New Federally Backed Marijuana Research Center Launches
From toxifillers.com with love
A university that, for decades, held a monopoly as the only institution federally authorized to grow marijuana for study purposes is touting the launch of a new cannabis research center it is hosting with the help of a federal grant.
The University of Mississippi has been selected to house the National Institutes of Health’s (NIH) Resource Center for Cannabis and Cannabinoid Research (R3CR), which the federal agency first announced in late 2023.
The college will be partnering with Washington State University (WSU) and the United States Pharmacopoeia (USP), with support from a grant awarded by the National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health (NCCIH) under NIH.
Ole Miss will lead the effort’s regulatory guidance core, while WSU will handle research support and USP will focus on research standards.
Ole Miss’s National Center for Natural Products Research will house the NIH resource center to “provide cannabis research information through an interactive website, webinars, seed funding and conferences” to empower researchers to “generate more science-backed evidence,” it said in a press release.
Donald Stanford, assistant director of the University of Mississippi’s Research Institute of Pharmaceutical Sciences, said R3CR will raise attention to “significant changes in the landscape of cannabis research.”
“Changes such as stronger and improved regulation compliance, development of more cannabis technologies, as well as the [Food and Drug Administration, or FDA] receiving relevant safety data to make decisions on cannabinoids in foods and dietary supplements, can all eventually contribute to people’s health.”
The overall purpose of the center is to “provide guidance on regulations, quality standards and best practices.”
“The missions of the participating NIH institutes reflect why I am so excited about the long-term outcomes that are possible,” Stanford said. “We all have family and friends who face diseases or conditions for which alternative treatments may be effective.”
Mahmoud ElSohly—who has long helmed the university’s cannabis cultivation and research division, contracted by the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA)—will be leading the cannabis regulatory guidance effort.
“Because conducting cannabis studies involves a complexity of regulations of various federal and state agencies, both researchers and administrators must fully understand the requirements and must devise ways to comply in a practical manner,” he said. “Our resource center will strive to provide guidance on matters such as this.”
ElSohly will be joined by Robert Welch, director of the university’s National Center for Cannabis Research and Education, in the effort.
“Some researchers in the U.S. may be unclear on the regulatory requirements for carrying out cannabis studies with human subjects,” Welch said. “FDA and the administrators of various state-sanctioned medical cannabis programs want to see these types of studies move forward so that researchers can properly explore concerns about safety and efficacy.”
When NIH announced its plans to create a cannabis research center and solicited proposals from potential partners, a top official at NCCIH said the agency recognized that there are ample concerns among scientists about how they’ve “encountered barriers that have hampered their research” into marijuana under federal prohibition, including “complex” federal regulations and inadequate supplies of cannabis.
Addressing marijuana research barriers has been a key priority for multiple federal health agencies as scientists continue to face an onerous and costly registration process in order to access cannabis due to its current status as a Schedule I drug under the Controlled Substances Act (CSA).
Of course, R3CR won’t be able to independently change that policy, which is currently being considered by the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) following a Biden administration-led review that led agencies to recommend moving cannabis to Schedule III. But NIH previously offered some examples of how it plans to have the center lessen the burdens.
For instance, it could assist with DEA Schedule I research registration costs and “other relevant federal regulatory requirements.” It could also address equipment and material needs for storage and monitoring purposes.
The announcement about the center came months after a National Advisory Council for Complementary and Integrative Health (NACCIH) meeting, where members approved the concept for the institute.
Meanwhile, DEA recently notified an agency judge that the marijuana rescheduling process is still on hold—with no future actions currently scheduled as the matter sits before the acting administrator, who has called cannabis a “gateway drug” and linked its use to psychosis.
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