US may give half-ton of pot to colleges

No thanks, bro: University researchers can enjoy chronic off-campus, but in the lab, it’s got to be official, ‘research-grade’, Mississippi shwag

As if colleges were running low in the first place.

This week, Uncle Sam made news with the confirmation it’ll be growing 30 times more weed at its official weed farm in Mississippi. Official government requests for production will move up from 46.3 pounds to 1,433 pounds. But the destination for the increased supplies is unknown.

The new bumper crops of government-grown cannabis will likely head to America’s universities, states Paul Armentano, deputy director for the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws (NORML) and author of the 2011 paper, “Emerging Clinical Applications for Cannabis and Cannabinoids”.

Armentano writes us in an email that research institutions want some marijuana now that prohibition is undergoing a historic reversal.

“The recent increase in cannabis research production is most likely because academics and universities are gaining increasing interest in studying the plant’s pharmacology and effects,” he wrote. “Just as the general public’s interest in cannabis has grown in recent years, so too has interest from the scientific community.”

A big factor may be the recent legalization of special, high-CBD strains in even conservative states. “… several states have enacted legislation appropriating funding to assess high-CBD plants or extracts in the treatment of intractable adolescent epilepsy in FDA-approved, state-university sponsored trials.”

Though companies like GW Pharmaceuticals and KannaLife are working on pharmeceuticalizing cannabis, that’s not likely where this crop is headed.

“I do not believe that this increase in production is because of increased interest among pharmaceutical companies — as these entities are largely interested in assessing their own private formulations, which they hope to one day bring to market, and not in assessing the safety or efficacy of government grown cannabis which could never be marketed as a privately-produced product,” Armentano writes.

But why can’t these universities just ask some students for some weed? We mean, come on.

Researchers are only allowed to study marijuana with the official, government sanctioned crop, Armentano says.

The 30X bigger crop this year actually pretty low. The Bush Administration grew way more pot than the Obama Administration.

“In fact, throughout the Bush administration the quota was much higher. From 2005-2009 the annual quota was about 9,920 pounds, according to DEA fact sheets. Before that, from 2002-2004, the quota was about 1,852 pounds and in 2001 it was 1,100 pounds,” USNews reports.

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US may give half-ton of pot to colleges