While it's their job to combat drug smuggling and coinciding usage within the United States, the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) will soon up the amount of marijuana that can legally be grown in the U.S. for research purposes exponentially, from around 1,000 pounds in 2018 to more than 5,400 pounds next year, Forbes reports. According to the publication, a new Federal Register filing will be published in the near future, detailing the DEA's plans for 2019.

In addition, the administration is aiming to cut down on opioid production, including oxycodone, hydrocodone, morphine, and fentanyl.

“We’ve lost too many lives to the opioid epidemic and families and communities suffer tragic consequences every day,” Uttam Dhillon, DEA Acting Administrator, noted in a recent press release. “This significant drop in prescriptions by doctors and DEA’s production quota adjustment will continue to reduce the amount of drugs available for illicit diversion and abuse while ensuring that patients will continue to have access to proper medicine.”

The DEA went on to add that quotas for cannabis and other drugs "reflects the total amount of controlled substances necessary to meet the country’s medical, scientific, research, industrial, and export needs for the year and for the establishment and maintenance of reserve stocks."

The organization is also proposing to keep the production of tetrahydrocannabinols (THC) at 384,460 grams in 2019, the same amount as this year.

The DEA's quotas for 2019 have yet to officially appear in the Federal Register, but once they do, the public can then submit comments pertaining to the proposal for the following 30 days, then allowing the DEA to make amends if they choose to do so.

For more on the DEA's drug proposals for 2019, visit Forbes.

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