Pubdate: Sat, 13 Aug 2016
Source: Northwest Arkansas Democrat Gazette (Fayetteville, AR)
Copyright: 2016 Northwest Arkansas Newspapers LLC.
Contact: http://www.nwaonline.com/submit/letter/
Website: http://www.nwaonline.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/828
Note: Bloomberg View

THE MISSING CASE

The federal Drug Enforcement Administration has just issued a helpful 
reminder to all Americans. In denying a petition to loosen 
restrictions on marijuana, the agency repeated that the drug has "no 
currently accepted medical use" in the United States.

This may come as a surprise, given that some states already allow 
doctors to prescribe marijuana to treat maladies from PTSD to 
Alzheimer's disease. Yet the truth is, research has yet to find firm 
evidence that marijuana can alleviate physical suffering.

That the political push for medicinal marijuana has gotten so far 
ahead of science explains why marijuana is still properly classified 
as a Schedule I controlled substance. It's also why the Obama 
administration, in other big marijuana news this week, was right to 
enable more medical studies of the drug by increasing the supply 
available to researchers.

Marijuana research studies are properly controlled and monitored by 
both the DEA and the Food and Drug Administration. But they have also 
been limited more than necessary by a DEA rule that has authorized 
only the University of Mississippi to grow marijuana for research 
purposes. Other universities will now be licensed to grow marijuana, 
and that is expected to greatly expand the supply available for research.

Marijuana is already widely used as medicine in the United States. 
The more studies that can get underway, the sooner a confused public 
can learn with some empirical certainty whether its spread is for 
good or ill, and the sooner the science can catch up to the politics.
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom