The DEA Says No to Pot Privatization

Last week the DEA officially rejected a three-and-a-half-year-old application by University of Massachusetts plant scientist Lyle Craker for a license to manufacture marijuana. Craker's application was part of an attempt by the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies to establish a private, alternative source of marijuana for medical research. Currently the only legal source is the National Institute on Drug Abuse, which is stingy with its stash, does not supply the potency preferred for medical studies, and probably could not provide the raw material for commercial development of a cannabis-based medicine.

"In the Supreme Court two weeks ago," notes the Marijuana Policy Project's Rob Kampia, "Justice Breyer told two California patients that they should go to the FDA to get marijuana approved as a medicine, but now the DEA has slammed the door on that process. The DEA has proven that the system is rigged to make sure that marijuana will never be approved by the FDA, because the DEA can always block the research that the FDA needs."