Count me among those who believe that Congress will ultimately manage to get some sort of marijuana reform bill passed and on to the president’s desk for a signature. Exactly what that bill will look like remains to be seen. Also unclear is what happens to medical cannabis when Congress finally does act. No one really knows.
There will be fallout one way or another. Ultimately, how congressional action impacts medical cannabis depends on how lawmakers decide to approach marijuana reform. There are multiple possibilities.
Option #1: Complete Legalization
Congress could act by fully legalizing marijuana and forcing the DEA to remove it from the Schedule I list of controlled substances. Doing so would immediately end all prohibitions at both the federal and state levels. On the one hand, it could be good in the sense that people would immediately have access to all the marijuana they wanted, for both recreational and medical purposes.
Complete legalization could ultimately be a bad thing for medical consumers, though. Legalization would mean no longer having to adhere to state regulations that draw a distinction between recreational and medical cannabis unless, of course, Congress would give the states authority to continue regulating marijuana as they see fit.
Option #2: Legalization with Federal Control
A second option is to legalize marijuana but create some sort of federal control similar to what now exists with alcohol. In the alcohol space, federal and state agencies share control of the market. Washington maintains just enough control to keep its finger on alcohol production and sales. Yet states still have the freedom to go beyond federal regulation in certain areas.
Applying the same type of scenario to marijuana makes a lot of sense. It would allow the federal government to collect a bounty of tax revenues. It would also allow Washington to regulate marijuana at the interstate level. Meanwhile, states would still be able to set rules within their own borders.
This sort of scenario would theoretically allow states to continue drawing a distinction between medical and recreational marijuana. How that would play out practically would depend on what state lawmakers wanted to do.
Option #3: Rescheduling Marijuana
The third option, rescheduling marijuana, seems to be the most likely course of action right now. HHS has already recommended moving marijuana to Schedule III. Such a decision ultimately rests with the DEA.
Rescheduling could be the worst possible scenario for medical cannabis. For starters, moving marijuana to Schedule III would instantly bring the FDA into play. What would happen to local businesses like Beehive Farmacy dispensary near Logan, UT? Unless the FDA gave immediate approval to all the medical cannabis products on Beehive’s shelves, the pharmacy might be forced to shut down.
It is hard to imagine the FDA would not give tacit approval to products like medical cannabis vapes and gummies. Nonetheless, stranger things have happened. Rescheduling could theoretically bring the medical cannabis market to a standstill while the FDA figures out how to move forward.
Something Is Going to Happen
Something is going to happen on the marijuana reform front before too long. Whatever action Congress or the DE decides to take, there will be impacts on the medical cannabis market. Right now, we just do not know what those impacts will be.
Now is an interesting time to be involved in medical cannabis. The future looks both bright and dark at the same time. But who knows? Federal lawmakers could pull a rabbit out of their collective hat and save the day without causing any harm to the medical cannabis market. We shall see.
