A Biased View of Federal Cannabis Legalization Update; High Tide News

More than 30 states have medical marijuana programs yet researchers are just allowed to use marijuana plants from one U.S. source for their research study. That's set to alter, as the federal government begins to include more growers to the mix. Drew Angerer/Getty Images Drew Angerer/Getty Images More than 30 states have medical cannabis programs yet scientists are only permitted to use cannabis plants from one U.S.

That's set to alter, as the federal government begins to add more growers to the mix. Drew Angerer/Getty Images After more than 50 years, the federal government is raising a roadblock to marijuana research that researchers and supporters state has actually prevented rigorous studies of the plant and possible drug advancement.

scientists have actually been enabled to utilize marijuana from just one domestic source: a center based at the University of Mississippi, through an agreement with the National Institute on Substance Abuse (NIDA). This Website altered earlier this month, when the Drug Enforcement Administration revealed it remains in the procedure of signing up a number of additional American business to produce marijuana for medical and clinical purposes.

" This is a special decision," says Rick Doblin, executive director of the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies (MAPS), which has led research study into other Arrange 1 drugs the most restrictive class of illegal drug, which the federal government specifies as "drugs with no presently accepted medical use." "This is the last political blockage of research study with Arrange 1 drugs," he says.

Yet researchers still aren't permitted to merely use the marijuana offered at state-licensed dispensaries for their scientific research study because cannabis stays prohibited under federal law. "It is a huge detach," states Dr. Igor Grant, a psychiatry professor and director of the Center for Medicinal Marijuana Research at University of California, San Diego.

" We'll see a decade or more of explosive marijuana research and prospective new therapies," states Dr. Steve Groff, founder and chairman of Groff North America, one of three business that has publicly revealed it has preliminary approval from the federal government to cultivate cannabis for research. Regardless of their efforts, scientists have actually encountered administrative and legal obstacles to growing pharmaceutical-grade marijuana for decades.