April 8, 2015   Istvan Ujvary sent in  this essay published in 1973 by Raphael Mechoulam, commenting:

“I thought you would like the last sentences of the attached preface just scanned.”

We certainly do!  In the next-to-last ‘graf  Mechoulam notes that clinical evidence is evidence, indeed.

And in conclusion he quotes Canadian statesman Gerald Le Dain saying that the public should decide whether marijuana should be legally available. 

That sensible, democratic concept is in direct conflict with the medical establishment’s —and the U.S. government’s— response to the landslide vote in California for medical marijuana in November 1996. “I don’t think anyone wants to settle these issues by plebiscite,” sniffed Harold Varmus, MD, director of the National Institutes of Health in January ’97. He then convened a conference of “experts” who decided that more research was needed (as it always is). And of couse prohibition remains in place while the more research is conducted.