Federal Government Needs More Marijuana for Research Studies

The National Institute for Drug Abuse, or NIDA, has asked the Drug Enforcement Agency for more marijuana. NIDA has requested an increase from 21,000 grams to 650,000 grams, or roughly 1,433 pounds of pot. As of January, NIDA has funded 28 active grants related to therapeutic uses of marijuana in six different disease categories covering AIDS, pain, schizophrenia, seizures and hard drug withdrawal. But NIDA frequently contradicts on the subject of marijuana: a NIDA-funded study at Yale looking at cannabis as a treatment for schizophrenia warned that marijuana could worsen the condition. NIDA gets its pot from The University of Mississippi, the only legal marijuana farm that grows pot for the government. The request is now open to the public for comment.