Back in April of 2016, the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) informed members of the United States Congress that the DEA hoped to release in the first half of that year its determination of whether marijuana should be moved from Schedule I of the Controlled Substances Act to another schedule. Such rescheduling could result in a curtailment of aspects of the US government’s war on marijuana. Come August of 2016, the DEA announced it had decided marijuana should be left in Schedule I — the category for which the greatest drug war restrictions and penalties apply.
Tag: marijuana
In May, I wrote about how the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) had earlier in the year significantly eased the marijuana testing and punishment for marijuana use to which college athletes are subjected. Those changes were made upon the guidance of the NCAA’s Committee on Competitive Safeguards and Medical Aspects of Sports. Now that same committee is recommending quickly retiring the NCAA’s remaining marijuana testing requirement and marijuana use prohibition.
In December of 2019, I wrote about Major League Baseball (MLB), along with the Major League Baseball Players Association, announcing that marijuana use by professional baseball players would no longer be verboten. Concluding my discussion of this new development, I commented that “More professional sports organizations will surely follow in eliminating marijuana use prohibitions.”
Marijuana is legal for medical or general (recreational) use by adults in most American states, but a truck driver can still lose his job because a United States government mandated routine drug test indicates he used marijuana.
United States Senate member Cory Booker (D-NJ) says Republican gains in the US Congress in the midterm election mean the lame duck session ending in January is crunch time for passing national marijuana legalization. “So it’s either now, or it might be many years from now” for legalization, concluded Booker in a post-election interview at NJ Spotlight News.
In August I wrote about marijuana legalization ballot measures that would be voted on in the November 8 election in five states — Arkansas, Maryland, Missouri, North Dakota, and South Dakota. Here is an update on the results of those votes held on Tuesday of this week: While legalization failed to win majority approval in three of the states, it was approved in Maryland and Missouri.
In an October 6 statement, President Joe Biden declared “I am announcing a pardon of all prior Federal offenses of simple possession of marijuana.” That sounds like a big deal. But, it turns out to be quite underwhelming.
High taxes and extensive regulation can make doing business, including providing a quality product at a low price, difficult to impossible. It looks like the New York state government is about to demonstrate this fact, as have some other marijuana-legalizing state governments before it, with the roll-out of its recreational marijuana legalization.
People in five states, plus a sixth if enough signatures are verified to place the matter on the ballot there, will be voting in the November 8 election on whether to legalize recreational marijuana in their respective states. With 19 states already having legal recreation marijuana, we could see the upcoming election results raise that count to 25 — half the states.
In 2018, the United States Congress approved a farm bill, later signed into law by President Donald Trump, that included legalization of hemp farming. Hemp is a type of the cannabis plant that — unlike marijuana — cannot make you high because it has a low amount of tetrahydrocannabinol (THC).