ABSTRACT
SUMMARY. The sudden emergence of the AIDS epidemic and the initial lack of effective treatments politicized the patient population into demanding quicker development of and access to promising medications. When numerous AIDS patients demanded marijuana to treat the anorexia and wasting syndrome resulting from both illness and medications, the federal government’s Public Health Service closed the only legal source of supply. The federal authorities’ abdication of compassion and repression of research spawned a grassroots political movement that repudiated federal regulations. [Article copies available for a fee from The Haworth Document Delivery Service: 1-800-342-9678. E-mail address: <getinfo@haworthpressinc.com> Website: <https://www.HaworthPress.com>; © 2001 by The Haworth Press, Inc. All rights reserved.]
KEYWORDS. Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS), HIV, cannabis, marijuana, medical marijuana, delta-9-tetrahydrocannabinol, AIDS-wasting syndrome, azidothymidine (AZT), dronabinol
The AIDS epidemic was a crucial influence on the growth of support for the medical marijuana movement. When federal officials responded to an increasing number of requests for marijuana from a growing population of AIDS patients by closing the Compassionate Use Investigational New Drug (IND) Program that supplied the drug, a grassroots political movement was launched to protect patients from arrest. The numbers of HIV-positive patients, the po-
litical prowess of AIDS activists and the frustrations of AIDS researchers had a profound effect on the revelation to the American public that, with regard to cannabis, the federal government favored prohibition over science and compassion.
