Researchers would be able to study the marijuana that consumers are actually purchasing from state-legal retailers\u2014instead of having to use only government-grown cannabis\u2014under legislation that is moving forward in both the Senate and the House.<\/p>\n
Under the reform, which is contained in a wide-ranging Senate bill that cleared committee on Wednesday, a federal report would need to be issued with recommendations on establishing a national clearinghouse with samples of different types of marijuana that scientists from non-legal states could obtain for studies.<\/p>\n
The Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee\u2019s move comes one week after a House panel also approved a transportation bill that included substantively identical provisions<\/a>.<\/p>\n Sen. John Hickenlooper (D-CO) sponsored the amendment that contains these reforms, and he argued that the changes are necessary in order to promote research into impaired driving and create a national standard for addressing such activity.<\/p>\n Colorado led the way on marijuana legalization, but we\u2019re still hamstrung by federal laws.<\/p>\n I\u2019m working to\u00a0lift outdated restrictions to help pave the way for a national standard to prevent marijuana-impaired driving. Glad\u00a0our amendment\u00a0passed out of the Commerce Committee today.<\/p>\n \u2014 Senator John Hickenlooper (@SenatorHick) June 17, 2021<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n \u201cColorado led the way on marijuana legalization,\u201d Hickenlooper said<\/a> in a press release. \u201cThe federal government needs to catch up by lifting outdated restrictions on the scientific study of cannabis so we can prevent driving while high.\u201d<\/p>\n The Senate panel approved<\/a> Hickenlooper\u2019s proposal as part of an unanimous vote for a broad package of amendments to a transportation-focused bill.<\/p>\n The cannabis-focused amendment mandates that the Transportation Secretary would need to work with the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and Justice Department to develop a public report within two years of the bill\u2019s enactment that includes recommendations on allowing scientists to access retail-level marijuana to study impaired driving.<\/p>\n It must further contain a recommendation on establishing a national clearinghouse to \u201ccollect and distribute samples and strains of marijuana for scientific research that includes marijuana and products containing marijuana lawfully available to patients or consumers in a State on a retail basis.\u201d<\/p>\n The report must also broadly examine \u201cstatutory and regulatory barriers\u201d to research into marijuana impaired driving.<\/p>\n The transportation legislation as introduced also contains a separate section that would require legal marijuana states\u2014and only those states\u2014to consider methods of educating people about and discouraging impaired driving from cannabis. Advocates take issue with that language simply because it targets legalized jurisdictions while ignoring the fact that marijuana-impaired driving takes place regardless of its legal status.<\/p>\n An earlier version of the transportation bill cleared the House last Congress<\/a>\u00a0with identical marijuana provisions but did not advance in the GOP-controlled Senate.<\/p>\n But since the bill\u2019s initial introduction last year, some steps have been taken to resolve that issue. Most notably, the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) recently notified several companies that it is moving toward\u00a0approving their applications to become federally authorized marijuana manufacturers<\/a>\u00a0for research purposes.<\/p>\n That marks a significant development\u2014and one of the first cannabis-related moves to come out of the Biden administration. There is currently a monopoly on federal cannabis cultivation, with the University of Mississippi having operated the only approved facility for the past half-century.<\/p>\n But that move from DEA would still not free up researchers to access marijuana products from state-legal retailers in the way the transportation bills would allow if it is enacted.<\/p>\n While advocates are supportive of measures to reduce impaired driving, some have raised issues with the implication that legalizing cannabis increases the risk of people driving while under the influence. Research isn\u2019t settled on that subject.<\/p>\n A federally funded study recently promoted by the National Institute of Justice also found that the amount of THC in a person\u2019s system after consuming marijuana\u00a0is not an accurate predictor of impairment<\/a>.<\/p>\n Read the text of Hickenlooper\u2019s marijuana research amendment below:\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n\n Hickenlooper marijuana rese\u2026<\/a> by Marijuana Moment<\/a><\/p>\n Connecticut Marijuana Legalization Bill Heads To Governor\u2019s Desk<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n The post Senate Joins House In Move To Allow Research On Marijuana From Dispensaries<\/a> appeared first on Marijuana Moment<\/a>.<\/p>\n
Researchers would be able to study the marijuana that consumers are actually purchasing from state-legal retailers\u2014instead of having to use only government-grown cannabis\u2014under legislation that is moving forward in both the Senate and the House. Under the reform, which is contained in a wide-ranging Senate bill that cleared committee onContinue Reading<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":458,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"false","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[18,81],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48362"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/458"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=48362"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48362\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":48363,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48362\/revisions\/48363"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=48362"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=48362"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=48362"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}\n
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\nRead More: Senate Joins House In Move To Allow Research On Marijuana From Dispensaries<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"