WASHINGTON - Medical marijuana advocates issued a

report today aimed at drawing attention to the federal government's

monopoly on the production of marijuana for medical research. The

14-page report, entitled "Obstruction of Medical Cannabis Research in

the U.S.," highlights the federal effort to impede therapeutic research

on marijuana and exposes a conflict of interest for University of

Mississippi professor Mahmoud ElSohly, who holds an exclusive

cultivation license issued by the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA).

Americans for Safe Access (ASA), the national medical marijuana

advocacy group that issued the report, draws attention to the ways in

which the federal monopoly impedes meaningful research and points to

the need for a new policy that can be implemented under the Obama

Administration. "In the United States, research is stalled," said Caren

Woodson, ASA's Government Affairs Director. "And, in some cases,

research is blocked by a complicated federal approval process, which

restricts access to research-grade marijuana."

Specifically, the report emphasizes the way in which government

agencies -- namely the DEA and the National Institute on Drug Abuse

(NIDA) -- selectively delay the process by which researchers obtain

marijuana for FDA-approved studies. The report also highlights a

federal "double standard" on medical marijuana illustrated by testimony

from public officials who concede to marijuana's therapeutic efficacy

as long as it is produced in pill.

The report also emphasizes a 2007 ruling by the DEA's own

Administrative Law Judge Mary Ellen Bittner that "the existing supply

of marijuana [for research] is not adequate" and that an expansion of

such research is "in the public interest." Judge Bittner's

recommendations were in response to an application by University of

Massachusetts at Amherst professor Lyle Craker to be another cultivator

of marijuana for FDA-approved studies. The application was denied by

the DEA in the final weeks of the Bush Administration and is currently

being appealed. In March 2009, the Los Angeles Times editorialized

that, "The attorney general (Holder) should heed calls to end the DEA's

obstruction of serious research into the medicinal value of marijuana."

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Perhaps most alarming is the report's exposure of the federal license

that enables professor ElSohly to exclusively produce marijuana for the

pharmaceutical company Mallinckrodt, a subsidiary of Tyco

International. This arrangement appears to be for the purpose of

bringing to market a generic form of Marinol (a pill of THC, the active

compound in marijuana, suspended in oil) due to go off-patent in 2011,

thereby directly enriching ElSohly at a price that he and/or the

federal government sets. To enable this scheme, the U.S. government has

requested the United Nations increase a quota (from past years) for

marijuana production by 900 percent. The request to increase federal

marijuana production is a requirement of the U.N. Single Convention on

Narcotic Drugs.

Recommendations outlined in the report include, implementation of Judge

Bittner's 2007 recommendations, streamlining the approval process for

obtaining research-grade marijuana, and ultimately a removal of

marijuana from the list of Schedule I substances, so that it can be

made available to all who would benefit from its therapeutic

properties. "The current research challenge is to conduct large-scale

human clinical trials that evaluate the remarkable range of potential

applications for cannabis-based treatments to specific medical

conditions," continued Woodson.

Further information:



ASA report on the obstruction of medical cannabis research in the

US:

http://AmericansForSafeAccess. org/downloads/Research_ Obstruction_Report.pdf

DEA Administrative Law Judge Bittner 2007 ruling:

http://www.maps.org/ ALJfindings.pdf

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