// Definition
The US federal agency that charters the University of Mississippi to grow cannabis for research. By charter, NIDA is mandated to study the harmful and abuse aspects of drugs, effectively stacking the deck against research into cannabis benefits and maintaining a monopoly over legal research cannabis in the United States for decades.
// From the Episode
Mark Scialdone explained: “NIDA’s charter by definition is to look at the drug abuse and non-beneficial aspects of cannabis. So they are stacking the cards in their favour to make it very difficult for anyone who wants to study the beneficial aspects.” This context helped the community understand why positive cannabis research was so limited despite growing anecdotal and clinical evidence.