Feds not friendly toward pot research
January 26, 2010 by Carol KatarskyPosted in: Ethics, Health care/Treatment trends, In this week's e-newsletter, Latest News & Views
Whether or not you’re in favor of wider legalization of medical marijuana, few would argue against more research into potential medical uses for derivatives of the plant. But the feds won’t allow it.
Problem is, researchers looking into medical uses for the plant are finding it hard to get access to it.
The New York Times recently reported that the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) which controls access to the nation’s only legal marijuana farm, tends to deny research requests from those hoping to prove the therapeutic effects of marijuana and THC.
And researchers whose requests are approved generally have to deal with significant red tape delays before they can actually begin their studies. As a spokesperson for NIDA told the Times, “…our focus is primarily on the negative consequences of marijuana use. We generally do not fund research focused on the potential beneficial medical effects of marijuana.”
Tags: medical marijuana, New York Times, NIDA, research
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February 3rd, 2010 at 6:34 pm
This is politics masquerading as science. If NIDA doesn’t want to know if marijuana might have positive effects, they are not allowing themselves to see the whole picture. A drug is appropriately evaluated with a risk/benefit analysis. Think about how cancer therapies would be viewed if we only looked for negative effects.
Peculiar that NIDA has been adopting this attitude for many years and they haven’t come up with much (if anything, really) that indicts marijuana. Alcohol and tobacco are far more harmful.