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Last week, the Trump administration announced one of the most significant federal changes in decades regarding the status of cannabis.
The Associated Press reported last Thursday:
President Donald Trump’s acting attorney general on Thursday signed an order reclassifying state-licensed medical marijuana as a less-dangerous drug, a major policy shift long sought by advocates who said cannabis should never have been treated like heroin by the federal government.
The order signed by Todd Blanche does not legalize marijuana for medical or recreational use under federal law. But it does change the way it’s regulated, shifting licensed medical marijuana from Schedule I—reserved for drugs without medical use and with high potential for abuse—to the less strictly regulated Schedule III. It also gives licensed medical marijuana operators a major tax break and eases some barriers to researching cannabis.
The Trump administration also said it was jump-starting the process for reclassifying marijuana more broadly, setting a hearing to begin in late June. …
Blanche’s action largely legitimizes medical marijuana programs in the 40 states that have adopted them. It sets up an expedited system for state-licensed medical marijuana producers and distributors to register with the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration.
It makes clear that cannabis researchers won’t be penalized for obtaining state-licensed marijuana or marijuana-derived products for use in their work, and it grants state-licensed medical marijuana companies a windfall by allowing them, for the first time, to deduct business expenses on their federal taxes.
A decade ago this week, medical cannabis was newly legal in Nevada, and the RN&R‘s cover story, by Brad Bynum, looked at the developing medical-marijuana industry in the state. Here’s the first portion of the story:
It took me a grand total of about two hours and less than $70 to get my medical marijuana card. And then I was able to go to a dispensary, buy pot, and smoke it—fully compliant with Nevada law.
The part of my brain that regularly corresponds with my inner teenager checked in with 15-year-old me, and, between spins of Nirvana’s In Utero, the young dude confirmed he was stoked. …
Last year, Sierra Wellness Connection was the first medical marijuana dispensary to open in Reno. A couple of weeks ago, I met with Deane Albright, founder and treasurer of Sierra Wellness, and Eva Grossman, who was, until very recently, the director of marketing and community outreach director for Sierra Wellness. Her husband, Jeff Grossman, is still the cultivation facility manager.
Eva Grossman is also a patient. She uses cannabis to manage chronic pain and prevent seizures. She’s passionate about medical marijuana, which she describes as the best solution to the “prescription medication epidemic.”
“I’m one of the people who has been thrown into pain management and stuck on these addictive narcotic medications—and didn’t want to be,” she said. “And this is the only thing that has worked. I was able to get off of them. You put people on these medications and, obviously, they’re going to get addicted. They’re physically addictive.”
But how is developing a marijuana habit any different? Aren’t you trading reliance on one substance for reliance on another?
Grossman says no. First of all, marijuana is not physically addictive.
“With narcotic medications, no matter who you are, you start taking them, take them for a period of time, then you stop, you’ll start getting runny eyes, goosebumps, runny nose, vomiting, diarrhea, all kinds of symptoms of withdrawal,” she said. “With marijuana, you can use marijuana, and if you stop, nothing is going to happen except that maybe whatever you’re taking it for—say you’re taking it for nausea, the nausea will probably return and it may seem exacerbated at first because you haven’t had it in a while.”
Opioid pain medications, like hydrocodone and oxycodone, have a long list of possible side effects, some of which are potentially fatal. On the other hand, no one has ever overdosed from cannabis.
Marijuana is, of course, already very popular on the black market, and many people who use it habitually are already self-medicating—even if they don’t call it that. However, it’s shrouded by the stigma of illegality, which might preclude things like total honesty with medical professionals. But even with the widespread popularity of cannabis, above-board medical marijuana consumption in Nevada hasn’t reached some people’s expectations.
“We’ve been scratching our heads and scratching our heads—why aren’t more young people getting cards?” said Grossman. “Why aren’t people getting cards? And we go out and talk to people, and either they don’t know we’re open, or they think you have to be gravely ill—which is not the case. Or when they do find out, it’s this effort to do it—and people are busy. It’s time and effort. But, if it’s 30 minutes? Then, it’s a no-brainer.”
Like I said, it took me a little longer than that, but saying yes to a two-hour process is still an easy decision.
(A clarification: While cannabis is nowhere near as addictive, as, say, opioids, the medical and scientific consensus is that people can indeed become physically addicted to it.)
Things have changed a lot in the decade since this piece. Later in 2o16, Nevada voters OK’d a ballot initiative legalizing the recreational use of cannabis. Some dispensaries were allowed to sell cannabis for recreational use starting on July 1, 2017.
But it hasn’t been “happily ever after” for the state’s legal cannabis industry. Sales were down nearly 9 percent during the last fiscal year, with Washoe County’s dispensaries enduring a 7 percent decline, according to The Nevada Independent.
Could the federal reclassification bolster Nevada’s cannabis industry? It’s too early to tell. A joint statement from the Nevada Cannabis Compliance Board and Department of Taxation called the reclassification “historic” but said not much is changing, at least for now.
Riana Durrett, director of the UNLV Cannabis Policy Institute, told The Nevada Independent that the ability for cannabis businesses to deduct business expenses on federal taxes could be a big deal—but the fact that Nevada offers one business license covering both medical and recreational use makes things a bit murky, since the reclassification only covers medical use.
“I expect we won’t know until the medical marijuana operators file for DEA registration,” Durrett told the Independent in an email. “We won’t know about the tax relief until the operators file their returns and receive a response from the IRS. If Nevada operators do qualify, it will be significant for them because the order encourages the Treasury to refund taxes retroactively.”
—Jimmy Boegle
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