Tag: National Academy of Sciences

For decades, federal law has prevented real research into cannabis — this law aims to change that. Steven Senne/AP/REX Shutterstock Proponents of a new effort to study marijuana on Capitol Hill believe their bill has the greatest chance of becoming law because it seeks to do something both relatively uncontroversial and completely novel: Remove politics from the debate over marijuana altogether, while putting the nation’s scientists in the driver’s seat. This latest effort, dubbed the Marijuana Data Collection Act, would require the National Academy of Sciences to release a scientifically rigorous report every two years on a range of topics involving weed, including its impact on public safety and health, the economy and what legalization — or the lack thereof — has meant for the criminal justice system. If that sounds simple, that’s because it’s intended to be. “Only those that have a more zealous position on this issue will oppose uncovering the truth, because they know that it will make it more likely that the federal government will just kind of retreat on the marijuana issue and let the states lead.” The bill isn’t specifically aimed at anti-marijuana Attorney General Jeff Sessions, but if passed it would offer proponents and opponents of marijuana better statistics and data than his Department of Justice currently provides. “We are in such a partisan, polarized political state that my fear was that if we allowed a branch of the federal government to do this, that no matter which administration was in power, the political party that was out of power was going to be concerned that this was a biased report,” Paul Armentano, the Deputy Director of the marijuana advocacy group NORML, tells Rolling Stone. “If we allowed the National Academy of Sciences to do this report we avoided that potential conflict.” Proponents eventually want marijuana to be rescheduled federally so it’s not viewed the same as heroin and even LSD, but they say the 31 states and the District of Columbia who have now legalized marijuana either medicinally, recreationally or both need more data as they write their marijuana laws. Still, the legislation is not without its opponents, even from some on Capitol Hill who have supported efforts to study the positive and negative health effects of marijuana. “That’s the question we should be asking, not going into states to see what’s happening in the states right now,” Harris says. “This is something that I would hope that whether people are opponents or proponents of cannabis law reform, they would at least want to have better data to inform their decision-making,” Rep. Jared Polis (D-CO) tells Rolling Stone.