![](\"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/11\/MM_Bill_Tracker_V5_blank-27.jpg\"){kind=tracking}
<\/p>\n <\/p>\n
The U.S. House of Representatives on Friday approved a massive infrastructure bill that includes provisions aimed at allowing researchers to study the actual marijuana that consumers are purchasing from state-legal dispensaries<\/a>\u00a0instead of having to use only government-grown cannabis.<\/p>\n The legislation also encourages states that have enacted legalization laws to educate people about impaired driving. With this latest House action to concur with changes made by the Senate, the bill now heads to President Joe Biden\u2019s desk.<\/p>\n The move comes as Democratic lawmakers in Congress work to advance several pieces of marijuana legislation, including a\u00a0 federal legalization bill that cleared the House Judiciary Committee<\/a> in September. A new Republican-led plan to end federal cannabis prohibition<\/a> is also soon to be introduced in the House. Separately, the full chamber approved a defense spending bill in September that includes protections for banks that work with state-legal cannabis businesses<\/a>.<\/p>\n Meanwhile, the House Veterans\u2019 Affairs Committee passed a bill on Thursday to direct the Department of Veterans Affairs to conduct a series of clinical trials on the medical benefits of marijuana<\/a> for military veterans with PTSD and chronic pain.<\/p>\n The infrastructure measure that is now heading to the president makes it so the transportation secretary would need to work with the attorney general and secretary of health and human services 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 The cannabis provision stipulates that the report must 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 It specifies that scientists from states that have not yet enacted legalization should also also be able to access to dispensary products that are being sold in jurisdictions that have ended prohibition.<\/p>\n \u201cAmericans support legalized marijuana, and now Congress is catching up,\u201d Sen. John Hickenlooper (D-CO), who sponsored the research language in the Senate<\/a> and got it added during a committee markup of the transportation legislation, told Marijuana Moment. \u201cWhen it\u2019s signed into law, our bill is an important step toward researching how we can regulate cannabis-impaired driving safely and accurately.\u201d<\/p>\n \u2014 National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) Director Nora Volkow told Marijuana Moment in a recent interview<\/a> that it would be scientifically \u201cvaluable\u201d for researchers to be able to study cannabis from state-licensed shops.<\/p>\n The House first passed the infrastructure bill in June<\/a> with cannabis research provisions included. In August, the Senate passed its own version of the legislation<\/a>, which contained substantively identical marijuana language, in August. On Friday, the House signed off on the Senate\u2019s version, giving the measure final passage.<\/p>\n The bill<\/a> says the cannabis research report must also broadly examine \u201cfederal statutory and regulatory barriers\u201d to studies on marijuana-impaired driving.<\/p>\n The transportation legislation 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\u00a0cleared the House last Congress<\/a> with similar marijuana research provisions but did not advance in the GOP-controlled Senate.<\/p>\n Since its initial introduction last year, some steps have been taken to resolve marijuana research issues. Most notably, the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) recently notified several companies that it is moving toward approving their applications to become federally authorized cannabis 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 legislation would encourage if enacted.<\/p>\n At the same time, DEA recently proposed a massive increase in the production of marijuana and psilocybin for research purposes<\/a>, with the intent of aiding in the development of new federally approved therapeutic medications.<\/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 Meanwhile, broader cannabis research legislation is also pending in Congress.<\/p>\n Last month, a bipartisan group of House members filed a bill to remove barriers to marijuana studies<\/a>. Late last year, the House\u00a0approved an identical version of that cannabis science legislation<\/a>. Days later, the\u00a0Senate passed a similar bill<\/a>\u00a0but nothing ended up getting to the president\u2019s desk by the end of the last Congress. Earlier this year, a bipartisan group of senators\u00a0refiled their marijuana research measure<\/a>\u00a0for the current 117th Congress.<\/p>\n Senators are seeking to attach the text of their cannabis science bill to the National Defense Authorization Act<\/a>.<\/p>\n Republican-Led Bill To Legalize And Tax Marijuana Emerges As Alternative To Democratic Measures<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n The post Bill On Studying Marijuana From Dispensaries Heads To Biden\u2019s Desk After Congressional Passage<\/a> appeared first on Marijuana Moment<\/a>.<\/p>\n
The U.S. House of Representatives on Friday approved a massive infrastructure bill that includes provisions aimed at allowing researchers to study the actual marijuana that consumers are purchasing from state-legal dispensaries\u00a0instead of having to use only government-grown cannabis. The legislation also encourages states that have enacted legalization laws to educateContinue Reading<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":458,"featured_media":51034,"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\/51033"}],"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=51033"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51033\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":51035,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51033\/revisions\/51035"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/51034"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=51033"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=51033"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=51033"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nMarijuana Moment is already tracking more than 1,200 cannabis, psychedelics and drug policy bills<\/a> in state legislatures and Congress this year. Patreon supporters<\/a> pledging at least $25\/month get access to our interactive maps, charts and hearing calendar so they don\u2019t miss any developments.<\/strong>
\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/11\/MM_Bill_Tracker_V5_blank-26.jpg\"){kind=tracking}
<\/a>
\nLearn more about our marijuana bill tracker<\/a> and become a supporter on Patreon<\/a> to get access.
\n\u2014<\/strong><\/strong><\/p>\n\n
\n
\nRead More: Bill On Studying Marijuana From Dispensaries Heads To Biden\u2019s Desk After Congressional Passage<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"