Claire Caulfield/KJZZ

At Grow Sciences’s cultivation facility in Phoenix, medical marijuana is hand-raised, harvested and packed for dispensaries across Arizona.

A lawsuit filed by Arizona-based marijuana researcher Dr. Sue Sisley may push the Drug Enforcement Administration to expand opportunities for scientific research into the effects of cannabis. What those opportunities look like and how soon they may occur are still impossible to answer.

Currently, the DEA has only approved the University of Mississippi to grow cannabis for the purposes of research. The lawsuit process to expand that approval began several years ago and optimism now appears to be growing.

To learn what remains to be done, The Show spoke to attorney Gary Smith, president and a founding director of the Arizona Cannabis Bar Association.

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