On April 1, 2011, the DEA filed its response to the final brief in Professor Lyle Craker’s nearly decade-long lawsuit against the agency to end the federal government’s monopoly on the supply of marijuana for research. After (presumably) reviewing the final brief, agency officials asked DEA Administrator Michele Leonhart to reject DEA Administrative Law Judge Mary Ellen Bittner’s 2007 recommendation that Craker be allowed to start his own MAPS-sponsored medical marijuana production facility. We are now waiting for Leonhart to issue her final order, thus continuing to prevent the research from taking place. It may have been April Fool’s Day, but this is no joke, and the American public is not laughing.
