Tag: medical marijuana

GOP Congressman Tells Welfare Recipients To ‘Stop Buying The Medical Marijuana’ And Eating Cheetos

A GOP congressman is peddling a stigmatizing message to justify a new bill on adding work requirements for certain federal benefits, implying that it’s necessary to prevent people from buying marijuana with taxpayer dollars and lazing around on the couch while eating Cheetos.

During an appearance on Fox Business on Wednesday, Rep. Pat Fallon (R-TX) was asked about recently filed Republican legislation that would impose restrictions on access to Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits—specifically mandating that able-bodied people under 65 work at least 20 hours per week in order to receive the assistance.

That’s already part of federal law, but lead bill sponsor from Rep. Dusty Johnson (R-SD) claims his America Works Act would close “loopholes” that have been exploited in certain states.

Fallon, for his part, decided to justify the legislation by playing into cannabis stereotypes and arguing that federal dollars are going toward medical cannabis purchases by welfare recipients.

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Military Veterans Groups Push Congress To Expedite Psychedelics Research And Support Medical Marijuana Access

The U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) should continue to explore psychedelics and medical marijuana therapy and expedite access to such alternative treatments if they’re proven to be efficacious, representatives of leading veterans service organizations (VSOs) told members of Congress this week.

One key group testified that the scheduling of substances like cannabis, psilocybin and MDMA as Schedule I drugs is a “major barrier” to therapeutic access.

At joint hearings before the House and Senate Veterans’ Affairs Committees on Tuesday and Wednesday, lawmakers took testimony from the VSOs—and one theme that emerged was the need to support research and access for marijuana and psychedelics, particularly as it concerns VA.

Rep. Jack Bergman (R-MI), co-chair of the Congressional Psychedelics Advancing Therapies (PATH) Caucus, asked Disabled American Veterans (DAV) National Commander Daniel Contreras what role he felt VA should play in “advancing the promising field in that area of [psychedelic] medicine through research.”

Contreras said it’s DAV’s position that “we should look at alternatives.” He added that he’s personally familiar with the issue in part because psilocybin has been incorporated into his own wife’s therapy, which underscores for him that “there needs to be some alternative choices.”

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Oklahoma Senators Approve Bill To Protect Second Amendment Rights Of Medical Marijuana Patients

Lawmakers in Oklahoma this week advanced a bill aimed at protecting gun rights of state-registered medical marijuana patients, although federal law still bars cannabis users from owning firearms regardless of their patient status.

The Senate Committee on Public Safety unanimously passed the measure, SB 39, from Sen. Julie Daniels (R), on Wednesday with a vote of 6-0. If it’s enacted, the legislation would specify that applicants for state-issued handgun licenses would not be disqualified merely for being a medical marijuana patient.

It states that “an applicant shall not be considered ineligible solely on the basis of being a lawful holder of a medical marijuana patient license” and also makes a medical marijuana exception around disqualifications for “any violation relating to illegal drug use or possession.”

Yet another provision in the bill says that “nothing in this section shall be construed to allow the Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation to deny an otherwise qualified applicant from obtaining a handgun license pursuant to the Oklahoma Self-Defense Act solely on the basis of the applicant being a lawful holder of a medical marijuana patient license.”

Ahead of the vote at Wednesday’s hearing, Daniels pointed out that courts across the nation are increasingly pushing back against the notion that merely using marijuana should deny them their Second Amendment rights.

“In recent years, the courts have all come down on the side that someone should not be denied a firearm license or be prosecuted for possession of a firearm solely because they use marijuana,” she told colleagues. “And in Oklahoma, of course, we have a medical marijuana program. So the point of this bill is to make clear that solely because you have a medical marijuana patient card does not mean that you should be automatically denied a firearm license.”

Carrying or using a shotgun, rifle or pistol while under the influence of marijuana—even if it was “obtained pursuant to a valid medical marijuana patient license”—would remain illegal if the drug affects someone “to a degree that would result in abnormal behavior,” the bill says.

The Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigations, for its part, said in a statement on Wednesday that it will abide by the new rules, if adopted.

“We respect the right of Oklahomans to legally have firearms,” the agency said, according to local ABC affiliate KOCO News 5, which first reported the committee’s passage of the bill. “We will work with new laws passed by the legislature.”

As for the federal law against gun ownership by marijuana users, a federal appeals court panel earlier this month dismissed a three-year prison sentence against a person convicted for possession of a firearm while being an active user of marijuana, ruling that the federal government’s prohibition on gun ownership by drug users is justified only in certain circumstances—not always.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit said in the opinion that while not all disarmament of drug users violates the Second Amendment, it nevertheless sometimes can.

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Kansas Republicans Reject Amendment To Grant Terminally Ill Patients The Right To Try Medical Marijuana

A Senate Democrat unsuccessfully attempted to insert “medicinal cannabis” among treatments allowed under a bill meant to broaden Kansans’ access to experimental drugs.

Democratic Sen. Cindy Holscher, who introduced Wednesday the amendment that would have legalized medicinal cannabis for terminally ill patients, later emphasized her intention was not to create a public medical marijuana program.

“I think most of you realize I would not bring something of that magnitude to an important bill like SB 250,” said Holscher, of Overland Park, Wednesday evening. “That amendment, rather, was to mirror what was approved by President Trump in the Right to Try Act, which is a very defined, narrow scope only for terminally ill patients.”

Senate Bill 250, introduced and carried on the Senate floor by Eudora Republican Sen. Beverly Gossage, would create the Right to Try for Individualized Investigative Treatments Act. Investigational treatments can also be referred to as experimental drugs, according to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.

The bill would permit people who are unable to find relief from rare, life-threatening or debilitating conditions to access individualized, genetics-based medical treatment. The drug trial evaluation system in the U.S. is designed to evaluate medications meant to help larger populations, leaving behind drugs that can be individually tailored to a patient’s unique genetic makeup, Gossage said.

“Individualized treatments are being pioneered in the U.S. and abroad, but often patients in the U.S. travel thousands of miles,” she said.

The bill passed the Senate and is awaiting approval in the House.

Holscher supported the bill as a whole but voiced concerns.

“I don’t want to give people false hope,” she said, “yet I certainly would not stand in the way of a parent or individual trying to get medical help for a family member.”

Her amendment added medicinal cannabis to the list of treatments allowed under the definition of individualized investigative treatment.

Cannabis “has been found to have proven benefits for those with life-threatening or debilitating diseases,” Holscher said.

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Florida Bill Would Let People With Opioid Use Disorder Qualify For Medical Marijuana

A newly introduced bill in the Florida Senate would expand eligibility for the state’s medical marijuana program by adding as a qualifying condition “an addiction to or dependence on an opioid drug.”

The legislation, SB 778, was filed Monday by Sen. Carlos Guillermo Smith (D). If enacted, it would take effect on July 1 of this year.

Current qualifying conditions for medical marijuana in Florida include cancer, epilepsy, glaucoma, HIV/AIDS, PTSD, ALS, Crohn’s disease, Parkinson’s disease, multiple sclerosis, terminal conditions and chronic pain caused by a qualifying condition, according regulators at the state’s Office of Medical Marijuana Use (OMMU).

The new bill has not yet been referred to a committee, according to the state Senate website.

Smith has in the past also filed legislation to legalize cannabis for adults, and last year he criticized Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) for spending the state’s opioid settlement funds on advertisements opposing Amendment 3, an industry-funded ballot measure that would have legalized adult-use cannabis in the state.

“Thousands of Floridians have died from opioid overdoses. ZERO Floridians have died from marijuana overdose,” he said on social media last October. “Yet DeSantis is spending MILLIONS of Florida’s opioid settlement money meant to fight the opioid crisis on his prohibitionist anti-freedom, anti-marijuana campaign.”

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GOP Florida Lawmaker Wonders If State’s Medical Marijuana Program Is ‘Causing More Harm Than Good’

With nearly 900,000 registered patients, Florida has the largest medical marijuana program in the country. While campaigning against a proposed constitutional amendment that would have legalized recreational cannabis last year, Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) hailed the medical program, boasting that he had legalized smokeable weed in the state in 2019.

But that doesn’t mean the Florida GOP-controlled legislature is all in with medical marijuana, and on Tuesday one House member asked a state doctor charged with analyzing the effectiveness of cannabis as medicine if its use by Floridians poses more of a risk than a benefit.

“You’ve made it very clear that there needs to be more research across the gamut of this area, but you’ve also made it clear that a lot of the research that you do have shows this program to be of questionable medical value,” said Northeast Florida Republican Dean Black to Dr. Almut Winterstein, a professor in the College of Pharmacy at the University of Florida and director of the Consortium for Medical Marijuana Outcomes Research.

“My question is, do you fear that we’re causing more harm than good?”

Winterstein replied that the question illuminated the “conundrum” that exists when it comes to the medical efficacy of cannabis, which because it is listed as a Schedule I controlled substance by the federal government has always had restrictions placed on research. (The Biden administration proposed last year to reclassify the substance as a Schedule III controlled substance).

“That is concerning,” she said in response to Black’s query. “That doesn’t mean that there are not patients who might massively benefit from this, but we haven’t defined the benefit of this.”

In her presentation to the House Professions & Programs Subcommittee, Winterstein reported rapid growth among young adults up to age 25 in Florida in listing anxiety as the medical condition motivating them to seek a medical marijuana prescription. She said that was “fairly strong evidence that marijuana attacks the developing brain negatively—specifically, cognitively.”

But she said that was very different than looking at patients suffering from chronic pain or other medical conditions. 

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Arkansas Senate Passes Bill To Use Medical Marijuana Revenue To Fund Free Breakfasts For Students

The Arkansas Senate has approved a bill to set aside revenue from medical marijuana taxes to pay for free breakfast for students.

The legislation, SB 59, would supplement federal free and reduced-price meal funds with money from a state Food Insecurity Fund, paid for by cannabis taxes as well as private grants and money from the state’s general fund.

Bill sponsor Sen. Jonathan Dismang (R), noted ahead of the floor vote that “25 percent of our kids wake up food insecure every single day when they go to school.”

“Sometimes that meal that they get at school is the only nutritious meal they get in a day,” he said. “These kids have no way to feed themselves, and if they have parents that aren’t willing to sign the cards or send them with money, those districts are required to feed them, and they build up debt. But this would allow every kid in the state of Arkansas to be entitled to have a free breakfast.”

The legislation would provide meals to students regardless of whether or not they qualify for free or reduced-cost food under federal law.

“We would ask the first of federal dollars that are available be utilized, and anything else that’s remaining,” Dismang said. “The state of Arkansas would pick up utilizing the medical marijuana dollars to help make that district whole for providing that breakfast.”

The measure passed by a vote of 26-2 days after it was unanimously approved by the Senate Education Committee. It now heads to the House of Representatives for consideration.

The Senate’s passage of SB 59 follows an endorsement of the proposal last month from Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders (R), who previewed the bill in her State of the State address. Notably, Sanders, a former press secretary under the first Trump administration, has historically resisted cannabis policy reform.

“We will also use those funds to make school breakfast in Arkansas completely free for any student that chooses to participate,” she said in the speech, saying the use of medical marijuana funds would make the program “sustainable for years to come.”

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Florida Bill Would Let Medical Marijuana Patients Grow At Home And Crack Down On Hemp-Derived Cannabinoids

A Florida lawmaker has introduced legislation that would allow medical marijuana patients in the state to grow up to two cannabis plants at home while also outlawing certain hemp-derived cannabinoids.

SB 334, sponsored by Sen. Joe Gruters (R)—who endorsed last year’s ultimately unsuccessful ballot measure that would have legalized marijuana for adults 21 and older—would require that homegrown cannabis be cultivated out of public view, “including a view from another private property,” and in an “enclosed, locked space to prevent access by unauthorized persons and persons younger than 21.”

The two-plant limit would apply to a household regardless of how many qualified patients live in the residence. Violations would be a first degree criminal misdemeanor, punishable by up to a year in jail and a $1,000 fine.

The proposal would expand the rights of medical marijuana patients in Florida while at the same time trying to rein in the state’s largely unregulated hemp-derived cannabinoid market. Specifically, it would ban from hemp products the cannabinoids delta-8 THC, delta-10 THC, tetrahydrocannabinol acetate (THCA), tetrahydrocannabivarin (THCV), tetrahydrocannabiphorol (THCP) and hexahydrocannabinol (HHC).

Delta-9 THC, meanwhile—the chief psychoactive component in marijuana—would be capped at 2 milligrams per serving and 20 mg per package. Further, the bill clarifies that a product’s delta-9 THC content would be determined through a combination of delta-9 itself and THCA, which converts into delta-9 THC when heated.

The new bill would also impose certain additional restrictions on the sale and advertising of hemp extracts, for example banning street retail stalls, sales at festivals and businesses within 500 feet of a school, day care facility or other hemp business. Public advertisements would also be generally prohibited.

Gruters, a former chair of the Florida Republican Party, was a proponent of the backed legalization measure Amendment 3 last November, appearing in an ad alongside Sen. Shevrin Jones (D) to argue that the reform would be “good for Florida” despite strong pushback from Gov. Ron DeSantis (R).

Gruters and Kim Rivers—the CEO of Trulieve, a medical marijuana company that provided the bulk of funding for Amendment 3—also met with Trump ahead of his endorsement of the constitutional amendment, as well as federal rescheduling and industry banking access.

Notably, Amendment 3 would not have legalized home cultivation of marijuana—a detail seized on by some critics of the industry-backed proposal.

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More American Adults Use Cannabis As A Sleep Aid Than Choose Prescription Pills Or Alcohol To Fall Asleep, Poll Shows

About 16 percent of Americans aged 21 and older say they use cannabis as a sleep aid, according to a new industry-backed survey. That makes marijuana more popular for sleep than prescription sleep aids (12 percent) or alcohol (11 percent), but still not quite as common as using supplements (26 percent) or over-the-counter sleep aids (19 percent).

Overall, nearly 8 in 10 U.S. adults (79 percent) said something keeps them up at night, according to the new poll, conducted by The Harris Poll on behalf of cannabis the company Green Thumb Industries and its “incredibles” line of edibles. Fifty-eight percent, meanwhile, reported consuming at least one substance to help them sleep.

The survey included both “cannabis” and “CBD-only or CBD + melatonin products” as possible selections for participants, who could pick multiple responses. Sixteen percent said they inhale or ingest cannabis—which could refer either to marijuana or hemp products—while 10 percent said they used CBD either alone or with melatonin.

The online survey polled 2,019 U.S. adults ages 21 and older in early June 2024, and the results were released this month. It has a margin of error of ±2.5 percentage points.

Men were more likely than women to say they used cannabis (18 percent versus 15 percent, respectively) or CBD products (11 percent versus 8 percent) for sleep. Among women, people between ages 21 and 34 were most likely to use cannabis as a sleep aid, with older age groups considerably less likely. Among men, by contrast, the 35-to-44 age group was most likely to report using cannabis for sleep.

Lower-income people, with household incomes of below $50,000, were the most likely income level to report using cannabis for sleep (23 percent), with people in higher-income households reporting higher use of supplements and over-the-counter sleep aids.

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‘I break the law to buy my child’s life-saving cannabis drug’

Until recently, Jane would have described her family as normal, law-abiding citizens. But that changed last summer, when the full-time mum started illegally buying cannabis oil online for her daughter, Annie.

The 10-year-old has a severe, rare type of epilepsy, resistant to conventional treatments.

At her worst, Annie was admitted to hospital 22 times in 22 months. Doctors warned Jane there was a very real prospect of her daughter dying from a seizure.

Jane says she doesn’t want to break the law – but the severity of Annie’s condition is such that she doesn’t care. We have changed their names to protect their identities.

“[Annie] deserves to be happy. She deserves to have this quality of life,” Jane explains. “And if I’m breaking the law by giving her this quality of life, am I wrong or is the law wrong?”

The family cannot afford a private prescription, which costs approximately £2,000 each month from one of the many clinics that have been established since the legalisation of so-called full-spectrum medical cannabis – which includes the psychoactive ingredient THC.

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