The Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) is facing yet another lawsuit over its cannabis policy—with a scientist now urging a federal court to compel the agency to grant his application to produce cannabis for research purposes.
In a filing submitted to the U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts on Wednesday, a longtime cannabis researcher backed by the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies (MAPS) called on DEA to either approve his application to be a federally registered cannabis cultivator or at least take action on the request so he can appeal if denied.
It’s been four years since Lyle Craker of the University of Massachusetts at Amherst submitted the application without hearing back from DEA. And that’s not an unfamiliar story, as the agency has yet to decide on more than 30 proposals to grow cannabis for research purposes in the timeframe.
That’s despite the fact that DEA announced in 2016 that it would begin the process of approving additional cannabis cultivators. Currently, there’s just one, at the University of Mississippi, that has held a monopoly on federally authorized cannabis cultivation.
Read more at marijuanamoment.net