DEA JUDGE SAYS GOVERNMENT NOT GROWING ENOUGH POT

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. While Bittner didn't embrace those
criticisms, she agreed that the system for producing and distributing
research marijuana is flawed.

"Competition in the manufacture of marijuana for research purposes is
inadequate," Bittner determined.

Bittner further concluded that there is "minimal risk of diversion"
from a new marijuana source. Making additional supplies available,
she stated, "would be in the public interest."

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
grass-growing rules will loosen. Both sides can now file further
information before DEA administrators make their ruling.

"We could still be months away from a final decision," DEA spokesman
Garrison Courtney said Tuesday, adding that "obviously, we're going
to take the judge's opinion into consideration."

Still, the ruling is resonating in labs and with civil libertarians.

The "ruling is an important step toward allowing medical marijuana
patients to get their medicine from a pharmacy just like everyone
else," said Allen Hopper, an attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union.

Based in the California seaside town of Santa Cruz, the ACLU'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 research-grade marijuana.

An agronomist with a doctorate from the University of Minnesota,
Craker was asked to grow bulk marijuana by a small, five-member group
called the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies. The
psychedelic studies group wants to research such areas as developing
vaporizers that can efficiently deliver pot smoke.

"This ruling is a victory for science, medicine and the public good,"
Craker said.

Research out 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 "smokescreen,"
and it has remained hostile to Craker's research efforts.