First, there are many things the federal government can do without passing new laws. For example, it could develop a research agenda to draw upon lessons learned from other harmful products, such as tobacco and alcohol….
Second, the CDC could lead public education campaigns that raise much-needed awareness among Americans about the proven harms of cannabis use. These can promote strategies for identifying risky behavior, treatments for people already suffering ill effects and targeted messaging for those especially vulnerable to harm….
Finally, the government must reverse a law that unintentionally opened the door for dangerous, intoxicating products. The 2018 Agriculture Improvement Act, a.k.a. the Farm Bill, removed hemp — products with up to 0.3 percent THC — from the Controlled Substances Act. One of hemp’s derivatives is cannabidiol (CBD), which is not a psychoactive drug….
The bottom line from this report is that the federal government must stop ceding its authority to control these drugs. It never should have allowed the patchwork of state-by-state legalization, which fostered America’s largely unregulated cannabis industry. Protecting the public’s health must come first. Now is a better time than never.
“Marijuana use is rising. The government needs to correct its mistake.”
The title of this post is the headline of this notable new Washington Post opinion piece, which serves to riff quite effectively off this big new report released recently by the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine (NASEM). (I had the great honor of serving on the committee that helped produce this report, which I flagged in this prior post.) Here is part of the WaPo piece:
What little guidance the federal government has issued has focused on sales and revenue, not mitigating the health impacts on users and communities. The new report details how to reorient cannabis policy through a public health lens. Three key points stood out to me: