A New DEA Lead Holds Promise for Marijuana

Chuck Rosenberg was appointed as the new DEA’s administrator this month. He is quoted as saying that he will spend less time and money restricting marijuana access. His efforts are reported to focus more on heroin and harder drugs. (Source)

A public scandal has led to a change in leadership of the Drug Enforcement Agency. Former DEA Administrator Michele Leonhart stepped down after DEA was found hiring prostitutes and leaving a man in jail without food or water for five days. The Obama administration chose Chuck Rosenberg, former chief of staff to FBI Director James B. Comey.

Many advocates for marijuana are cautiously optimistic of the DEA power shift. The past administrator, Leonhart, enforced the restriction of marijuana. President Obama and Attorney General Eric Holder have played a hands-off role in regards to marijuana enforcement. Chuck Rosenberg shows promise on working together with the Obama administration in order to allow the states to regulate marijuana.

Source:

https://www.leafly.com/news/headlines/new-chief-of-the-dea-vows-to-focus-less-on-cannabis

Francis L.Young, DEA Administrative Law Judge

In 1970 marijuana became labeled as a Schedule 1 drug.(Source) In 1988 Francis L Young was the first judge to rule that marijuana should not have this classification. His ruling is consistent to the same effort in 2015 to reform marijuana laws.

In 1972 NORML petitioned the DEA on the ruling of marijuana as a schedule 1 drug. They requested it be reclassified as a schedule 2 drug. Their goal was to allow doctors to prescribe marijuana for therapeutic purposes. The Drug Enforcement Agency then began to stall for fourteen years before reluctantly holding public hearings.

Francis L. Young was one of the two DEA administrative judges chosen to rule on the public hearings. Young was hand picked as a judge for his conservative viewpoint. The judgment was based on 15 days of reviewing hundreds of documents from the DEA/NIDA against the benefits of marijuana. His conclusions came from the research found in the medical community using marijuana for treatments. He stated:

"Marijuana is one of the safest therapeutically active substances known to man...Marijuana has been accepted as capable of relieving distress of great numbers of very ill people, and doing so with safety under medical supervision. It would be unreasonable, arbitrary and capricious for DEA to continue to stand between those sufferers and the benefits of this substance in light of the evidence in this record... The Administrator transfer marijuana from Schedule I to Schedule II, to make it available as a legal medicine."

This monumental ruling was quickly squashed by DEA Director Judge Lawn. The Court of Appeals let Lawns ruling stand to keep cannabis a schedule 1 drug. Each succeeding director has held up this viewpoint for marijuana to be labeled a narcotic with no medicinal value. Judge Francis Young goes down as one of the first government official to acknowledge the beneficial use of medical marijuana.

Source:

http://www.druglibrary.org/schaffer/library/studies/YOUNG/index.html

http://norml.org/marijuana/medical/item/introduction-7

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legal_history_of_cannabis_in_the_United_States

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Controlled_Substances_Act

University of Mississippi is the Only Government Funded Marijuana Farm

The University of Mississippi and the Only Government Funded Marijuana Farm

That's right, a schedule 1 drug funded by the government of the United States for research on treatment. This isn't the only sign that the government knows of the benefit, having a patent of it's own for Cannabinoids as antioxidants and neuroprotectants. (Source)

A grant from National Institutes of Health’s (NIH) and the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) have given Ole Miss an opportunity to grow marijuana for HHS approved studies. These studies are conducted around the country for the purpose of finding beneficial and harmful effects and the chemical components of cannabis.

“Developing new drugs and delivery systems, as well as a better understanding of the pharmacology and toxicology of marijuana, is dependent upon a reliable and consistent source of high-quality, research-grade Cannabis, ” said Dr. Mahmoud ElSohly, Marijuana Project director since 1980. “And that’s where we come in—we have a strong program that provides plant material to the research community.”

Ole' Miss has developed new medicines with cannabis, notably with the chemical compound tetrahydrocannabinol THC found in marijuana. The University of Mississippi states that this medicine treats chronic conditions such as nausea from chemotherapy, neuropathic pain and treatment of multiple sclerosis symptoms. UM has a patent and license that gives a pharmaceutical company a THC suppository that gives cancer patients medical marijuana without side effects that other medicine has.

Along with their own grow farm, the University of Mississippi acquires seized marijuana from the DEA and has established a way of fingerprinting the cannabis to trace back it's source. (Source) Elsohly has seen a steady increase in the potency of THC found in the cannabis seized from the DEA. “I was categorically told by the DEA, 'You cannot receive materials from a non-DEA registrant.'" said Elsohly. "I would very much like to be able to get some of the materials available in dispensaries, look at them, analyze them, compare them with everything else around”

Though the DEA and the NIH allow access to the cannabis for reasearch, it is extremely hard to get the approval. Orrin Devinsky, director of the Comprehensive Epilepsy Center at NYU Langone Medical Center said “Physicians can't easily get at it — nor can their patients”.(Source)

Source

http://www.research.olemiss.edu/ChangeAgents/2009/FindingCuresForKillers

http://www.google.com/patents/US6630507

http://www.latimes.com/nation/la-na-pot-monopoly-20140529-story.html#page=1