United States: Senate passes bill to expand cannabis research

The U.S. Congress is doing more work on cannabis as the year comes to a close than it did throughout all of 2020.

Earlier this month, the House of Representatives passed two major bills: the first, the MORE Act, would legalize cannabis at the federal level, and the second, the Medical Marijuana Research Act, would significantly expand cannabis research.

This week, the Senate decided not to take up any of these bills and to move forward with the Cannabidiol and Marijuana Research Expansion Act also known as S.B. 2032. This bill, which has an equal number of Democrats and Republicans among its twelve sponsors, is more limited in scope than the House’s approach. The House bill, in addition to encouraging and streamlining research, would allow researchers to study cannabis products distributed by legal entities in the various states that have legalized cannabis.

«Existing regulations make research on medical cannabis difficult and have prevented us from understanding exactly how cannabis can be used safely and effectively to treat various conditions,» Senator Dianne Feinstein said in a statement Wednesday.

The Senate bill also explicitly calls on the Ministry of Health and Social Services and the National Institutes of Health to compile a report on the effects of THC on «adolescent brain development» and «cognitive abilities, such as those required to operate motor vehicles or other heavy equipment.»

S.B. 2032 would also expedite the approval process for researchers planning to study cannabis or its derivatives. The bill also includes provisions that would streamline the development of FDA-approved cannabis- or CBD-based drugs by allowing accredited medical and osteopathic schools, practitioners, research institutions, and Schedule I-registered manufacturers to produce cannabis for their research.

Other provisions of the bill would allow doctors to discuss the potential benefits and risks of cannabis-based treatments, including the CBD, with their patients and the parents of minors in their care.

It is not yet clear whether the House will pass the Senate’s version before the end of the congressional session, or whether lawmakers will work on a compromise bill in 2021. In any case, a research-focused bill is more likely to garner enough Republican support to pass Congress than more radical legislation such as the MORE Act.

Senator Chuck Grassley, for example, who is a sponsor of the research bill, is a vocal opponent of legalization, but in a statement on Wednesday, he described himself as «a staunch Republican supporter of this bill since its introduction in 2016.»

Research on cannabis products will mean, he said, declared, «so that the American public can decide whether to use them in the future based on sound scientific data,» adding that such research «is widely supported by my colleagues on both sides of the aisle, and it is a smart step forward in the fight against this current Schedule I drug.»