DEA rejects UMass request to grow medical marijuana

By Bina Venkataraman, Globe Correspondent

The US Drug Enforcement Administration has rejected the bid of a UMass Amherst researcher who wants to create the second laboratory in the nation authorized to grow marijuana for medical research.

The ruling released today came nearly two years after a federal administrative law judge recommended that Lyle Craker, a horticultural professor who specializes in medicinal plants, be allowed to grow marijuana for medical research. The DEA decision, which is a final rule not subject to public comment, called the current supply of marijuana for research "adequate and uninterrupted,” and said that a second laboratory would not be in the public interest.

Since 1968, a federally approved laboratory at the University of Mississippi’s School of Pharmacy has grown nearly a hundred varieties of marijuana plants. Access to the plants has been limited to researchers who gain federal permits, and plants from the lab’s farm have been used for clinical studies across the country to test marijuana for treating glaucoma, pain, nausea, and other illnesses.

But some researchers complain that access to the laboratory's supply is thwarted by a contract the lab holds with the National Institute on Drug Abuse, which must approve permits issued by the Food and Drug Administration or the DEA in a process that can take months to complete. Other drugs listed by the DEA as "Schedule 1," such as heroin and ecstasy, do not require this additional approval for researchers to access them.