FEDERAL MARIJUANA MONOPOLY CHALLENGED

Researchers Want to Grow More Plants and Find More Medicinal Uses

For decades, the federal government has been the nation's only legal
producer of marijuana for medical research. Working with growers at
the University of Mississippi, the National Institute on Drug Abuse
has controlled both the quality and distribution of the drug for the
past 36 years.

But for the first time the government's monopoly on research
marijuana is under serious legal challenge. The effort is being
spearheaded by a group that wants to produce medicines from currently
illegal psychedelic drugs and by a professor at the University of
Massachusetts who has agreed to grow marijuana for it if the
government lets him.

In a hearing due to start today before an administrative law judge at
the Drug Enforcement Administration, professor Lyle Craker and his
supporters will argue for a DEA license to grow the research drugs.
It is the climax of a decades-long effort to expand research into
marijuana and controlled drugs and of Craker's almost five-year
effort to become a competing marijuana grower.

"Our work is focused on finding medicinal uses of plants, and
marijuana is one with clear potential," said Craker, director of the
medicinal plant program of the university's Department of Plant, Soil
and Insect Sciences in Amherst, Mass., and editor of the Journal of
Herbs, Spices and Medicinal Plants. "There's only one
government-approved source of marijuana for scientific research in
this country, and that just isn't adequate."

The DEA, which has to license anyone who wants to grow marijuana, disagrees.

The agency, as well as the National Institute on Drug Abuse, which
formally runs the marijuana research program, argues that it is not
in the public interest to have more than one source of marijuana, in
part because it could lead to greater illicit use. What's more, they
said in legal briefs, the Mississippi program supplies all the
marijuana that researchers need. Agency officials declined to comment further.

In his suit against the DEA for a license to grow marijuana, Craker
has backing from 38 members of Congress, the two senators from
Massachusetts, numerous medical societies and even Grover Norquist,
the president of the conservative Americans for Tax Reform.

The effort has been organized by Richard Doblin, president of the
Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies (MAPS) and a
longtime advocate of medical research into controlled drugs. It was
Doblin who recruited Craker after the association concluded it would
never get a dependable supply of government marijuana.

"Dr. Craker has no goal here except to advance scientific research
into marijuana, and our goals are the same," said Doblin, whose group
is also sponsoring research into other controlled drugs including
MDMA (better known as "ecstasy") and the psychedelic mushroom psilocybin.

"By controlling who can research marijuana and how they can do it,
the DEA has greatly limited promising research that could lead to
[government] approved medications," Doblin said.

The problems, he said, are not limited to winning approval to buy the
Mississippi marijuana. Doblin and other researchers contend that the
government marijuana is low in quality and potency and could never be
a stable source of basic ingredients if the Food and Drug
Administration ever did approve a marijuana-based medication.

Marijuana, or cannabis, is now listed as a Schedule I drug -- with no
medicinal use -- under the Controlled Substances Act. Its use was
initially restricted in 1937 and eliminated from medicinal practice
in 1942. On its Web site, the DEA lists marijuana as the most
frequently abused illicit drug in America.

Since the 1970s, however, researchers have found potential uses for
marijuana, or its active ingredient THC, in relieving nausea and
vomiting associated with chemotherapy and to help with appetite loss
in AIDS patients. A synthetic form of marijuana's active ingredient
has been made into a prescription drug, Marinol.

Doblin said there are potentially many other medicinal uses of
marijuana, including the treatment of multiple sclerosis and
AIDS-related neuropathy. He also said researchers believe that if
they can perfect a method of "vaporizing" marijuana -- allowing it to
be inhaled rather than smoked -- it would be easier to administer as medicine.

But because of fears of illicit use, he said, the agency has
essentially blocked the research. "I believe the DEA policy is one of
delay, and they've succeeded in essentially blocking marijuana
development for 30 years," Doblin said.

In its filings with Administrative Law Judge Mary Ellen Bittner, the
DEA disputes the charge that it is standing in the way of marijuana research.

It says that medical marijuana research is underway in California
using its Mississippi supply, and that the drug maker Mallinckrodt
Inc. has a contract with the Mississippi supplier to produce extracts
of cannabis for its drug development program. In addition, DEA lawyer
Brian Bayly told the law judge in August, when the first five days of
testimony were heard, that the quality and potency of the
government's marijuana was acceptable to the researchers his agency surveyed.

The hearing is expected to continue through the week, with a decision
several months later. If Craker and his team prevail, however, the
DEA is not obliged to give him a license or change its policies. And
as a result, they plan to continue lining up political support, such
as the Nov. 22 letter sent by Norquist to the DEA.

"The use of controlled substances for legitimate research purposes is
well-established, and has yielded a number of miracle medicines
widely available to patients and doctors," Norquist wrote. "This case
should be no different. It's in the public interest to end the
government monopoly on marijuana legal for research."