This story from FOX Memphis provides a rare glimpse into the federal government's massive marijuana grow-op:
My favorite part is when Dr. Mahmoud Elsohly boasts about the high quality of the government pot he grows, then proceeds to demonstrate by sticking his hand in a barrel of disgusting brown schwag. It's all ground up, and you can see the stems sticking out. Anyone can plainly see that the government's weed just sucks.
I also noticed how the FOX story explained that the marijuana is used for research purposes, but conveniently left out the fact that the government actually provides medical marijuana to a small group of patients, while simultaneously prohibiting medical marijuana under federal law. I guess that contradiction was too much for a local FOX affiliate to explore in a fluffy pot-porn segment. Or, more likely, Dr. Elsohly never mentioned it to the reporter.
Given the popular urban myth that government-grown marijuana is super-potent, it's amusing to consider how stunningly bad it actually is. Ironies aside, however, it's actually a serious problem that these guys don't know what they're doing. They won't make any of their product available to researchers seeking to make marijuana an FDA-approved medication, and even if researchers gained access, the material is so weak that you couldn't do much with it.
Someone else needs to be growing marijuana for research purposes, but the DEA won't allow it because they're afraid of what the research will show. Our friends at MAPS and ACLU have spent years in court trying to gain approval for one well-qualified scientist to grow research-grade marijuana, and they've been blocked at every turn. Unless the Obama Administration intervenes before May 1, the DEA's Final Order will take effect and the effort to establish an independent source of research-grade marijuana will return to square one.
Click here to encourage Obama to support science over politics by allowing independent marijuana cultivation for research purposes.
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