ENDING THE MARIJUANA MONOPOLY

Federal Officials Should Allow Competition in Growing the Drug for
Needed Studies on Its Medical Use.

DISCUSSION OF medical marijuana has always been heavy on rhetoric,
elisions and grandiose claims. What it has lacked is reliable
research that might bring some of the discussion into line with
reality. This is because access to the government's monopoly supply
of research-grade marijuana is so restricted that the necessary
research is effectively impossible. Now the Drug Enforcement
Administration's chief administrative law judge is recommending that
the federal drug police allow competition in growing marijuana for
research purposes. The administration should follow her recommendation.

At issue is the supply of research-grade marijuana produced at the
University of Mississippi and overseen by the National Institute on
Drug Abuse. This supply is supposed to be made available to
DEA-registered researchers who have undergone a rigorous review and
approval process by the U.S. Public Health Service. However, both
medical marijuana advocates and scientists say the institute
routinely refuses to make its supply available even to licensed
researchers for properly authorized studies. There are at least two
FDA-approved studies that cannot go forward because no research
samples are available.

This leaves researchers -- and the 12 states that have so far
approved marijuana for medical purposes -- in a Catch-22: Drug
warriors object that there is no research demonstrating marijuana's
efficacy while preventing such research from being done. Since 2001,
a scientist with the University of Massachusetts Amherst has vainly
petitioned the DEA for permission to produce, under conditions that
even the DEA acknowledges present little risk of diversion for
illicit use, another supply of research-grade marijuana.

In a recent ruling, Judge Mary Ellen Bittner agreed that that request
would be in the public interest. Given its narrow confines, Bittner's
recommendation makes sense. It has no bearing on the DEA's licensing
of researchers, which would remain in place, nor would it remove the
burden of proof on scientists who want access to research-grade
marijuana. It would merely prevent situations in which, the judge
noted, legitimate researchers who have completed all due diligence
are still refused access to research samples.

The benefits of medical marijuana may turn out to be less impressive
than advocates hope. All the more reason that research should be
allowed to go forward, so that we can base the discussion on evidence
rather than on the two sides' vehement -- but factually unsupported -- claims.