PROVIDE POT RESEARCH FROM UNBIASED SOURCE

To the editor:

Over and over, the people of Arizona have demonstrated that they want
medical marijuana. Whether in 1996, 1998, or 2010, Arizona has taken
the stance that medical marijuana is a means to ameliorate the
suffering of the sick. With 200,000 to 300,000 late mail-in and
provisional ballots still to be counted, Proposition 203 is still too
close to call. However, these incredibly close results demonstrate
that people take this issue seriously, and as such, the people deserve
to have a better scientific understanding of what the medicinal
properties of marijuana are.

To meet this goal, additional FDA approved research with marijuana
must take place. Unfortunately, privately funded, FDA-approved
cannabis research is hampered by a government monopoly over the
marijuana supply, held by the National Institute on Drug Abuse. Even
when researchers obtain FDA approval for their protocols, they must
contend with NIDA's review process in order to obtain their research
materials. Given the fact that NIDA's mission is to explore the
abusive potential of illicit drugs, it compromises their objectivity
as to who should receive marijuana, and NIDA has delayed and denied
cannabis to researchers looking into cannabis' therapeutic properties.

Therefore, an additional unbiased source of marijuana is essential for
expanding research. Fortunately, a DEA law judge found that it is in
the public interest to license Dr. Lyle Craker to cultivate marijuana.
This decision should give our representatives the courage to expand
cannabis research to bring this issue from the political to the
scientific sphere.

Stephen Morseman

Flagstaff