Botanist battles Federal marijuana monopoly

Botanist battles Federal marijuana monopoly
By Fred Gardener O’Shaughnessey’s Journal
The “final” DEA decision issued Jan 12 in the case of Craker v. DEA might not be final after all. Lyle Craker is the UMass-Amherst botany professor who applied in 2001 for a DEA application to grow cannabis for use by FDA-approved medical researchers.

After a three-and-a-half-year run-around he was turned down on the grounds that the nation’s one licensed grower, Mahmoud ElSohly, U Mississippi, was meeting all the researchers’ needs. Craker appealed and after a few more years won — in the opinion of the Administrative Law Judge who heard the case — but after another year-plus of ‘review,’ as the Bush gang was exiting stage right, acting DEA Administrator Michele Leonhart, issued a ‘final’ rejection of Craker’s application.

Craker, with legal help from ACLU and Julie Carpenter of Jenner & Block (working pro bono), filed a “motion to reconsider” that could extend the case until Obama appointees are running DEA. Caren Woodson of Americans for Safe Access convinced Rep. John Oliver (D-MA, whose district includes Amherst) and 15 co-signers to send a letter urging AG Eric Holder to grant the motion. Leonhart, perhaps sensing a shift in the political winds, then gave Craker’s lawyers additional time to file a response to the “final” ruling.

The best-case scenario, according to Craker’s longtime backer Rick Doblin of Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies, would be that “DEA decides to reverse its final ruling and give Craker the license, before April 1 when the current Final Ruling becomes effective.”

Worst case? “We fail to gather sufficient political pressure and end up having to sue DEA in the DC Court of Appeals, which could take years, cost lots of money, and give the Obama Administration a reason to do nothing until the litigation is completed.... Unless there is a political decision to let research take place, we could bounce back and forth between DEA and the Court of Appeals for Obama’s entire first term.”

Doblin adds, “I’d say the worst case is more likely, but that our odds for the best case are improving. ... DEA is on the defensive and needs a new strategy.”

The federal monopoly on growing cannabis for approved research has held back work in the US, but not in other parts of the world. For the most current information, subscribe to O’Shaughnessy’s Journal online at oshaughnessys.com.