Congressman Slams Senate After Marijuana Banking Excluded From Defense Bill
Marijuana Helps Treat PTSD Symptoms But Federal Policy Impedes Science, VA Researcher Says
Nebraska Governor Partners With Prohibitionist Group On Ad Opposing Medical Marijuana
Missouri Lawmakers Must Legalize Marijuana With Freedom In Mind, Former Prisoner Says (Op-Ed)
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The government bears some responsibility in perpetuating stigmas against drug addiction that have created barriers to treatment, the head of the nation’s top drug research agency says.
In an op-ed published by the Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC) last week, National Institute on Drug Abuse Director Nora Volkow shared a personal story about the stigmatization of drug use and the negative consequences that’s had for people suffering from substance misuse disorders. Part of that stigma comes from the enforcement of punitive drug policies, including some that remain in effect, she said.
Volkow said that “stigma remains one of the biggest obstacles to confronting America’s current drug crisis.”
“Government policies, including criminal justice measures, often reflect—and contribute to—stigma,” she said. “When we penalize people who use drugs because of an addiction, we suggest that their use is a character flaw rather than a medical condition. And when we incarcerate addicted individuals, we decrease their access to treatment and exacerbate the personal and societal consequences of their substance use.”
Addiction stigma pervades medicine, policy & communities. In @AAMCToday, NIDA Director Dr. Nora Volkow writes about her personal experience with stigma & the need for a large-scale social intervention to change public attitudes toward addiction. Read more: https://t.co/RdZQOrZeJJ pic.twitter.com/HvnYUfECsN
— NIDAnews (@NIDAnews) November 8, 2021

The official has made similar remarks in the past, arguing that there’s an apparent need to decriminalize drug possession and emphasizing that the drug war has disproportionately impacted communities of color.
“The aura of illegality affects the treatment of people with addiction,” Volkow said. “For example, some treatment programs expel patients for positive urine samples, as if relapse were not simply a known symptom of the disorder and a clinical signal to adjust the treatment approach but instead actual wrongdoing.”
Stigma has also slowed the adoption of harm reduction programs like syringe exchange and access to the anti-overdose medication naloxone “out of a moralistic—as well as factually incorrect—belief that those measures encourage illegal drug use,” she said.
Volkow similarly talked about how decriminalization, coupled with increased treatment, would represent a superior alternative to incarcerating people over drugs in a recent interview with Marijuana Moment.
“We need a large-scale social intervention to change public attitudes toward addiction and people who have the disease,” she wrote in the new op-ed. “Besides ensuring proper training and the resources needed to help patients with substance use disorders, we need to seriously reconsider policies—not only laws but regulations and practices in health care and other settings—that promote viewing substance use as wrongdoing.”
Far too often, shame and stigma fuel addiction and prevent treatment, argues Nora Volkow, MD, director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse (@NIDAnews). But replacing judgment with compassion can save lives.https://t.co/VxsRKpTwuk #MedTwitter #OpioidCrisis
— AAMC (@AAMCtoday) November 2, 2021

In other recent remarks, Volkow argued that there’s no need for further research to prove that the criminalization of drugs has disproportionately impacted communities of color.
The official has also been pressed on issues related to marijuana prohibition and psychedelics.
She acknowledged in a podcast interview released in August that cannabis legalization has not led to increased youth use despite her prior fears, and she spoke about the therapeutic potential of certain psychedelics that have long been deemed “dangerous” under federal law.
And when it comes to marijuana research, she said scientists should be allowed to investigate products from state-legal dispensaries instead of using only government-grown plants.
NIDA separately submitted a report to congressional lawmakers emphasizing that the Schedule I status of controlled substances like cannabis is preventing or discouraging research into their potential risks and benefits.
It also said that current restrictions that block scientists from studying the actual cannabinoid products that consumers can purchase at dispensaries is impeding research to an extent that constitutes a public health concern.
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Kyle Jaeger is Marijuana Moment’s Sacramento-based senior editor. His work has also appeared in High Times, VICE and attn.
Congressman Slams Senate After Marijuana Banking Excluded From Defense Bill
Marijuana Helps Treat PTSD Symptoms But Federal Policy Impedes Science, VA Researcher Says
Nebraska Governor Partners With Prohibitionist Group On Ad Opposing Medical Marijuana
DEA backs plan to ease cannabis & psychedelics research (Newsletter: December 7, 2021)
Missouri Lawmakers Must Legalize Marijuana With Freedom In Mind, Former Prisoner Says (Op-Ed)
Indiana GOP Lawmaker Plans Medical Marijuana Bill As Democrats Push Full Recreational Legalization
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A new version of a congressional defense bill does not include marijuana banking reform following negotiations between the House and Senate. But the lead sponsor of the cannabis reform didn’t go down without a fight, filing an amendment in committee to attach the marijuana language to the legislation—though he ultimately didn’t insist on a vote.
While the House passed its initial version of the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) in September with language to protect banks that work with state-legal cannabis businesses, those provisions were not attached to a new bicameral deal filed on Tuesday.
This latest iteration will now go through both chambers again before potentially being sent to the president’s desk.
Rep. Ed Perlmutter (D-CO), chief sponsor of the Secure and Fair Enforcement (SAFE) Banking Act, didn’t force a vote on the amendment in the House Rules Committee—but its last-minute introduction sparked an impassioned debate within the panel, where multiple members expressed frustration over how Senate leadership has approached the issue.
At Tuesday’s meeting, Rules Committee Chairman Jim McGovern (D-MA) sharply criticized Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY), who has insisted that broad justice-focused marijuana reform should be addressed before passing something like the SAFE Banking Act.
“I don’t really quite know what the hell his problem is,” McGovernor said, referring to Schumer. “But what he’s doing is he’s making it very difficult for a lot of small businesses—and minority-owned businesses, too—deal with the issue of cannabis to be able to move forward and to expand and to hire more people.”

Rep. Adam Smith (D-WA), chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, who is a lead negotiator on NDAA, also expressed frustration over how Senate leadership has approached the cannabis banking issue.
“The impact of this, as a practical matter, to not have the SAFE Banking Act is incredibly dangerous,” he said, adding that small businesses “basically have to run a cash business” and they “can’t do the normal banking that is available to them in the states where where marijuana is legal.”
“I even seriously considered saying, you know, we’re just gonna put it in and the Senate can deal with it,” Smith said. “But the bottom line is, if the majority leader in the Senate has this opinion—and it’s worth noting that the minority leader has a similar position in the Senate—they don’t want this included, that’s not the way the process works.”
Smith and other lawmakers said that while they support the cannabis legislation, inserting it over the Senate’s objections could doom the overall defense bill, a scenario they weren’t willing to risk.
Perlmutter mused that “precisely why the majority leader, Mr. Schumer, is opposed to this is still pretty much a mystery to me.”
“It makes no sense because of the public safety aspect, the minority business aspect,” he said. “Without the ability to have banking, many small businesses—veteran-owned organizations, women-owned businesses—don’t have access to capital.”
“You have heard my ire and my irritation and my anger because people are getting killed. They’re getting robbed. And we’re making no moves,” he said. “We now have made some advancements, but this thing’s been sitting there for three years.”
Despite his frustration, Perlmutter said it’s not his intention to “start really throwing procedural wrenches into everything” to advance the reform, and so he didn’t push for a vote on the amendment in committee. That said, the congressman said he’s “not raising the white flag on this thing” and “we’re going to keep bringing this up.”
Perlmutter, who announced his plan to file an amendment in the Rules Committee shortly after the next of the negotiated defense bill was released earlier on Tuesday, said that he spoke with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) about pursuing other avenues to force the Senate to finally take up his legislation.
As a result, I plan to file an amendment to the NDAA at the Rules Committee which would add #SAFEBanking back to the bill. https://t.co/PJpfZk2Umk
— Rep. Ed Perlmutter (@RepPerlmutter) December 7, 2021

Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MA) applauded Perlmutter’s leadership on the issue and said “we have to do whatever we can to push it forward.” He added that “we’ve got to find another vehicle to make that [reform] real.”
Smith later added that the process of negotiating with the Senate on cannabis banking through NDAA resulted in “progress on this issue—and the Senate is under a lot more pressure to do something.”
Separately, the new defense bill also excludes an NDAA amendment filed by Sens. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) and Brian Schatz (D-HI) that would have streamlined the application process for researchers who want to investigate cannabis as well as manufacture the plant to be used in studies. It also doesn’t include a separate Schatz-led amendment to federally legalize medical marijuana for military veterans who comply with a state program where they live.
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Advocates and lawmakers have been split on whether banking should advance through NDAA.
Supporters argue that enacting the reform is necessary for public safety, as many marijuana businesses operate on a largely cash-only basis without access to traditional financial institutions, making them targets of crime.
In demanding an all-or-nothing approach, the Senate is missing a critical opportunity to #PassProgress.
It's time to reform our outdated cannabis laws.
Let's take this opportunity and include #SAFEBanking in the final NDAA. pic.twitter.com/4A1Bklojfu
— Rep. Ed Perlmutter (@RepPerlmutter) December 6, 2021

But some groups like the Drug Policy Alliance (DPA) have urged leadership to hold off on banking reform until comprehensive legalization legislation that promotes social equity is approved.
Voices in favor of advancing marijuana banking through this defense vehicle have been wide ranging.
A coalition of financial associations and labor groups—including the American Bankers Association, Credit Union National Association (CUNA) and United Food and Commercial Workers Union—was the latest to send a letter to Senate leadership urging the inclusion of the SAFE Banking Act in NDAA.
CUNA and other credit union associations sent a letter with a similar request to earlier last month.
Bipartisan members of the Senate Armed Services Committee also recently sent their own letter urging leaders to include the SAFE Banking Act in the final NDAA. Shortly thereafter, U.S. senators representing Colorado made the same request in a separate letter.
Last month, a bipartisan coalition of two dozen governors implored congressional leaders to finally enact marijuana banking reform through the large-scale defense legislation.
A group of small marijuana business owners also recently made the case that the incremental banking policy change could actually help support social equity efforts.
Rodney Hood, a board member of the National Credit Union Administration, wrote in a recent Marijuana Moment op-ed that legalization is an inevitability—and it makes the most sense for government agencies to get ahead of the policy change to resolve banking complications now.
Meanwhile, an official with the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) said that the agency would like to “get paid,” and it’d help if the marijuana industry had access to banks like companies in other legal markets so they could more easily comply with tax laws.
The secretary of the U.S. Treasury Department said last week that freeing up banks to work with state-legal marijuana businesses would “of course” make the IRS’s job of collecting taxes easier.
Federal data shows that many financial institutions remain hesitant to take on cannabis companies as clients, however, which is likely due to the fact that the plant is a strictly controlled substance under federal law.
While Schumer has been adamant in his push to first pass comprehensive reform—like the legalization bill he’s working on alongside Senate Finance Committee Chairman Ron Wyden (D-OR) and Sen. Cory Booker (D-NJ)—he did signal that he’s open to enacting banking reform through NDAA if it contained social equity provisions.
On that note, a bipartisan duo filed a bill last week that would incentivize states and local governments to expunge cannabis records in their jurisdictions. And the Republican sponsor of that legislation, Rep. Dave Joyce (R-OH), has been taunting Schumer in the days since to let banking reform be attached to NDAA.
DEA Backs White House Plan To Streamline Research On Marijuana, Psychedelics And Other Schedule I Drugs

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People with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) who use marijuana experience fewer symptoms and recover more quickly compared to people who don’t use cannabis, a U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs researcher said in a new podcast posted by the agency.
Hal Wortzel, a VA forensic neuropsychiatrist, talked about the findings of an observational study he conducted during the recent interview. He also discussed how the ongoing federal prohibition on marijuana has impeded essential research.
To learn how cannabis impacts PTSD, Wortzel’s team tracked two groups over the course of several years: 75 people with the condition who said they use marijuana and 75 people with PTSD who don’t consume cannabis. While there are limits to observational—rather than experimental—studies, he said the results provide further evidence that marijuana seems to have therapeutic benefits for certain populations.
An Observational Study of Cannabis and PTSD https://t.co/YcNZFo2EP7
— RockyMountain MIRECC (@RMIRECC) December 5, 2021

Specifically, people who said they use marijuana reported fewer “hyper arousal” symptoms—things like anxiously checking over one’s shoulder or overreacting to loud sounds.
“Among persons using marijuana for PTSD, relative to the group that was not using marijuana, we saw those folks using marijuana products get a little bit better more quickly, and they were about two and a half times more likely over the course of the study year to no longer meet criteria for PTSD than those folks who were not using marijuana products,” Wortzel said.
“That was a finding that appears to be predominantly driven by what we call the hyper arousal symptoms of PTSD,” he said. “Those sorts of symptoms appear to be most responsive to marijuana, at least in this investigation.”

Wortzel also told the podcast—which is produced by VA’s Rocky Mountain Mental Illness Research Education and Clinical Center—that there should be a greater investment in controlled, experimental studies on marijuana’s health impacts, but federal prohibition has impeded research.
“In the world of cannabis, because marijuana and marijuana products are still technically federally illegal, to do those kinds of experimental studies, you have to use basically the marijuana product that’s been developed by the United States government for that purpose, which, of course, is not the the product that the vast majority of Americans are utilizing or purchasing in dispensaries like here in Colorado,” he said.
Many researchers—including the head of the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA)—have complained about the fact that scientists are currently dependent on cannabis grown from a single, federally authorized source at the University of Mississippi, with products that do not reflect what’s available in commercial markets.
It’s one of several marijuana research barrier identified in a report that NIDA recently submitted to Congress.
Because Wortzel’s study was observational and didn’t require the administration of marijuana in a controlled, clinical setting, however, its findings are unique in that participants using cannabis were obtaining it outside of the government’s garden.
While the research found that the cannabis group did improve more quickly compared to the non-user group, it surprisingly didn’t find that marijuana was associated with better sleep or other “functional outcomes and activity levels.” That’s despite the fact that, anecdotally, many people report improved sleep with cannabis.
The study author said they felt looking at those factors was “really important because symptoms matter—I mean, PTSD symptoms are unpleasant and a source of suffering for lots of people—but at the end of the day, in addition to sort of alleviating symptoms, we want to see people getting back into life, engaging in work or other sort of activities that are just as important for our overall well-being and emotional health.”
While congressional lawmakers are working to advance legislation to end marijuana prohibition, VA officials have resisted even modest proposals meant to promote veteran access and clinical research into the medical value of cannabis.
One such research bill was approved by the House Veterans Affairs Committee last month, despite testimony from the department opposing the reform. VA’s David Carroll told lawmakers that the legislation was overly prescriptive and argued that the department is already conducting robust research into marijuana.
Some had held out hope that the department would back the reform this session after the sponsor, Rep. Lou Correa (D-CA), said that he’d had a conversation with VA Secretary Denis McDonough about the issue of marijuana and veterans.
Meanwhile, a VA official said in September that the department is “very closely” following research into the potential therapeutic benefits of psychedelics like MDMA for military veterans with PTSD.
Rep. Dan Crenshaw (R-TX) recently attempted to insert into defense legislation an amendment to require the Department of Defense to conduct a clinical trial into the therapeutic benefits of psychedelics for military members with chronic pain and PTSD. But it was blocked from receiving a floor vote by the House Rules Committee.
Crenshaw, a veteran himself, also recently moderated a conversation with a top psychedelics reform advocate. The congressman said that a veteran’s account of psychedelics therapy with MDMA “sounds amazing.”
During joint hearings before House and Senate Veterans Affairs Committees in March, three veterans service organizations submitted written testimony backing a policy change to expand access to or increase research on medical cannabis, and one argued in favor of loosening restrictions to enable veterans to utilize psychedelics in their mental health treatment.
A federal commission tasked with developing recommendations to improve mental health treatment for military veterans determined in a report early last year that Congress and the executive branch should promote research into the therapeutic potential of marijuana and psychedelics such as psilocybin mushrooms and MDMA.
Separately, a bipartisan coalition of congressional lawmakers said in a recent letter to McDonough that the department must urgently institute a policy change to ensure that military veterans can access cannabis for therapeutic use.
The letter comes weeks after McDonough participated in a Veterans Day Q&A where he said that VA officials are “looking at” the possibility of an internal policy change and have discussed it with the White House and Department of Justice. The secretary also talked about being personally moved by stories from veterans who’ve found relief using medical marijuana.
Nebraska Governor Partners With Prohibitionist Group On Ad Opposing Medical Marijuana

Photo courtesy of Martin Alonso.
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The Republican governor of Nebraska is partnering with a chapter of the nation’s leading marijuana prohibitionist group to run ads urging residents to oppose cannabis reform in the state.
Gov. Pete Ricketts (R) was featured in a 30-second ad that was paid for by SAM Nebraska, an affiliate of Smart Approaches to Marijuana, and which began airing on local TV stations last week. He argues that marijuana doesn’t have medical value and that the industry is using the issue as a Trojan horse to ultimately get adult-use legalization enacted.
This comes as pro-legalization advocates step up their reform push by circulating a pair of medical cannabis reform initiatives that they hope to put before voters on the 2022 ballot. Nebraskans for Medical Marijuana has until July to collect 87,000 valid signatures to qualify each of their complementary measures.
Ricketts apparently wants to get ahead of the issue.
“The only difference between medical marijuana and recreational marijuana is word choice,” the governor said in the new ad. “Doctors can’t prescribe it and pharmacists can’t provide it because it’s not medicine.”
“Today the marijuana industry has set its sights on Nebraska. And the real goal is the legalization of recreational marijuana across the state,” he said. “We’ve seen what happens when progressive politics trump science and common sense. That can’t happen. It’s up to us to protect our kids and defend our communities. Big Marijuana’s way is the wrong way for Nebraska.”
While the ad ignores the political reality that there’s strong bipartisan support for medical cannabis, the governor’s talking points are at least more tempered than his remarks in May, when he said marijuana “is a dangerous drug that will impact our kids” and “if you legalize marijuana, you’re gonna kill your kids.”
State Sen. Adam Morfeld (D), a cochair of the pro-reform group Nebraskans for Medical Marijuana, blasted Ricketts for “running $500,000 in anti medical marijuana ads across the state,” tweeting that he supposes the governor is taking steps to make the 2022 election “be a referendum on marijuana.”
Quick google search results on Pete: pic.twitter.com/MCM5HN20vr
— State Senator Adam Morfeld (@Adam_Morfeld) December 5, 2021

Morfeld told Marijuana Moment that “no amount of money will change the fact that over 70 percent of Nebraskans from across the political spectrum support the legalization of medical marijuana.”
I suppose he is setting up the 2022 General Election is going to be a referendum on marijuana.
— State Senator Adam Morfeld (@Adam_Morfeld) December 5, 2021

SAM Executive Vice President Luke Niforatos confirmed to Marijuana Moment that the organization’s Nebraska affiliate is spending in the six figures for the ad campaign, which also features two separate spots featuring medical and law enforcement professionals raising concerns about cannabis.
A political consulting company, making ad buys and the fcc files them in their "Political Files". But as long as you check the box on a NAB form, it's nananabooboo… doesn't count. pic.twitter.com/eAG2AwuGv2
— Tim… just Tim. (@TimmySQL) December 5, 2021

Nebraskans for Medical Marijuana, which is behind the two reform ballot initiatives, sent an email blast to supporters about the new opposition ads.
“If these ads make you angry, they should. The content is dishonest and disrespectful to the families and grassroots patient advocates who are leading this movement for compassionate cannabis laws,” they wrote. “It is clear that the anti-cannabis extremists—many from groups that exist outside of Nebraska—will stop at nothing to prevent us from creating a system of safe, legal access to medical cannabis.
The 2022 ballot effort isn’t the first time that Nebraskans for Medical Marijuana has pushed for reform despite the governor’s opposition.
Activists collected enough signatures to qualify a medical marijuana legalization measure for the 2020 ballot, but the state Supreme Court invalidated it, finding that the proposal violated the single-subject rule for citizen initiatives.
That’s why the campaign deliberately chose to take a bifurcated approach this time around, with the complementary proposals to the reform to avoid such a legal challenge.
One of the initiatives would direct the legislature to pass a bill establishing legal protections for patients and doctors around cannabis, while the other would require lawmakers to pass legislation allowing private companies to produce and sell medical marijuana products.
Lawmakers attempted to advance medical cannabis reform legislatively this year, but while the unicameral legislature debated a bill to legalize medical marijuana in May, it failed to advance past a filibuster because the body didn’t have enough votes to overcome it.
Morfeld and Sen. Anna Wishart (D) announced last December that they would also work to put the question of legalizing marijuana for adult use before voters in 2022. But for now their focus appears to be on the medical cannabis effort.
For what it’s worth, Nebraska’s attorney general argued in an opinion in 2019 that efforts to legalize medical marijuana legislatively in the state would be preempted by federal law and “would be, therefore, unconstitutional.”
Ohio GOP Lawmakers File New Marijuana Legalization Bill

Photo courtesy of Philip Steffan.
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