norml23 - Page 25
Page 25
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Other promising therapeutic uses of marijuana incJude its
use of asthma (as a bronchodiiator), and for mu:[tipie sclerosis,
epilepsy, and various nervous disorders. Secretary of HEW Fifth
Annual Report:, supra, at pgs 1 Z0-21o in the past: four years,
thirty-two state legislatures have passed legislation authorizing
the use of marijuana for therapeutic purposes without waiting for
the federal government to act. This is heady at 1 00% increase
since 1 979.
Twenty-seven of these states -- Alabama, Arizona,
CaJifomia, Colorado, Connecticut, F[odda, Georgia, Iowa,
Louisiana, Maine, Michigan, Minnesota, Montana, Nevada, New
Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Ohio, Oklahoma, Rhode island, South
Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Vermont, Washington West Virginia and
Wisconsin -- have established elaborate state-wide programs of
marijuana research for cancer and glaucoma victims° The six
remaining states -_ Arkansas, Illinois, New Hampshire, North
Carolina, Oregon and Virginia -- have adopted different
legislation which recognizes marijuana's medical value and
absoJves the physician of legal liabilities when prescribing the
drug°
It is important to note that many of the states which have
adopted marijuana therapeutics legislation have also adopted
state drug laws patterned after the federaa CSA. When these
states adopted their marijuana therapeutics Begis[ation, they
aBso re-classified marijuana from Schedule i of the state CSA's
into a _ower schedule of control or removed marijuana completely
from its controlled substances schedule. Marijuana is now
classified as a Schedule [I substance in a number of states,
including FJorida, Iowa, Louisiana, Maine, Michigan, New Mexico,
Oregon and Washington. _n three other states -_ Arkansas,
Tennessee and North Carolina -- marijuana is classified in
Schedule IV of the state CSA. Ve[man and Haddox, Drug .Abuse and
the Law, (1977 Supp.) at pg. 47. In Virginia, marijuana is no
longer listed in any of these schedules.
Agencies of the federal government have also taken action to
increase access to marijuana for therapeutic purposes. Although
marijuana remains classified as a Schedule f substance in the
federal CSA, officials of the Food and Drug Administration and
the National Cancer Institute took the extraordinary step in June
of this year of releasing 500,000 THC.capsu[es to cancer
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