White House Takes Huge Step Forward In Fight Over Marijuana Research

[Little Star]

Source: Huffington Post

The White House took a major step forward on Monday to support research into the medical properties of marijuana, lifting a much-maligned bureaucratic requirement that had long stifled scientific research.

By eliminating the Public Health Service review requirement, the Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP), also known as the drug czar's office, will help facilitate research into the drug.

A bipartisan group of lawmakers had called for the requirement to be lifted.

The requirement had long outgrown today's marijuana politics. Even opponents of legalization have called for it to be lifted.



Read more: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/06/22/public-health-service-review_n_7635760.html

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It's about time!

[forest444]

1. Well, I'd say it's high time.

[Little Star]

2. lol

[jwirr]

3. Now it needs to remove from the most dangerous drug status. It is obvious that is not true. So

get it off the list and let states start to make it legal.

[forest444]

4. Aye, but doing so would starve the privatized prison-industrial complex of fresh fodder.

And we can't very well have that, now can we.

[jomin41]

5. and that is far from the worst of it. nt

[jwirr]

10. True but I am hoping that he at least does that before the end of his term - you know, give MJ

a reprieve.

[jeff47]

8. But the children!!! They'll get the reefer madness!!!!

[Sunlei]

6. I want President Obama to mandate 'THE PLANT' off every Federal drug list.

It's a plant like coffee and needs similar regulations like caffeine is limited to doses in herbals/energy drinks/ice cream that don't make peoples heads explode.

[Ruby the Liberal]

16. Regulations?

Too much caffeine will give you a heart attack. Too much cannabis and you just fall asleep. What regulations do you suggest?

[Bigmack]

17. What is a marijuana overdose called?

A nap Ms Bigmack

[Mnemosyne]

7. Why don't they just use the one Nixon had done, and ignored, in the 1970's? More waste of funds

when we already know its worth.

Good news, nonetheless.

[jwirr]

11. Okay but this one is going to show us how the pharmacutical industry is going to profit from it.

[Mnemosyne]

12. Ah yes, them. nt

[jomin41]

9. A step forward, yes, but "huge"?

Considering that otherwise law-abiding citizens are still being busted, hassled, fined, fired, imprisoned, killed, robbed, ostracized, marginalized, targeted for any connection to a substance which, in its thousands of years of history has never caused problems, and which should never have been placed on any schedule in the first place, no, I don't think that lifting one rock out of a huge pile on our backs is "huge". Too wrong for too long.

[awoke_in_2003]

13. Their is one thing in his power to do

that can be done now- call off the hounds (DEA). He is the head of law enforcement in this country

[JohnnyRingo]

14. I'm a social liberal but a weed libertarian

When marijuana is legalized I believe it stifles development of better product. Government regulations make certain that quality is consistent at a particular level. It doesn't get worse, and it doesn't get better. This is evidenced in Colorado where I understand complaints have surfaced that some strains are "too potent" for the average consumer causing the state to monitor THC levels for arbitrarily "safe levels".

On top of that severe taxation is an absolute certainty and keep prices at a premium, enough so that an illegal black market will likely always be a reality anyway. I'm old enough to have seen how competition has caused marijuana to evolve into a better product over the past 50 years, and I don't want to impede that progress for the sake of federal and state revenue. Even where it's legal it's still against the law to smoke it in public and will probably be so for years or decades to come.

Personally, I'm more for universal decriminalization over complete legality. No one should spend one single day in prison for simple possession, like here in Ohio where up to 100 grams is a minor misdemeanor subject to a $100 fine.

Keep the government out of my dope and vote to keep the dopes out of my government.

[Cayenne]

15. That won't do; it must be rescheduled as a minimum

NIDA and ONDCP have many tricks in stifling research; the Public Health Service check-off was just one. There are other alphabets like the FDA and DEA throw up road blocks.