Jeff Sessions Stonewalls Permission for Medical Marijuana Research

Even as public opinion shifts in favor of marijuana legalization, withsixtypercent of Americans supporting broad legalization andninety percent supporting medical use, Attorney General Jeff Sessions and the Department of Justice (DOJ) continue to stonewall efforts to expand availability of cannabis and cannabis-derived treatments for medical research.Intestimony to a Senate Appropriations subcommittee in April, Sessions argued that althoughrecentstudies have shown that access to medical marijuana reduces opioid overdose deaths, the evidence to support expanding access is still insufficient.This is simply untrue. While DOJ and DEA policy have limited the ability of U.S. researchers to access and experiment with medical grade marijuana, substantialpeer-reviewed scientific research supports the benefits of medical marijuana.Medical marijuana has been shown to improve the quality of life and health outcomes of patients withcancer,multiplesclerosis,Parkinson ’s disease,chronic pain,PTSD, and many other ailments.Israel and manyEuropean Union countries lead the way in medical and pharmaceutical research. The market for medical marijuana is projected to be worth55 billion dollars by 2025, and biopharmaceutical firms are enteringmulti-million dollar partnerships with universities to advance the research and development of new cannabis-based medications.Yet despite the economic and humanitarian gains from expanding research into of medical marijuana, the DOJ refuses to expand marijua...
Source: Cato-at-liberty - Category: American Health Authors: Source Type: blogs