DEA’s reluctance on cannabis research is costing the US jobs

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Congressional lawmakers continue to grow more frustrated with the agency’s lack of action

Another fight that has been enduring in the cannabis industry for a while is against the US Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) due to its reticence to listen to the experts’ demands regarding the need to finally authorize more producers of research-quality marijuana. Another effort is coming from a bipartisan coalition of lawmakers, who are demanding that the DEA “expeditiously” finalize the completion of the ruleset that will be used to evaluate the application of more growers. Lawmakers are claiming that this delay, which has been going on for years, is also affecting the creation of new jobs for scientists interested in studying cannabis.

“It is imperative that lawmakers have scientific evidence about potential medical uses, side effects and societal impacts of cannabis to guide policy decisions,” the House members said in the letter, which was led by Representative Cathy McMorris Rodgers and signed by ten other lawmakers. “The only way that can occur is if our academic and clinical researchers are permitted to conduct well-controlled, scientific studies on these materials.”

According to some studies done on the only current official source of cannabis for research, that plant is genetically closer to hemp than to the cannabis plants usually found in dispensaries; therefore, no good research can come from it. For proper research, scientists “must have access to federally compliant cannabis and its chemical constituents in sufficient quantity and quality,” said the letter.

The DEA keeps saying that they are already working on the process of approving additional growers and cultivation facilities, but almost four years have passed since the agency said it would start receiving applications. On top of that, back in March, the federal agency implemented new rules to accept applicants after a lot of criticism was aimed its way, and, yet, the office hasn’t been able to approve not even one.