Nor will it have an immediate impact on California's medical marijuana clubs, most of which were closed last year after a series of decisions in the state and federal courts that they were operating illegally.
Speaking to reporters in Los Angeles on Wednesday, retired Gen. Barry R. McCaffrey, head of the Office of National Drug Control Policy, focused on the report's call for more research and concerns about the harmful effects smoking marijuana can have on the lungs.
"I think what they said is smoked marijuana is harmful, particularly for those with chronic conditions, that they could not tolerate any notion of people using it for any appreciable period of time," McCaffrey said. "The central part of what they did was they said: 'Look, go put it back in scientific medical research and go look at the potential of these other cannabinoids.' "
McCaffrey praised the report as "the most comprehensive summary and analysis of what's known about the medical use of marijuana ever done," but added, "Where do we go from here? I don't know. First of all, I don't want to be the one who decides that. I want the National Institutes of Health . . . to look very carefully and respectfully at the findings on this baseline study."
Spokesmen for the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration and the Food and Drug Administration declined to comment Wednesday.
The panel of 35 scientific experts who produced the report spent 18 months evaluating scientific studies on marijuana. They visited California marijuana clubs and took public testimony from dozens of patients and doctors.
It was McCaffrey who commissioned the study after Californians passed an initiative in November 1996 allowing patients to grow and use marijuana, with a doctor's recommendation, to relieve symptoms of illnesses including AIDS, cancer, and spastic and degenerative muscle diseases. Since then, six states have passed medical marijuana initiatives.
In court battles over California's law, the Clinton administration has argued that no state can legalize marijuana because federal law, which classifies the drug as illegal, supersedes state law. That position was upheld last year by a federal court in California that ordered six Northern California medical marijuana clubs to close.
Medical marijuana advocates said the report will boost their efforts to pass other state marijuana laws, and make it easier to implement the law in California, where state Atty. Gen. Bill Lockyer has asked a task force of law enforcement officials and medical marijuana advocates to find ways to make it work.
