Advocates are trying a new tactic against federal opposition to medical marijuana: They are asking the feds to tell the truth about it. And they are trying a relatively new regulatory tool to force them to do so.

“The Department of Health and Human Services [HHS] has repeated misstated scientific evidence and ignored numerous reports” that document the medical benefits of marijuana, Steph Sherer said at an Oct. 4 news conference in Washington, D.C. She is executive director of Americans for Safe Access.

HHS maintains that marijuana has no currently accepted medical use for treatment in the U.S. “That is like NASA telling us that the earth is flat,” said staff attorney Joe Elford. The group has filed a petition with HHS requesting the correction of information that is disseminated regarding the medical use of marijuana. “It seeks to divorce science from ideology,” Elford added.

Sherer said, “If HHS follows our request on this petition, this country can finally have a sane conversation about marijuana as medicine and do what is needed to make sure that patients who need that medicine can get it. And that scientists in this country can do the research they want and need to do.”

The Data Quality Act requires federal government agencies to employ sound science in making regulations and in the information it disseminates. The law mandates a response within 60 days, though it does allow for an extension and later allows parties to sue in federal court.

It was slipped into a larger piece of legislation by the tobacco industry and took effect in October 2002. Business interests have used it to impede implementation of environmental and other regulatory matters. This is one of the first times that a consumer or liberal group has tried to use the act for its purposes.

Robert J. Melamede, chair of the department of biology at the University of Colorado, said there is a growing body of evidence that endocannabinoids are “the biochemical thermostat for hundreds of different chemical reactions” inside the body. “They regulate life-and-death decisions of cells,” he said.

Cannabinoids, principally THC, are chemical compounds within marijuana that determine how it affects the body. There is a growing body of evidence documenting how cannabinoids can be used therapeutically to treat the biochemical imbalances of diseases such as multiple sclerosis, glaucoma and the nausea associated with some HIV medicines and cancer chemotherapy.

A parade of patients reported how marijuana was either their only effective or their preferred medicine for their conditions. Among them was San Franciscan John Shaw. “In 1998, I had two T-cells and I was in the hospital; now I have about 300.” He credits the turnaround to combination therapy and “marijuana as my fourth cocktail. If I didn’t have access to all four, I wouldn’t be here.”

Jim Tozzi was a government attorney who played a leading role in writing the Data Quality Act, and now heads up the industry-supported Center for Regulatory Effectiveness. In a separate interview, he explained that under the law, “You have to demonstrate ‘standing,’ which is harm. If the data that I heard today [at the news conference] is accurate, the chances of them prevailing in a court to demonstrate harm is a lot better than some of the other petitioners. Plus, they can take it to a district court in San Francisco.”

Tozzi said, “The best way to win a petition is for groups that are affected by this to write in to the agency saying that they need to stay within the 60 days.”

He also acknowledged that with the growing knowledge of the importance of cannabinoid receptors in a number of diseases, American pharmaceutical companies are going to want the same freedom as their European competitors to investigate possible drug options.