American Notes DRUGS

"Smoke two joints and call me in the morning." Medicine came a step closer to such a prescription last week when Drug Enforcement Administration Judge Francis Young ruled that marijuana is "one of the safest therapeutically active substances known to man" and should be classified, like morphine and cocaine, as illegal for the general public but available by prescription. The administrative-law judge's ruling can, and probably will, be overturned by the DEA itself with the backing of parents' groups, police officials and nations cooperating with the U.S. antidrug efforts. DEA COUNSEL WILL BE FILING VIGOROUS EXCEPTION TO THE FINDINGS, read a cable from DEA headquarters to its field offices.

Ironically, the judge found marijuana useful in relieving nausea induced by chemotherapy and muscle spasms of multiple sclerosis but not in treating glaucoma, the disease of Robert Randall, whose legal battle with the DEA sparked the case. Randall gets his daily prescribed dose of marijuana from a pharmacy in Washington that is supplied by a federal farm in Mississippi. He believes the evidence before his eyes. "It's been twelve years," says Randall, who was expected to lose his eyesight by 1977, "and I haven't gone blind."