MAPS and Veterans for Medical Cannabis Access (VMCA) are requesting the help of our friends and supporters in contacting your Congressional Representative before May 19 [Update: Extended to June 9] asking them to add their signature to a Congressional Sign-On Letter urging that federal obstruction of non-NIH funded medical marijuana research be reduced by ending the redundant protocol review process by the Public Health Service (PHS).
Dear medical marijuana research supporter,
The Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies (MAPS) and Veterans for Medical Cannabis Access (VMCA) are requesting the help of our friends and supporters in contacting your Congressional Representative before May 19 [Update: Extended to June 9] asking them to add their signature to a Congressional Sign-On Letter to the Secretary of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) urging that federal obstruction of non-NIH funded medical marijuana research be reduced by ending the redundant protocol review process by the Public Health Service (PHS), which exists for marijuana but no other Schedule I drug. Four Congressional Representatives—including two Republicans, Morgan Griffith (VA) and Dana Rohrabacher (CA), and two Democrats, Earl Blumenauer (OR) and Jan Schakowsky (IL)—are the co-leads on the letter.
Use the tool at the bottom of the page to contact your representative!
The PHS protocol review was created by HHS in 1999 to restrict access to the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) monopoly on the supply of marijuana legal for use in federally regulated research. The HHS guidelines that created the PHS review explicitly state that marijuana should not be provided to studies seeking to develop the marijuana plant into a legal prescription medicine in smoked plant form. The PHS protocol review process has no deadline, and has delayed for over three years MAPS’ FDA-approved study of marijuana in veterans with chronic, treatment-resistant posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD).
PHS finally approved the study protocol in March 2014, but NIDA has now informed MAPS that it doesn’t have the marijuana with the balanced THC/CBD ratio that is needed for the study. The study already has approval from the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and the University of Arizona Institutional Review Board. As a result, the study will need to wait until at least the fall of 2014 for NIDA to grow a new crop. Over three years ago, NIDA informed MAPS in writing that it did have the marijuana needed for the study. This claim caused Prof. Lyle Craker of the University of Massachusetts-Amherst to lose his lawsuit against the DEA for refusing to accept a DEA administrative law judge’s recommendation to license Prof. Craker to grow marijuana for federally-approved research, which would have ended the NIDA monopoly has the lawsuit been successful.
Here is the letter from the four Congressional co-leads. Thank you for helping end federal obstruction of medical marijuana research by contacting your Congressional representative today.
Sincerely,
Rick Doblin, Ph.D.
MAPS Founder and Executive Director
Use the tool below to contact your Congressional representative:
