A GOP congressman is claiming that the head of the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) opposes marijuana rescheduling\u2014despite the fact that her agency officially concurred with a recommendation to implement the reform as well as the director\u2019s repeated public comments criticizing research barriers imposed by cannabis\u2019s current Schedule I status.<\/p>\n
While Rep. Andy Harris (R-MD) said during a House Appropriations Committee hearing on Thursday that NIDA Director Nora Volkow is \u201cadamantly opposed\u201d to rescheduling cannabis, the agency declined to substantiate that position in a statement to Marijuana Moment\u2014instead pointing to the director\u2019s past remarks and other materials describing how researchers face onerous obstacles in conducting studies into cannabis due to its Schedule I status under the Controlled Substances Act (CSA).<\/p>\n
In response to a directive from President Joe Biden, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) carried out a review into marijuana scheduling and ultimately advised the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) to move it from Schedule I to Schedule III. \u201cNIDA concurs with this recommendation,\u201d the letter transmitting the matter to DEA said.<\/p>\n
Nonetheless, Harris told the head of the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) during Thursday\u2019s hearing that Volkow herself is opposed to the reclassification, as well as any move to make \u201cmarijuana more broadly available.\u201d The congressman asked FDA Commissioner Robert Califf whether he\u2019d discussed the issue with the NIDA director and then pressed him on whether he was \u201caware\u201d of her position.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m aware of her opinions, yes,\u201d Califf said, notably declining to push back on the rescheduling claim.<\/p>\n
\nFor drug policy observers, that might raise eyebrows. Volkow has certainly voiced concerns about the potential impacts of broader availability of marijuana products, but she\u2019s been nothing if not consistent about her position that the Schedule I status of drugs\u2014including marijuana and psychedelics, for example\u2014inhibits necessary research<\/a> because it requires researchers to jump through bureaucratic hoops. She\u2019s said she personally hesitates to conduct cannabis research for that reason<\/a>.<\/p>\n NIDA didn\u2019t directly contest the congressman\u2019s characterization of the director\u2019s position on rescheduling in a statement after the hearing. Instead, it reiterated that the \u201cHHS recommendation to reschedule marijuana is currently undergoing review with DEA,\u201d adding that the National Institutes of Health (NIH) that NIDA falls under \u201cdoes not comment on pending decisions.\u201d<\/p>\n However, the NIDA email to Marijuana Moment did cite Volkow\u2019s 2020 comments during a hearing before the House Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Health, where she testified that \u201clegal and regulatory barriers continue to present challenges to advancing cannabis research,\u201d including the Schedule I designation of marijuana under the CSA.<\/p>\n \u201cObtaining or modifying a Schedule I registration involves significant administrative challenges, and researchers report that obtaining a new registration can take more than a year,\u201d she said<\/a> in the cited testimony. \u201cIt would be useful to clarify aspects of the CSA that have been sources of confusion and administrative burden for the research community.\u201d<\/p>\n The NIDA email also linked to a 2017 National Academies report titled \u201cThe Health Effects of Cannabis and Cannabinoids: The Current State of Evidence and Recommendations for Research,\u201d which explained how the process of obtaining registrations to study Schedule I drugs can be a \u201cdaunting experience for researchers.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThe substantial layers of bureaucracy that emerge from cannabis\u2019s Schedule I categorization is reported to have discouraged a number of cannabis researchers from applying for grant funding or pursuing additional research efforts,\u201d it said<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u201cThere are specific regulatory barriers, including the classification of cannabis as a Schedule I substance, that impede the advancement of cannabis and cannabinoid research,\u201d one concluding point reads.<\/p>\n Again, NIDA didn\u2019t explicitly dispute the idea that Volkow personally opposes rescheduling as Harris suggested, and as Califf seemed to tentatively acknowledge, but the director has made abundantly clear that the current system needs to change in some capacity. A Schedule III reclassification wouldn\u2019t legalize marijuana or make it more broadly available as far as federal law goes, but advocates have touted the reform as one means of reducing the administrative burdens on researchers.<\/p>\n Harris, however, is a vociferous opponent of cannabis reform, and he told DEA Administrator Anne Milgram in February that he believes FDA came to a \u201cmisguided conclusion\u201d to recommend rescheduling cannabis<\/a>\u2014challenging the health agency\u2019s scientific standards and imploring DEA to dismiss them as it prepares to make a final determination.<\/p>\n He raised a similar point during Thursday\u2019s hearing with the FDA commissioner, stating that he thinks it\u2019s \u201cabsolutely wrong\u201d that the agency used a new two-pronged review process to reach its rescheduling conclusion, as opposed to the five-factor review it previously utilized. He said he understood the decision, however, because marijuana\u2014as a chemically complex botanical\u2014could not be determined to fit a different classification other than Schedule I under the prior method.<\/p>\n \u201cWell, obviously marijuana has chemistry that is not known and reproducible because, if you go into a marijuana dispensary, there are about\u2014I don\u2019t know, I haven\u2019t been in one\u2014 but there are probably 50 different products, all with a different THC concentration, CBD concentration,\u201d he said. \u201cMarijuana is not a drug. It is a group of things.\u201d<\/p>\n Harris previewed his line of questioning at the beginning of the hearing<\/a>, emphasizing that he has \u201cserious concerns about the actions FDA took when recommended\u201d rescheduling. He said the two-factor review the agency used\u00a0\u201clacks both substances and data,\u201d and FDA \u201cignored several factors,\u201d including the impacts of daily marijuana use and THC-related traffic fatalities.<\/p>\n\n \u201cThe American people deserve to know the effect that modern marijuana has on the human body,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n Califf was also pressed on the cannabis rescheduling issue during a separate House Oversight and Accountability Committee hearing last week, where he said there\u2019s \u201cno reason\u201d for DEA to \u201cdelay\u201d making a scheduling decision<\/a>.<\/p>\n He also said that, \u201cas a child of the sixties,\u201d it would \u201cbe nice if in my lifetime we came up with a regulatory scheme\u201d for cannabis.<\/p>\n The commissioner\u2019s comments come as the Biden administration continues to tout its role in issuing cannabis pardons and directing the marijuana scheduling review, including in a presidential proclamation declaring April \u201cSecond Chance Month.\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n President Joe Biden also discussed the marijuana actions in a\u00a0historic context last month, during his State of the Union address<\/a>.<\/p>\n Vice President Kamala Harris also urged DEA to\u00a0finish its review and reschedule marijuana \u201cas quickly as possible\u201d<\/a>\u00a0while meeting pardon recipients for a roundtable event at the White House last month. Behind closed doors,\u00a0she also said \u201cwe need to legalize marijuana.\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said on Monday that it\u2019s now up to the Justice Department to make a final decision on cannabis scheduling<\/a>, adding that the top federal health agency\u2019s recommendation to reclassify marijuana was \u201cguided by the evidence.\u201d<\/p>\n A DEA official recently said\u00a0it sometimes takes up to six months for\u00a0DEA to complete its analysis of health officials\u2019 scheduling recommendations<\/a>\u2014which is just about how long it has now been since the agency began its current cannabis assessment.<\/p>\n Meanwhile, last month, HHS Secretary Xavier Becerra defended his agency\u2019s rescheduling recommendation during a Senate committee hearing and also told cannabis lobbyist Don Murphy that he should\u00a0pay DEA a visit and \u201cknock on their door\u201d for answers about the timing<\/a>\u00a0of their decision.<\/p>\n Certain DEA officials are\u00a0reportedly resisting the Biden administration\u2019s rescheduling push<\/a>, disputing the HHS findings on marijuana\u2019s safety profile and medical potential, according to unnamed sources who spoke with The Wall Street Journal.<\/p>\n Americans Use Marijuana At Nearly The Same Rate In Legal And Non-Legal States, Suggesting Criminalization Doesn\u2019t \u2018Curtail\u2019 Consumption, Gallup Poll Finds<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n Photo courtesy of Chris Wallis \/\/ Side Pocket Images.<\/em><\/p>\n The post GOP Congressman Claims Top Federal Drug Official \u2018Adamantly Opposes\u2019 Marijuana Rescheduling, But Agency Endorsed FDA Recommendation<\/a> appeared first on Marijuana Moment<\/a>.<\/p>\n
A GOP congressman is claiming that the head of the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) opposes marijuana rescheduling\u2014despite the fact that her agency officially concurred with a recommendation to implement the reform as well as the director\u2019s repeated public comments criticizing research barriers imposed by cannabis\u2019s current Schedule IContinue 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\/74373"}],"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=74373"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/74373\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":74374,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/74373\/revisions\/74374"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=74373"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=74373"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=74373"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}\n
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\nRead More: GOP Congressman Claims Top Federal Drug Official \u2018Adamantly Opposes\u2019 Marijuana Rescheduling, But Agency Endorsed FDA Recommendation<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"