by Amy Wilding-Fox
It was in 1968 the first (and only) FDA-approved license for legally growing and testing Marijuana was given to the University of Mississippi’s National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) for federally funded research projects. For decades it was a for profit tool used to find ways to keep marijuana and its user suppressed by only funding projects that were designed to purposely make marijuana look bad with skewed numbers and biased researchers. It was also where the mysterious infamous G-13 was supposedly birthed and grown.
It would not be until 2021 that the DEA would issue any more FDA-approved licenses, though others had tried throughout the decades, for-profit and non-profits alike. Through privately funded research projects over the last 5 decades, yet not recognized by the federal government, the truth about the medicinal properties of marijuana began to surface. The proverbial and literal smoke began to clear paving the way to breakthroughs so many in the counterculture already knew, marijuana is simply an herb that has medicinal purposes, like so many other herbal remedies.
So why in 2021 the federal shift in licensing policy? In a country where 3/4th its citizens live in a place with legal access to marijuana, the FDA and federal government can finally see the lucrative potential of the cannabis plant. The dollar signs are finally greater in a legalized world with a regulated plant than imprisoning our citizens and calling them addicts.
Once again, the FDA needs new research facilities [easily swayed by the dollar] to usher in this new era of manipulated testing. Would the masses believe NIDA research should they about face from decades of negative findings? Apparently not, so there are now five facilities across the USA with that have the coveted license, including FIDA. The issue with this, 3 of the four given new licenses are also for profit. Just like FIDA, they will be easily manipulated to skew research to the federals government’s interests. For example, research could be funded specifically aimed to harm caregiver rights to grow their own, forcing only pharmaceutical grade cannabis to be legal at a federal level.
Hopefully, there is a light in this tunnel that goes by the name of Dr. Sue Sisley. A former University of Arizona Professor, Dr. Sisley runs the only non-profit granted the DEA’s FDA approved license. Renowned cannabis advocate, Dr Sisley is founder, owner, president and head researcher at the Scottsdale Research Institute (SRI) of Scottsdale, AZ. She has dedicated much of her career as an advocate for medicinal marijuana researching at the University of Arizona. Her position at the university made her keenly aware of the corruption in the earlier single research system of FIDA. “They’ve always been focused on cannabis for safety studies, looking at harmful side effects of cannabis and addiction potential,” she said.
Dr Sisley is looking to change that. According to their website, SRI “supports the expansion of research efforts to determine the applicability of cannabis as medicine for any conditions for which it might prove safe and effective.” She is currently on her second phase of the only FDA approved Veteran PTSD cannabis study. She is not stopping there. She is licensed to grow her own cannabis to research, instead of getting “diluted” strains with very little medicinal principals that FIDA was known to research. And with that, she hopes to help more researchers own the road. With any excess material she grows, the SRI will make it available at cost to help with the expansion of a less biased approach of research on marijuana.
“That wasn’t our primary mission, but we certainly care. We desperately want to support scientists across the country,” Dr. Sisley said.
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