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Congressional Chamber Advances Bill Allowing Scientists to Access State-Legal Marijuana Products in Clinical Trials

Washington, DC: Members of the US House of Representatives have approved legislation, HR 5657: The Medical Marijuana Research Act, facilitating clinical cannabis research by establishing a process whereby authorized scientists may access flowers and other products manufactured in accordance with state-approved marijuana programs.

The bill also expedites the timeline during which federal officials must either approve or reject applicants seeking licensure to conduct clinical trials using cannabis products, and it also seeks to increase the total number of federally licensed marijuana growers. For decades, scientists wishing to work with marijuana have complained that it often takes years before their research protocols are approved by the US Drug Enforcement Administration, and that the quality of cannabis provided by the University of Mississippi's cultivation program is of inferior quality and that it is not representative of the products available in legal state markets.

NORML's Deputy Director Paul Armentano said: "These common-sense regulatory changes are necessary and long overdue. Currently, the limited variety of cannabis cultivars accessible to federally licensed researchers does not represent the type or quality of cannabis products currently available in legal, statewide markets. The reality that nearly one-half of US adults have legal access to these multitude of cannabis products, but our nation's top scientists do not, is the height of absurdity and it is an indictment of the current system."

House members voted 343 to 75 in favor of the bill. All members voting against the bill were Republicans.

House lawmakers previously passed a version of the Act in 2020 in the final days of the 116th Congress. The bill was never taken up in the Senate.

Last month, Senate lawmakers unanimously approved separate legislation, Senate Bill 253: The Cannabidiol and Marihuana Research Expansion Act, which also seeks to streamline the federal approval process. However, this proposal continues to limit scientists' access only to marijuana products produced by those possessing a federal license.

Representative Earl Blumenauer, a co-sponsor of HR 5657, said: "The cannabis laws in this country are broken, including those that deal with the medical research of marijuana. ... I am prepared to work with my friends in the Senate to reconcile differences between this legislation and the Senate-passed Cannabidiol and Marihuana Research Expansion Act."

Under current regulations, the DEA is primarily tasked with reviewing and licensing marijuana cultivators, as well as granting Schedule I licenses to scientists wishing to study cannabis in clinical settings. In 2016, the agency announced that it would expand the pool of federally licensed growers beyond just the University of Mississippi (which was initially granted a federal cannabis cultivation license in 1968). In May, the agency for the first time ever announced that it had reached agreements with a handful of third-party applicants to allow them to grow cannabis for use in federally approved clinical trials.

NORML has long advocated for amending federal regulations so that federally-licensed scientists can directly access and assess the wide variety of retail cannabis products available in medical-use and adult-use state markets.

"Rather than compelling scientists to access marijuana products of questionable quality that are manufactured by a limited number of federally licensed producers, NORML believes that federal regulators should allow investigators to access the cannabis that is currently being produced by the multitude of state-sanctioned producers and retailers throughout the country," NORML's Deputy Director Paul Armentano said. "Doing so will not only facilitate and expedite clinical cannabis research in the United States, but it will also bring about a long overdue end to decades of DEA stonewalling and interference with respect to the advancement of our scientific understanding of the cannabis plant."

Analysis: Statewide Legalization Laws Not Associated with Any Uptick in Marijuana-Related Treatment Admissions

Farmington, CT: The enactment of laws legalizing adult-use marijuana possession and sales is not associated with any increase in the proportion of marijuana-related substance use treatment admissions, according to data published in The American Journal of Addictions.

A pair of researchers affiliated with the University of Connecticut and with the Veterans Administration New England Mental Illness, Research, Education, and Clinical Center assessed marijuana-use related admission trends in legal states and in states where marijuana remained criminalized.

Authors determined, "[O]ur findings failed to find evidence that legalization of commercial marijuana was associated with any significant change in entry into marijuana‐related treatment services or that greater numbers of years of marijuana legalization was associated with increased admissions to treatment."

They concluded, "It appears that, in the future, the proportion of marijuana‐related treatment service use may remain unchanged even as more states intend to legalize marijuana use fully or partially."

A separate study published in 2021 reported that the enactment of statewide marijuana legalization laws in Colorado and Washington was not associated with any increase in the number of teens or young adults seeking drug abuse treatment for the use of other controlled substances, including opioids, cocaine, or methamphetamine. Data from 2020 reported that the percentage of teens admitted to substance use treatment facilities for cannabis declined significantly in Colorado and Washington following the adoption of adult-use legalization.

Other studies have reported a dramatic and consistent decline in the prevalence of so-called cannabis use disorder over the better part of the past two decades. Self-reported use of marijuana by young people has also declined both nationally and in legal marijuana states.

Full text of the study, "Admissions to substance use treatment facilities for cannabis use disorder: Does legalization matter," appears in The American Journal of Addictions.

Study: Adult-Use Legalization Laws Associated with Declining Prices for Cannabis Flower

Waterloo, Canada: Cannabis consumers typically pay lower prices for cannabis flower in states with legal marijuana retail markets than they do in jurisdictions without them, according to data published in the journal Cannabis and Cannabinoid Research.

A team of researchers affiliated with the University of Waterloo in Canada and with the RAND Corporation in Santa Monica, California assessed cannabis prices and purchasing trends in states with and without licensed adult-use retailers.

They reported that consumers residing in states with mature retail markets rarely solicited the unregulated market in order to obtain cannabis flower. They also determined that retail prices declined over time in state-legal markets and that the average price of cannabis flower in states with legal retail outlets was lower than it was in states without retailers.

"Consumers paid more for dried flower in illegal, medical, and recreational states without stores, than [they did in] recreational states with stores," authors concluded. They added: "Among recreational states with stores, consumers reported purchasing [approximately] 80 percent of dried flower from legal sources in the past 12 months. Substantial differences were observed across states, with higher levels of legal purchases in states with retail stores compared with those without. For example, in Washington and Colorado, where recreational stores were open in 2014, consumers reported purchasing close to 90 percent of dried flower from legal sources."

Full text of the study, "Prices and purchase sources for dried cannabis flower in the United States, 2019-2020," appears in Cannabis and Cannabinoid Research.

Poll: Plurality of Americans Oppose Workplace Testing for Marijuana in States Where Cannabis Is Legal

Washington, DC: A plurality of Americans oppose workplace policies that permit employers to drug test employees for cannabis in states where its off-the-job use is legal, according to nationwide polling data provided by YouGov.com.

Forty-four percent of respondents said that they opposed "allowing employers to test workers for marijuana in states where [it] is legal." Thirty-six percent of respondents supported the policy and 20 percent were undecided.

In recent months, several states - such as Nevada, New Jersey, New York, and Montana - have enacted legislation limiting employers' ability to either pre-screen applicants for past marijuana exposure or refuse to hire them. New York's policy further limits employers' ability to sanction current employees for their off-hours marijuana use absent evidence of "articulable symptoms of cannabis impairment."

City officials in several metropolitan areas - such as Atlanta, Baltimore, Philadelphia, and St. Louis - have also recently adopted local laws prohibiting marijuana-specific pre-employment and random drug screenings for public employees in non-safety sensitive positions.

Urinalysis, the primary form of workplace drug testing, detects the presence of inactive marijuana byproducts that may be present for as many as 100 days post-abstinence. The detection of these products only indicates that a particular substance is present in the test subject's body. It does not indicate either recency of use or impairment.

According to data provided in March by the US Bureau of Labor Statistics, the percentage of private worksites engaged in drug screening has fallen by nearly half since the mid-1990s. Industries related to transportation, utilities, construction, and manufacturing are among those most likely to engage in drug screening.

Arizona: Appellate Court Rules Prenatal Cannabis Exposure Does Not Constitute Child Neglect

Phoenix, AZ: Judges on the Arizona Court of Appeals have determined that child welfare officials acted inappropriately when they placed a woman on state registry for using medical cannabis while pregnant.

Justices unanimously ruled that the prenatal exposure in this case did not constitute "neglect" because the mother was qualified to access medical cannabis under the law.

The Court determined: "The evidence shows that [the plaintiff] was certified under AMMA [the Arizona Medical Marijuana Act] to use marijuana medically to treat chronic nausea. The doctor who certified [the plaintiff's] eligibility for using medical marijuana knew that she was pregnant. Because the use of marijuana under AMMA 'must be considered the equivalent of the use of any other medication under the direction of a physician,' A.R.S. § 36-2813(C), the exposure of [the plaintiff's] infant to marijuana resulted from medical treatment and did not constitute neglect under A.R.S. § 8-201(25)(c)."

The Appellate Court's ruling overturns a decision by the state Department of Child Safety's director and a ruling by a trial court judge.

Last month, members of the Alabama Senate approved legislation requiring women of childbearing age to show proof of a negative pregnancy test before they could apply to obtain medical cannabis. The bill has not been advanced in the House.

Oklahoma regulators considered imposing a similar requirement on women seeking to obtain medical cannabis, but ultimately repealed the rule.

Data provides inconsistent results with respect to whether or not prenatal cannabis exposure is associated with adverse neonatal outcomes, such as the risk of preterm birth.

The case is Ridgell v Arizona Department of Public Safety.