President Biden\u2019s commerce secretary deflected a reporter\u2019s marijuana question on Monday, saying that the issue is \u201cso far afield from anything that I\u2019m working on\u201d for the administration as she focuses on other priorities like trade and supply chain management.<\/p>\n
During an interview with Politico on the Biden agenda, Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo was asked about the president\u2019s unfulfilled promise to decriminalize cannabis, as well as concerns that some stakeholders have voiced about the market impact of broad descheduling when it comes to opening up interstate commerce.<\/p>\n
The cabinet member gave a short answer, saying the issue is not currently a part of her workload and so she doesn\u2019t have \u201cany updates for you on that.\u201d<\/p>\n
Watch the Commerce secretary discuss Biden\u2019s marijuana campaign pledges, starting around 19:30 into the video below:<\/strong><\/p>\n Raimondo, who left her job as governor of Rhode Island to join the Biden administration, used to put significant thought into marijuana policy, backing a plan in her budget request to legalize cannabis for adult use through a state-run model<\/a>. Her successor, Gov. Dan McKee (D), recently proposed legalization in his budget<\/a> that would fund a more conventional adult-use market.<\/p>\n But the apparent lack of attention to cannabis policy in her new capacity is a disappointment for advocates, serving as another signal that the president and its administration are not prioritizing an issue that\u2019s widely popular among Americans, particularly Democrats.<\/p>\n Vice President Kamala Harris used to frequently talk about marijuana reform during her 2020 presidential campaign, for example, but she\u2019s remained relatively silent on the topic since entering the White House. She said last year that the administration isn\u2019t focused on\u00a0following through on its marijuana reform pledges<\/a>\u00a0because it\u2019s too overwhelmed with responding to the coronavirus pandemic.<\/p>\n Biden himself campaigned on decriminalization, rescheduling, legalizing medical cannabis and letting states set their own marijuana policies. Just over a year in office, however, he\u2019s yet to achieve any of those goals<\/a> except for having not interfered in state-legal cannabis programs in the same manner as was the case during the Trump administration and second term of President Barack Obama.<\/p>\n Other federal agencies have at least taken some modest reform steps on the issue, however.<\/p>\n The Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) under Biden has moved on several occasions to greatly increase legal production quotas<\/a> for illegal Schedule I drugs like psilocybin, MDMA and DMT for research purposes.<\/p>\n And several years after first announcing that it would take steps to break the federal marijuana manufacturing monopoly for research,\u00a0it has finally issued new licenses<\/a>\u00a0outside of the University of Mississippi.<\/p>\n The Office of Personnel Management (OPM) said in a memo distributed to agencies last year that admitting to past marijuana use\u00a0should not automatically disqualify people<\/a>\u00a0from being employed in the federal government.<\/p>\n More recently, the director of national intelligence (DNI) said\u00a0federal employers shouldn\u2019t outright reject security clearance applicants<\/a>\u00a0over past use and should use discretion when it comes to those with cannabis investments in their stock portfolios.<\/p>\n FBI\u00a0quietly updated its hiring policies<\/a>\u00a0last year to make it so candidates are only automatically disqualified from joining the agency if they admit to having used marijuana within one year of applying. However, it\u00a0later revised the policy again to add a stipulation<\/a>\u00a0that applicants are ineligible if they\u2019ve used cannabis more than 24 times after turning 18.<\/p>\n In September, The White House Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP) proposed\u00a0a change to the federal drug scheduling system<\/a>\u00a0that it hopes will streamline research into Schedule I controlled substances including marijuana and psychedelics such as psilocybin. DEA and NIDA\u00a0later said that they supports the plan<\/a>.<\/p>\n After\u00a0requesting permission from the White House<\/a>\u00a0to\u00a0conduct the survey of about 20,000 hemp farmers<\/a>, The U.S.Department of Agriculture\u2019s (USDA) National Agricultural Statistics Service announced in August that the forms are being finalized to be filled out via mail or online.<\/p>\n USDA also announced last week that it will be partnering with Cornell University on a webinar series to promote education about hemp as the industry evolves.<\/p>\n The Food and Drug Administration (FDA), meanwhile, still hasn\u2019t gotten around to issuing regulations for hemp-derived cannabidiol products, but it announced last year that it plans to use Reddit and other \u201cnovel\u201d data sources to gain a better understanding of\u00a0public health issues surrounding use of CBD<\/a>\u00a0and other \u201cemerging\u201d cannabis derivatives like delta-8 THC.<\/p>\n Federal, state and local officials\u00a0convened for a national conference this month<\/a>\u00a0where members discussed and advanced proposals to establish standards for marijuana products that could later be formally adopted into a federal handbook overseen by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST).<\/p>\n Marijuana Banking Reform Cleared For House Floor (Again) Following Committee Action On Large-Scale Bill<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n Photo courtesy of Philip Steffan<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n The post Commerce Secretary Says Biden\u2019s Marijuana Pledges Are \u2018So Far Afield\u2019 From Her Work Priorities<\/a> appeared first on Marijuana Moment<\/a>.<\/p>\n
President Biden\u2019s commerce secretary deflected a reporter\u2019s marijuana question on Monday, saying that the issue is \u201cso far afield from anything that I\u2019m working on\u201d for the administration as she focuses on other priorities like trade and supply chain management. During an interview with Politico on the Biden agenda, CommerceContinue 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":[18,81,126],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52673"}],"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=52673"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52673\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":52674,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52673\/revisions\/52674"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=52673"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=52673"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=52673"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}\n
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\nRead More: Commerce Secretary Says Biden\u2019s Marijuana Pledges Are \u2018So Far Afield\u2019 From Her Work Priorities<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"