Pubdate: Fri, 02 Jan 2015
Source: Denver Post (CO)
Copyright: 2015 The Denver Post Corp
Contact:  http://www.denverpost.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/122
Author: John Ingold

A SHOT TO SOW POT SOUGHT

Colorado's Attorney General Asks Federal Officials to Give the 
State's Higher-Ed Schools Permission to Grow Grass.

Colorado has made an unusual plea to federal authorities: Let our 
colleges grow pot.

In a letter sent last month, the state attorney general's office asks 
federal health and education officials for permission for Colorado's 
colleges and universities to "obtain marijuana from non-federal 
government sources" for research purposes.

The letter isn't more specific on how the state's higher-education 
institutions might score weed. But it was sent pursuant to a law 
passed in 2014 requiring state officials to ask that Colorado 
colleges and universities be allowed "to cultivate marijuana and its 
component parts."

"Current research is riddled with bias or insufficiencies and often 
conflict with one another," reads the letter, written by deputy 
attorney general David Blake. "It is critical that we be allowed to 
fill the void of scientific research, and this may only be done with 
your assistance and cooperation." The request is a longshot. While 
marijuana is, with qualifications, legal in Colorado, it remains 
illegal under federal law, and getting permission to conduct research 
on cannabis requires clearing a set of high hurdles - approval from 
multiple federal agencies and strict requirements on how marijuana 
must be handled and stored. Researchers that work without the federal 
government's blessing risk losing crucial federal funding for their 
institutions, not to mention possible imprisonment.

An international treaty that the United States signed onto requires 
the federal government to designate only one place in the country 
that can legally grow marijuana for research. Since 1968, that place 
has been the University of Mississippi's National Center for Natural 
Products Research, which cultivates cannabis on a 12-acre plot and 
sends it to approved researchers.

Coincidentally, the National Institute on Drug Abuse recently put the 
government's pot-farm contract up for rebid. Applicants needed to 
have 12 acres of "secured and video-monitored" outdoor space and 
1,000 square feet of indoor space to grow marijuana and to be able to 
make marijuana extractions, test for potency and "prepare, preferably 
by handrolling, a small batch of marijuana cigarettes," according to 
the official solicitation.

The contract's winner is expected to be announced in the next couple 
of months. A spokeswoman for the National Institute on Drug Abuse 
would not say how many institutions applied for the contract or where 
they were.

Spokesmen for the University of Colorado and Colorado State 
University said their schools did not apply.

The Drug Enforcement Administration this year massively increased the 
amount of pot the government's official supplier can grow-from 21 
kilograms to 650 kilograms. The increase was the result of a boom in 
marijuana research interest, and the University of Mississippi has 
pledged to grow new strains of marijuana to give researchers more 
options for their studies.

Still, the Colorado attorney general's letter says the federal 
government falls short of being able to supply researchers with the 
kinds of products available in Colorado's commercial marijuana 
market. State health officials have just approved up to $8.4million 
in grants for marijuana studies, some of which will examine 
Colorado-specific products. But the attorney general's office says 
more needs to be done.

"We need the support of our federal partners to overcome the inertia 
that continues to complicate state efforts in this area," the letter states.
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom