Pot Has Uses as Medicine, U.S. Panel Says

But Scott Imler, director of the Los Angeles Marijuana Resource Center, sounded a cautious note. Imler said he was disappointed that the report seemed to rule out federal reclassification of marijuana as a drug that could be prescribed by physicians and dispensed by pharmacies.

Medical marijuana opponents, including U.S. Rep. Bill McCollum, a Florida Republican who chairs the House Subcommittee on Crime, issued statements pointing out that there is one pill now available that contains THC. The report, he said, gives no reason to use anything other than that medicine, which sells under the brand name Marinol.

"When smoking a dangerous and highly addictive drug is labeled 'therapeutic,' we are sending the wrong message to our youth," McCollum said.

But Dr. Stanley Watson, co-director and research scientist at the University of Michigan's Mental Health Research Institute and a panel member, said Marinol works slowly "and its results are variable."

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Times staff writer Marlene Cimons contributed to this report.