Sydney Spiesel is a pediatrician and a clinical professor of pediatrics at Yale University School of Medicine. In the following viewpoint, he reports that the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has issued a statement declaring that marijuana has no safe medical uses. Spiesel says that this statement is not based on science. The best evidence, Spiesel argues, suggests that marijuana may have medical uses but that further study is needed. Spiesel contends, however, that the government has blocked marijuana research. He concludes that the FDA's statement is based on politics, and he calls into question the objectivity of government science.
As you read, consider the following questions:
1. What does Spiesel say the FDA's statement implies, and is this implication accurate?
2. What benefits did the IOM report suggest might result from medical marijuana use?
3. What other example of politics trumping science at the FDA does Spiesel provide?