On 5/11/2012, the DEA goes on trial for blocking medical cannabis research

On Friday, May 11, the United States Court of Appeals for the First Circuit in Boston, Mass., will hearoral arguments in a federal lawsuit against the Drug Enforcement Administration for denying Universityof Massachusetts-Amherst Prof. Lyle Craker a license to grow marijuana for privately funded medicalresearch. The arguments are the culmination of nearly 11 years of legal and administrative proceedingsseeking to end the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) monopoly on the supply of marijuana forresearch.The lawsuit is a response to an August 15, 2011, final order issued by the DEA rejecting a DEAAdministrative Law Judge’s 2007 recommendation that it would be in the public interest to grant Crakerthe license. A laboratory at the University of Mississippi funded by the National Institute on Drug Abuseis currently the only facility in the U.S. permitted to grow marijuana for research.Craker is represented in the case by Washington, D.C., law firm Covington & Burling LLP and theAmerican Civil Liberties Union.Craker first applied in June 2001 for a DEA license to start a marijuana production facility at theUniversity of Massachusetts-Amherst under contract to the Multidisciplinary Association for PsychedelicStudies (MAPS), a non-profit research and educational organization whose mission includes developingmarijuana into an FDA-approved prescription medicine. Prior to Craker’s application, NIDA had refusedto sell marijuana to two FDA-approved MAPS-sponsored protocols, preventing them from taking place.In September 2011, NIDA refused to sell marijuana to a third FDA-approved MAPS-sponsored protocol,this one in 50 U.S. veterans with chronic, treatment-resistant posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD),preventing it from taking place. MAPS and Craker are working to open the door for privately funded drugdevelopment studies conducted under FDA regulations.Despite increasingly widespread recognition of marijuana’s therapeutic benefits and formal policies in 17states and the District of Columbia, the federal government still insists that marijuana is a dangerous drugwith no medical value. Even if MAPS and Craker’s efforts to open the door for privately funded,federally regulated non-profit medical marijuana research are successful, it will likely take a decade formarijuana to become an FDA-approved prescription medicine. In the meantime, getting PTSD patientsaccess to the treatments they need will depend on the continuing success of state-based medical marijuanapolicy reform.​

###The Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies (MAPS) is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit research andeducational organization that works with government regulatory agencies to develop whole-plantmarijuana into an FDA-approved prescription medicine.More information is available at​