[420 Girl]

If good research leads to societal benefits, government should not believe it has cornered the market on wisdom and thwart it from taking place.

Unfortunately, the federal Drug Enforcement Administration won’t allow a University of Massachusetts professor to grow marijuana for medical research, saying only the government can produce and distribute the drug for such purposes.

The DEA said Professor Lyle Craker, a horticulturist at UMass Amherst, didn’t prove that the government’s involvement has led to “inadequate” research.

A lab at the University of Mississippi currently is the government’s only marijuana-growing facility, The Associated Press reports.

The professor believes the government-grown marijuana there is not strong enough for researchers to make medical breakthroughs and that there isn’t enough of the drug available for the nation’s scientists.

Although the DEA would not comment on its decision, the professor says a key objection is the belief that the marijuana would find its way to UMass students, not scientists. Craker said appropriate security would prevent that from occurring.

“All we are asking is that let’s give it a fair trial, independent fair trial. I’m not for the recreational use of this,” Craker told AP.

Both U.S. senators from Massachusetts are among those in Congress who support Craker.

“With one foot out the door, the Bush administration has once again found time to undermine scientific freedom,” Allen Hopper, litigation director of the American Civil Liberties Union Drug Law Reform Project, told AP.

There is an expectation that the Obama administration will take a more enlightened view of this kind of research.

We urge a full review.

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