DEA rejects UMass request to grow medical marijuana

"...not subject to public comment"???

Well this is the public commenting!!! This is a criminal ruling by a criminal organization and is NOTHING but a job creation scheme for new DEAth agents!

The DEAth will do ANYTHING to keep marijuana in Schedule I, and while it's in Schedule I they have a job enforcing the prohibition on possessing and selling it. WHAT A JOKE!!!

The drug war is job security for the DEA.
The DEA knows that marijuana is immensely popular with the public and as a result of keeping it illegal (schedule I along with heroin, etc.) they can expect to continue to arrest non-violent users of marijuana.

The next time you meet someone from the DEA, ask them how many people have died from using marijuana (ZERO). Then ask them why alcohol is legal.

Regardless of your stance on the war on drugs or use of marijuana you cannot argue that fresh research on the potential positive OR negative effects is a bad thing. The status quo doesn't work anymore.

There's enough marijuana on UMass' campus to conduct research well into the next millenium as is!! And plenty of willing subjects to participate in testing....

..and ask them how many people have died from the prohibition, have died from rulings exactly like this one!

More than 5,000 in Mexico last year alone, died at the hands of the Cartels because rulings like this make them enormously rich and make them protect their drug revenues with the lives of innocent fathers, mothers and children.

Who do the DEA answer to? Why is there no way to make them responsible for the misery they cause?

do it anyway. like galileo asked permission.

"not be in the public interest" - WHO SAID THIS???

Wake UP! Medical Marijuana got more votes than BARACK OBAMA when it appeared on the ballot in 2008!

This is a nonsensical ruling from an agency that will most certainly be shifting its priorities during the incoming administration to more important matters. Sales of drugs used to fund firearms or terrorism would seem to be a better use of resources than preventing distinguished medical researchers from creating genetically consistent plants to be used in approved studies that are ok'd by institutional review boards. I believe that the Obama folks will not insult our intelligence and waste our money by focusing on suppressing marijuana research or prioritizing marijuana enforcement while more pressing threats can be addressed.

you potheads need to really find other battles to fight...there are more important things in life than weed. maybe not in your futile hazy worlds, but there are.

Now think about this . . . what would it be like to live in a dictatorship?

Peter McWilliams was gay, had AIDS and was dying of wasting disease when he described a trip to the bathroom to throw up, turning into a trip to raid the refrigerator after smoking a joint. Put on random drug testing by the DEA, he choked to death on his own vomit. Death by DEA
His partner's mother had been told her son was dying at age 16. He had suffered for over 5 years and when she read about marijuana, in a magazine at the doc. office, she thought why not. He was able to eat, keep food down, eventually sit up, and finally able to walk. He is spending 10 years in federal prison for trying to help others in California.

The pharmaceutical industry does not want any more research, as it would no doubt reveal how much more effective marijuana is than many hazardous patented drugs that are being marketed so hard. Also note that most research and medical use is limited to smoking the weed, while a great deal more efficacy is obtained by creating hemp oil, which is very severely restricted. It's all about politics, no one in power cares what beneficial effects there may be.

"The only power any government has is the power to crack down on criminals. Well, when there aren't enough criminals, one makes them. One declares so many things to be a crime that it becomes impossible for men to live without breaking laws."
-Ayn Rand
Everyone who works on public dime is involved in a criminal enterprise. The DEA never wants the drugs to stop flowing. Without bad guys to go after, the Feds have no reason to exist and would have to go get real jobs. All they succeed in doing is to create the political-economic background for a black market and gangs.

I hate pot and would never smoke it. I feel rather successful in my life; I own a home, have very little debt and a wonderful girlfriend whom I will be marrying soon. But...despite not living in a "futile, hazy world" as Alex puts it, I absolutely think that marijuana should be legalized (for more than medicinal purposes).

Why? For starters, two huge things: 1) Prohibition leads to violence and crime. Innocent folks rarely get robbed or shot trying to make an alcohol purchase, you know. Similarly, innocent bystanders don't get hurt because an "alcohol deal gone bad" occurred on the street where they live. This drug war rewards the criminal element instead of responsible business owners. 2) Prohibition increases the strength of products. This is because it's easier to sneak smaller amounts of stronger weed into and around the country. We complain about how strong "today's pot" is without thinking about why that's the case. Maybe more potsmokers would choose lower strength pot if they had a few options lined up on the wall of a "liquor 'n' pot" store (much in the same way that not all drinkers feel compelled to drink nothing but 100 proof Vodka).

I'll continue to do my best to ensure that my friends and family don't use this irritating drug, but the fact is this: Prohibition does little to slow the spread of marijuana, but at the same time makes the pot (and the act of using, buying, or unknowingly being near pot) immensely more dangerous.

Free people should not be reduced to asking permission, to prostrating themselves before a so-called authority figure. If Lyle Craker wants to grow marijuana in his laboratory, I support his decision.

"you potheads need to really find other battles to fight"

I don't even smoke pot, but thanks for the advice. Does there exist a more fundamental right than the free use of one's own body? If not, to which battle would you suggest one devote his energy?

The DEA was wrong to deny UMASS a license to grow its own cannabis for research. Cannabis has huge therapeutic potential and our government should not hinder independent research. We should be learning all that we can about this plant, its dangers and benefits.

The DEA is the wrong agency to handle cannabis. It should be passed to the ATF and regulated like alcohol and tobacco. These are dire economic times. Instead of pumping $15 billion annually into law enforcement and prohibition, we could open up entire new industries with industrial hemp (farming, textiles, petroleum alternative, etc.), medical marijuana production and distribution, to bring relief to seriously sick and dying people, and even a recreational cannabis industry like alcohol and tobacco. Imagine the jobs created and tax revenue generated from these industries. Let’s created jobs and revenue.

Regulating and taxing cannabis would eliminate the “gang” element associated with cannabis grown on our public lands where they use dangerous pesticides and fertilizers and divert streams, and are often armed and dangerous and a threat to hikers and hunters. Let’s eliminate the Al Capone’s of cannabis. Legalize.
Bud Kine

The only real victims of pot are the people that have spent the last 20-30-40 years or more in jail for smoking a joint or being caught with a seed in their pocket.

The DEA was wrong to deny UMASS a license to grow its own cannabis for research. Cannabis has huge therapeutic potential and our government should not hinder independent research. We should be learning all that we can about this plant, its dangers and benefits.

The DEA is the wrong agency to handle cannabis. It should be passed to the ATF and regulated like alcohol and tobacco. These are dire economic times. Instead of pumping $15 billion annually into law enforcement and prohibition, we could open up entire new industries with industrial hemp (farming, textiles, petroleum alternative, etc.), medical marijuana production and distribution, to bring relief to seriously sick and dying people, and even a recreational cannabis industry like alcohol and tobacco. Imagine the jobs created and tax revenue generated from these industries. Let’s created jobs and revenue.

Regulating and taxing cannabis would eliminate the “gang” element associated with cannabis grown on our public lands where they use dangerous pesticides and fertilizers and divert streams, and are often armed and dangerous and a threat to hikers and hunters. Let’s eliminate the Al Capone’s of cannabis. Legalize.

Type your comment here...
Should UMASS be able to produce and conduct research with cocaine and heroin as well? Why can't hight schools also conduct resaerch as well. Where do you draw the line.

#19: "Should UMASS be able to produce and conduct research with cocaine and heroin as well? Why can't hight schools also conduct resaerch as well. Where do you draw the line."

Apparently....you shouldn't be allowed to use crayons anymore. Finish your cereal, turn off the cartoons, and we'll talk about your boundaries. Do you LIKE being told what to do??? Where do YOU draw the line? I am a FREE MAN. As such, I determine my course of action through FREE WILL. I will fight against government tyranny (read that as NANNY STATE) for as long as I live and I will educate those that follow to continue the fight. I would allow any university researcher (read that as grownup) to study any drug. Really, now, where are any high school students allowed to study drugs as a part of the curriculum? Is that done anywhere??? Grow up!!!

UMASS AMHERST?!?!?! that doesnt surprise me at all that school is full of potheads hahahaha

How did these cowards and sociopaths acquire so much power in the first place? The DEA needs to be disbanded immediately Our drug laws and their enforcers cause more damage then the drugs themselves!

Not only is the synthetic drug marinol a prime example that government knows that marijuana has benifits to ones health it's patent is up in 2011,the FDA have given professor ElSohly of mississipi a fedral license to exclusively produce marijuana for the pharmaceutical company Mallinckrodt, a subsidiary of Tyco International.. his arrangement appears to be for the purpose of bringing to market a generic form of Marinol. All of this going on whall the general public is told that Marijuana has not health benifits.. It would be nice if these agencies such as the FDA & DEA had the transparency that they are suppose to have under the Data Quality Act set forth by President Obama.. I believe we the should know all the scientific research information and the methods they went about o get that information that they claim to have done research on, so we can come to a conclusion that they are doing their job right and fully for the benifit of the general public and not lining their own wallets with billions of dollars of the tax payers hard earned money. Not only are they lining their own wallets with the tax payers money through Big Pharm. But hundereds of thousands of people are going to jail every year, losing their jobs. children. education, having more trouble getting a job etc at tax payers expense.. It really does add up to too much money, so when I hear Obama say it wont benifit the economy to uplift the ban on marijuana, I have to make a smirk, think of the DEA & FDA getting rich, whall thousands die every year and hundreds end up losing everythin in their life and possibly spending years in jail over something they already know is okay for the general public... I call for transparency in the FDA & DEA & an end to the Prohibition On Marijuana.. which the mexican czars get 3/4 of their income from..