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 veggie
Registered: 07/25/04
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 Federal Marijuana Monopoly Challenged 
#5049718 - 12/11/05 07:04 PM (6 years, 5 months ago) |
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Federal Marijuana Monopoly Challenged
By Marc Kaufman
December 12, 2005
Washington Post
Researchers Want to Grow More Plants and Find More Medicinal Uses
For decades, the federal government has been the nation's only legal producer of marijuana for medical research. Working with growers at the University of Mississippi, the National Institute on Drug Abuse has controlled both the quality and distribution of the drug for the past 36 years.
But for the first time the government's monopoly on research marijuana is under serious legal challenge. The effort is being spearheaded by a group that wants to produce medicines from currently illegal psychedelic drugs and by a professor at the University of Massachusetts who has agreed to grow marijuana for it if the government lets him.
In a hearing due to start today before an administrative law judge at the Drug Enforcement Administration, professor Lyle Craker and his supporters will argue for a DEA license to grow the research drugs. It is the climax of a decades-long effort to expand research into marijuana and controlled drugs and of Craker's almost five-year effort to become a competing marijuana grower.
"Our work is focused on finding medicinal uses of plants, and marijuana is one with clear potential," said Craker, director of the medicinal plant program of the university's Department of Plant, Soil and Insect Sciences in Amherst, Mass., and editor of the Journal of Herbs, Spices and Medicinal Plants. "There's only one government-approved source of marijuana for scientific research in this country, and that just isn't adequate."
The DEA, which has to license anyone who wants to grow marijuana, disagrees.
The agency, as well as the National Institute on Drug Abuse, which formally runs the marijuana research program, argues that it is not in the public interest to have more than one source of marijuana, in part because it could lead to greater illicit use. What's more, they said in legal briefs, the Mississippi program supplies all the marijuana that researchers need. Agency officials declined to comment further.
In his suit against the DEA for a license to grow marijuana, Craker has backing from 38 members of Congress, the two senators from Massachusetts, numerous medical societies and even Grover Norquist, the president of the conservative Americans for Tax Reform.
The effort has been organized by Richard Doblin, president of the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies (MAPS) and a longtime advocate of medical research into controlled drugs. It was Doblin who recruited Craker after the association concluded it would never get a dependable supply of government marijuana.
"Dr. Craker has no goal here except to advance scientific research into marijuana, and our goals are the same," said Doblin, whose group is also sponsoring research into other controlled drugs including MDMA (better known as "ecstasy") and the psychedelic mushroom psilocybin.
"By controlling who can research marijuana and how they can do it, the DEA has greatly limited promising research that could lead to [government] approved medications," Doblin said.
The problems, he said, are not limited to winning approval to buy the Mississippi marijuana. Doblin and other researchers contend that the government marijuana is low in quality and potency and could never be a stable source of basic ingredients if the Food and Drug Administration ever did approve a marijuana-based medication.
Marijuana, or cannabis, is now listed as a Schedule I drug -- with no medicinal use -- under the Controlled Substances Act. Its use was initially restricted in 1937 and eliminated from medicinal practice in 1942. On its Web site, the DEA lists marijuana as the most frequently abused illicit drug in America.
Since the 1970s, however, researchers have found potential uses for marijuana, or its active ingredient THC, in relieving nausea and vomiting associated with chemotherapy and to help with appetite loss in AIDS patients. A synthetic form of marijuana's active ingredient has been made into a prescription drug, Marinol.
Doblin said there are potentially many other medicinal uses of marijuana, including the treatment of multiple sclerosis and AIDS-related neuropathy. He also said researchers believe that if they can perfect a method of "vaporizing" marijuana -- allowing it to be inhaled rather than smoked -- it would be easier to administer as medicine.
But because of fears of illicit use, he said, the agency has essentially blocked the research. "I believe the DEA policy is one of delay, and they've succeeded in essentially blocking marijuana development for 30 years," Doblin said.
In its filings with Administrative Law Judge Mary Ellen Bittner, the DEA disputes the charge that it is standing in the way of marijuana research.
It says that medical marijuana research is underway in California using its Mississippi supply, and that the drug maker Mallinckrodt Inc. has a contract with the Mississippi supplier to produce extracts of cannabis for its drug development program. In addition, DEA lawyer Brian Bayly told the law judge in August, when the first five days of testimony were heard, that the quality and potency of the government's marijuana was acceptable to the researchers his agency surveyed.
The hearing is expected to continue through the week, with a decision several months later. If Craker and his team prevail, however, the DEA is not obliged to give him a license or change its policies. And as a result, they plan to continue lining up political support, such as the Nov. 22 letter sent by Norquist to the DEA.
"The use of controlled substances for legitimate research purposes is well-established, and has yielded a number of miracle medicines widely available to patients and doctors," Norquist wrote. "This case should be no different. It's in the public interest to end the government monopoly on marijuana legal for research."
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Diploid
Cuban
Registered: 01/09/03
Posts: 14,201
Loc: Rabbit Hole
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Re: Federal Marijuana Monopoly Challenged [Re: veggie]
#5054563 - 12/12/05 07:24 PM (6 years, 5 months ago) |
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What's more, [DEA and NIDA liars] said in legal briefs, the Mississippi program supplies all the marijuana that researchers need
But according to MAPS:
"MAPS worked closely with Dr. Donald Abrams, UC San Francisco, for over five years to obtain permission for the first FDA-approved human study with marijuana in fifteen years. MAPS then worked with Dr. Ethan Russo on a protocol for the use of marijuana in migraine sufferers that was approved by the FDA but didn't take place because the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) refused to provide the marijuana."
Funny that, eh?
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Wanna hear something depressing? One out of four Shroomerites wants to lock me in a government cage for using a substance they don't like.
Hard to believe, right? Read it for yourself:
http://www.shroomery.org/forums/showflat.php/Number/7874721#Post7874721
Edited by Diploid (12/12/05 07:38 PM)
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veggie
Registered: 07/25/04
Posts: 13,985
Loc:
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Re: Federal Marijuana Monopoly Challenged [Re: veggie]
#5080264 - 12/18/05 09:24 PM (6 years, 5 months ago) |
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Marijuana research a long strange trip
December 19, 2005 - masslive.com - Editorial
Lyle E. Craker, a plant and soil sciences professor at the University of Massachusetts in Amherst, applied to the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration for a permit to grow marijuana in 2001.
What a long, strange trip it's been.
First, the DEA told Craker that it had lost his application. Next, it told him that he did not fill out the forms correctly. And then it dispatched two DEA agents to the Amherst campus to discourage the university.
The DEA took no action on the application for almost three years, until a federal court ordered the agency to respond to Craker's application.
In December 2004, it finally rejected his application because, in part, DEA officials believe it could lead to greater illicit use of marijuana.
As we've noted in this space in the past, it cannot be easy for the federal government to admit that there might be some medicinal use of marijuana after it has been waging an unsuccessful war against marijuana and other illicit drugs for several decades.
Craker, director of the medicinal plant program in the Department of Plant, Soil and Insect Sciences on the Amherst campus, wants a license to grow marijuana for scientific research.
His appeal of the DEA decision was heard last week by an administrative law judge at the ... DEA.
For the record, the DEA lists marijuana as the most frequently abused illicit drug in America, so it would appear that Craker and his supporters still face an uphill battle.
Craker should be allowed to participate in scientific study without government obstruction, whether he is researching goldenseal or marijuana. The administrative law judge should recommend that the DEA approve his application on the basis that his work might benefit the public.
For decades, researchers have known that marijuana relieves pain and nausea associated with cancer, multiple sclerosis, AIDS and other serious illnesses. Yet, because marijuana is still listed as a Schedule 1 drug under the Controlled Substances Act, a dangerous drug with no medicinal use, the DEA blocks study by a qualified researcher that might lead to its wider use as a safe, effective and affordable drug.
It sounds like the DEA is blowing a lot of smoke.
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Diploid
Cuban
Registered: 01/09/03
Posts: 14,201
Loc: Rabbit Hole
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Current Restrictions On Marijuana Research Are Absurd [Re: veggie]
#5081579 - 12/19/05 10:52 AM (6 years, 5 months ago) |
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http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?article...am&chanID=sa004
Current Restrictions On Marijuana Research Are Absurd
By The Editors of Scientific American
The human brain naturally produces and processes compounds closely related to those found in Cannabis sativa, better known as marijuana [see "The Brain's Own Marijuana," by Roger A. Nicoll and Bradley E. Alger. These compounds are called endogenous cannabinoids or endocannabinoids. As the journal Nature Medicine put it in 2003, "the endocannabinoid system has an important role in nearly every paradigm of pain, in memory, in neurodegeneration and in inflammation." The journal goes on to note that cannabinoids' "clinical potential is enormous." That potential may include treatments for pain, nerve injury, the nausea associated with chemotherapy, the wasting related to AIDS and more.
Yet outdated regulations and attitudes thwart legitimate research with marijuana. Indeed, American biomedical researchers can more easily acquire and investigate cocaine. Marijuana is classified as a so-called Schedule 1 drug, alongside LSD and heroin. As such, it is defined as being potentially addictive and having no medical use, which under the circumstances becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.
Any researcher attempting to study marijuana must obtain it through the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA). The U.S. research crop, grown at a single facility, is regarded as less potent--and therefore less medicinally interesting--than the marijuana often easily available on the street. Thus, the legal supply is a poor vehicle for studying the approximately 60 cannabinoids that might have medical applications.
This system has unintended, almost comic, consequences. For example, it has created a market for research marijuana, with "buyers" trading journal co-authorships to "sellers" who already have a marijuana stockpile or license. The government may also have a stake in a certain kind of result. One scientist tells of a research grant application to study marijuana's potential medical benefits. NIDA turned it down. That scientist rewrote the grant to emphasize finding marijuana's negative effects. The study was funded.
Some may argue that researchers do not need to study the drug--after all, there is Marinol, a synthetic version of marijuana's major active compound, tetrahydrocannabinol, or THC; it relieves nausea and stimulates appetite. But patients are often disappointed with Marinol as compared with marijuana. A 1997 editorial in the New England Journal of Medicine noted that "it is difficult to titrate the therapeutic dose of this drug, and it is not widely prescribed. By contrast, smoking marijuana produces a rapid increase in the blood level of the active ingredients and is thus more likely to be therapeutic." The reasonable course is to make it easier for American researchers to at least examine marijuana for possible medical benefits. Great Britain, no slacker in the war on drugs, takes this approach: the government has authorized a pharmaceutical firm to grow different strains of marijuana for clinical trials.
This call for marijuana research is not a closet campaign for drug legalization--easing research barriers would not require that marijuana be reclassified, nor would it have any bearing on individual states' decisions to approve limited use of medical marijuana. As a 1995 editorial in the Journal of the American Medical Association said, "We are not asking readers for immediate agreement with our affirmation that marijuana is medically useful, but we hope they will do more to encourage open and legal exploration of its potential." After almost a decade of little progress, we reiterate that sentiment.
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Wanna hear something depressing? One out of four Shroomerites wants to lock me in a government cage for using a substance they don't like.
Hard to believe, right? Read it for yourself:
http://www.shroomery.org/forums/showflat.php/Number/7874721#Post7874721
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 ShroomArtist84
Stranger
Registered: 08/09/05
Posts: 2,414
Last seen: 6 years, 3 months
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Re: Current Restrictions On Marijuana Research Are Absurd [Re: Diploid]
#5082091 - 12/19/05 01:15 PM (6 years, 5 months ago) |
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fucking bullshit.
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No matter what I say and no matter what I write here.
I'm sick of always looking at this page with a blank stare.
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