Looking for Cannabis Growers

To make cannabis more accessible to researchers, the DEA is now accepting applications to become a federally approved cannabis grower. Anybody who gets this approval would essentially be contracted to grow weed for federally approved research projects.

You’d think this would be a gold mine and that thousands of people would jump at the chance to land one of these potentially huge contracts. So far, however, there have been no applicants.

In fact, one source report that tons of universities have turned down invitations to become DEA-sanctioned growers. Schools like Cornell, University of Kentucky, Virginia Tech, Michigan State, a few University of California campuses, Colorado State University, and many more have all said no when the DEA asked them if they wanted to start growing marijuana.

It seems landing one of these contracts would be a big deal. So why isn’t anyone taking up the DEA’s offer? It turns out the DEA’s anti-cannabis rules are already sabotaging any effort to improve cannabis research.

Expensive Security Requirements

One of the biggest problems is that it is extremely difficult and expensive to meet the government’s security requirements for growers. Anybody with a federal contract to grow marijuana for cannabis research has to comply with a strict set of rules to ensure the grow site meets the DEA’s security regulations.

One expert said that the infrastructure necessary to meet those requirements would cost several million dollars. And that’s just the construction cost. Maintaining all that security is entirely another expense.

Remember, this is before anybody gets around to cultivating any cannabis. At this point, the DEA’s security requirements are way too expensive to make becoming a grower a feasible idea.

Where Will Growers Get Their Plants and Seeds?

Assuming somebody has enough money lying around to build DEA-approved growing facilities, there’s still the problem of where they’d get their plants and seeds. Since cannabis is still illegal at the federal level, a DEA-approved grow operation wouldn’t be allowed to pick up seeds or plants from any non-approved supplier.

It could get plants from the federal government’s current marijuana grow site at the University of Mississippi. However, the genetic range of cannabis available to researchers would stay the same.

A lot of scientists have already said that relying on University of Mississippi cannabis limits the amount of research they can do. Simply growing more of the same stuff already being grown wouldn’t help to advance cannabis research.

The DEA’s refusal to reclassify cannabis is making it impossible for DEA-approved researchers to further cannabis research.

What About Private Growers?

Even if universities don’t want to go through all the trouble of becoming a DEA-approved grower, what about the grow operations already turning product? Most of them already have the security in place to satisfy the DEA’s requirements. So could one of them grow for the government?

It does seem like an obvious solution but the DEA already sabotaged this possibility as well. The agency said that it would consider whether or not a grow applicant had “engaged in an illegal activity involving controlled substances… Regardless of whether such activity is permissible under state law.

Since cannabis is illegal at the federal level, any and all existing grow operations is already breaking federal laws. The DEA would also count it against them pretty heavily. As a result, experts think it’s unlikely that an already existing grow operation would get DEA approval.

The Conclusion

Many in the cannabis community were disappointed by the DEA’s decision last month. But many of them thought that the DEA’s focus on improving research is a positive step.

Unfortunately, it looks like the DEA’s promise to make cannabis more accessible to researchers was nothing but an empty promise. That’s because the DEA’s own rules and make it practically impossible for anyone to become a new federally approved grower.

The post The DEA is Looking For Candidates to Grow Marijuana for Research appeared first on Pot My.

Responding to a 2015 letter from Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) and seven other Democratic senators urging the federal government to facilitate research into the medical benefits of cannabis, it doesn’t indicate whether it will reclassify the drug as less dangerous.

The U.S. has five categories, or schedules, classifying illegal drugs or chemicals that can be used to make them. Schedule I is reserved for drugs the DEA considers to have the highest potential for abuse and no “current accepted medical use.” Cannabis has been classified as Schedule I for decades, along with heroin and LSD. Rescheduling marijuana wouldn’t make it legal, but it may ease restrictions on research and reduce penalties for marijuana offenses.

“DEA understands the widespread interest in the prompt resolution to these petitions and hopes to release its determination in the first half of 2016,” the DEA said in the 25 page letter.

The letter, signed by Acting DEA Administrator Chuck Rosenberg, explains in great detail the cannabis supply available at the University of Mississippi, the federal government’s only sanctioned marijuana garden.

The Food and Drug Administration has completed a review of the medical evidence surrounding the safety and effectiveness of marijuana and has forwarded its rescheduling recommendation to the DEA, according to the letter. The document didn’t reveal what the FDA recommended.

If demand for research into marijuana’s medical potential were to increase beyond the University of Mississippi’s supply, the DEA said it may consider registering additional growers.

This isn’t the first time the DEA has been asked to reconsider marijuana’s classification. In 2001 and 2006, DEA considered petitions, but decided to keep marijuana a Schedule I substance.

The DEA response is signed by Rosenberg, Sylvia Burwell, secretary of HHS, and Michael Botticelli, director of the Office of National Drug Control Policy. In addition to Warren, the letter was sent to Democratic Sens. Jeffrey Merkley (Ore.), Ron Wyden (Ore.), Barbara Mikulski (Md.), Edward Markey (Mass.), Barbara Boxer (Calif.), Cory Booker (N.J.) and Kirsten Gillibrand (N.Y.).

Those senators, with the exception of Warren, are co-sponsors of a sweeping bill introduces in 2015 designed to drastically reduce the federal government’s ability to crack down on state-legal medical marijuana programs while also encouraging more research into the substance.

Tom Angell, founder of Marijuana Majority, a marijuana reform group, said there was “absolutely no reason marijuana should remain in Schedule I.”

“Almost half the states in the country have medical cannabis laws and major groups like the American Nurses Association and the American College of Physicians are on board,” Angell said in a statement. He said the Obama administration should use its authority to make the change “before this president leaves office.”

Click here to read the letter from the DEA.

The post DEA might decide to reschedule marijuana by mid-year appeared first on Pot My.