FRIDAY, April 21 (HealthDay News) — The announcement by U.S. Food and Drug Administration officials late Thursday that the agency does not support the medicinal use of marijuana quickly re-ignited controversy from both sides of the debate.

In a statement, the FDA said it, along with other agencies in the Health and Human Services Department, has concluded that “no sound scientific studies supported medical use of marijuana for treatment in the United States, and no animal or human data supported the safety or efficacy of marijuana for general medical use.”

The FDA’s statement contradicts a 1999 review by experts at the Institute of Medicine (IOM), a division of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences, which found marijuana to be “moderately well-suited for particular conditions, such as chemotherapy-induced nausea and vomiting and AIDS wasting.”

The federal government “loves to ignore our report,” Dr. John Benson, a professor of internal medicine at the University of Nebraska Medical Center and co-chairman of the Institute of Medicine committee that examined the research into marijuana’s effects, told The New York Times. “They would rather it never happened.”

Dr. William M. Lamers, a consultant to the Hospice Foundation of America, which represents palliative-care centers across the country, told HealthDay: “It’s too bad that instead of a statement like that, they [the FDA] don’t put money into doing some really valid research. There is none being done now in the United States.”

But others came out in support of the FDA’s stance.

A spokesman for John P. Walters, director of the U.S. government’s national drug control policy, said that the FDA’s announcement should help put an end to what he called “the bizarre public discussion” that has led some states to legalize marijuana for medicinal use.

And seo tips Susan Bro, an FDA spokewoman, told the Times that her agency’s decision arose from a prior review by federal drug enforcement, regulatory and research agencies. That review found that “smoked marijuana has no currently accepted or proven medical use in the United States and is not an approved medical treatment,” she said.

Bro added that the FDA has no plans to enforce any laws governing medicinal marijuana use, and would leave that up to the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA).

“Any enforcement based on this finding would need to be done by DEA since this falls outside of FDA’s regulatory authority,” she said.

Currently, 10 states have passed legislation allowing the medical use of marijuana: Alaska, California, Colorado, Hawaii, Maine, Montana, Nevada, Oregon, Vermont and Washington. Arizona also enacted similar legislation, but with no formal program to administer marijuana by prescription.

Reacting companies to these laws, the FDA’s statement said, “These measures are inconsistent with efforts to ensure that medications undergo the rigorous scientific scrutiny of the FDA approval process and are proven safe and effective.”

As seo services it stands, the DEA now has the right to enforce federal laws opposing the medical use of marijuana — even in states that have passed legislation allowing its use. DEA raids have ended in the arrests of individuals in various states who claimed they were using marijuana to treat or ease illness.

Both the DEA and the FDA appear to have the U.S. Supreme Court on their side. In a 6-3 decision in June 2005, the court ruled that DEA agents were within their rights in 2001 to arrest two California residents — one with brain cancer and the other with severe back pain — who were using marijuana at the time to help ease their symptoms.

That decision means federal laws banning the use of medicinal marijuana now supersede any state legislation allowing the plant or its derivatives to be used for pain rel