UMass Biologist Loses 10-Year Legal Battle to Study Marijuana

A Professor of Biology at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst has lost a ten-year legal fight where he sought approval to grow marijuana and study its possible medical uses (source).  Professor Lyle Kraker has had his appeals denied by the Drug Enforcement Agency, even after an Administrative Law Judge recommended that he receive a license by the FDA to study the plant.  Currently, the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA), is the only entity that has the ability to legally grow and study marijuana with help from the University of Mississippi.  Some of the marijuana grown by NIDA is provided to four people under the Compassionate Investigational New Drug program.  But Kraker and others, like the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic studies, argued that the NIDA research constituted an illegal monopoly on marijuana research.