Judge Supports More Marijuana Sources
February 14, 2007
The Kansas City Star
WASHINGTON Medical researchers need more marijuana sources because government supplies are not meeting scientific demand, a federal judge has ruled.
In an emphatic but nonbinding opinion, the Drug Enforcement Administration's own judge is recommending that a University of Massachusetts professor be allowed to grow a legal pot crop. The real winners could be those suffering painful and wasting diseases, proponents say.
"The existing supply of marijuana is not adequate," Administrative Law Judge Mary Ellen Bittner ruled.
The federal government's 12-acre marijuana plot at the University of Mississippi provides neither the quantity nor the quality scientists need, researchers contend. Although Bittner didn’t embrace those criticisms, she agreed that the system for producing and distributing research marijuana was flawed.
Bittner also found "minimal risk of diversion" from a new marijuana source. Making additional supplies available, she stated, "would be in the public interest."
The DEA isn't required to follow Bittner's 88-page opinion, and the Bush administration's anti-drug stance may make it unlikely that the grass-growing rules will loosen. Both sides can now file further information before DEA administrators make their ruling.
| 
