Must Read Article In Today’s Gazette By Adam Sullivan

Read about Iowa’s legislatively sanctioned federal mafia program here in today’s Gazette.

If you are an Iowa cannabis advocate, this is the most important argument to know (heck, if you are a US cannabis advocate in any state).

While fellow cannabis advocates and colleagues really must read this entire article in today’s Gazette this excerpt is very well-written and worth repeating:

The best and simplest way to rationalize American marijuana laws would be to reschedule marijuana to a more sensible level. Congress could do that by passing a law, or the Drug Enforcement Administration could do it with no legislative action at all.

While there is growing interest among politicians and bureaucrats to reclassify marijuana, by no means is it imminent. Short of rescheduling, there is at least one alternative route for Iowa and other medical cannabis states might take.

Olsen is asking the Iowa Department of Public Health to request acknowledgment from the federal government that Iowa’s medical cannabidiol program is exempt from controlled substance restrictions.

The template for that exemption proposal comes from peyote, a psychoactive cactus that’s used as a sacrament by some indigenous Americans. While peyote is a schedule I substance like marijuana, federal regulatory code provides a religious exemption for members of the Native American Church to use it.

Olsen wonders if marijuana could be recognized with a similar exemption.

“If a church or a religion is entitled to have a broad exemption like that, certainly a state government has that right,” Olsen said at the Aug. 2 Medical Cannabidiol Board meeting.

According to Olsen’s research, no other state has pursued such a strategy.

This is not motivated by some moral imperative to honor federalism and the rule of law, or even by a fear that federal law enforcement agents might physically intervene in state marijuana programs. Rather, it stems from the recognition that federal marijuana prohibition has tangible and urgent consequences for Iowans.

Read Adam Sullivan’s full article on the importance of addressing federal marijuana laws at the state level in the state of Iowa here.