Inquiries like the NIDA’s make a lot of people in the 420-community nervous, and frankly, I’m one of them.

Suffering either a blinding epiphany or a guilty conscience, the Good Old Boys at the National Institute of Health have finally come to terms with the fact that marijuana’s many cannabinoids and compounds hold “potential benefits to health.” While that’s great to hear, the MMJ community has felt the malicious sting of the FDA’s “good intentions” before. Historically ignoring the synergistic impact of the whole plant’s compounds and cannabinoids, many believe the FDA seriously fumbled the epileptic football when they granted an Orphan Drug Designation to the synthetically derived Epidiolex, over the development of a superior whole plant alternative.

Regardless of its debatable end goal, the NIDA is now claiming “The National Institute on Drug Abuse supports the production of research grade marijuana and marijuana products (i.e. extracts, purified cannabinoids, etc.) for research.” As such, the NIDA is now “interested in gathering information on whether other specific marijuana varieties or marijuana-derived products are of interest to the research community.”

Hoping to learn more about the potential medicinal value of marijuana’s broad spectrum of available cannabinoids – The National Institute on Drug Abuse is looking to accumulate scientific data from academics “conducting or interested in conducting research on marijuana and marijuana products on:”

The specific marijuana varieties, strains, or constituent chemotypes that are of research interest
The marijuana constituents, products and/or preparations that are of research interest
The particular research questions that could or would be addressed with such products

Per NIH (National Institute of Health), “Responses will be accepted until September 15, 2016 through submissions to marijuanainfo@nida.nih.gov. The collected information will be analyzed and may be used to guide future US Government efforts to provide adequate supplies of marijuana and marijuana products for research into the health risks and benefits.”

Is this the age of marijuana enlightenment, or something else? Historically restricted MMJ research is about to hit the Fast Lane, bad news for Richard M. Nixon’s crew, will the duplicitous nature of the FDA’s scheduling of cannabis be exposed in a big way?

We’re about to find out…