[SOLVED] Dr. Lyle Craker, a professor in the

Dr. Lyle Craker, a professor in the University of Massachusetts’s Department of Plant, Soil and Insect Sciences, applied to the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) for permission to register to manufacture marijuana for clinical research. He stated that “a second source of plant material is needed to facilitate privately funded Food and Drug Administration (FDA)-approved research into medical uses of marijuana, ensuring a choice of sources and an adequate supply of quality, research-grade marijuana for medicinal applications.”
An administrative law judge recommended that Craker’s application be granted, but a DEA deputy administrator issued an order denying his application. Under the DEA’s interpretation, the Controlled Substances Act (CSA) requires an applicant to prove both that effective controls against diversion of the marijuana for unapproved purposes are in place and that its supply and the competition to supply it are inadequate. The administrator determined that the professor had not proved that effective controls against the marijuana’s diversion were in place or that supply and competition were inadequate. Craker petitioned the U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit to review the order.
Since 1968, the National Center for Natural Products Research (“NCNPR”) at the University of Mississippi has held the necessary registration and a government contract to grow marijuana for research purposes. The contract is administered by the National Institute on Drug Abuse (“NIDA”), a component of the National Institutes of Health (“NIH”), which, in turn, is a component of the [U.S.] Department of Health and Human Services (“HHS”). The contract is opened for competitive bidding every five years. The NCNPR is the only entity registered by the DEA to manufacture marijuana.
Dr. Craker’s argument with respect to competition is essentially that there cannot be “adequately competitive conditions” when there is only one manufacturer of marijuana.
The Administrator observed that NIDA had provided marijuana manufactured by the University of Mississippi either at cost or free to researchers, and that Dr. Craker had made no showing of how he could provide it for less. Additionally, the Administrator noted that Dr. Craker is free to bid on the contract when it comes up for renewal.
We see nothing improper in the Administrator’s approach. The [CSA’s] term “adequately competitive conditions” is not necessarily as narrow as the petitioner suggests. That the current regime may not be the most competitive situation possible does not render it “inadequate. ”
In finding that Dr. Craker failed to demonstrate that the current supply of marijuana was not adequate and uninterrupted, the Administrator observed that there were over 1,000 kilograms of marijuana in NIDA possession, an amount which far exceeds present research demands and “any foreseeable” future demand. Dr. Craker does not dispute this finding, or that the current amount is more than ninety times the amount he proposes to supply. Instead, he argues that the adequacy of supply must not be measured against NIDA-approved research, but by whether the supply is adequate to supply projects approved by the FDA. But even if we were to accept his premise—which we don’t—Dr. Craker fails to demonstrate that the supply is inadequate for those needs, either. He merely states that certain projects were rejected as “not bona-fide” by NIDA, a claim which does not address the adequacy of supply. The fact that Dr. Craker disagrees with the method by which marijuana research is approved does not undermine the substantial evidence that supports the Administrator’s conclusion……………………………………………………

Required:
Why should a court wait to review an agency’s order until it has gone through the entire procedural process and can be considered final?
Under what standard does a court defer to an agency’s interpretation of a statute? Did the court in this case appear to have applied that standard to the DEA’s interpretation of the Controlled Substances Act? Discuss.

Question: Dr. Lyle Craker, a professor in the