Many of the clinical trials and research that has been done on Cannabis has been thanks to organizations other than the DEA. In fact, the DEA has been incredibly unhelpful when it comes to effective drug research. FINALLY they’ve chosen to no longer turn a blind eye to companies hoping to grow cannabis for research purposes. They’ve announced that they will evaluate 37 applications this year.
Though this is hopeful for some, others have worries about how long the DEA will drag out their next steps. If clinical trials go well, the next move could be approval from the FDA for cannabis based therapies. However, it would be incredibly easy for the DEA to take years to achieve that goal. Shane Pennington (representing an applicant at the Scottsdale Research Institute) tells sciencemag “DEA basically has … found a way to put this on the back burner a lot longer.”
Scottsdale Research Institute was sick of waiting and filed a lawsuit against the DEA in June 2019 hoping they would be compelled to look into their research applications. The DEA responded by saying they would look into it, but only after they could come up with new rules for their growing program. After proposing new rules, things were looking up. They had increased production quotas, raised the number of researchers, and allowed more research teams and grow operations to submit applications.
Now it’s just a waiting game…. Will the DEA finally stop dragging their feet when it comes to cannabis research? Or is this just a tactic to give people hope while they continue to take years and years to get something done?
