This week the Drug Enforcement Administration said it’s now moving forward on a 2016 policy change that would allow more entities to grow cannabis for federally approved research.
“The main thing that it will likely do is precipitate broader changes in federal policy in marijuana, which will have immense knock-on effects for the industry,” said David Abernathy, the VP of government affairs at the Arcview Group.
“I don’t think this should be cause for celebration within the industry at all,” criticized John Hudak, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution.
“I think what this is going to do is buy the DEA quite a bit more time to drag its feet,” Hudak added. “There’s no timeline on this for them to put out their own security guidelines.”
“DEA is making progress in the program to register additional marijuana growers for federally authorized research, and will work with other relevant federal agencies to expedite the necessary next steps,” DEA Acting Administrator Uttam Dhillon stated.
“We support additional research into marijuana and its components, and we believe registering more growers will result in researchers having access to a wider variety for study.”
“The current producer has had a government monopoly for research for decades, and meanwhile, there’s been great innovation happening in other countries around the world in respect to cannabis,” said George Hodgin of the Biopharmaceutical Research Company.
“It has been a long and emotional three years, it feels like we’re going to be able to accomplish our dream, finally,” he said.
