EXCLUSIVE: DEA Stalling Hinders Critical Clinical Trials For Debilitating Conditions, Says MMJ BioPharma CEO
MMJ BioPharma Cultivation finds itself at the center of a pivotal legal struggle with the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), accusing the agency of significant delays in processing its application to grow marijuana for pharmaceutical research. The company’s lawsuit claims these delays have hindered critical clinical trials aimed at developing treatments for debilitating conditions such as Multiple Sclerosis (MS) and Huntington’s Disease (HD), thereby prolonging the suffering of patients who could benefit from cannabis-based therapies.
MMJ Struggles With DEA Delays
Duane Boise, president and CEO of MMJ International Holdings, explained to Benzinga that these delays have severely impacted the company’s ability to cultivate the specific cannabis strains needed to produce active pharmaceutical ingredients (APIs). “Because the DEA has significantly delayed our DEA registration, MMJ has not been able to grow the specific marijuana plant cultivars utilized in the development of our API. There is currently no one in the United States growing specific cultivars to MMJ’s pharmaceutical specifications,” Boise noted. Even if MMJ could source these cultivars from other countries, it would still face roadblocks, as the company lacks the necessary DEA registration to process them within the U.S.
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