Days before President Bush left office in January, his administration fired a parting shot at Professor Lyle Craker’s eight-year quest to cultivate marijuana for medical research by abruptly denying him a federal license despite a nearly two-year old Drug Enforcement Administration law judge’s recommendation that he receive one.
But the new administration led by President Obama, who has publicly backed the use of marijuana for medical purposes to stave off pain, might reverse the decision and keep Craker’s license application from going up in smoke.
A source familiar with the case said the White House will likely demand that the decision be reviewed.
“Basically they want to do an autopsy of what occurred and have it go through a proper review,” the source said.
Craker, who is based at the University of Massachusetts-Amherst, is cautiously optimistic Obama will do to the denial of the marijuana license what he has done to other Bush administration decisions on such hot-button cultural issues as embryonic stem-cell research and the abortion “gag rule” affecting overseas family planning groups.
via – National Journal “Obama Administration Likely To Review UMass Scientist’s Bid To Grow Marijuana“
This would be outstanding news and, in my opinion, an even better indicator than the cessation of the medical marijuana dispensary raids in CA and CO that the Obama administration is seriously putting science back in our government.
Last month, 16 House members wrote Attorney General Holder asking him to amend or withdraw the DEA’s final order on Craker’s application so the president’s new head of DEA could review the application. They wrote that the administrative law judge’s decision “left no doubt” that Craker is qualified to cultivate marijuana for research purposes.
The members, led by Rep. John Olver, D-Mass., said they were concerned the Bush administration’s ruling violated the “spirit” of a Jan. 20 memorandum from White House Chief of Staff Emanuel that essentially froze all “11th hour” final orders. The memo distributed shortly after the inauguration asked agency officials to reconsider final rules and regulations that have been published in the Federal Register, but have yet to take effect.
I normally do not include this much text from another site [don't sweat it, MrSpof, this is good stuff! --"R"R] but this was also an eye opener. I knew the Obama administration was going through all of former President Bush’s executive orders/rullings with a fine tooth comb but this is the first time I’ve heard of this ruling in particular being mentioned.
