CA Patients Demand HHS Reclassify Marijuana - Serve Notice to Sue to HHS

For Immediate Release: October 25, 2005
Media Contacts: Tony Bowles (415) 283-7404, Caren Woodson 510-388-0546

National Protests Demand HHS Head Recognize the Medical Value of Marijuana
California Advocates Say Rescheduling Petition Responses Long Overdue

SAN FRANCISCO -- In the continued push to resolve the state-federal conflict
over medical marijuana laws, patients and advocates with Americans for Safe
Access will rally at the local office of the US Department of Health and
Human Services. The rally will coincide with similar events in six other
cities nationwide. Michael Leavitt, Secretary of Health and Human Services,
will be served during the Washington DC rally with both official Notice of
Intent to Sue for illegally delaying reply to one of the group’s petitions,
and with 20,000 signatures from patients demanding that science and public
health prevail when HHS makes its decision on petition requests to
reschedule marijuana.

WHAT: Rally for Reclassifying Marijuana – visuals will include “boxes of
medical evidence” representing more than 6500 published reports and journal
reports documenting the efficacy of marijuana for medical use; the Data
Quality Act represented as Giant Scissors cutting through red tape, and
giant puppet of HHS Secretary Michael Leavitt.

WHERE: 50 UN Plaza, San Francisco, in front of the Region 9 offices of the
U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. For other locations, see
http://www.safeacessnow.org

WHEN: Wednesday, October 26, 2005 - 12 Noon

WHO: Members of Americans for Safe Access (ASA), the largest national
grassroots coalition working to protect the rights of patients and doctors
to legally use marijuana for medical purposes. Patients from around the
state will be coming for the event, including a busload from Los Angeles.

WHY: Patients, medical professionals and advocates are calling on HHS to
listen to scientific research and admit marijuana has medical use.
Americans for Safe Access, the national medical-marijuana advocacy group
responsible for the protests, is a 2002 petitioner to HHS to reclassify
marijuana. The group also launched a legal challenge to HHS in 2004 to
correct published medical marijuana misinformation under the Data Quality
Act, a little-known law that requires federal agencies to rely on sound
science. Responses by HHS to both petitions are overdue, according to group
spokespeople. Currently, ten states have laws permitting patients to legally
use it with a doctor’s recommendation, but those laws are at odds with the
federal prohibition that ranks marijuana as more dangerous than cocaine or
amphetamines.

If the patient-advocacy group prevails, the Department of Health and Human
Services will have to change its tune on medical marijuana and publicly
admit that the drug is now routinely used for medical treatment, clearing
the way for doctors to prescribe marijuana to their patients. When it comes
to marijuana law, public health must prevail, according to both petitions,
since established research, federal reports and patient experience all show
marijuana works for pain, nausea, loss of appetite, anxiety, and spasticity,
the severe muscle spasms associated with Multiple Sclerosis, spinal injury
and other conditions.

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To arrange interviews with doctors, researchers, patients, attorneys or ASA
advocates nationally please call Hilary McQuie at 510-251-1856 or
510-333-8554 (cell).