Last week I wrote a roundup on cannabis in Oregon. This week I thought I’d write a bit about what’s been going on in the Federal government. There’s quite a bit.
The Nixon Tapes
Here's some interesting news unearthed by Curtis Hanna, a Minnesota cannabis lobbyist. Ernesto Londoño then broke the story in the New York Times on September 14th. You can read it here. In essence, Nixon acknowledged that marijuana was “not particularly dangerous,” despite calling it “public enemy No. 1” just two years earlier. And he opined that the penalties for marijuana possession should not be too severe.
I call this news “interesting” because it's interesting rather than surprising, and I don't think it will have a huge impact. Nixon was a mean old liar who hated certain groups of people, and I'm not sure this revelation will change the mind of a vocal minority of prohibitionists. Either way, as a pot history nerd, I love this news. We were right!
DEA to Introduce Two-Stage Review for Marijuana Reclassification
This is important in my opinion. It concerns the analytical methods the DEA must conduct when determining whether drugs, including marijuana (and psilocybin, other prohibited substances), have a “currently recognized medical use.” In April, the Department of Justice's Office of Legal Counsel (OLC) harshly criticized the DEA on this matter, describing the traditional five-part test as “unacceptably narrow.” The OLC approved this two-part test. On September 17, the DEA agreed to this test for Schedule I screening.
Two-part testing bodes well for the ongoing DEA rulemaking to move marijuana from Schedule I to Schedule III of the federal Controlled Substances Act. Why? First, because Schedule I proponents don't like it. That's because two-part review would allow a drug to have a currently accepted medical use even if a) it's not FDA approved and b) it doesn't pass the DEA's defunct five-part test, meaning more runway.
DOOBIE Act in the works?
I'm embarrassed to type this, but unfortunately, one member of Congress has dubbed a federal marijuana bill the “DOOBIE Act,” press release and all.
This proposal would prohibit federal agencies from denying people security clearances and employment solely because they have used marijuana. From my reading of the actual bill, these agencies can disqualify applicants for past marijuana use, but they cannot “base eligibility determinations solely on an individual's past marijuana use.” The word “solely” should be removed.
Because the bill only applies to “executive agencies” under Title 5, U.S. Code, Section 105, it would not have prohibited, for example, Joe Biden from smearing his “dooby” staff, which he undoubtedly did.
FDA approves tobacco-hemp mix
I like the Congressional Research Service (CRS) and often send people there. On September 16th, CRS released a new report titled, “Legal Impact of Marijuana Reclassification on FDA Cannabis Regulation.” Here are my very summarized takeaways:
The FDA could (but has not yet) approve tobacco products containing hemp-derived cannabinoids because hemp is not a controlled substance. Marijuana is (and likely will remain) prohibited as a tobacco additive, even as a Schedule III substance. This is because the FDA would need to approve a specific cannabis drug first, but the FDA has not done so for botanical drugs.
This is one of the many cognitive dissonances we see with the cannabis plant: it makes sense as an interpretation of the law, but is nonsense as policy. We can thank Richard Nixon and other cannabis thugs for this.
