The government on Thursday will refuse again to allow the use of marijuana for medical purposes, reaffirming its conclusion that the drug's therapeutic value has not been proved scientifically, according to government officials, and defying a growing clamor to legalize it for the treatment of a variety of conditions. In an announcement scheduled to be in the Federal Register, the Drug Enforcement Administration will turn down requests to remove marijuana from "Schedule I," which classifies it as a drug with "no currently accepted medical use" in the United States and bars doctors from prescribing it. [continues 759 words]
This is the time of year parents start worrying about back-to-school stuff. For those with college-age kids who will soon go off to live by themselves, there's an extra bit of preparation to think about. You may not realize it, but police departments across the country, especially those near colleges and universities, often "flip" students caught with even a tiny amount of marijuana and recruit them into the ranks of "confidential informant." [continues 712 words]
At the same time Californians are preparing to vote on the legalization of adult marijuana use, the federal government is weighing whether pot should continue to be classified as a top-tier narcotic on par with heroin. Within a month, the Drug Enforcement Administration is expected to release a much-anticipated decision that could alter cannabis' ranking in the hierarchy of controlled substances - a formal listing that affects everything from medical research to taxing policy. Since the list was created in 1970, marijuana has been ranked in Schedule I - the most restrictive category - alongside heroin, LSD and peyote. The designation is reserved for drugs the DEA says have no proven medical use and are highly addictive. [continues 1204 words]
Hold Your Horses, Rescheduling Weed Isn't Happening Just Yet HEY, YOU GUYS, did you hear? The federal government is about to make weed legal. No, for reals, I saw it on Facebook, the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) is going to totally make it so doctors have to give it to you, for free! Thanks Obama! I'm gonna make my doctor give me an ounce next week! Before you start demanding that your podiatrist procure you some shatter, maybe we should do what Americans sort of suck at-taking a pause and examining what's really up. [continues 634 words]
Washington, D.C. - Rep. Sam Farr, D-Carmel, plans on introducing a bipartisan, bicameral bill this week that would make it easier for researchers to study marijuana. "This bill is about helping people," Farr said in a press release. "As more states pass their own medical marijuana laws, it's time for Congress to reexamine federal policy. This bill does just that by supporting research so policy decisions about the role of medical marijuana are based on science and facts instead of rhetoric." [continues 395 words]
EDITOR'S NOTE: Legalizing recreational marijuana is being seriously considered in New Jersey. The most recent Rutgers-Eagleton poll shows public support for legalizing recreational marijuana in New Jersey is 58 percent -- the highest it's ever been -- with 39 percent opposed. Although Gov. Chris Christie has said he would not sign a bill legalizing recreational marijuana, both the state Senate and Assembly are working on legislation. This is the second in a three-part series that will explore the issue of legalizing recreational marijuana and its potential effects on Sussex County and the surrounding area. The series will look at the economic, public health and criminal justice impact legalization could have. [continues 2557 words]
BATON ROUGE -- Growing up on a cotton farm in Missouri in the 1950s, Bill Richardson didn't know a thing about marijuana. Nobody talked about it, he never saw it and he certainly never smoked it. "I didn't inhale," Richardson, LSU's 71-year-old vice president for agriculture and dean of the College of Agriculture, said with a smile in a recent interview. Richardson has become the unlikely leader of an effort to get LSU into the pot business. [continues 1125 words]
In the latest sign that the federal Justice Department is waving the white flag in the war on cannabis, federal prosecutors have agreed to drop a nearly four-year-long effort to shut down Oakland-based mega-dispensary Harborside Health Center, the dispensary announced Tuesday. Harborside, by reputation and by self-declaration the biggest seller of medical cannabis in the world, seemed to be skating through a short-lived and somewhat half-hearted crackdown on California medical cannabis sellers - a pushback that began in 2011, and eventually closed one-third of the legal cannabis sellers in San Francisco - until just before the Fourth of July in 2012, when federal prosecutors filed suit to seize the Oakland Embarcadero property that houses the dispensary. [continues 795 words]
Cannabis Helps with PTSD, and So Can You I'M A BIG SUPPORTER of allowing armed forces veterans access to cannabis-seeing as how I'm a huge wussy who wouldn't have made it through three hours of basic training, much less full-on combat. I have enough trouble fighting off a cold. Recently it seems hell may have frozen over, as the Drug Enforcement Administration has authorized a study to see how the use of smoking cannabis can treat post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). It's the first clinical study on PTSD to use cannabis in its raw, smokeable form. [continues 592 words]
The federal government says it's reviewing marijuana's status as a Schedule 1 drug, a move that - regardless of what you think about the drug - is long overdue. The U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency made the announcement in a memo to lawmakers and said it hopes to have a decision ready sometime in the first half of this year. Marijuana has long been classified as a Schedule 1 drug, but the classification is as ludicrous today as it was back in the day. The Schedule 1 category is for substances which are not considered to have "any currently accepted medical use in the U.S., a lack of accepted safety for use under medical supervision and a high potential for abuse." By point of comparison, heroin also is a Schedule 1 drug. [continues 425 words]
WHO LIKES POT NEWS? We like pot news! Come get some pot news before it gets cold... DEA to Reschedule Cannabis... Maybe-Do you need another reason to love Elizabeth Warren? Okay, here's one. Because of a letter the Massachusetts senator wrote in July 2015 asking the government to "facilitate scientific research on the potential health benefits of marijuana"-which was signed by not one but two Oregon senators, Jeff Merkley and Ron Wyden-the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) has announced they will decide by July if they plan to reschedule cannabis. The government has five different designated categories, or schedules, of drugs, and cannabis has always been listed as a Schedule I drug along with heroin and LSD, all of which are considered as having "no currently accepted medical use" and a "high potential for abuse." This current designation for weed has about as much credibility as a 1981 Afterschool Special called Timmy Shot Up Some Marijuana, Turned Gay, and Died. [continues 596 words]
A state task force has recommended that Oregon create an independent institute for research into the medical uses of marijuana. The reasons for doing so are sound, and lawmakers should follow the recommendation. But not right away. The task force, created by the 2015 Legislature under the auspices of the Oregon Health Authority, issued its report Monday. The report recommends creating the Oregon Institute for Cannabis Research. The institute would conduct studies both within the university system and outside it, and would raise private funds as well as relying on a dedicate source of state funding. [continues 266 words]
TUSCALOOSA, Ala. - Ryan never imagined he would one day be a snitch. The soft-spoken University of Alabama student was watching a movie with a couple of friends at his off-campus house in Tuscaloosa one evening in late 2012 when a team of plainclothes West Alabama Narcotics Task Force officers knocked on his door. They were there to serve a warrant to search his home, as he had been outed as a drug dealer by a friend and fellow UA student the task force had "turned" and used as a confidential informant. Little did Ryan know, he would soon be turning on his own friends at the university. [continues 1517 words]
Experts Want More Data on Effects of Medical Marijuana Even though Maryland is following the lead of 23 other states in setting up a medical marijuana industry, the collective experience of those states has translated to relatively little understanding of how the dozens of active substances within the plant affect health. As a result, Maryland will launch what likely will become a multimillion-dollar industry to make a psychoactive drug more available statewide without the benefit of proven information about the health implications. [continues 1288 words]
Part 2: GOVERNMENT FUNDING, LACK OF RESTRICTIONS SLOW PROGRESS ON MEDICAL MARIJUANA RESEARCH Responding to questions about research spending, Mahmoud ElSohly, the director of NIDA's marijuana program, said that NIDA's job is to fund abuse and addiction research and that other NIH branches should be funding other kinds of research. "It's not that NIDA would take it upon itself to investigate the medical aspects of cannabis," ElSohly said. "It's not the charge of NIDA. It's the charge of other institutes within the NIH to investigate the use of cannabis." [continues 1090 words]
Obtaining Marijuana to Test Its Medical Properties Can Be a Long Process. Research on marijuana's potential for medicinal use has been hampered for years by federal restrictions, though nearly half the states and the District of Columbia have legalized the drug in some form. An analysis by News21 shows that $1.1 billion of the $1.4 billion that the National Institutes of Health spent on marijuana research from 2008 to 2014 went to studies on marijuana abuse and addiction. Only $297 million was spent on its effects on the brain and potential medical benefits for those suffering from conditions like chronic pain. [continues 1149 words]
KANSAS CITY, Mo. Certain chemicals in marijuana may kill cancer cells, shrink tumors and prevent the formation of blood vessels that feed tumors. That's the National Cancer Institute reporting findings from preclinical trials - the kind of research that typically leads to more in-depth testing. But nearly a half-century ago the folks who write the checks for the cancer institute - the U.S. government - proclaimed marijuana a stoner-only drug and stamped it Schedule I, lumping it with heroin and LSD. That early war-on-drugs salvo cut the world's biggest funder out of medical marijuana research. [continues 1082 words]
Yasmin Hurd raises rats on the Upper East Side of Manhattan that will blow your mind. Though they look normal, their lives are anything but, and not just because of the pricey real estate they call home on the 10th floor of a research building near Mount Sinai Hospital. For skeptics of the movement to legalize marijuana, the rodents are canaries in the drug-policy coal mine. For defenders of legalization, they are curiosities. But no one doubts that something is happening in the creatures' trippy little brains. [continues 3003 words]
Beijing Turns Blind Eye to Chemists Whose Drugs Mimic Banned Substances At midnight in a Shanghai laboratory, a Chinese chemist who called himself Terry was eager to close the deal. In the lab itself, a bright yellow liquid whirred around in a flask, an intense smell of fumes leaving a bitter aftertaste. "Let's just be quick," he shouted. "Tell me what you want, how much you want, then we can talk about price, we can talk about shipment." "Terry" is not the only rogue Shanghai chemist looking to make a living from the surging global trade in "legal highs". China has long been the workshop of the world, for everything from iPhones to Christmas tree lights. So it was only a matter of time, perhaps, before it filled the same role for drugs, churning out huge quantities of the synthesised products for recreational use in clubs and streets across the western world. [continues 1069 words]
Think maple syrup spread across a sheet pan and hardened. Or a thin crepe made of brittle amber resin. Smash it into tiny shards, drop a piece in a pipe, and what have you got? "Shatter." It's the hot new smokable marijuana concentrate, and it's guaranteed to keep you high all day, so high in fact that it's sending freaked-outkids to emergency rooms across the country, mostly in Western states. But that shouldn't be for long. Drugs have an annoying habit of drifting eastward in America. [continues 596 words]
Colorado Asks Federal Agencies to Let Its State Universities Grow Their Own Pot - Just for Purposes of Study. DENVER - After years of trying to stamp out marijuana use on college campuses, Colorado officials are now asking the federal government to allow its state universities to grow their own pot. The reason, they say, is that the legalization of the drug here has raised questions about its health effects, questions that can be answered only by studying large amounts and different strains of marijuana. [continues 484 words]
8 Grant Recipients to Look at Marijuana As a Medicine Instead of As a Danger DENVER (AP) - Colorado will spend more than $8 million researching marijuana's medical potential - a new frontier because government-funded marijuana research traditionally focuses on the drug's negative health effects. The grants awarded by the Colorado Board of Health will go to studies on whether marijuana helps treat epilepsy, brain tumors, Parkinson's disease and post-traumatic stress disorder. Some of the studies still need federal approval. [continues 598 words]
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." [continues 456 words]
DENVER (AP) - Colorado will spend more than $8 million researching marijuana's medical potential - a new frontier because government-funded marijuana research traditionally focuses on the drug's negative health effects. The grants awarded by the Colorado Board of Health will go to studies on whether marijuana helps treat epilepsy, brain tumors, Parkinson's disease and post-traumatic stress disorder. Some of the studies still need federal approval. Though the awards are relatively small, researchers say they're a big step forward. While several other federal studies currently in the works look at marijuana's health effects, all the Colorado studies are focused on whether marijuana actually helps. [continues 564 words]
DENVER (AP) - Colorado will spend more than $8 million researching marijuana's medical potential - a new frontier because government-funded marijuana research traditionally focuses on the drug's negative health effects. The grants awarded by the Colorado Board of Health will go to studies on whether marijuana helps treat epilepsy, brain tumors, Parkinson's disease and post-traumatic stress disorder. Some of the studies still need federal approval. Though the awards are relatively small, researchers say they're a big step forward. While several other federal studies currently in the works look at marijuana's health effects, all the Colorado studies are focused on whether marijuana actually helps. [continues 373 words]
DENVER (AP) - Colorado will spend more than $8 million researching marijuana's medical potential - a new frontier because government-funded marijuana research traditionally focuses on the drug's negative health effects. The grants awarded by the Colorado Board of Health will go to studies on whether marijuana helps treat epilepsy, brain tumors, Parkinson's disease and post-traumatic stress disorder. Some of the studies still need federal approval. Though the awards are relatively small, researchers say they're a big step forward. While several other federal studies in the works look at marijuana's health effects, all of the Colorado studies are focused on whether marijuana actually helps. [continues 263 words]
Voters Decide Tuesday If Medical Marijuana Will Be Legal in Florida. In study after study, scientists have scrutinized medical marijuana and found promising - if inconclusive - results. Smoking pot helped patients with AIDS and Parkinson's disease, according to studies in California and Israel. In a separate experiment nearly a decade ago, Scripps Research Institute scientists found THC might halt the progress of Alzheimer's disease. Those are among the studies by reputable researchers that have played up pot's potential. But because cannabis is an illegal drug, the research has yet to reach the level of rigor required for many doctors to fully endorse weed as a pharmaceutical-grade therapy. [continues 991 words]
In 1999, I was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis. Sixteen years later, I can honestly say not a single second of my life has gone by where I have been unaware of my disease. Because of my condition, I experience neuropathic pain 24 hours a day, have battled severe depression and experienced intense periods of suicidal ideation. Although multiple sclerosis has changed nearly every aspect of my life, I've never let it control or define who I am. I work every day to beat this disease through a rigorous exercise regimen, strict diet and physical therapy. [continues 601 words]
The tin canister that Irvin Rosenfeld picks up every month, filled to the brim with 300 marijuana cigarettes, is not something he tries to hide. In fact, the 61-year-old Portsmouth native encourages a look, because he's got papers. Rolling papers, sure, but legal ones, too. They show that the federal government not only approved his use of pot, but grows it for him at the University of Mississippi. The feds have been doing that for 32 years now, providing him 10 marijuana cigarettes a day to ease pain. [continues 1014 words]
The U.S. government has increased the quantity of marijuana it's growing this year to more than 1,400 pounds from the originally planned 46. The federal government classifies marijuana as a substance that has no medical use and is more dangerous than cocaine. But it's willing to let researchers have access - under a few conditions. One condition is that each project needs approval from the Drug Enforcement Administration. Another is that researchers get the substance from a particular source: the federal government. [continues 113 words]
The U.S. government has upped the quantity of marijuana it's growing this year, to more than 1,400 pounds from the originally planned 46. The federal government classifies marijuana as a substance that has no medical use and is more dangerous than cocaine. But it's willing to let researchers have access - under a few conditions. One condition is that each project needs approval from the Drug Enforcement Administration. Another is that researchers get the substance from a particular source: the federal government. [continues 167 words]
Re: Medical Use of marijuana requires more research | Aug 14, column As a pharmacist, I wonder why there is negaA-tivity against marijuana or cannabis to the point where some want to prevent its use medically. The U.S. Drug Enforcement AdministraA-tion continues to classify marijuana as a SchedA-ule I controlled substance along with cocaine and heroin. This classification means it is very addicting and has no medical use. But recent findings show it has had benefit in some childA-hood seizures. [continues 125 words]
Nearly four years ago, Dr. Sue Sisley, a psychiatrist at the University of Arizona, sought federal approval to study marijuana's effectiveness in treating military veterans with post-traumatic stress disorder. She had no idea how difficult it would be. The proposal, which has the support of veterans groups, was hung up at several regulatory stages, requiring the research's private sponsor to resubmit multiple times. After the proposed study received final approval in March from federal health officials, the lone federal supplier of research marijuana said it did not have the strains the study needed and would have to grow more - potentially delaying the project until at least early next year. [continues 1490 words]
WASHINGTON, D.C. - Spurred by the recent Interior Department decision to block the use of federal irrigation water to cultivate marijuana, the four U.S. senators from Washington and Colorado want the White House to direct federal agencies to adopt uniform guidelines impacting recreational pot. In a letter Monday to White House Chief of Staff Denis McDonough and U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder, the lawmakers said the water ruling conflicts with earlier guidelines issued by the Justice and Treasury departments that seek to enforce the federal ban on marijuana only selectively. [continues 392 words]
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. [continues 216 words]
Some Medical Marijuana Isn't What It's Supposed to Be SEATTLE - Jessica Tonani, a Seattle biotech executive, has what she calls a "broken stomach." Put politely, she doesn't digest food properly, which can cause vomiting, nausea and severe weight loss. She's had multiple surgeries, tried all the recommended treatments for her disorder and sits twice weekly for intravenous infusions. Ms. Tonani, 38, decided several years ago to try pot. And it has worked for her, she said, especially strains low in the psychedelic chemical THC and high in the nonpsychoactive ingredient cannabidiol, known as CBD. [continues 499 words]
During the last 32 years, stockbroker Irvin Rosenfeld has smoked 130,000 marijuana cigarettes - with the federal government's blessing. As jaws dropped in a Harrisburg legislative chamber filled with state senators, Rosenfeld made the remark Tuesday and then held up a silver canister containing 300 pre-rolled joints, a month's supply. He continues to receive the canisters from a government-authorized farm in Mississippi to help treat a rare bone-tumor disorder. This despite the drug's classification by the Drug Enforcement Administration as a top-tier hazardous substance with no medicinal value. [continues 665 words]
OXFORD, Miss. - Walk along the narrow, brightly lit beige hallway, along the washed-out linoleum floor, around the corner to the imposing steel vault. As a scientist swings open the door, a familiar, overpowering scent wafts out. Inside, marijuana buds are packed into thousands of baggies filed in bankers boxes. Fifty-pound barrels are brimming with dried, ready-to-smoke weed. Freezers are stocked with buckets of potent cannabis extracts. Large metal canisters sit, crammed full of hundreds of perfectly rolled joints. [continues 764 words]
SEATTLE - Jessica Tonani, a Seattle biotech executive, has what she calls a "broken stomach." Put politely, she doesn't digest food properly, which can cause vomiting, nausea and severe weight loss. She's had multiple surgeries, tried all the recommended treatments for her disorder and sits twice weekly for intravenous infusions. Tonani, 38, decided several years ago to try pot. And it has worked for her, she said, especially strains low in the psychedelic chemical THC and high in the non-psychoactive ingredient cannabidiol, known as CBD. [continues 739 words]
Public Opinion Shifting in Favor of Marijuana, but Its Therapeutic Benefits Are Unclear With San Diego set to grant 36 new permits for medical marijuana dispensaries this year, the drug is about to become more legitimate than ever in the city. Does that mean cannabis is good medicine? Only solid science can prove what human ailments the green, leafy plant can truly soothe, but science has never been in the driver's seat as far as marijuana is concerned. Californians approved the Compassionate Use Act in 1996, giving doctors broad leeway to prescribe the drug if they determine "that a person's health would benefit from the use of marijuana in the treatment of cancer, anorexia, AIDS, chronic pain, spasticity, glaucoma, arthritis, migraine or any other illness for which marijuana provides relief." [continues 1517 words]
Getting at University's Stockpile Is a Complicated Process for Medical Researchers and Legalization Activists OXFORD, Miss. - Walk along the narrow, brightly lit beige hallway, along the washedout linoleum floor, around the corner to the imposing steel vault. As a scientist swings open the door, a familiar, overpowering scent wafts out. Inside, marijuana buds are packed into thousands of baggies filed in bankers boxes. Fifty-pound barrels are brimming with dried, ready-to-smoke weed. Freezers are stocked with buckets of potent cannabis extracts. Large metal canisters sit, crammed full of hundreds of perfectly rolled joints. [continues 770 words]
Testing Shows That Some Marijuana Strains Aren't What They Purport to Be. That's Particularly Worrisome for Patients Who Don't Want to Be Stoned at Work or Behind the Wheel. Jessica Tonani, a Seattle biotech executive, has what she calls a "broken stomach." Put politely, she doesn't digest food properly, which can cause vomiting, nausea and severe weight loss. She's had multiple surgeries, tried all the recommended treatments for her disorder and sits twice weekly for intravenous infusions. [continues 1468 words]
Pot May Be Far Less Risky Than Highly Addictive Drugs, but It's Not Harmless Some people think marijuana is nature's gift to humankind: a nonaddictive drug, safe at any dose, that opens the mind, lifts the spirit and transports the user to a more profound reality. "The illegality of cannabis is outrageous, an impediment to full utilization of a drug which helps produce the serenity and insight, sensitivity and fellowship so desperately needed in this increasingly mad and dangerous world," a user named Mr. X wrote in the 1971 book Marihuana Reconsidered. [continues 2643 words]
The Government's Stockpile of Marijuana for Research Is Impressive, and Controversial OXFORD, Miss. - Walk along the narrow, brightly lighted beige hallway, along the washed-out linoleum floor, around the corner to the imposing steel vault. As a scientist swings open the door, a familiar, overpowering scent wafts out. Inside, marijuana buds are packed into thousands of baggies filed in bankers boxes. Fifty-pound barrels are brimming with dried, ready-to-smoke weed. Freezers are stocked with buckets of potent cannabis extracts. Large metal canisters are crammed full of hundreds of perfectly rolled joints. [continues 1106 words]
They Don't Cover the Treatment, Which Costs As Much As $1,000 a Month. Patients who use medical marijuana for pain and other chronic symptoms can take an unwanted hit: Insurers don't cover the treatment, which costs as much as $1,000 a month. Marijuana in recent years has gained increased mainstream acceptance for its ability to boost appetite, dull pain and reduce seizures in people with a wide range of disorders and diseases, including epilepsy and cancer. Still, insurers are reluctant to cover it, in part because of conflicting laws. Although 21 U.S. states have approved it for medical use, the drug still is outlawed by the federal government and most states. [continues 782 words]
MINNEAPOLIS A year ago, University of Minnesota researchers received a $9.5 million grant from the National Institutes of Health to study pain in patients with sickle cell disease. Normally, such an award would quickly launch a study, but lead researcher Kalpna Gupta is still waiting on a critical part of the research and moved the work to California to speed the process. Gupta wants to see whether medical marijuana can treat pain. Completing such a study involves so much red tape that Gupta has decided to collaborate with researchers in San Francisco who have experience threading the bureaucratic needle. [continues 1038 words]
(AP) - Patients who use medical marijuana for pain and other chronic symptoms are taking an unwanted hit: Insurers don't cover the treatment, which costs as much as $1,000 a month. Once the drug of choice for hippies and rebellious teens, marijuana in recent years has gained more mainstream acceptance for its ability to boost appetite, dull pain and reduce seizures in everyone from epilepsy to cancer patients. Still, insurers are reluctant to cover it, in part because of conflicting laws. While 21 U.S. states have passed laws approving it for medical use, the drug still is illegal federally and in most states. [continues 672 words]
The federal government is going to grow a whole lot more weed. Call it supply and demand. The Drug Enforcement Administration has approved an increase in the government's research marijuana quota from 21 kilograms to 650 kilograms this year. With 21 states and the District having legalized the drug for medicinal needs, and two states allowing it for recreational use, the demand for research has mushroomed. "The aggregate production quota for marijuana should be increased in order to provide a continuous and uninterrupted supply of marijuana in support of DEA-registered researchers who are approved by the Federal Government to utilize marijuana in their research protocols," according to a Federal Register report published Monday. [continues 816 words]
Millions of ordinary Americans are now able to walk into a marijuana dispensary and purchase bags of pot on the spot for a variety of medical ailments. But if you're a researcher like Sue Sisley, a psychiatrist who studies post-traumatic stress disorder, getting access to the drug isn't nearly so easy. That's because the federal government has a virtual monopoly on growing and cultivating marijuana for scientific research, and getting access to the drug requires three separate levels of approval. [continues 772 words]
Mississippi Gov. Phil Bryant has signed a bill to legalize a marijuana extract to be used as medicine under tightly controlled circumstances. House Bill 1231 becomes law July 1. Republican Bryant says he signed it Thursday, only after Bureau of Narcotics officials assured him the oil can't be used to produce a high. The medicine is used to reduce seizures in children with epilepsy. It would be available by prescription and dispensed through a University of Mississippi Medical Center pharmacy. The medical center would obtain its supply from the University of Mississippi's National Center for Natural Products Research in Oxford. That center grows marijuana for medical research sponsored by the National Institute on Drug Abuse. Bryant says he opposes any other attempt to legalize marijuana or products from it. [end]
