Professor Lyle Craker of the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, working with the Multidisciplinary Association of Psychedelic Studies (MAPS) started petitioning the Drug Enforcement Agency six years ago to allow him to grow marijuana at the University.

He wanted to use the plant to supply researchers around the country who had legitimate research purposes, but were unable to obtain it from the government's supply.

The DEA, citing the University of Mississippi's 36-year monopoly on growing "official" marijuana, refused Professor Craker's request. So he sued them.

Opining that the government's supply of marijuana was "inadequate" for researchers who have a valid need to use the substance in research, the judge ruled in favor of Professor Craker's application.

"For too long the DEA has inappropriately inserted politics into a regulatory process that should be left to the FDA and medical science," said Allen Hopper, an attorney with the ACLU Drug Law Reform project who helped litigate the case, in a press release.

Now it's up to DEA top Administrator Karen Tandy who has 20 days to either agree or disagree with the judge's ruling. Learn more in the Judge's decision here.

The University of Mississippi grows marijuana for research and also to supply the five remaining legal federal medical marijuana patients who receive 300 "joints" per month from the government under the Investigational Use Program. The program was abruptly halted by former President George H.W. Bush when thousands of applications from persons who were HIV-positive, or had AIDS, applied to receive the drug in the early 1990s.