DEA Wants More Marijuana Grown And Fewer Opioids Produced In 2019. Really.
The Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) isn’t exactly known as big fan of marijuana. But in a new Federal Register filing set to be published soon, the anti-drug agency is moving to more than quintuple the amount of cannabis that can legally be grown in the U.S. for research purposes—from roughly 1,000 pounds in 2018 to more than 5,400 pounds next year.
MUJAHID SAFODIEN/AFP/Getty Images
At the same time, DEA is also pushing to reduce the amount of certain opioid drugs—such as oxycodone, hydrocodone, morphine, fentanyl and others—that are produced in the U.S.
“We’ve lost too many lives to the opioid epidemic and families and communities suffer tragic consequences every day,” DEA Acting Administrator Uttam Dhillon said in a press release. “This significant drop in prescriptions by doctors and DEA’s production quota adjustment will continue to reduce the amount of drugs available for illicit diversion and abuse while ensuring that patients will continue to have access to proper medicine.”
U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions, a longtime opponent of marijuana legalization, added that “the opioid epidemic that we are facing today is the worst drug crisis in American history… Cutting opioid production quotas by an average of ten percent next year will help us continue that progress and make it harder to divert these drugs for abuse.”
The proposed quotas for cannabis and other drugs “reflects the total amount of controlled substances necessary to meet the country’s medical, scientific, research, industrial, and export needs for the year and for the establishment and maintenance of reserve stocks,” DEA said.
The 2,450,000 grams of marijuana the narcotics agency wants grown in the country in 2019 is a significant bump up from the 443,680 grams the agency authorized for 2018.
In addition to the huge increase in marijuana cultivation, DEA is also proposing to allow production of 384,460 grams of tetrahydrocannabinols (THC) in 2019, the same amount the agency cleared for this year.
Since 1968, a farm that the University of Mississippi has maintained a monopoly on the production of cannabis that can legally be used for research in the U.S. But scientists have long complained that it is sometimes hard to get approvals to obtain marijuana from the facility and that its product is often of low quality.
In response to these concerns, DEA moved in the waning months of the Obama administration to end the monopoly and create a process for the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) to license additional cultivators. But while more than two dozen facilities have filed proposals to become licensed to legally grow marijuana for research, Sessions’ Justice Department has blocked DEA from acting on the applications.
Members of Congress have repeatedly pressed Sessions on the issue, during hearings and most recently in a letter signed last month by eight senators.
“Research and medical communities should have access to research-grade materials to answer questions around marijuana’s efficacy and potential impacts, both positive and adverse,” the lawmakers wrote. “Finalizing the review of applications for marijuana manufacturing will assist in doing just that.”
During a Senate hearing last October, Sessions said that adding new facilities that could compete with the University of Mississippi would be “healthy.” Pressed again in April, he told senators that movement on the issue was expected “soon.”
But no announcements on authorizing more cultivators have been made.
The DEA’s huge increase in marijuana production quotas for 2019 could be a sign that it anticipates eventual approval of some of the additional grower applications, or it could just indicate that reserve stocks at the Mississippi farm are getting low and that it’s time to re-up the federal cannabis stash as interest in marijuana’s medical benefits and other effects increases among the public and scientists who wish to study it.
“While the drastic increase in requested production of marijuana by the DEA is a positive sign, significant barriers still exist including but not limited to the NIDA monopoly on cultivation and undue hurdles for researchers to qualify for a permit,” NORML Political Director Justin Strekal in an interview. “It’s time that Congress look at the 28,000 plus peer-reviewed studies currently hosted on the National Institute of Health’s online database and reform federal law by removing marijuana from the Controlled Substances Act all together.”
Once the DEA quota notice officially runs in the Federal Register, members of the public will be able to submit comments for a period of 30 days, after which time the agency may seek to amend and finalize the proposal.
Tom Angell publishes Marijuana Moment news and founded the nonprofit Marijuana Majority. Follow Tom on Twitter for breaking news and subscribe to his daily newsletter.
Here is the DEA’S definition of a C-I drug under the Controlled Substance Act;
Schedule I Controlled Substances
Substances in this schedule have no currently accepted medical use in the United States, a lack of accepted safety for use under medical supervision, and a high potential for abuse.
Some examples of substances listed in Schedule I are: heroin, lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD), marijuana (cannabis), peyote, methaqualone, and 3,4-methylenedioxymethamphetamine (“Ecstasy”).
That was the DEA’S opinion back in 1970… should “opinions” become “legal facts”… now the DEA has decided that it wants more RESEARCH to prove or disprove this opinion/fact after nearly 50 yrs ? Could it be that after over HALF of our states have legalized Marijuana in some form… the DEA has been forced to do research to try and validate that their “facts” of 50 yrs ago was correct and what is going to happen if they are proven wrong ?
Filed under: General Problems
I fully support the unscheduling and legalization of marijuana. However, while this might be fantastic news for some (should it actually happen), not everyone can use marijuana. I just so happen to be one of those people that can’t. It does some very strange things to me, including tachycardia and irregular heartbeat. I’ve tried different strains, sativas are the least hard on me. Still, even if I can manage to find a type my body will tolerate, it does not reduce pain in some areas for me, rather it seems to magnify them instead. So even if it became an accepted form of pain control Nationwide, it wouldn’t be a viable solution for me. I have heard that there are other people out there that have the same issues as I do and I’ve gotten a LOT of flack from the pro-marijuana community for saying this but it’s the truth. If it works for you, that is awesome and amazing! But what if it doesn’t? That leaves me with OTC meds that I also can’t take due to anaphylactic reaction to one of the recommended and the same type of cardiac issues as I have from marijuana on the other. It’s not my fault that my body doesn’t like certain medications and a lot of different kinds at that. I guess I’ll be slipping through the cracks that they’ll claim don’t exist, if they even ever acknowledge the subject at all and I know I’m not alone in this, either. I’ve started talking to my 10 year old this year about what is going to happen when I don’t have an adequate level of comfort anymore, when my taper is finished. He understands more than you’d think. Probably because we have pretty much always been upfront with him on many of the goings on around our house. But now he says he hates doctor’s. I’m quite sure he means it. I’ve told him there are good doctors out there and he asks why they aren’t helping people and speaking up on behalf of people like me then. I can’t answer that for him or for myself. I’m trying so hard not to be bitter about all of this, but it breaks my heart in two, to see how this is affecting and going to affect him. This isn’t fair. To him or to me. Or to my husband because he has to pick up all of my slack and he takes care of me on top of everything else. This lunacy is destroying families. It’s making it hard to want to live because I have a child that needs me. Am I selfish, opting to turn to the streets and exposing my child to things I would never do otherwise? Am I selfish and take my own life, leaving him and my husband? Or do I suffer every day of the rest of my life and wait for the day that I finally cash out of this world that has done so much evil to those of us that didn’t ask for this? I would do just about anything for my children and my husband, but I don’t know if I can do this. I wake up every day with the hope that the nightmare will be over and instead it just keeps taking darker and darker turns. This is so very wrong and the people that have the power to stop this are turning their backs and continuing to spout their lies. I keep thinking of that line in Kenny Roger’s “The Gambler”, “…the best that you can hope for is to die in your sleep.” He’s right, you know. Especially if you are a chronic pain patient.
May I suggest destroying the 9000 hectares of poppy fields in Afghanista which in 2014 was present in 80% of all heroin, a scorched earth policy in northern states of Mexico and fund stringent searches for Chinese & Mexican fentanyl in ports, borders, airports?
Trump wants strict tariffs? Here is a chance to set a policy of “You wanna push fentanyl on US, we gonna limit imports from y’all”….. oh but nooooo! Let’s punish the innocent low hanging fruit- CPPs and 95% of MDs!
Fantastic Idea!!! Chronic pain patients are suffering.
While I am 100% for the unscheduling of cannabis-based substances (federal and all states) for both medicinal and recreational use, I do want to point out something that isn’t talked about very much. The cannabis-based industry is one of the most lucrative investments one can make.
Could this be part of the financial motive behind all of this? I’d like to know which legislators and bureaucrats have invested in the cannabis-based industry …. particularly those who used to be die-hard opponents of unscheduling cannabis-based substances and have now completely changed their mind and are now advocating for the plant to become legal.
Again, please don’t get me wrong – I have advocated for the unscheduling of cannabis-based substances for many years and will continue to do so; however, I am also the first one to point out that as much as I realize some people benefit from the use of this plant, it absolutely can NOT replace regulated opioid-based substances, particularly for severe intractable physical pain.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/thomaspellechia/2018/04/02/cannabis-investors-could-possibly-reap-a-pot-of-gold-says-analyst/#26753a152543
What kind of logic is this?
who suggested that some sort of logic was involved in this decision ?