Originally appeared at: http://www.santacruzsentinel.com/opinion/ci_16540379 Proposition 19’s failure at the polls makes it more important to facilitate research into marijuana to assess the utility of cannabis. We can do this through breaking NIDA’s monopoly over the marijuana supply for FDA studies by putting pressure on the DEA to issue another marijuana cultivation license. To give our representatives the courage to push for expanding marijuana research, they can look to a DEA administrative law judge who found that it would be in the public interest to issue Dr. Lyle Craker at the University of Massachusetts a license to cultivate cannabis. Acting DEA administrator Michelle Leonhart has rejected this recommendation. It’s time we ask why she chose to uphold an obstructive federal monopoly to bring this issue into the scientific sphere. Stephen Morseman, Santa Cruz A brief letter to the Santa Cruz Sentinel urging for the more pressure for the DEA to issue another marijuana cultivation license to conduct research on marijuana after proposition 19’s failure.
