Marijuana research still shackled by Feds three years after DEA promised to lift monopoly

Brooke Staggs, Orange County Register, May 8, 2019

Nearly three years after the Drug Enforcement Agency announced it would end a monopoly on who can grow cannabis for legally sanctioned research, there’s still only one federally authorized cannabis cultivator in the United States.

And the limited supply of research cannabis is hampering the speed, quality and range of studies that scientists can conduct on the potential medical benefits, or harms, of marijuana — even as demand for reliable cannabis research soars.

“It is politics and not science that is interrupting the conduct of this research,” said John Hudak, a fellow at the nonprofit Brookings Institution who specializes in marijuana policy. “And that is not something that Americans should stand for.”

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