Addiction Doctors Say Medical Marijuana Should be Federally Regulated

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First, do no harm.

That’s part of the Hippocratic oath physicians take. Do doctors violate it — and risk losing their licenses — if they prescribe medical marijuana to their patients?

Maybe, says the American Society of Addiction Medicine (ASAM). It just announced the publication of a white paper, The Role of the Physician in ‘Medical Marijuana’ (PDF), in a March 23 press release. (The white paper is dated September 2010.)

In the white paper, ASAM — a professional society of physicians involved in addiction prevention, treatment, research, education, and public policy — called for an end to voter-approval of marijuana as medicine at the state level, recommending instead that marijuana be subject instead to federal testing and regulation. 

“”Our policy statement is a careful attempt to put marijuana into proper perspective,”” said Dr. Louis E. Baxter, Sr., ASAM’s president and board chair. “”We do not recognize this as a ‘medication,’ having not gone through an official FDA-approval process. As experts in addiction medicine, we reject having its use…foisted upon us to effectively regulate a non-FDA-approved substance to administer as medicine.’””

Because fifteen states and the District of Columbia have legalized medical marijuana, the result is “”a patchwork system that lacks the patient safeguards normally associated with the appropriate clinical use of psychoactive substances.””

Dr. Andrea G. Barthwell, former President of ASAM, said, state approval of medical marijuana put “”physicians in an untenable position as gatekeepers to a controlled substance still deemed illicit by the federal government.”” She added that physicians who prescribe medical marijuana “”could fail to meet their professional obligations to patients and possibly have their license revoked.””

ASAM argues that marijuana is problematic because it is addictive; when smoked it “”can deposit up to four times the amount of tar in the lungs as cigarettes””; because its production is not standardized so that patients get reliable dosing; and because it has not been thoroughly tested.

“”If physicians were treating patients with other untested substances, there would be a public outcry,”” Barthwell said.

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