tes the nausea, vomiting, and the loss of appetite experienced by many AIDS patients without accelerating the rate at which HIV positive individuals develop clinical AIDS or other illnesses.8 According to the National Institutes of Health (NIH), marijuana "increase[s] food enjoyment and the number of times individuals eat per day."9 The most recent NAS report found cannabinoid drugs "promising for treating wasting syndrome in AIDS patients,"10 and recommended those patients unresponsive to conventional AIDS medications smoke marijuana to combat the wasting syndrome.11
                 An earlier 1982 report by the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) suggested that marijuana reduces intraocular pressure (IOP) in patients suffering from glaucoma, the leading cause of blindness in the United States.12 A follow up 1994 report by the Australian federal government determined that, "There is reasonable evidence for the potential efficacy of THC in the treatment of glaucoma, especially in cases which have proved resistant to existing anti-glaucoma agents," and recommended the drug's use under medically supervised conditions.13
                 Clinical and anecdotal evidence also points to the effectiveness of marijuana as a therapeutic agent in the treatment of a variety of spastic conditions such as multiple sclerosis, paraplegia, epilepsy, and quadriplegia. Animal studies and carefully controlled human studies support marijuana's ability to suppress convulsions. In November 1998, England's House of Lords Science and Technology Committee said they were "convince[d] ... that cannabis ... certainly does have genuine medical applications ... in treating the painful muscle spasms and other symptoms of MS," and recommended legalizing medical use of the drug.14 The latest NAS report also noted marijuana seems to alleviate muscle spasms associated with MS.15
                 Many patients and older Americans use marijuana t...