Medical marijuana advocates bypassing traditional approval, effectiveness regulations

NPR continues its examination of medical marijuana: "Fourteen states and the District of Columbia have launched a medical experiment that doesn't follow any of the rules of science. By approving the use of marijuana as a medicine — with varying kinds of restrictions — these jurisdictions are bypassing the federal government's elaborate processes for approving medicines."

"That's highly unusual. In fact, it's only happened once in recent memory: In the late 1970s, about half the states legalized the use of laetrile, an extract of apricot pits, as a cancer treatment. At least 50,000 cancer patients took it before it was exposed as totally useless" (Knox, 6/14).

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This article was reprinted from khn.org with permission from the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation. Kaiser Health News, an editorially independent news service, is a program of the Kaiser Family Foundation, a nonpartisan health care policy research organization unaffiliated with Kaiser Permanente.