Episode 85 - For 60 years the DEA has blocked cannabis research in the US...
The US government owns Patent #6,630,507 on cannabinoids that protect the brain from injury but the DEA still blocks anyone except a small farm in Mississippi from growing cannabis for medical research. What are the drug enforcers so afraid of?
It seems like yet another Orwellian twist on reality. In a country where 200 million people have some legal access to cannabis, where a dozen states have full legal markets, where over 67% of the population supports legal cannabis, the DEA still blocks anyone except growers at one small farm at the University of Mississippi from growing cannabis for research purposes. This means that most US scientists trying to examine how cannabis treats pain, or PTSD or cancer are prohibited from buying or researching the products they need to do their work.
Even more shocking: Even those few scientists in the US who do have DEA licenses to research have to import their cannabis from abroad!
Former Navy SEAL George Hodgin recognized this lunacy when he was visiting a friend at a VA hospital in California. The doctor admitted that he wanted to tell his friend about medical cannabis and how to use it for PTSD but he couldn’t because there was a dearth of large clinical trials in the US. George was stunned. “This doctor was in Palo Alto where they store ebola, HIV, and all sorts of incredibly dangerous viruses to do research….and he’s 5 miles away from a store where he can buy anything for $5/gram and he can’t get any to do research.”
As a SEAL, George likes a challenge. Three years ago he petitioned the Feds to get a license to grow. His story involves tangling with the DEA as well as the Department of Justice, and it demonstrates just how an administration can use the rusty wheels of bureaucracy to grind progress to a halt.
Imagine if the government applied this sort of twisted logic to inhibiting research into COVID or cancer? Actually, given the Trump administrations latest moves to cut funding for testing and undercut Anthony Fauci, it's not all that unimaginable. But both instances are INSANE!
PS:Check out Medical Cannabis Mentor’s latest blog on The Little Known Connections between CBD, Gut Health and COVID and ass it along to anyone suffering.