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A pair of senators has filed a marijuana amendment that they hope to attach to large-scale defense spending legislation\u2014but it\u2019s not the cannabis banking reform proposal that industry stakeholders have been waiting for. Instead, this one deals with removing barriers to research on marijuana\u2019s effects.<\/p>\n
Sens. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) and Brian Schatz (D-HI) submitted an amendment to the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) on Monday that would streamline the application process for researchers who want to investigate cannabis as well as manufacture the plant to be used in studies.<\/p>\n
The amendment is identical to standalone legislation that the senators filed<\/a> in February, alongside Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA). The Senate\u00a0unanimously approved an earlier version of that bill late last year<\/a>, but it was not taken up by the House by the end of the session.<\/p>\n The proposal<\/a> would also clarify that physicians are allowed to discuss the risks and benefits of marijuana with patients and require the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) to submit a report on those potential health benefits, as well one on barriers to cannabis research and how to overcome those obstacles.<\/p>\n Dozens of amendments have filed for NDAA so far, and industry stakeholders are eager to see if the Senate follows the lead of the House and inserts language meant to protect banks that service state-legal marijuana businesses<\/a>.<\/p>\n For now, the research amendment is the only cannabis-related measure that\u2019s been submitted, but it\u2019s not yet clear when the overall bill will come to the Senate floor. If no senator files a banking amendment, the issue\u2019s fate will be decided by a bicameral conference committee charged with reconciling the differences between the two chambers\u2019 versions of the bill before sending a final proposal to the president.<\/p>\n Senate leadership has spent a lot of time thinking about marijuana policy priorities this session, with Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY), Senate Finance Committee Chairman Ron Wyden (D-OR) and Sen. Cory Booker (D-NJ) saying repeatedly that they think comprehensive reform should advance before banking.<\/p>\n That said, Schumer did say during a recent podcast interview that he\u2019s open to approving banking as part of the defense legislation<\/a> if it contains social equity components. Booker, for his part, has been more obstinate, saying he \u201cwill lay myself down\u201d to block<\/a> any other senators who seek to pass marijuana banking legislation ahead of broad, justice-focused legalization.<\/p>\n \u2014 Meanwhile, Feinstein, Schatz and Grassley separately filed the research amendment as part of a massive infrastructure bill earlier this year<\/a>, but it was not given consideration on the floor.<\/p>\n In general, the first section of the proposal concerns the application process for institutions seeking federal authorization to research marijuana. The U.S. attorney general would be given a 60-day deadline to either approve a given application or request supplemental information from the applicant. It would also create an expedited pathway for researchers who request larger quantities of Schedule I drugs.<\/p>\n The second major section of the amendment is about FDA approval of marijuana-derived drugs. One way to encourage such developments is through allowing \u201caccredited medical and osteopathic schools, practitioners, research institutions, and manufacturers with a Schedule I registration\u201d to cultivate their own cannabis for research purposes, a summary says.<\/p>\n The Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) would get a mandate to approve applications to be manufacturers of marijuana-derived, FDA-approved drugs under the bill. Manufacturers would also be allowed to import cannabis materials to facilitate research into the plant\u2019s therapeutic potential.<\/p>\n Finally, a fourth section would require HHS to look at the health benefits and risks of marijuana as well as policies that are inhibiting research into cannabis that\u2019s grown in legal states and provide recommendations on overcoming those barriers.<\/p>\n House lawmakers, for their part,\u00a0also passed legislation last year to expand cannabis research<\/a>, but that bill did not advance in the Senate.<\/p>\n DEA has announced that it\u2019s\u00a0taking steps to approve additional manufacturers<\/a>\u2014a positive development, as far as advocates and researchers are concerned. But the existing monopoly on federally authorized cannabis continues to be a point of concern.<\/p>\n That\u2019s led to calls from investigators, advocates and lawmakers to expand the number of approved manufacturer registrants. Even National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) Director Nora Volkow says the policy must be changed<\/a>, and she expressed support for allowing scientists to access marijuana from state-legal retailers in a recent interview with Marijuana Moment.<\/p>\n \u201cSince dispensaries are selling products that are supposedly very specific for certain characteristics\u2014there is not any one plant\u2014without access to that variety and diversity of plant products, researchers cannot advance that question,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n NIDA has also submitted a report to Congress saying that current restrictions blocking scientists from studying the actual cannabinoid products that consumers can purchase at dispensaries is impeding research\u00a0to an extent that constitutes a public health concern<\/a>.<\/p>\n Bipartisan lawmakers did recently introduce a bill to remove barriers to conducting research on cannabis, including by\u00a0giving scientists access to cannabis<\/a>\u00a0from dispensaries. Similar legislation was passed by the House of Representatives late last year before the end of the prior Congress.<\/p>\n Congressional legislators are also advancing a separate strategy to open up dispensary cannabis to researchers. Large-scale infrastructure legislation that has passed both chambers in differing forms and which is pending final action contains provisions aimed at\u00a0allowing researchers to study the actual marijuana that consumers are purchasing<\/a>\u00a0from state-legal businesses instead of having to use only government-grown cannabis.<\/p>\n The new Senate measure filed by Feinstein and Schatz includes no such provision to allow scientists to study dispensary cannabis, however.<\/p>\n Legalizing Marijuana Reduces \u2018Race-Based Arrests,\u2019 American Medical Association Study Finds<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n The post Senators\u2019 Marijuana Amendment To Defense Bill Would Streamline Research<\/a> appeared first on Marijuana Moment<\/a>.<\/p>\n
A pair of senators has filed a marijuana amendment that they hope to attach to large-scale defense spending legislation\u2014but it\u2019s not the cannabis banking reform proposal that industry stakeholders have been waiting for. Instead, this one deals with removing barriers to research on marijuana\u2019s effects. Sens. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) andContinue Reading<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":458,"featured_media":50909,"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\/50908"}],"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=50908"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50908\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":50910,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50908\/revisions\/50910"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/50909"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=50908"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=50908"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=50908"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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\nRead More: Senators\u2019 Marijuana Amendment To Defense Bill Would Streamline Research<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"