Newly installed DEA Administrator Asa Hutchinson, a three-term Congressman from Arkansas and a former federal prosecutor, speaking to reporters on his first day on the job, said the federal government would “send the right signal” by striving to enforce the federal ban on the medical use of marijuana. “Currently, it’s a violation of federal law,” Hutchinson told reporters. “You’re not going to tolerate a violation of the law. The question is how you address that from an enforcement standpoint.”
Ignoring the findings of the Institute of Medicine’s March 1999 report entitled Marijuana and Medicine: Assessing the Science Base, Hutchinson said the scientific and medical communities had thus far found no legitimate use for marijuana.
For more information, please contact the NORML Foundation’s Allen St. Pierre at 202-483-8751.
