The Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) finalized its plans to authorize the cultivation of 3,200,000 grams of cannabis for research purposes next year—a 30 percent increase from 2019’s quota.
DEA initially proposed 2020 production quotas in a notice published in the Federal Register in September. This latest notice finalizes those numbers, taking into account input it received during a public comment period, which elicited hundreds of submissions from health professionals, state and federal officials and the general public.
Most of the comments concerned DEA’s proposed reduction in the production quota of opioids, with many expressing concern that the decreases could adversely impact patients and potentially cause drug shortages.
Despite those arguments, DEA actually further decreased the quota for certain opioids such as oxycodone and oxymorphone in the new filing. While it initially called for the production of 72,593,983 grams of oxycodone to be manufactured, the final quota is 67,593,983 grams, for example.
The cannabis quota didn’t change after the comment period.
Read more at marijuanamoment.net