Weed studies needed: Barriers to research.

AuthorSullum, Jacob
PositionCitings - Brief article

IN A NEW Brookings Institution report, John Hudak and Grace Wallack describe in detail the bureaucratic barriers to medical marijuana research. These roadblocks, they write, are "inexcusabl[e]" in light of the need for more information about the therapeutic properties of a plant legally used for symptom relief by more than a million patients across the country.

Hudak and Wallack argue that marijuana's Schedule I status, which supposedly hinges on its lack of "currently accepted medical use," discourages image-conscious institutions from sponsoring studies. They say "moving marijuana from Schedule I to Schedule II"--which could be done by Congress or by the attorney general in consultation with the Department of Health and Human Services--"would signal to the medical community that the [Food and Drug Administration] and [the National Institutes of Health] are ready to take medical...

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