Cannabis has garnered significant national attention as of late. As proponents continue to push reform measures across the U.S., President Joe Biden’s recent call to reevaluate cannabis’ schedule on the list of controlled substances was a sign that federally elected officials are listening.

And while listening is just one step on the long road to reform, on Wednesday, members of Congress proved they’re willing to go further by passing a standalone piece of cannabis legislation for the first time since the Controlled Substances Act of 1971 was enacted.

The Medical Marijuana Cannabidiol Research Expansion Act (H.R. 8454) aims to encourage and facilitate research on cannabis and its potential health benefits by streamlining the application process for studies and removing U.S. Food and Drug Administration barriers for researchers that often slow the process, writes CBT Associate Editor Tony Lange.

The significance of this legislation cannot be understated–while it opens up research opportunities for cannabis, it also means that across party lines, congressmembers are open to exploring the medicinal value of cannabis. Research conducted under this bill could have broad implications for rescheduling cannabis from its current listing as a Schedule I drug, a class that contains drugs with “no currently accepted medical use,” according to the DEA.

As an added bonus to the overall cannabis sphere, cannabidiol (CBD) is also explicitly named in the legislation–a nod to the infamous hemp compound that has struggled to gain popularity due to a lack of federal regulation, leaving hemp farmers floundering and contributing to the uprise of the unregulated delta-8 THC market.

The bill now awaits approval from Biden, who has already expressed his willingness to reexamine the way cannabis is regulated.

In a press release, U.S. Rep. Earl Blumenauer, D-Ore., who sponsored the research bill (along with Andy Harris, R-Md.), called the bill a “historic breakthrough.”

“After working on the issue of cannabis reform for decades, finally the dam is starting to break,” Blumenauer said in the release.

I, for one, could not be more excited to see the dam come down and the floodgates open.

-Theresa Bennett, Editor

Today, we’re throwing it back to September 2018, when the DEA placed Epidiolex in Schedule V of the Controlled Substances Act (CSA).

With so much of today’s debate revolving around “deschedule or reschedule” following President Biden’s Oct. 6 announcement directing federal officials to review how cannabis is scheduled under federal law, this 2018 article from Digital Editor Eric Sandy offers perspective on the genesis of the first drug containing cannabis-derived compounds becoming approved by the Food and Drug Administration.

Less than two years later, the DEA descheduled Epidiolex entirely from the CSA. Could cannabis take the same reschedule-to-deschedule path?

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