A large bill that provides funding for highways is going to be taken up within the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee this week. It’s a mammoth, over 1,200 pages, but somewhere within its binding they were able to slip in an expansion of what researchers are able to study when it comes to marijuana.
As of now, those doing studies of marijuana could only take from a small and limited pool of weed that the federal government supplies. This bill would allow researchers to use actual marijuana sold at dispensaries. It makes a lot of sense, considering this is actually the marijuana being consumed by the general public.
This has always been a sticking point in the pot industry. Many claims are being made about the benefits and issues with consuming the plant, including its general effect on our mental health or the dangers of THC potency, but most of these studies are smaller and require lots more evidence to fully back its findings. However, the limited supplies of marijuana being given out was hindering the progress. Hopefully this will be the start of a weed research renaissance.
The process would start with a report that would detail which strains to acquire to use in studies. That report is due in two years, because everything in government takes forever.
Read the original at Marijuana Moment
