{"id":76187,"date":"2024-06-11T05:09:21","date_gmt":"2024-06-11T13:09:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/2024\/06\/11\/biden-admin-is-mischaracterizing-marijuana-rescheduling-impact-as-big-pharma-is-waiting-in-the-wings-former-massachusetts-regulator-says\/"},"modified":"2024-06-11T12:46:28","modified_gmt":"2024-06-11T20:46:28","slug":"biden-admin-is-mischaracterizing-marijuana-rescheduling-impact-as-big-pharma-is-waiting-in-the-wings-former-massachusetts-regulator-says","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/2024\/06\/11\/biden-admin-is-mischaracterizing-marijuana-rescheduling-impact-as-big-pharma-is-waiting-in-the-wings-former-massachusetts-regulator-says\/","title":{"rendered":"Biden Admin Is \u2018Mischaracterizing\u2019 Marijuana Rescheduling Impact As Big Pharma Is \u2018Waiting In The Wings,\u2019 Former Massachusetts Regulator Says"},"content":{"rendered":"<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have to understand that with federal legalization\u2026there are precautions we\u2019ll want to take.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

By Jennifer Smith, CommonWealth Beacon<\/strong><\/p>\n

The Biden administration is reconsidering the long-standing federal hardline stance on cannabis, ushering in pardons for marijuana-based offenses and proposing reclassifying the drug.<\/p>\n

While proponents of social equity in the marijuana industry are cheering the sentiment, they say these more lenient federal gestures, which are silent on established state cannabis regulations, could create confusion.<\/p>\n

They also have a new concern: tobacco and alcohol industries big-footing into the market.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe word of caution is that at this point, because it\u2019s federally illegal, tobacco, alcohol and pharmaceutical companies are not involved,\u201d said Shaleen Title, a former member of the state\u2019s Cannabis Control Commission and now founder and director of the Parabola Center for Law and Policy think tank. \u201cThey have been waiting in the wings. So we have to understand that with federal legalization, that will change and there are precautions we\u2019ll want to take.\u201d<\/p>\n

Title jumped from Massachusetts cannabis regulation to federal policy work at the end of 2020, joining a coalition<\/a> of drug policy experts and lawyers pushing for substantial marijuana reform. She discussed the Bay State\u2019s evolution on cannabis policy and its place in an increasingly complex state-federal cannabis environment on an episode of The Horse Race podcast<\/a> co-hosted by Commonwealth Beacon reporter Jennifer Smith and MassINC Polling Group president Steve Koczela.<\/p>\n

A federal move to reschedule marijuana from Schedule I to Schedule III of the Controlled Substances Act\u2014redefining it from a substance with no medical use and a high potential for abuse to one with a medical use and moderate to low potential for abuse\u2014prompted mixed responses<\/a> from advocates.<\/p>\n

Dr. Rahul Gupta, director of the Office of National Drug Control Policy, told Florida NPR station WGCU that the move is \u201ca recommendation based on science and evidence,\u201d adding \u201cit does make sense to make sure that we\u2019re pursuing science and evidence when it comes to medications and use those medications for Americans with chronic illnesses, chronic pain, diseases like cancer.\u201d<\/p>\n

But Title said the administration is \u201cmischaracterizing\u201d the rescheduling proposal by making it seem like a straightforward shift, when there are still many unanswered questions about how the change would impact prescription access and production\u2014let alone interact with states that have regulations managing both recreational and medicinal cannabis.<\/p>\n

The proposal is \u201ccompletely out of line with what states are doing,\u201d she said. \u201cIt does not legalize anything about state programs.\u201d<\/p>\n

The federal policy tilt, she said, prompted Parabola to \u201ctake a step back and look at what people actually want when it comes to legalization. And in particular, I think it\u2019s really important to understand that different policies will benefit different groups of people.\u201d<\/p>\n

Title said she came to the conclusion that Massachusetts could \u201cdo a much better job\u201d on worker protections prior to a new Parabola survey<\/a>, but respondent priorities reinforced her view. Of those surveyed, 73 percent said cannabis legalization should benefit workers in the cannabis industry. A Bay State cannabis worker suffered an asthma attack<\/a> at a Holyoke processing facility and died in 2022.<\/p>\n

The survey of 404 American adults was initially intended to be an internal Parabola tool to test education messaging on cannabis views, Title said, but the organization decided to release it publicly to highlight a few trends.<\/p>\n

Respondents said they generally trusted people who use marijuana and work toward social equity to guide policy\u2014about 55 percent\u2014and trusted tobacco and alcohol industry executives 18 percent and 13 percent, respectively. Similarly, 28 percent of respondents said that cannabis legalization should benefit tobacco companies and 19 percent said it should benefit alcohol companies.<\/p>\n

When it comes to the enormous tobacco and alcohol industries, any moves into the cannabis space could be substantial. In 2023, reports surfaced that the tobacco company Philip Morris was set to acquire<\/a> the Israeli-based cannabis inhaler company Syqe Medical for up to $650 million, and international tobacco companies have been previewing an expansion into the cannabis business for years<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The risk, in Title\u2019s view, is not just that corporate entities could suck up profit from communities impacted by the drug war, including people of color and indigenous people.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe risks of public health concerns rise when we get large corporations involved as well,\u201d she said. \u201cSo we\u2019re seeing potency rising, we\u2019re seeing a focus on profit where the most heavy users tend to be catered to. And all of those problems would be exacerbated when larger corporations come in.\u201d<\/p>\n

Most Americans now live in a state that allows recreational cannabis use or medical cannabis use, with 79 percent of the population living in a county with at least one dispensary, according to a Pew Research Center review of state marijuana laws<\/a>.<\/p>\n

President Joe Biden in 2022 and 2023 pardoned several marijuana-related offenses under federal law, with the goal of lifting \u201cbarriers to housing, employment and educational opportunities for thousands of people with those prior offenses.\u201d<\/p>\n

The federal pardon, however, does not impact convictions under state laws. Though 24 states have legalized recreational marijuana use and another 14 allow medicinal use, the federal ban on cannabis products has led to a quagmire of state-by-state regulations.<\/p>\n

States like California, New York and Massachusetts are well into an era of legalized cannabis, though the saturated market is leading to some paradoxical booms in unlicensed shops<\/a>. Deep red states largely prohibit<\/a> any cannabis products but CBD, a more benign marijuana byproduct that does not cause a high on its own.<\/p>\n

Even with her eyes turned toward the federal system, Title thinks the Bay State can offer some tools for broader legalization.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think we learned in Massachusetts that prioritizing equity is really important,\u201d she said. \u201cWe learned that loans and grants for people who can\u2019t access capital was a major issue, and we\u2019re only starting to straighten that out. We also learned that the way that cities and towns handle policy should be clear from the beginning. So those are all lessons we can take for federal legalization.\u201d<\/p>\n

This article<\/a> first appeared on CommonWealth Beacon<\/a> and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.<\/em><\/p>\n

\n

Police Groups Back Bill To End Federal Marijuana Prohibition In Legal States And Allow Interstate Commerce<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

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Photo courtesy of Philip Steffan<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n

The post Biden Admin Is \u2018Mischaracterizing\u2019 Marijuana Rescheduling Impact As Big Pharma Is \u2018Waiting In The Wings,\u2019 Former Massachusetts Regulator Says<\/a> appeared first on Marijuana Moment<\/a>.<\/p>\n


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\u201cWe have to understand that with federal legalization\u2026there are precautions we\u2019ll want to take.\u201d By Jennifer Smith, CommonWealth Beacon The Biden administration is reconsidering the long-standing federal hardline stance on cannabis, ushering in pardons for marijuana-based offenses and proposing reclassifying the drug. While proponents of social equity in the marijuanaContinue Reading<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":457,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"false","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[81],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/76187"}],"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\/457"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=76187"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/76187\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":76188,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/76187\/revisions\/76188"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=76187"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=76187"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=76187"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}