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Last fall, Oregon became the first US state to legalize psilocybin-assisted therapy and decriminalize the possession of literally any drug. This year, Maine lawmakers are hoping to follow their lead with two new bills that closely model these progressive drug reform policies. 

Maine Senator Donna Bailey (D) just introduced a new bill that would make it legal for adults to legally buy psilocybin products and consume them under the supervision of a licensed “psilocybin service facilitator.” If passed, the bill would direct the state health department to create regulations covering the production, sale, and use of magic mushrooms. All sales of legal psilocybin products would be taxed at 15 percent.

“In finding ways to help people with depression, anxiety and other similar debilitating disorders, why shouldn’t we be able to use any and all available treatments, as long as they are safe and regulated?” said Sen. Bailey to Marijuana Moment. “I look forward to working with the [Health and Human Service] Committee and interested parties to pass this bill.”

Bailey introduced the bill to give Mainers a chance to explore the scientifically-proven therapeutic benefits of psilocybin as a treatment for depression, anxiety, or addiction issues. The bill does not impose a list of qualifying conditions, though, so any adult would be able to access psilocybin therapy without needing to have a specific medical diagnosis. 

The legislation is intentionally quite similar to Oregon's new psilocybin therapy law, which was passed by voters in last year's general election. Oregon has yet to finalize the regulations for its new program, though, so Bailey's new bill asks Maine's health department to keep an eye on Oregon's progress. A provision in the new bill directs the state to “make this Act as consistent as possible in substance to the laws governing psilocybin in Oregon.”

Meanwhile, the state House is considering a bill to decriminalize the possession of any drug. This legislation, introduced by lead sponsor Rep. Anne Perry (D), would reduce the penalty for drug possession to a simple $100 fine, with no chance of jail time. And like Oregon's new decriminalization law, people caught with drugs could avoid the fine if they agree to undergo a health assessment or enter a drug treatment program.

Lawmakers in several other states, including California, Vermont, New York, Florida, Connecticut, and Hawaii, have proposed their own bills to legalize, decriminalize, or research psilocybin therapy, but none of these bills has succeeded to date. And in Washington, the state Supreme Court effectively decriminalized all drug possession by declaring the state's drug laws unconstitutional. State lawmakers have already passed a bill that would re-criminalize the possession of most drugs, however.

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Canadian medical marijuana patients are about to get their hands an innovative new inhaler that is safer and more precise than traditional cannabis inhalation methods. 

Health Canada just granted regulatory approval to Israeli pharma-tech firm Syqe Medical, allowing them to import and sell their new cannabis microdosing inhaler. Syqe's Metered-Dose Inhaler has already received quality approval by Europe's CE, but this is the first time that a microdosing inhaler has ever been approved by an international health authority. The inhaler is also the first cannabis-based medical device to receive regulatory approval.

“We are proud to have another international medical authority recognize the groundbreaking therapeutic value that the Syqe Medical Inhaler brings to patients," said Perry Davidson, CEO and founder of Syqe Medical, to The Jerusalem Post. "The approval in Canada would not have been possible without the 10 years of technological development and clinical trials, demonstrating that low doses alongside high precision delivery result in the optimal cannabis treatment.”

The inhaler, which Syqe initially brought to market in 2017, is able to provide specific doses in increments of 100 micrograms. The device achieves this impressive feat by using dedicated thermal controllers and lung monitoring systems that automatically adjust airflow. The inhaler is also capable of transmitting usage data in order to help researchers keep track of how the device is being used.

In their clinical trials, Syqe found that low, precise microdoses of THC can effectively treat chronic pain without producing notable psychoactive effects. The team's research, which was published in the European Journal of Pain, found that the optimal dose for pain control is 500 micrograms of THC. In contrast, standard THC edibles commonly found in dispensaries can contain up to 100 milligrams of THC, which is 200 times the dose used in the new inhaler.

The Metered-Dose Inhaler is designed to precisely deliver this exact dosage of THC with a precision that cannot be achieved by traditional medical cannabis products. Additionally, the trials found that patients using the new inhaler experienced a 90 percent reduction in adverse side effects compared to patients who smoked, vaped, or used cannabis oils. 

"The usage data in Israel show that patients regain normal life routine, while the treatment reduces the psychoactive effect and undesirable adverse events,” Davidson told The Jerusalem Post. 

Following their success in Canada, Syqe are now working to introduce their product at home in Israel. The company is also seeking regulatory approval in the US and several other European countries.

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Less than a month after Governor Andrew Cuomo signed New York's long-awaited adult-use cannabis bill into law, several indigenous tribal nations are announcing their own plans to get in on the game.

Adult New Yorkers are now legally allowed to possess up to three ounces of weed, but legal retail sales are not slated to begin until December, 2022. Tribal nations are not required to comply with the state's weed regulations, though, and at least one nation believes they can beat the rest of the state to the punch. 

The Shinnecock Indian Nation on Long Island just announced that they are planning to break ground on a brand new cannabis cultivation facility within the next couple of weeks. Ideally, the tribe hopes that they can begin selling recreational pot by the end of 2021, at least a year before sales go live in the rest of the state. 

In Northern New York, the Saint Regis Mohawks are also eyeing their own cannabis plans. At present, this nation prohibits recreational weed, and the tribal government actually just sent cease and desist letters to several illegal pot dispensaries that were operating on their land. But in a recent press release, the tribe indicated that they were working on a new ordinance to eventually legalize adult-use sales.

“The Tribe is currently consulting with tribal members on the development of an Adult Use Marijuana Ordinance,” the tribe said in a press release, according to the Press-Republican. This ordinance would legalize and regulate the cultivation, processing, and sale of adult-use weed under tribal jurisdiction. Licensing fees and taxes would go to fund community programs and other services to benefit the tribe as a whole.

The Saint Regis Mohawks are still debating this proposal, and have not released any timeframe for when retail sales could begin. The tribe does advise that any “sale or any commercial activity involving recreational marijuana prior to obtaining a license will be in violation of tribal law and subject to enforcement action,” though.

And in Central New York, the Oneida Indian Nation is reportedly considering the idea of creating their own adult-use retail market, but have yet to come to any final decision on the matter.

It's entirely possible that one or more of these tribes could start selling weed before the state officially allows retail sales to begin, but is that even legal? According to cannabis policy expert Heather Treja, the answer isn't entirely clear. “It’s a bit murky, like a lot of things” in the state's new adult-use law, she told Syracuse.com.

New York's cannabis law does not broach the topic of marijuana sales on Native American land, but under federal law, tribal nations have the right to create their own weed laws. Treja believes that it would be legal for New Yorkers to buy weed on tribal lands and take it home, as long as they comply with the three-ounce limit imposed by state law.

All across the US, a growing number of Native American nations are launching their own legal weed markets. Earlier this week, the Crow Tribe in Montana announced plans to legalize adult-use sales, and the Oglala Sioux Tribe in South Dakota and the Bay Mills Indian Community in Michigan both greenlighted legal pot sales last year. Many other tribal nations have legalized medical cannabis as well, which could make it easier for them to transition into the adult-use market.

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Ah, shroom gummies. The new infused-treat taking over the underground. 

Throughout most of North America, you can walk into any legal hemp store or adult-use dispensary and snag a bag of tasty cannabis-infused gummies. But if you're willing to do a bit of online sleuthing, you can also score yourself a wide variety of not-quite-legal edibles, including shroom gummy edibles.

Much like CBD, THC, or Delta-8-THC gummies, shroom gummies are gelatinous sugary treats that are infused with specific doses of psilocybin. These gummies are popping up all over the underground drug market these days, but why would you choose a processed candy over a bag of natural-grown magic mushrooms?

For one, the taste. Natural, dried Psilocybe cubensis mushrooms are not exactly prized for their flavor or texture, and many people even suffer from a brief bout of nausea after consuming them. Psychonauts have dreamed up dozens of ways to mask the taste of dried shrooms, including teas, tinctures, and even grilled cheese sandwiches, but shroom gummies provide a simple new alternative. Added sugar and natural flavors can make these edibles a far more palatable experience than choking down dried fungus, and they are also less likely to induce nausea.

Dosage is another good reason to opt for gummies. With natural-grown boomers, it's hard to tell exactly how much psilocybin is contained in each individual mushroom. But each individual shroom gummy is infused with a specific dose of psilocybin, helping you zero in on your ideal dose. These products are often sold in packages of 100mg per edible for microdosing, or one gram per gummy for full-on psychedelic exploration.

A simple web search will turn up dozens of websites where you can score some of these exciting new gummies. Many of these products can be bought from online Canadian retailers that also sell legal weed and hemp products. And a brave journey into the Darknet via an anonymous Tor browser can turn up an even wider selection of magic mushroom delicacies.

Buying shroom gummies online is not without its risks, though. Some US cities have decriminalized psilocybin and other natural psychedelics, but for the most part, getting caught with a pack of shroom edibles in your mailbox can land you in jail. And since these products are illegal, there are no regulations ensuring their safety. Unscrupulous black market manufacturers could skimp on the psilocybin, or even include harmful additives into the mix.

The good news is that you can make your own psilocybin edibles in the comfort of your own home. There are a wide variety of recipes online, but the simplest methods involve grinding up dried mushrooms and adding them to a standard gelatin dessert mix. With a little more effort, you can expand this concept to include gummy worms, lollipops, or even fruit roll-ups. The sky's the limit!

And now that more states are working to legalize psilocybin, shroom gummies are about to become even more popular. Oregon recently legalized the use of psilocybin-assisted therapy, and the FDA has even sanctioned clinical research studies that could eventually lead to the federal legalization of this highly effective therapy. When these programs are finally implemented, you can bet that therapists will decide to give patients perfectly-dosed psilocybin edibles instead of forcing them to munch dried boomers.

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A New York lawmaker just proposed a bill that would help minimize the environmental impact of the state's new adult-use cannabis packaging regulations. 

New York's cannabis legalization law has been in effect for almost a month now, but although it is now legal to possess and use weed, retail sales are not slated to begin until the end of 2022. The final set of regulations governing cannabis sales will probably not be unveiled until then, but the adult-use law itself already establishes a number of restrictions on legal pot products. 

Like every other legal weed state in the nation, New York's weed law requires that all cannabis products be packaged in child-resistant containers. And although it's a good idea to ensure that children aren't accidentally digging into their parents' stash, this packaging is bad news for the environment. As a result of childproofing regulations, nearly every legal weed product sold in the US is encased in multiple layers of non-recyclable, single-use plastic that will most likely end up in landfills and oceans.

This week, New York Assemblywoman Patricia Fahy (D) proposed a new bill to help mitigate this excessive plastic waste in her home state. Fahy said that she created this bill to address the fact that the state's packaging requirements will cause the legal weed industry “to have an outsized plastics footprint and to become a notable environmental consideration.”

“The legal cannabis industry in the United States produces about 150 million tons of waste each year. Even when marijuana packaging is recycled at home, it is often sorted out by recyclers and taken to landfills,” Fahy wrote in a memo, according to Marijuana Moment. “While no industry is blameless in the plastic pollution crisis, New York has a unique opportunity to prevent a new source of plastic pollution as we consider the legalization of recreational marijuana.”

To help resolve these issues, the bill would require all legal weed packaging to be made from at least 50 percent recycled materials. All legal weed retailers would also be required to charge a $1 deposit on each and every adult-use product that is sold in single-use plastic packaging. Customers could then return their used packaging to their retailer and get a refund for their deposit, and retailers would then be required to recycle the plastic.

The new bill has been referred to the Assembly Environmental Conservation Committee, but has not yet been scheduled for hearings or votes, so it is unclear if or when it will advance. 

Despite this ongoing plastic problem, no US state has yet enacted regulations to minimize the environmental impact of weed packaging. Individual dispensaries and businesses in Seattle and California have launched their own recycling efforts, though, and several new companies are now offering weed packaging made from hemp-based renewable bioplastics.

Canada is also struggling with its own weed industry waste issue, thanks to its hardcore packaging requirements. Thousands of Canadians have petitioned their local governments to cut down on single-use plastic pot packaging, but politicians have yet to address the problem.

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The Philadelphia City Council just approved a measure that will prohibit most businesses from conducting pre-employment cannabis testing. 

The Council passed the measure, which specifically “prohibits employers from requiring prospective employees to undergo testing for the presence of marijuana as a condition of employment, under certain terms and conditions,” with a 15 to 1 vote. Mayor Jim Kenney is expected to sign the bill into law, and if he does, it will take effect on January 1st, 2022.

The new measure will apply to most employers, but not all. Law enforcement officers, vehicle operators who require a commercial driver's license, and many healthcare workers can still be required to take pre-employment weed tests. The bill also has a wide-open category that will allow employers to continue testing for “any position in which the employee could significantly impact the health or safety of other employees or members of the public,” according to The Philadelphia Inquirer.

Although adult-use weed remains prohibited in Pennsylvania, the state has a comprehensive medical marijuana program with around 150,000 registered patients. City Councilmember Derek Green proposed the new drug screening bill after learning that some Philadelphians with autism spectrum disorders are being denied jobs over state-legal medical cannabis use.

“We’re using preemployment testing for a product that is being recommended by physicians, for individuals within the city of Philadelphia, that’s authorized for them to be used,” said Green to the Inquirer. “That seems very contradictory.”

“Suspicionless marijuana testing in the workplace, such as pre-employment drug screening, is not now, nor has it ever been, an evidence-based policy,” NORML Deputy Director Paul Armentano testified at a City Council hearing earlier this month. “Rather, these discriminatory practices are a holdover from the zeitgeist of the 1980s ‘war on drugs.’ But times have changed; attitudes have changed, and in many places, the marijuana laws have changed.”

“There’s no evidence to support the claim that those who consume cannabis in the privacy of their own home away from the job pose a unique workforce safety threat or risk,” Armentano continued. “It is time for workplace policies to adapt to this new reality and to cease punishing employees for activities they engage in during their off-hours that pose no workplace safety threat.”

Indeed, independent research studies have found that workplace fatalities have actually been declining in states with legal medical pot, and that off-hours cannabis use does not impact job performance in any way. 

If the law is passed, Philadelphia will join a growing list of cities and states that provide workplace protections for medical cannabis users. Washington DC, Atlanta, and New York City have recently banned pre-employment marijuana screening for most jobs, and in 2018, Maine became the first US state to block most employers from conducting cannabis drug screening.

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The Crow Tribe in southern Montana is about to kick off its own cannabis retail market, closely synchronized with the state's new legal weed industry.

Last week, the Crow Nation Legislative Branch approved the Crow Cannabis Ordinance, a new measure that will allow the tribe to sell legal weed to adults. The tribal government will oversee all aspects of this new industry, from cultivation to processing to retail sales. The ordinance has established that all pot products will be subject to a 7 percent sales tax, but the specific licensing and retail regulations have yet to be finalized.

Crow Tribe Chairman Frank White Clay must still approve the ordinance before it can take effect, but he has already suggested that he will do so. “We’re moving forward,” White Clay told the Billings Gazette. “We’re diversifying our economy throughout the tribe. Coal was the name of the game for the tribe for a while, but for good business, we have to diversify within the reservation.”

“We’ve had medical marijuana for quite some time, and the Crow Tribe is not isolated,” White Clay continued. “The reservation itself is more accepting (of cannabis) and we’re just moving with the times.”

Montana voted to legalize adult-use cannabis sales in last year's election, and is currently working to draft retail regulations before sales begin next January. As a sovereign tribal nation, the Crow Tribe does not have to comply with these regulations, and is free to begin selling weed whenever they want. Despite this freedom, the tribe says it will work closely with the Montana Governor's Office of Indian Affairs to remain in sync with the state's new adult-use regulations.

“Not only are we paralleling the state in terms of carry and transaction limits... the Crow Tribe is going further … in terms of the labeling, testing and that sort of rubric,” said Thor Hoyte, legal counsel for the Crow Tribe, to the Gazette. 

The disconnect between federal, state, and tribal laws has led to a confusing patchwork of cannabis laws among Native American nations. Back in 2015, the Santee Sioux Tribe in South Dakota tried to open a legal weed resort, but eventually ended up scrapping their plans (and burning over $1 million worth of weed) when they learned that the feds were planning to raid them. 

The Obama administration eventually promised that indigenous tribes could launch their own legal weed programs, but even so, the feds continued to step in and stamp out these attempts at tribal pot reform.

Popular support for cannabis continues to grow every year, though, and a growing number of tribes are bravely launching their own legal weed markets. In the past two years, Minnesota's Red Lake Nation and White Earth Nation both legalized medical marijuana, and the Bay Mills Indian Community in Michigan launched its own independent adult-use market. 

The Oglala Sioux Tribe in South Dakota also voted to legalize adult-use weed sales in 2020, creating another disconnect between state and tribal law. South Dakota voters also passed a ballot measure to legalize adult-use weed throughout the entire state last year, but state politicians managed to overturn legalization with a legal technicality. 

Although the threat of federal intervention still looms, the Crow Tribe is confident that they are making the right choice with legalization. “As to the federal government’s involvement, the Crow Tribe made a decision that it’s highly unlikely that it will try to stop a tribe with a 75% unemployment rate from taking part in a $24 billion industry,” said Hoyte to the Billings Gazette.

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As many as 15,000 Alabamans who had previously been busted for pot possession are about to have these convictions wiped from their criminal records. 

To celebrate 4/20, Birmingham Mayor Randall Woodfin announced that he would issue a blanket pardon to anyone who was convicted of misdemeanor marijuana possession in Birmingham between 1990 and 2020. 

Unfortunately, these pardons do not apply to anyone who is currently facing charges for weed possession. City of Birmingham spokesperson Rick Journey told AL.com that anyone with an open possession offense must resolve their case before a pardon can be issued. Cannabis possession still remains illegal in the state and the city as well, so this move will not stop cops from busting people for weed in the future.

Birmingham actually created a program that allowed former pot offenders to clear their records back in 2019, but it was far from a success. Under the Pardons for Progress program, Birmingham residents with former weed convictions could submit an application to the city to get their records cleared. The program was poorly understood, though, and the city ended up receiving many applications from ineligible people who lived outside the city. In the two years that the program was active, only 9 people successfully got pardoned.

Since the previous program proved to be a failure, Mayor Woodfin kicked off this new plan to automatically clear former offenses. Under this new program, former offenders will not have to take any action or pay any fees to have their records cleared. The pardons are still only available to people who were convicted for pot possession in Birmingham municipal court, however, and do not apply to anyone arrested for weed elsewhere in the state. Even so, the city estimates that as many as 15,000 people will be eligible for pardons under this new policy.

“Here’s why we’re doing this – no one should be held up by a single past mistake,” said Mayor Woodfin on social media, according to AL.com. “No one should be denied job opportunities or freedoms due to missteps from the past. No longer will these residents be bound to their past. They deserve a chance to be part of our workforce, to provide for their families and to achieve success on their own. That new life starts rights here, today, with forgiveness and redemption.”

These pardons are a welcome change for Alabama, a state that continues to prohibit cannabis in every form. Lawmakers have been pushing to legalize medical marijuana for years now, and although previous efforts failed, advocates believe the bill has a good chance of passing this year. State legislators also tried to pass a statewide decriminalization bill a few years back, but it was shot down.

Birmingham has now joined several other US states and cities in a broader effort to provide restorative justice for minor weed crimes. Illinois famously pardoned thousands of former cannabis offenders at the tail end of 2019, and California, Colorado, Nevada, and Pennsylvania, all advanced or expanded programs to expunge former pot convictions last year. 

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Support for federal cannabis legalization is holding strong, according to three new polls that all indicate majority support for weed reform.

Last week, Quinnipiac University reported that a solid 69 percent of American voters want to see federal cannabis prohibition become a thing of the past. The university has been conducting annual polls on cannabis legalization since 2012, but this year's installment found the largest showing of support for legalization yet. Nine years ago, the university only saw 51 percent support for legalization, but that number grew to 61 percent by 2017, and is now pushing close to 70 percent.

This year's poll, which surveyed 1,237 adults in early April, found majority support for legalization within every single demographic. As usual, Democrats were most likely to advocate for legal weed, with 78 percent support, but a sizable 62 percent of Republicans also favor legalization. Slightly over half of adults over 65 even said they were down with legal pot, compared to 72 percent of respondents aged 50 to 64, and 78 percent of those 49 or younger.

One day later, a Pew Research Center poll reported that a shocking 91 percent of respondents were ready to embrace serious cannabis reform. Out of this total, 60 percent said they wanted to see full federal legalization, 31 percent said they were in favor of medical marijuana only, and a tiny 8 percent said they still wanted all forms of cannabis to remain illegal. This was the largest of the three polls, with 5,109 respondents.

Like the Quinnipiac poll, Pew found that every single demographic showed majority support for some kind of weed reform. Only 5 percent of Democrats said they thought weed should stay illegal, compared to 12 percent of Republicans. Almost every age, political, and racial demographic showed support for full adult-use legalization, but there were a few notable holdouts. Only 47 percent of Republicans, 43 percent of Asians, and 32 percent of seniors aged 75 or older supported recreational weed, but these three groups still showed majority support for medical pot.

On 4/20, CBS News dropped a third poll on legalization, but despite the holiday, this survey showed the lowest levels of support. Out of all respondents, only 55 percent said they thought adult-use weed should be legal in their home state, versus 42 percent who wanted pot to remain prohibited. But unlike the other two polls, this poll was conducted in early March, before New Mexico, New York, and Virginia legalized weed, which might explain the lower percentage of support. This was also the smallest of the three polls, with only 1,004 respondents.

The CBS poll did take a deeper look at opinions on specific cannabis reform issues, though. About half of all respondents said they thought legal weed is good for their state's local economy, and 59 percent said they thought states should allow non-violent former pot offenders to clear their criminal records. And strangely enough, just over half said that they thought it was unacceptable for people to openly use pot in social settings, even though most still supported overall legalization.

The pollsters also took a look at some popular myths about cannabis legalization. Only a quarter of respondents believe that legal weed increases violent crime, compared with 54 percent that said it has no effect. A third of respondents still believe in the gateway drug myth, but 45 percent said that legal weed would not lead to an increase in the use of other drugs, and 17 percent said legalization would help reduce the use of other drugs.

Several other recent polls have found that between 61 and 75 percent of Americans support legalization, and the Pew and Quinnipiac polls confirm these results. The CBS poll did show lower support, but even so, it still indicates that the majority of all Americans are ready to put an end to cannabis prohibition.

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For the second year in a row, the pandemic has forced this year's 4/20 gatherings, celebrations, and festivals to either cancel their plans or move online. The lockdown hasn't stopped people from celebrating this high holiday with their closest friends and family, though, and legal weed retailers are still expecting to make record sales this year. 

The cannabis industry has a good reason to be optimistic. According to a new report by Marijuana Business Daily, April 20th has been the largest single adult-use sales day every single year since states individually began legalizing recreational pot sales. The proportion of total sales made on 4/20 has also been growing consistently year-over-year.

According to data gleaned from cannabis analysis firm Headset, legal weed stores in California, Colorado, Nevada, and Washington sold a combined $90 million worth of pot during the week of April 20th, 2018. The following year, that figure climbed to $130 million, and despite the pandemic, these states still managed to sell nearly $160 million worth of legal pot during the week of 4/20/20.

This data also shows how the 4/20 holiday helps the legal weed industry survive its leaner months. In general, weed sales are much stronger during the summer and in December, and weakest at the beginning of the year. When looking at the top 10 weeks of sales for these four states from 2016 to 2020, Headset found that none of these record-breaking weeks happened in January, February, March, or May. But thanks to 4/20, three of these states did record a top-10 sales week in April.

Unfortunately, the 4/20 sales rush is generally followed by one of the year's worst weeks for sales. The data suggests that customers will wait for holiday sales and promotions to begin, and then stock up on enough pot to last them for at least a few weeks. 

The specific day that 4/20 falls on also impacts sales. In 2018, when 4/20 was on a Friday, one-third of the week's entire weed sales were made on that day. In contrast, April 20th fell on a Monday last year, and only 18.7 percent of the week's total sales were made that day.

As the pandemic drags into its second year, industry analysts are struggling to predict how this year's 4/20 sales will fare. The US weed industry sold nearly $18 billion worth of weed in 2020, and monthly trends are already suggesting that 2021's total adult-use sales are on track to grow even higher. Last week alone, California, Colorado, Nevada, and Washington sold over $175 million worth of pot combined – more than they sold during 4/20 week last year. 

Based on these trends, it’s looking likely that this year’s 4/20 sales will continue the trend of yearly growth. And now that four more states just voted to legalize weed this month, people have even more cause to celebrate.

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A coalition of Congressmembers have been working to grant military veterans the right to use medical cannabis for years now, but 2021 just might be the year that they succeed. 

In 2018, Senators Brian Nelson (D-FL) and Bill Schatz (D-HI) filed the Veterans Medical Marijuana Safe Harbor Act, a bill that would allow Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) physicians to recommend medical cannabis to their patients. But, like every other cannabis bill introduced that year, GOP Congressional leaders killed it before it could come up for a vote. The lawmakers continued to reintroduce the bill each year, but it met the same fate.

Fast forward to 2021, and the Democrats have supermajority control of Congress and the White House, vastly increasing the chances that cannabis reform efforts could finally succeed. This month, the Safe Harbor Act has been reintroduced again, with strong bipartisan support. The House version of the bill is now sponsored by Reps. Barbara Lee (D-CA), Dave Joyce (R-OH), and 9 other cosponsors. In the Senate, Sen. Schatz is still the lead sponsor, along with Bernie Sanders and five other senators.

“It has been scientifically proven that medical marijuana has a considerable impact in treating conditions common with veterans when they return from service, like chronic pain and PTSD,” said Rep. Lee in a statement. “This legislation will empower veterans and their doctors to make informed decisions about the use of medical marijuana to treat chronic conditions in states with legal medical marijuana programs without federal interference.”

The current draft of the bill would make it legal for veterans to use and possess medical cannabis, as long as they are in compliance with their home state's medical pot program. VA doctors are currently allowed to discuss cannabis with veterans, but the new law would officially allow them to write recommendations for medical cannabis.

The Safe Harbor Act would also require the VA to conduct research on using medical cannabis to treat chronic pain and reduce opioid abuse. To fund the research and policy changes, the bill would allocate $15 million in federal funding from the 2022 and 2023 fiscal budgets. This legislation would completely expire five years after being signed into law, unless renewed by Congress.

“There is a growing body of evidence about the beneficial uses of medical cannabis as treatment for PTSD and chronic pain, two terrible conditions that plague many of our veterans,” said Congressman Dave Joyce in a press release. “If a state has made it legal, like Ohio has, the federal government should not be preventing a VA doctor from recommending medical cannabis if they believe that treatment is right for their patient.”

Although veterans are currently able to seek out their own medical marijuana treatments without the help of the VA, they risk losing their federal benefits if they do so. Any veteran, or even any employee of the VA department, can lose loans, medical assistance, or other benefits if they are caught using cannabis, even if legal in their home state.

Earlier this year, Rep. Greg Steube (R-FL) proposed a bill that would block the feds from stripping veterans benefits over medical pot use. The Safe Harbor Act would ensure that veterans had even greater access to this essential medicine, though.

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Despite recent evidence to the contrary, President Biden may indeed be on board with a new plan to end the federal prohibition of cannabis, according to Senator Cory Booker (D-NJ). 

Booker has been working with Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) and Senate Finance Committee Chairman Ron Wyden (D-OR) to draft a comprehensive new cannabis reform bill. The senators have yet to announce whether the bill will legalize weed or just decriminalize it, but they have promised that it will at least protect states that have chosen to legalize weed from federal interference.

Last year, lawmakers in the House passed the Marijuana Opportunity, Reinvestment, and Expungement (MORE) Act, a bill to remove cannabis from the Controlled Substances Act, as well as another critical medical cannabis research bill. For the first time in US history, it's looking likely that Congress could finally approve a progressive cannabis reform bill this year.

Congressional support for pot reform is clearly growing, but President Biden is seemingly stuck in his prohibitionist past. In his former role as US Senator, Biden was a leading champion of the War on Drugs, and he has recently been pushing for expansions to the Trump administration's drug prohibition policies. The president has continued to restate his opposition to legalization, and his administration also just fired several White House staffers who admitted to getting high in the past.

But according to Booker, the president's opposition to weed comes down to semantics, not ideology. In a new interview with the Hell & High Water podcast, the senator stated Biden could be “a great partner” in the push for cannabis reform. “He believes in decriminalization—and as I said to him the first time we talked about it was, ‘Well, my bill is no different. I think states should be allowed to do what they want',” Booker said, according to Marijuana Moment.

“I think it should be legalized, but what we need to do at the federal level is de-list marijuana. And as soon as you decriminalize marijuana, you open up states that right now are not able to do a lot of things, to give way for what I want to achieve,” the senator continued. “His policy position on marijuana — he may say, ‘I’m not for legalization, I’m for decriminalization’ — as a federal official, that’s where I’m trying to get.”

In a recent discussion of the upcoming bill, Schumer dodged the question as to whether it would officially legalize or decriminalize cannabis on a federal level. He did note the bill would restrict big alcohol and tobacco companies from dominating the US weed market, in favor of small businesses and entrepreneurs from marginalized communities, however.

The full details on the new legislation are lacking, but hopefully not for long. Last week, Schumer said that the bill is almost done, and will “soon” be introduced into the Senate.

420GrowLife

via www.KahliBuds.com

Chris Moore, KahliBuds, 420GrowLife