachusetts _n _977 a nurse in a hospital suggested
 to a chemotherapy patient, suffering greatly from the therapy and at the point
 of refusing further treatment_ that smoking marijuana might he'Ip relieve his
 nausea and vomiting. The patient's doctor, when asked about it later, stated
 that many of his younger patients were smoking mar_juanao Those who did so
 seemed to have less trouble with nausea and vomiting. The patient in question
 obtained some marijuana and smoked _t_ in the hosp_ta_:, immediately before his
 next chemotherapy treatment. Doctors, nurses and orderlies coming into the room
 as he finished smoking realized what the patient had been doing. None of them