legal correspondent cap for just a second where its national press club night off the night, author nida the national press club you happen to be standing next to ted olson the former solicitor general. when he gets before the court joan biskupic what is the reaction of the justices to him and how does he play to them. >> guest: that's a great question something i have studied for a long time. at least as ted olson has been around. they know him from way back when. just the way chief justice roberts was in the administration. he spends new year's eve with ruth bader ginsburg and recently with elena kagan. when i have conversations with them so they pay attention when he speaks just like they pay attention to a lot of the regulars out there and and he has been on sixtysomething arguments before the justices. so it's fascinating to watch him and watch how the justices respond. they respond especially to many of the former solicitors general just like seth rocks man who was the solicitor general for bill clinton and ted olson was this lesser general for george w. bush. >> host: does he play

nora volkow, who is the director of nida says they are not standing in the way. government institute that approves marijuana research. >> if you would come up with a grant that says, okay, this is going to be a treatment for drug addiction, then go to us, but if it's cancer, it goes to the cancer institute. if it is schizophrenia, it goes to imh, the institutes have a mission with certain diseases. >> what is clear, there are bureaucratic hoops that most researchers simply don't want to jump through. neuroscientist carl hart. >> there are not many people studying marijuana. it's very difficult to get approved to study marijuana. >> what's nice about israel is that the government is helping the research to happen. >> and it's research that could give hope to patients like charlotte figge. scientists in israel are learning that marijuana use might actually protect the brain, not damage it. >> they've been able to show that it can decrease the amount of brain damage from head injuries in mice. >> right. to be able to give a medicine after the injury to reverse some

and nida has continued to amp up their efforts. they now have over 50 studies looking at the potential therapeutic value of the components of marijuana, right? so even the institute of medicine has come out and said smoking marijuana is probably not the most efficient or health-minded delivery device for marijuana, and i think we would all agree with that that that's not the case. so this is where the scheduling comes into place because how do we rely on good science, good data to dictate how drugs are scheduled? and there is a process that dea under hhs really looks at the scientific evidence as it relates to this issue. so, you know it's really important that i think we continue to support research that looks at the potential therapeutic values of the components of marijuana. >> thank you. finish we've gotten to the end of our time here. this has been an extraordinarily rich and i want to thank both of you for joining us this afternoon. i want to thank all in our audience for sticking with us and putting some putting forward some