RUTGERS REFUSAL TO GROW CANNABIS IS NO SURPRISE

In response to your featured letter on Aug. 10 about Rutgers
University's decision not to grow medical cannabis, it amazes me that
a member of law enforcement could be "shocked" by that decision.

Does anyone believe that the federal government wouldn't yank millions
in funding from an institution that is very publicly breaking a
federal law?

Just ask Professor Lyle Craker, a horticulture professor at the
University of Massachusetts-Amherst, how hard it is to get the Drug
Enforcement Administration's permission to grow cannabis for medical
research.

He applied in June 2001 and the DEA has given him the runaround all
these years until he was finally denied; even after DEA Administrative
Law Judge Mary Ellen Bittner ruled in 2007 that it is in the public
interest for the DEA to license Craker to grow marijuana under
contract for the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies.

The National Institute on Drug Abuse has a monopoly on the supply of
cannabis for use in clinical research and uses that monopoly to
obstruct privately funded studies into the potential beneficial uses
of cannabis.

Gov. Chris Christie's Rutgers idea is a blatant stall tactic in hopes
of keeping medical cannabis out of New Jersey. He is denying the
people of this state the opportunity to create jobs and tax revenue.

Jennifer O'Keefe

BRICK