The DEA is ordering federally licensed drug manufacturers to deliver large quantities of drugs, including over 3 million grams of weed, for research purposes.
As reported by Tom Angell at Forbes, the DEA will officially issue its request on Thursday via the Federal Register. The order asks for 3.2 million grams of cannabis, nearly 400,000 grams of THC (the intoxicating component of marijuana), 30 grams of psilocybin (the trippy substance in magic mushrooms), 40 grams of LSD, and 50 grams of MDMA by next year.
The DEA wants the drugs — which would be legal for licensed researchers to manufacture, possess, and process — “to provide for the estimated medical, scientific, research, and industrial needs of the United States, lawful export requirements, and the establishment and maintenance of reserve stocks.”
The DEA’s request indicates that it has noticed weed’s nationwide popularity, where, currently, 33 states have enacted some kind of cannabis legalization reform (medical or recreational). In fact, the DEA’s 3.2-million-gram order for government weed for next year is 30 percent higher than this year’s requested amount, Angell wrote.
Gallery — Fuck-Tons of Weed That No One Is Smoking Besides Cops:
The request may also serve as a soft response to a recent lawsuit. In July, the DEA was sued in federal court by a group of scientific researchers who applied for third-party cannabis cultivation licenses from the agency.
Three years ago, the DEA said it would issue these licenses after decades of complaints that the DEA’s sole supply of research weed, grown at the University of Mississippi, lacked real-life potency, was weighed down by extraneous plant matter (sticks, leaves, etc.), and posed serious health hazards due to the presence of molds. In fact, genetic tests have shown that the DEA’s research weed resembles industrial hemp more than it does medical marijuana.
Third-party licensing would allow legitimate American researchers to grow their own weed, so its quality better matches the kind of weed sold in medical dispensaries. But the DEA hasn’t processed the third-party applications — after three years — and has intentionally stonewalled the project with no clear explanation for the hold-up.
So, to recap: The DEA wants more shitty weed that scientific researchers can’t use to test medical marijuana’s efficacy. And since this is all government grown, our tax dollars pay for this expensive and time-consuming smoke-and-mirrors act.
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