Medical researchers should be allowed to dive “into the weeds,” a handful of U.S. senators who want to roll back regulations for marijuana studies say.
 
The Marijuana Effective Drug Study Act of 2017, sponsored by Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, would simplify rules for scientists who want to learn more about the plant’s pros and cons. North Carolina Sen. Thom Tillis is a bill sponsor.
 
The idea, as Hatch said in his press release introducing the bill, is to evaluate the “effectiveness, safety, dosing, administration and quality of medical marijuana.” Fresh studies could determine if pot is a legitimate, less-addictive alternative to opioids in treating chronic pain, for instance.
 
Marijuana was criminalized 80 years ago by the Marijuana Tax Act of 1937. Today, cannabis research is tightly regulated by the National Institute on Drug Abuse.
 
NIDA contracts with the University of Mississippi to grow marijuana for federally sanctioned studies. That monopoly makes it nearly impossible for researchers to access the high-grade cannabis they need, said Justin Strekal, political director for the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws.
 
The MEDS Act would make marijuana more available to researchers and would require NIDA to develop and publish a manual for growing marijuana for research, Hatch said.
 
The bill would also require the U.S. attorney general to bump up the national quota for marijuana production “in a timely manner to meet the changing medical, scientific and industrial needs for marijuana.”
 
“To be blunt, we need to remove the administrative barriers preventing legitimate research into medical marijuana,” Hatch said.
 
He isn’t the only one who thinks so.

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