I’ve been reading a lot of articles and listening to a lot of podcasts about the laws around cannabis and the cannabis industry in the US. There’s a lot of talk about the Department of Justice, our current Attorney General Jeff Sessions, state legislatures, both houses of Congress and all the etcs. around medical and recreational cannabis. Many of these discussions are interesting in a legal sense, but in no discussion, reading or listening, have I seen or heard anything about cannabis being listed in Schedule 1 and removing cannabis from that schedule. Last week, I listened to a podcast on “Marijuana Today“, a popular podcast easily available from the iTunes or Google Play stores. Three people talking about cannabis and the law and the Department of Justice. One was from Washington and was a marijuana policy lobbyist. Not once, not once did any of these gentlemen mention Schedule 1 as an issue to be resolved. The removal of cannabis from Schedule 1 would solve most of the issues now raging in the industry. If it’s such a big deal, why aren’t we talking about it? I don’t know the answer, but a whole hour talking about the laws surrounding cannabis on “Marijuana Today” and not a peep about Schedule 1??? Give me a break.
The United Nations WHO drug policy documents also classify cannabis as schedule 1. While the WHO policies have no legal bearing on any sovereign nation, they have been copied all over the world. The UN is studying the removal of cannabis from Schedule 1. And guess who led the world into that quagmire: The US, that’s who. And now it’s enshrined in the body of international law.
Removing cannabis from Schedule 1 would solve a whole raft of issues not the least of which would allow cannabis businesses to bank their daily take like a regular businesses. The removal of cannabis from Schedule 1 would allow cannabis to be studied and it needs a lot of study. I keep reading about how many terpenes are potentially in a cannabis plant, then I read (just today!) that the same terpene can taste differently in different plants. Um, no. That’s a different terpene. The point here is that we don’t really know squat about cannabis and how it works. Sure, we know some things about THC, but we know next to nothing about the rest of the plant. Make no mistake, cannabis is an enormously complex plant. The flower may contain over 300 compounds that vary from strain to strain and grow to grow of the same strain.
Here’s what I think should happen. We need to begin a concerted effort to remove cannabis, all cannabis, from Schedule 1. Move it to any schedule or put it in the same schedule with alcohol, which would mean cannabis would be completely removed from any schedule since alcohol isn’t considered a drug by the US. Since that own’t happen we need to start a campaign to simply remove cannabis from Schedule 1. And there would go all the issues surrounding the growing or consumption of cannabis products.
