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WASHINGTON — Even as President Joe Biden’s administration is reconsidering the criminal classification of marijuana — an epic policy shift — they are dragging their feet on the much simpler question of researching the medical impact of cannabis.
Congress passed a law at the end of 2022 designed to make it easier for organizations such as universities to obtain cannabis and study its potential medical uses, an enterprise hobbled for years by marijuana’s illegality at the federal level.
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Loosening restrictions on cannabis research was so obviously worthwhile that the law, sponsored by legalization-friendly Rep. Earl Blumenauer (D-Ore.) and prominent pot skeptic Rep. Andy Harris (R-Md.), passed the House by an overwhelming bipartisan vote of 325 to 95, and the Senate approved it without even bothering to count votes.
Blumenauer said that as far as he can tell, however, the administration has done nothing to streamline the process for approving cannabis research.
“It’s embarrassing,” Blumenauer, who is retiring at the end of this Congress, told HuffPost. “I’ve seen no evidence that they’re at work to make this research go much more smoothly. I mean, this not low-hanging fruit — this is picking it up off the ground. It