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You may associate marijuana with long-haired, tree-hugging hippies, but Birkenstocks aren’t required for those who are doing hands-on work with cannabis daily at the University of Mississippi’s campus.
Tucked away about a mile from the Grove is a small building connected to a greenhouse and an outdoor growing facility where marijuana is not a bad word that is whispered with darting glances, but rather the main focus of conversation.
Despite campus assumptions, the Ole Miss Marijuana Project is not a liberal organization working towards the legalization of marijuana; in fact, it’s quite the opposite.
“The thought marijuana is not harmful is a myth,” Ole Miss Marijuana Project director Dr. Mahmoud A. ElSohly said. “Marijuana is a drug of abuse and addiction.”
ElSohly has been with the project since 1976 and is recognized around the world for his research with medical marijuana.
The project is a multifaceted, one-of-a-kind, federally-funded program whose central focus is to grow and research the chemical composition of cannabis for medical advancements.
“Because of our low profile, most people on campus are not aware of what we do,” said the project’s technical services manager Don Stanford. “They know we grow marijuana, they just don’t know why.”
The project, which is part of the National Center for Natural Products Research within the School of Pharmacy, has been leading the way in cannabis research for nearly 40 years.
The program is supported by the National Institute of Drug Abuse, who has a 5-year contract process.
When the Ole Miss project’s contract is up next year, the university will submit another application and will be considered along with other institutions in a highly competitive selection process.
The project has resided on the University of Mississippi campus since pharmacologist Dr. Coy Waller advocated the need for cannabis research to the federal government in the 1960s.
The program is registered with both the FDA and DEA as a pharmaceutical manufacturer and is closely monitored for both regulatory and quality purposes. According to Stanford, who works specifically on the project’s quality insurance, each batch of marijuana is tested on a variety of factors, including excess moisture and contamination, before it is marked as suitable for human consumption.
Stanford described the growing of cannabis much like that of cotton: It is planted in the spring and harvested through fall.
The project plans out the amount of cannabis they will grow a year in advance in order to adhere to a strict DEA-monitored quota system.
Once the cannabis is harvested and is quality approved, it is either shipped to a subcontracted company in North Carolina to be rolled into cigarettes and distributed through the National Institute of Drug Abuse or processed to isolate pure cannabis chemical constituents for research.
Marijuana is made up of thousands of constituents, some beneficial and some potentially harmful.
When marijuana is inhaled, thousands of harmful chemicals are absorbed into the body.
The project is working to discover and isolate positive constituents so patients can experience the desired medicinal results without being exposed to harmful chemicals.
In the past few years the project has isolated approximately 30 new constituents currently being studied in the Ole Miss labs.
One of the marijuana’s constituents, Tetrahydrocannabinol, commonly referred to as THC, is one of the main focuses of the project.
According to ElSohly, isolated THC is a “good drug” that has the potential to act as an appetite stimulant and to help stop nausea, vomiting and pain associated with a wide range of illnesses including cancer, glaucoma, multiple sclerosis, AIDS, inflammation and anxiety.
University psychology professor, Kenneth Sufka, works with the project to perform pre-clinical studies, including those on THC, in what he calls a “wonderfully interesting collaboration.”
After Sufka’s pre-clinical studies were found to be successful, the university-grown THC was handed off to a pharmaceutical company, which is performing more extensive tests and going through the appropriate steps for the drug to be sold on the market.
The process, referred to as active pharmaceutical investigation, is very expensive and takes several years.
“I think that some people are small-minded and do not see the great potential that cannabis has in providing novel drugs simply because they think of all the negative connotations of marijuana,” Sue Park, a senior pharmacy major who is currently performing research on antidepressant effects of cannabis, said.
“The cannabis plant has hundreds upon hundreds of constituents, and we cannot know the therapeutic possibilities of these isolated unless we study them.”
