So, yesterday, politics trumped science yet again. The FDA rejected medical marijuana, again. I'm sure the FDA's decision to say so on April 20th is entirely coincidental.
The Times has an excellent summary, and you can read the FDA's original press release here.
In essence, the FDA appears to be throwing a very clean baby out with slightly dirty bathwater: It says smoking marijuana is harmful, and then somehow leaps from there to the blanket statement that marijuana, regardless of administration method, has no medicinal use whatsoever.
This is a well-worn issue, and there's not really much that's new to say in defense of the FDA's anti-marijuana position, or the War on Drugs in general. In contrast, there's tremendous evidence that cannabis is in fact a beneficial medicine for a few illnesses - see my earlier post.