Medical Marijuana Study Earns Federal Approval

While acceptance of medical marijuana by state and federal officials appears to be on the rise in the United States, research looking into the applications of medical marijuana has still many roadblocks to overcome. One study, which aims to look into the therapeutic uses of medical marijuana in the treatment of PTSD, may finally be passing one of the challenges, finally achieving full federal approval that will allow for the research to begin.

The study, proposed by University of Arizona researchers, was approved by the Food and Drug Administration long ago, but unfortunately for the researchers, they were not granted access to something instrumental to any study on the effect of medical marijuana -- cannabis.

The National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) research farm is the only place that researcher can legally obtain marijuana for federally sanctioned studies. According to reports, the Department of Health and Human Services had been refusing the researchers the right to purchase cannabis product from this Mississippi farm for years.

The Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies (MAPS), which is financially backing this research, told the Associated Press that they have been working to get permission to purchase medical marijuana for research from NIDA for over 22 years.

But just last week the Department of Health finally approved the purchase, making this the first federally approved and NIDA supplied study on smoked or vaporized marijuana to ever occur in the U.S.

The study itself aims to determine the effective applications of medical marijuana as a therapeutic treatment for veteran soldier with posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD).

Following this approval, the America Medical Association has called for a change in marijuana's classification to make it easier for research requests to be federally approved.

According to a MAPS spokesperson, organized picketing protesting the stalling of the University of Arizona Study that had been scheduled for later this year has been happily called off.

Nothing has been officially announced, but preparations for the study's launch are expected to begin soon.

[news source]