Pubdate: Tue, 24 Jun 2014
Source: News Journal, The (Wilmington, DE)
Copyright: 2014 The News Journal
Contact: http://drugsense.org/url/1c6Xgdq3
Website: http://www.delawareonline.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/822
Author: Anna Edney
Page: 6
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/find?253
(Cannabis - Medicinal - United States)

LAWS MAKE STUDYING MARIJUANA DIFFICULT

The only marijuana available for research in the U.S. is locked down 
by federal regulators who are more focused on studies to keep people 
off the drug than helping researchers learn how it might be beneficial.

Marijuana is a trend that "will peak like tobacco then people will 
see their error," said Nora Volkow, director of the National 
Institute on Drug Abuse, which serves as the gatekeeper for U.S. 
marijuana research through its oversight of a pot farm that grows the 
only plants that can be used in clinical trials.

Meanwhile, marijuana advocates say NIDA's control over research has 
made almost impossible their ability to test the drug against 
ailments such as pain, cancer-related nausea and epilepsy.

The federal researchers aren't "set up to study potential medical 
benefits, so it's inappropriate for NIDA to have a monopoly on 
supply," said Dan Riffle, director of federal policies at the 
Marijuana Policy Project, a Washington-based group that lobbies to 
change marijuana laws.

Twenty-two states have approved medical marijuana use, two allow 
recreational use and the House of Representatives voted May 30 to 
block the Justice Department from interfering with state medical 
marijuana laws. Rep. John Mica, a Florida Republican, will lead an 
oversight hearing Friday in Washington on pot research as part of an 
examination of changing societal attitudes about the drug.

NIDA contracts with the University of Mississippi to grow the only 
pot that researchers in the U.S. can use in studies. To obtain the 
product, scientists must be working on an NIH-funded project or pass 
review by a Department of Health and Human Services panel.

Groups like the Marijuana Policy Project and the Multidisciplinary 
Association for Psychedelic Studies are pushing for the Drug 
Enforcement Administration to grant additional licenses to grow 
research marijuana.
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom