Friday, January 9, only 10 days before the Bush Administration leaves office, the DEA has issued a final ruling denying a license to Prof. Lyle Craker, UMass Amherst, to grow marijuana for MAPS-sponsored medical research. The DEA is responding to a February 12, 2007 recommendation by DEA Administrative Law Judge Mary Ellen Bittner who found after extensive legal hearings that it would be in the public interest for DEA to issue Prof. Craker a license. The DEA is determined to protect the federal monopoly on the supply of marijuana that is legal for research that is held by the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA). NIDA uses its monopoly to fundamentally obstruct research aimed at developing marijuana into an FDA-approved prescription medicine. For example, Chemic Labs has been seeking without success for over 5 1/2 years to purchase 10 grams of marijuana from NIDA for MAPS and CaNORML-sponsored research into the effectiveness of the Volcano vaporizer as a non-smoking drug delivery device.
Via MAPS
Animam Recro 
January 12, 2009 at 1:46 pm
At least this is the, or one of the, last times Bust can kick this country and its people in the ass. Someday somebody, most likely the “All Mighty,” will kick Bush’s ass and he will end up in the land his lifestyle brought him too HELL! First, Laura Bush charges a half million dollar set of China to the American taxpayers. Then King George delivers a final “Kick ‘EM While Their Down” blow to the present and future Medical Marijuana patients of America. The refusal by the FEDS to allow Dr Lyle Kraker (spelling) to grow his own marijuana for research at the U of Mass proves the U.S. wants to retain the Monopoly on the Marijuana that can be used for research. Probably because the U.S. wants to let only its people do research to protect the ‘patent rights’ the U.S. holds on any future medicines that come from the Cannabis plant. This is yet more proof that our government, even though it denies it, believes in the healing powers of cannabis. Why else would they hold ‘ALL’ patents on the future medicines that come from the Cannabis plant? Maybe the “Pharmaceutical Slaves,” the patients living in NON-Medical Marijuana state’s, will see freedom to use Medical Marijuana under the Obama Administration.(?)