ACLU CALLS ON DEA TO ALLOW SALE OF MEDICAL MARIJUANA

The ACLU Has Released a Brief Calling on the DEA to Grant Research
Permits for the Production of Medical Cannabis.

The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) does not commonly take an
active role in matters pertaining to the drug war, but in the case of
Dr. Lyle E. Craker, a professor at the University of Massachusetts,
outspoken is certainly one way to describe their position.

Craker's name might sound familiar to keen observers of the drug war.
After a decade of waging a hard-fought battle with the U.S. Drug
Enforcement Agency (DEA), which repeatedly denied his application for
the production of medical marijuana, he recently said he would call it
quits, resigning his fight in bitter defeat.

The last DEA ruling against him came in January 2009, and contradicted
the recommendation of DEA Administrative Law Judge Mary Ellen Bittner.
His appeal of that decision languished for so long that last week, he
and attorneys with the ACLU decided to drop the case.

"I'm disappointed in our system," the 70-year-old professor told the
Associated Press last week. "But I'm not disappointed at what we did.
I think our efforts have brought the problem to the public eye more.
. This is just the first battle in a war."

On Monday evening, the ACLU released its final brief on Craker's case,
which calls on the DEA to grant research permits for the production of
medical cannabis. They also flatly state that cannabis medicines have
not yet cleared the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is because of
the DEA's pernicious politics and tight monopoly on the granting of
production licenses.

"The federal government's official policy is that marijuana has no
medical benefit," they noted. "But the government is unwilling to put
its policy to the test of science: instead, the government exercises
monopoly control over the nation's supply of marijuana that may be
used for scientific purposes, by allowing an agency whose mission is
to explore the consequences of the abuse of marijuana--the National
Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA)--to determine what research may go
forward regarding marijuana's beneficial medical uses. The result is
that [...] marijuana alone out of all potential medicines is subject
to a special and obstructive process that places politics over science."

Currently, the DEA has the marijuana plant as a "Schedule I" drug: a
classification reserved for street drugs like heroin with no real
medicinal value. However, the agency recently reclassified the
psychoactive ingredient in marijuana, the chemical compound THC, to
"Schedule III," thereby allowing pharmaceutical companies to begin
producing cannabis-based drugs.

The move was criticized by the National Organization for the Reform of
Marijuana Laws (NORML) as the height of hypocrisy. The group suggested
the DEA was merely legalizing marijuana for big business to repackage
and resell at exorbitant prices, while keeping penalties in place for
anyone who grows the plant itself.

Thanks to the reclassification of the drug and not the plant, major
pharmaceutical companies will soon be able to purchase synthesized THC
from a government-licensed producer. Research on the drug's source,
however -- the actual cannabis plant -- remains forbidden.

And therein lies the problem, Craker's attorneys at the ACLU
wrote.

"NIDA's monopoly, created by DEA's refusal to license any additional
bulk manufacturer, has resulted in a dearth of privately-funded
medical marijuana research for over 40 years. Until DEA ends the NIDA
monopoly by registering another bulk manufacturer, such as Dr. Craker,
to produce marijuana for privately-funded researchers, there cannot be
an adequate and uninterrupted supply of marijuana for research
intended to obtain FDA approval of marijuana as a prescription medicine."

As a candidate for the U.S. Senate, President Barack Obama said he was
in favor of eliminating the most stringent criminal penalties for
marijuana possession, but has maintained that he does not support
outright legalization.

In a recent interview, the director of the Office on National Drug
Control Policy said that prescription pills are by far the nation's
largest drug problem, and warned that if marijuana were legal, more
people might use it.

Currently, 15 states and the District of Colombia allow marijuana to
be prescribed as medicine.

The ACLU's full brief was available online (PDF).
http://www.aclu.org/files/assets/2011_03_07_Craker_Reconsid_Br_FINAL.pdf