The Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) has finalized plans to grow 3.2 million grams of marijuana in 2020.
The marijuana will be grown for research purposes next year and will be a 30 percent increase from 2019’s quota.
DEA said the quotas reflect the “estimated medical, scientific, research, and industrial needs of the United States, for lawful export requirements, and for the establishment and maintenance of reserve stocks.”
It was in September that the DEA said, “This will meet the need created by the increase in the amount of approved research involving marijuana,” DEA said in a press release. “Over the last two years, the total number of individuals registered by DEA to conduct research with marijuana, marijuana extracts, derivatives and delta-9-tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) has increased by more than 40 percent, from 384 in January 2017 to 542 in January 2019.”
The more than 7,000 pounds of cannabis will be used in scientific studies that investigate the effects of the plant.
