This is just a glimpse. Want to receive every issue of Cannabis Wire Daily, our newsletter that is sent to subscribers each weekday morning? Subscribe today.
Some highlights from the NIH’s daylong cannabis and pain meeting.
On Tuesday, the National Institutes of Health hosted a meeting of NIH-funded researchers who are, in their words, working on “the analgesic properties of minor cannabinoids and terpenes from natural products and their underlying mechanisms.”
Within NIH, the National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health has taken on the role of bringing together the myriad NIH centers working on cannabis, from NIDA to the National Cancer Institute, as well as outside entities like the FDA.
Representatives from these entities were present on Tuesday, too, as was one of the eight DEA-licensed cannabis farms: Biopharmaceutical Research Company.
Almost all of the meeting was directed at researchers, so it was highly technical, but we tuned in anyway to get a lay of the land, and to see if any hot-button topics, like rescheduling, came up – and they did, albeit briefly.
In response to a question about how rescheduling could affect the program through which NIDA supplies cannabis to researchers, Craig Hopp, deputy director of the Division of Extramural Research at NCCIH joked, “Yeah, we were afraid you were going to ask that question.”
Then he gave a more straightforward answer about what he called “this obvious elephant in the room,” which was: nobody knows.
“Nothing actually has happened. Nothing has changed. We are still in the exact same regulatory environment today as we were when this was announced. And it’ll take at least a year for this to actually change. And then the details will – you know, the devil is in the details. What exactly is going to change?” he said. “But yes, I think, I would suspect that NIDA is having lots of conversations about what this means for the drug supply program, at least for cannabis, specifically. But other than that, I don’t have an answer for you.”
Another moment that stuck with us came during the keynote presentation by Daniele Piomelli, a longtime cannabis researcher and the director of the University of California, Irvine Center for the Study of Cannabis.
He spoke at one point about the distance between how the cannabis industry talks about cannabis products versus the pharmacological realities. He drew a comparison to potato chips, which come in innumerable flavors, shapes, and packaging, but which, he said, “are about potatoes, salt and oil” at the end of the day.
“There is a small number of terpenes that makes the difference between all the plants that you see and all the products that you can buy,” he said. “Indica, sativa, entourage effect are vernacular terms that have been hijacked by the industry for marketing purposes. And it pains me to see my colleagues using these words, not because it’s wrong, but because we are borrowing them from the industry and they’ve been put by the industry there to sell stuff.”
The video will be posted on the NCCIH site soon, and when it is, we highly recommend that those of you who care about cannabis research tune in.
WSWA asks Congress to act on – but not ban – intoxicating hemp products.
The Wine & Spirits Wholesalers of America wrote to leaders of the House and Senate Ag Committees this week to “strongly advocate for clear federal rules and regulations that define intoxicating hemp compounds and to grant states the authority to regulate these products within their borders.”
More specifically, they argue Congress should “ban any synthetically derived compounds” and “empower states” with regard to regulating “naturally occurring intoxicating hemp compounds.”
These Committees are leading the charge on the new Farm Bill, which has become a battleground of sorts for entities who have a position on intoxicating hemp products, from “ban” to “regulate.”
You can read the full letter here.
+ More: As we reported in our newsletter last week, WSWA warned against an amendment to ban intoxicating hemp-derived products, which was added to the House version of the 2024 Farm Bill in the House Ag committee. “Now is the time for federal regulation – not prohibition,” said WSWA President & CEO Francis Creighton.
Congressional Cannabis Caucus pushes the VA on vets.
Reps. Earl Blumenauer, Dave Joyce, and Barbara Lee sent a letter on Thursday to U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs Secretary Denis McDonough to urge him to reconsider the agency’s approach to cannabis.
“Without their VA provider’s honest recommendations and option to provide referrals and registration forms, veterans are left to seek care outside of the VA system to participate in state-legal medical marijuana programs. This disrupts veterans’ continuity of care and unfairly bars veterans from accessing treatment their states have legalized,” they wrote.
“HHS’ and DOJ’s formal recognition of marijuana’s accepted medical benefit presents an opportunity to reevaluate the VA’s prohibition on honest consideration of medical marijuana from VA health care providers.”
You can read the full letter here.