Washington – Medical researchers need more marijuana sources because government supplies aren’t meeting scientific demand, a federal judge has ruled.
In an emphatic but nonbinding opinion, the Drug Enforcement Administration’s own judge is recommending that a University of Massachusetts professor be allowed to grow a legal pot crop. The real winners could be those suffering from painful and wasting diseases, proponents believe.
“The existing supply of marijuana is not adequate,” Administrative Law Judge Mary Ellen Bittner ruled.
The federal government’s 12-acre marijuana plot at the University of Mississippi provides neither the quantity nor quality scientists need, researchers contend.
The DEA isn’t required to follow Bittner’s 88-page opinion, and the Bush administration’s anti-drug stance may make it unlikely that the pot-growing rules will loosen. A decision is still months away, the DEA said.
The American Civil Liberties Union’s Drug Law Reform Project has been representing University of Massachusetts scientist Lyle Craker. Since 2001, Craker has been confronting numerous bureaucratic and legal obstacles in his request for permission to grow marijuana for research in such areas as developing vaporizers that can efficiently deliver pot smoke.
The latest research made public this week indicated that marijuana provided more pain relief for AIDS patients than prescription drugs did.
The Bush administration quickly dismissed those findings as a “smoke screen,” and it has remained hostile to Craker’s research efforts.
