ABSTRACT
The medical use of marijuana has become a highly political issue in the United States, with several states having passed initiatives approving its use for this purpose in the face of prohibition of its use for any purpose by federal law. Cannabis has specifically been advocated as a therapeutic adjunct to ameliorate the nausea and loss of appetite commonly associated with the wasting syndrome in AIDS (Grinspoon and Bakalar 1993). Media reports estimated that in 1996 up to 11,000 San Francisco Bay Area residents with HIV infection or AIDS were utilizing cannabis buyers’ clubs to obtain marijuana for medical use (Abrams 1998).
