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Health

Medical marijuana suffers knock in US

26 April 2006

IT’S enough to make your head spin. The US Food and Drug Administration announced on Friday that marijuana is not a legitimate medicine because there is no hard evidence to show its safety or effectiveness. But marijuana researchers argue political obstacles make it almost impossible to get such data.

The FDA says it was responding to requests for an opinion on the drug’s medical worth by Mark Souder, the Indiana congressman who opposes marijuana in medicine as well as in foreign fields (see above). The FDA’s statement contradicts a 1999 report by the US Institute of Medicine (IOM) suggesting that…

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