The U.S. federal government has failed to make public its own 1994 study that undercuts its position that marijuana is carcinogenic. A $2 million study by the National Toxicology Program. The program's deputy director, John Bucher, says the study found absolutely no evidence of cancer. In fact, animals that received THC had fewer cancers. Bucher denies his agency had been pressured to shelve the report, saying the delay in making it public was due to a personnel shortage. The Boston Globe reported Thursday (1-30-97) that the study indicates not only that the main ingredient in marijuana, THC, does not cause cancer, but also that it may even protect against malignancies, laboratory tests on animals show. The report comes on the heels of an editorial in the prestigious New England Journal of Medicine that favors the controlled medical use of marijuana, and calls current federal policy misguided, heavy handed and inhumane. The Clinton administration has said that doctors prescribing marijuana could be prosecuted for a federal crime. Marijuana has been reported to ease the pain, nausea and vomiting in advanced stages of cancer, AIDS and other serious illnesses, but the federal government claims other treatments have been deemed safer than what it calls a psychoactive, burning carcinogen. However, The Boston Globe says the government's claim appears to be undercut by its own $2 million study. - BOSTON, Jan. 30, 1997 (UPI)
