The federal government monopolizes nearly all meaningful marijuana research. It even maintains its own “legal” crop at Ole Miss that (mainly through the National Institute on Drug Abuse and the Drug Enforcement Administration) pumps out pretty useless and questionable statistics and factoids about marijuana. But the federal government is very slowly warming to the idea of allowing third parties to research cannabis and its effects.
At the end of June, the federal government announced that it would help fund a study of sewage samples in Washington State to determine Washington post-legalization cannabis usage. Second, and more importantly, the Obama administration has opted to eliminate the need for Public Health Service reviews for outside studies to commence.
Regarding the sewer study, the New York Times reported:
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The federal government is chipping in money for a three-year pilot study using sewage samples to determine levels of marijuana use in two Washington cities — research that could help answer some key questions about pot legalization . . .
Specifically, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) is giving approximately $120,000 to the University of Puget Sound for Dan Burgard, an associate chemistry professor at the University, to lead a three-year study analyzing per-capita pot usage in Washington after its first marijuana retail stores opened last summer. This “study is aimed at helping determine whether the opening of pot shops increase[s] a community’s marijuana use, whether data from the wastewater correlate to what people answer in surveys about their marijuana use, and whether weekday or weekend marijuana use has increased.” This data will likely help Washington hone in on the actual number of users, how often they are using, and what demand really looks like, all of which ultimately affects the entire marketplace when it comes to licensing and additional regulations for marijuana businesses.
The study should also help lawmakers and regulators learn more about the existing black market and whether legalization has helped reduce customer traffic there:
The data could also show how much of the illicit black market for marijuana the state’s legal stores are capturing, by comparing the wastewater data with the state’s close tracking of marijuana sales. If sales figures continue to rise, but the wastewater levels show that overall pot use is flat, that would indicate that people are getting their marijuana at legal stores instead of on the black market.
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Also at the end of June, the Department of Health and Human Services announced that marijuana researchers need no longer submit proposed cannabis studies to the U.S. Public Health Service for review, eliminating a significant hurdle for non-federally funded cannabis research. The Department found the reviews “redundant,” and stated that eliminating this previously mandatory review will “facilitate further research to advance our understanding about the health risks and any potential benefits of medications using marijuana or its components or derivatives.”
Despite the foregoing changes, the Ole Miss marijuana grow funded by the National Institute on Drug Abuse remains the only “lawful” marijuana grow in the U.S., and researchers must still acquire their seeds and plants from that grow, which is not easy. But that’s not all: researchers must also acquire a Schedule I license from the Drug Enforcement Administration, which is nearly impossible. The DEA has issued only a single license to research marijuana, and that was to Ole Miss in 1968.
Just last week, House Republicans nuked a bill that would have re-scheduled cannabis so that laboratories “could conduct credible research on its safety and efficacy as a medical treatment” without all of the red tape that still impedes such efforts.
Though we are seeing some progress in terms of allowance for cannabis research, until politicians start allowing truly open up scientific research into cannabis, the United States will continue falling behind other countries in this arena, and the world’s cannabis knowledge base will likely be the worse for it.
Hilary Bricken is an attorney at Harris Moure, PLLC in Seattle and she chairs the firm’s Canna Law Group. Her practice consists of representing marijuana businesses of all sizes in multiple states on matters relating to licensing, corporate formation and contracts, commercial litigation, and intellectual property. Named one of the 100 most influential people in the cannabis industry in 2014, Hilary is also lead editor of the Canna Law Blog. You can reach her by email at [email protected].