The DEA's Double Standard: Raiding Cartels While Blocking Cures

The time has come for Cole's DEA to separate crime from science, ending the seven year blockade on medical cannabis and proving that true public safety includes curing disease, not just seizing drugs.

WASHINGTON, DC / ACCESS Newswire / November 4, 2025 / When new DEA Administrator Terrance "Terry" Cole took office this summer, he inherited two very different wars. One is the war on cartels bloody, international, and long overdue.

The other is the quiet, bureaucratic war against medical cannabis research-a conflict that has dragged on for seven years and cost American patients time, hope, and progress.

The Enforcement Front

Under Cole's leadership, the DEA has launched aggressive raids against Chinese backed illegal marijuana operations, fentanyl traffickers, and synthetic THC counterfeiters flooding vape markets. Thousands of pounds of contraband have been seized. Hundreds of arrests made. President Trump's "Operation Sovereign Nation" gave Cole a clear mandate: take down the poison peddlers.

That's the DEA the public wants to see-protecting families, not blocking scientists.

The Scientific Front

Yet in the very same agency, another battle continues to stall. Despite FDA approvals, orphan-drug designations, and years of investment, MMJ International Holdings federally compliant research program remains entangled in DEA red tape.
MMJ BioPharma Cultivation-part of the vertically integrated MMJ International Holdings group that also includes MMJ BioPharma Labs, a DEA-licensed Schedule I analytical facility-represents the lawful, pharmaceutical model the government claims to support.

MMJ BioPharma Labs already holds a DEA Schedule I research license, actively developing and validating testing for cannabinoid based soft-gel capsules intended for FDA authorized clinical trials in Huntington's Disease and Multiple Sclerosis.

While Cole's field agents are busting cartels, his Diversion Division still treats FDA-approved researchers as suspects.

"DEA can't keep treating medical science like a crime scene,"
- Duane Boise, President & CEO, MMJ International Holdings

The Contradiction

President Trump and DEA administrator Cole says they are focused on "poison peddlers." Boise agrees. But the poison isn't pharmaceutical cannabis-it's the bureaucracy that delays it. Every month of DEA inaction means another patient losing function, another caregiver losing hope, and another unregulated black-market product filling the void.

The contradiction is unsustainable:

• Cartel farms flourish while clinical trials wait for signatures.

• Illegal workers are trafficked through grow houses while FDA-regulated labs face compliance delays.

• The DEA proudly counts seizures in tons-but ignores the lives lost to diseases its policies prevent from being treated.

The Path Forward

President Trump and Cole's DEA can win both wars-if it separates crime from science.

That means:

1. Creating a dedicated research division within DEA to manage FDA-licensed programs.

2. Fast-tracking registrations for companies meeting pharmaceutical GMP standards.

3. Collaborating with FDA and HHS to build transparent supply chains for medical-grade cannabis materials.

MMJ's vertically integrated structure-Cultivation → Labs → Clinical Trials-already proves that lawful, regulated cannabis research can exist entirely within the DEA's own framework. It simply needs the agency's administrative follow through.

Science Is the Real Security

The DEA's future success won't be measured only in kilograms seized-but in cures unlocked. America can fight fentanyl and fund research at the same time. The choice isn't between law enforcement and compassion-it's between paralysis and progress.

President Trump and Terry Cole have the power to make this the most consequential DEA in history-one that ends the war on science and begins the era of evidence.

MMJ is represented by attorney Megan Sheehan.

CONTACT:
Madison Hisey
MHisey@mmjih.com
203-231-85832

SOURCE: MMJ International Holdings