Sue Sisley, MD, a research scientist out of Arizona has been trying to make the DEA and FDA treat cannabis fairly throughout her professional career. We’ve covered stories mentioning many times and she’s always fighting for patient’s best interests and to help the truth to be learned.
Dr. Sisley is now “spearheading an extraordinary lawsuit against the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), demanding that the agency stop dragging its feet on a years-old promise to end the federal government’s monopoly on growing cannabis for clinical research.
[A court has ruled that] the DEA has two weeks to explain why it’s stalled applications from expert growers.]
Sisley is a medical doctor who recently made history with her federally-approved studies regarding the effects of cannabis on military veterans with PTSD. The results of those PTSD studies are expected to be released later this year.
Her next scheduled study will look at how late-stage cancer patients can perhaps use cannabis for pain relief.
For more than 50 years now the federal government has relied on a farm at the U. of Mississippi, via a contract with the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA), to produce all the cannabis used in research projects across the nation.
But that government-grown cannabis has come under criticism in recent years, including from Sisley and her colleagues, for its poor quality and low potency. [See: http://bit.ly/BadGovernmentCannabis]
There are also concerns by Sisley and others that the phenotypes and cultivars produced by the University of Mississippi’s crop are deliberately unrepresentative of the cannabis consumed by adults and patients in legal states.
According to the petition to the court, SRI (the Scottsdale Research Institute) repeatedly contacted the DEA about growing its own cannabis, to ‘improve drug quality and give it tighter control over dosages.’ DEA officials have yet to respond. ‘With new trials around the corner, SRI can wait no longer.’
‘We simply want them to make good on this pledge to the public,’ Sisley told Leafly. ‘They promised the U.S. citizenry that they would finally end this monopoly and license other growers for research. And they’ve not followed through on this pledge’.”
Much more in the linked article…. CLICK HERE
#TRUCE: More famous foot-dragging from the DEA. We’re pleased to see the science community – or at least this dedicated researcher – begin to push back.
