Waiting to Inhale: This is from a press release by the Marijuana Policy Project:

The Marijuana Policy Project invites you to attend a screening of Waiting to Inhale, a feature-length documentary that provides a compelling and detailed look at medical marijuana.

Waiting to Inhale will be screened in Boston on Saturday, April 22, at 12:00 p.m. at the Brattle Theatre, and on Sunday, April 23, at 3:30 p.m. at the Somerville Theatre.

A panel discussion with film director Jed Riffe, noted scholar and author Dr. Lester Grinspoon, and Whitney Taylor, executive director of the Drug Policy Forum of Massachusetts, will follow both screenings.

Funded in part by a grant from MPP, Waiting to Inhale features experts on both sides of the medical marijuana issue and intimate stories from critically ill patients seeking relief from their pain.

Waiting to Inhale has already played to critical acclaim, having won the 2005 CINE Golden Eagle Award, the Gold Special Jury "Remi" Award at the 38th Annual WorldFest-Houston, and the 2005 Best Documentary Film/Video at the New Jersey International Film Festival. Please visit www.WaitingToInhale.org for more information.

Please visit www.iffboston.org for more details about the screenings. Tickets can be purchased for $8.

I have not seen this film myself, so I may try to make it. This is also a nice chance to hear Lester Grinspoon, one of the pioneers of scholarship on intoxicants and the effects of drug prohibition.

F.D.A. Dismisses Medical Benefit From Marijuana: This balanced story from The New York Times contains within it several appropriate critical responses to this announcement by the FDA. Here is the lede:

WASHINGTON, April 20 — The Food and Drug Administration said Thursday that "no sound scientific studies" supported the medical use of marijuana, contradicting a 1999 review by a panel of highly regarded scientists.

The announcement inserts the health agency into yet another fierce political fight.

Susan Bro, an agency spokeswoman, said Thursday's statement resulted from a past combined review by federal drug enforcement, regulatory and research agencies that concluded "smoked marijuana has no currently accepted or proven medical use in the United States and is not an approved medical treatment."

Ms. Bro said the agency issued the statement in response to numerous inquiries from Capitol Hill but would probably do nothing to enforce it.

"Any enforcement based on this finding would need to be by D.E.A. since this falls outside of F.D.A.'s regulatory authority," she said.

Eleven states have legalized medicinal use of marijuana, but the Drug Enforcement Administration and the director of national drug control policy, John P. Walters, have opposed those laws.

You may want to read the whole thing before commenting.