RESEARCHERS PRESS DEA TO LET THEM GROW MARIJUANA

Armed with a legal decision in their favor, scientists and advocates
of medical research on marijuana pressed the Drug Enforcement
Administration yesterday to allow them to grow their own, saying that
pot supplied by the government is too hard to get and that its poor
quality limits their research.

The proponents said a DEA administrative law judge's recent ruling
that it would be in "the public interest" to have additional marijuana
grown -- and to break the government's monopoly on growing it -- had
put them closer to their goal than ever before.

"The DEA has an opportunity here to live up to its rhetoric, which has
been that marijuana advocates should work on conducting research
rather than filing lawsuits," said Richard Doblin, president of the
Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies, which has
fought for years for access to government-controlled supplies to test
possible medical uses of marijuana.

"It's become more and more obvious that the DEA has been obstructing
potentially beneficial medical research, and now is the time for them
to change," he said.

The agency has opposed petitions that would end the government's
marijuana monopoly, saying that the current system works well and that
allowing other growers could lead to more diversion to illicit use.
All the marijuana produced for research is grown at the University of
Mississippi and distributed through the National Institute on Drug
Abuse.

But a petition filed in 2001 by University of Massachusetts agronomy
professor Lyle E. Craker seeking to grow marijuana in his greenhouses
has worked its way through the DEA appeal process and resulted in a
ruling against the agency earlier this year.

The decision by DEA Administrative Law Judge Mary Ellen Bittner
concluding that Craker should be allowed to grow marijuana for
Doblin's group to use in its research became final last week.

Craker, who has studied medicinal plants for years, joined several
other medical marijuana advocates at DEA headquarters yesterday to
highlight the issue. "Working with medical marijuana seems so similar
to the work we're doing with other medicinal plants that I've never
understood the DEA's big problem with it," said Craker, whose
facilities have been examined by DEA agents to determine if they are
sufficiently secure.

Bittner's ruling was strongly supportive of Craker's petition but
carries limited regulatory weight: The final decision on the
government's marijuana monopoly will be made by the deputy
administrator of the DEA, and the agency has already taken strong
exception to Bittner's conclusions.

DEA spokesman Garrison K. Courtney said yesterday that "the matter is
currently pending before the DEA, and it would be inappropriate for
DEA to comment at this time."

Doblin, who contacted Craker about growing medical marijuana after he
was turned down by government officials, said the public is losing
confidence in the DEA's oversight of the issue. He said 12 states have
legalized medical marijuana and others are likely to follow soon.

Doblin said that in addition to studying the potential benefits of
smoked marijuana for pain relief and to control nausea in cancer
patients and some symptoms of multiple sclerosis, his group wants to
test vaporized marijuana. Inhaling marijuana vapors could reduce some
of the potential risks associated with smoking it.