The US Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) on Monday announced plans to continue to expand marijuana research and confirmed that some products containing cannabidiol (CBD) are now legal.

The DEA plans to allow more applications from those who applied to manufacture marijuana for research, and they anticipate that this will increase the variety of marijuana available to researchers. In the past two years, the number of people researching marijuana has increased by 40 percent, and the DEA production quota for marijuana has doubled.

DEA Acting Administrator Uttam Dhillon stated, “We support additional research into marijuana and its components, and we believe registering more growers will result in researchers having access to a wider variety for study.”

Also, as a result of changes in federal law, certain types of cannabis no longer require registration to grow. Accordingly, “hemp plants and cannabidiol (CBD) preparations at or below the 0.3 percent delta-9 THC threshold” are not controlled substances and do not require DEA registration to grow and research.

The DEA stated that they will “propose new regulations that will govern the marijuana growers program for scientific and medical research” before deciding on any pending applications.