Will The DEA Legalize Marijuana Across America If PTSD Study Shows ‘Acceptable Medical Use’?

Maryam Louise

Is marijuana about to become legal across America because of a study being authorized by the DEA for cannabis use as a treatment for PTSD in veterans?

In the past, there have been promising signs that marijuana would be legalized at the federal level.

For example, marijuana legalization advocates were expecting that the Supreme Court would make a decision that could lead to declassifying cannabis as a Schedule 1 drug, as previously reported by the Inquisitr.

Now there is new hope coming from the DEA that marijuana might have “acceptable medical use” after all. Nevertheless, the outcome of the study might hinge on which strains of marijuana the Colorado PTSD study is allowed to use.

Raids on medical marijuana clinics in California brought protesters out to question the DEA’s policies on cannabis. (Photo by David McNew/Getty Images)

Alternatively, the research could have a positive outcome if certain wording about the marijuana strains used for the DEA’s PTSD study follow advice from the CARERS Act.

Fortune reports on April 22 that the DEA has decided to allow for a scientific study to be done in Colorado concerning PTSD and medical marijuana.

The details of the study include that it will be conducted by The Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies (MAPS) with a $2.2 million grant from Colorado’s state health department.

What makes this medical marijuana research significant is that “this is the first time regulators have allowed testing of the marijuana plant itself for the purpose of developing it into a legal medical drug.”

Adding to this, Military Times writes “[p]articipants will include 76 veterans who have treatment-resistant PTSD.”

In the local area where the study will be conducted, Denver Post wrote that “The project is one of nine medical marijuana studies funded by historic grants from Colorado’s Health Department, and it comes after Colorado officials have repeatedly declined to place PTSD on the state’s list of conditions that qualify for legal medical marijuana use, citing a lack of research.”

Naturally, the DEA approving of the PTSD medical marijuana science study in Colorado did not crop up overnight. For instance, Mashable wrote about the issues facing veterans seeking cannabis to treat their PTSD around April 4.

There have also been several advocates for veterans being able to access medical marijuana in Washington D.C. and many of them are Republicans and Democrats.

For example, the Weed Blog writes that a bipartisan act that both Democrats and Republicans have been working on for the past two years is the Compassionate Access, Research Expansion, and Respect States (CARERS) Act (S. 683).

The CARERS Act was described by the Daily Chronic around March 11 as “the most comprehensive piece of medical cannabis legislation ever introduced in the U.S. Congress and would remedy the state-federal conflict over medical cannabis law.”

One other issue facing medical marijuana researchers was recently covered by VICE. As it appears, there are medical marijuana researchers that often feel they are working with substandard cannabis in their studies because of DEA restrictions.

Marijuana researchers claim they cannot access the strains they need despite requesting specific ones. Instead, they are forced to use the DEA-approved grower at the University of Mississippi.

The strain the university provides usually has seven percent THC and seven percent CBD.

Unfortunately, the request of researchers was for a strain of marijuana that had 12 percent THC and 12 percent CBD.

By comparison, many veterans treating their PTSD with marijuana usually had access to cannabis with up to 28 percent THC.

If the DEA follows the advice of the CARERS Act, the act has language that covers the needs for medical marijuana researchers to expand the list of growers or strains that are currently used through the standard federal regulations.

To clarify, Brookings reported the following about the changes the CARERS Act would provide for marijuana researchers.

“The bill also breaks down the current DEA-mandated, NIDA-contracted monopoly on the production of research-grade marijuana by expanding the number of federal government-approved grow operations.”

In the end, the real question may be whether or not this study will further deteriorate the federal laws prohibiting marijuana… because marijuana has “no acceptable medical use.”

Obviously, confirming that marijuana helps veterans suffering from PTSD will be an acceptable medical use of cannabis. Once this fact is established, it might rapidly deteriorate prohibitive federal marijuana laws in America.

 

Some Americans feel that the DEA should respect the rights of voters to choose medical marijuana for their states. (Photo by David McNew/Getty Images)

 As Marijuana Times wrote on March 25, rescheduling marijuana is not a matter of if, but when.
About the future of medical marijuana and the DEA, Washington Post points out on April 6 that the DEA recently sent a memo to Congress. It is assumed that this memo denotes that the DEA will “decide” about changing (or keeping) marijuana laws and research regulations starting before or around July 2016.