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Why Is It Still So Hard To Legalize Marijuana?

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Virginia Attorney General Mark Herring has asked that question in public lately, and it’s one that all of our lawmakers should be considering.

Weed isn’t a big deal. The military is treating PTSD with ecstacy. The legal right to grow weed has existed in our nation’s capital for years. The city of Denver has medical mushrooms, while the state of Colorado has earned over $1 billion from pot sales.

The passage of the 2018 Farm Bill in December clears CBD to hit its projection as a $22 billion industry by 2022, despite the FDA dragging their feet. Cannabis may remain illegal at the federal level, but the majority of the country currently utilizes weed for medicinal purposes. Even as the war on drugs is waged by our executive leadership, a multi-billion dollar pot market continues to steamroll across the country, with Illinois becoming the 11th state to legalize recreational use. 

America’s political machine has moved on; presidential debates revolve around fresh topics, like immigration, gun control, and climate change. In the most recent Democratic debate, cannabis wasn’t even discussed, as legalization was approved all-but-unanimously by 21 of 22 candidates — the exception being our Uncle-in-Chief, Joe Biden. 

Today, you can not only smoke weed: you can drink it, drop it in your eye, have sex with it, prepare entire meals with it, open restaurants based on it, tax it for college funds, and make an honest career of growing it. And far more people use it than you might expect — even Jesus dabbled in some cannabis oil. 

Campaigns for legalization have been backed by a myriad of findings that, under safe administration, show the medicinal benefits outweigh the risks of cannabis use. Gateway-drug theories and communist sympathies once tied to the drug have been debunked. Cannabis legalization has also been shown to reverse rates of opioid abuse and deaths.

Save societies’ religious zealots and frothing teabaggers, people don’t really have any issues with weed. So why isn’t it legal here in Virginia yet?

Virginia Attorney General Mark Herring was the latest to ask that very question, in an Op-Ed published by the Daily Press. 

“Criminalizing minor marijuana possession is just not working. It is needlessly creating criminals. It is costing us a lot of money — the social cost is enormous, and there are disparities in enforcement you reported,” Herring wrote. “Virginia should decriminalize possession of small amounts of marijuana, address past convictions, and start moving toward legal and regulated adult use.”

While Herring’s opinion revitalized the topic of cannabis reform, he isn’t the first state official to speak up in recent months. Gov. Ralph Northam suggested decriminalization of simple possession during his State of the Commonwealth speech in January.

“We want to keep people safe,” Northam said. “But we shouldn’t use valuable law enforcement time, or costly prison space, on laws that don’t enhance public safety.” 

“Current law imposes a maximum 30 days in jail for a first offense of marijuana possession. Making simple possession a civil penalty will ease overcrowding in our jails and prisons, and free up our law enforcement and court resources for offenses that are a true threat to public safety.”

And before Northam’s speech, many Virginia judges publicly refused to jail first offenders for misdemeanor cases of marijuana possession. In a letter sent on January 3, Greg Underwood, the Commonwealth’s Attorney for the City of Norfolk, informed judges, law enforcement, and public safety officials that he won’t prosecute misdemeanor marijuana charges. He also stated that his office would support the release of defendants on bail in more misdemeanor and felony cases. Portsmouth’s Commonwealth Attorney Stephanie Morales rolled out a similar policy.

“The Office will cease prosecuting all misdemeanor marijuana possession cases and will move to nolle prosequi or dismiss such cases that fall within our purview,” read the memorandum published by Underwood.

Underwood cited an annual report that showed about 80 percent of first-offense marijuana possession arrests in Norfolk were African Americans in 2016 and 2017, despite the city’s population being 43 percent African American.

Federally, marijuana remains a Schedule I drug. The DEA still pairs it with LSD and heroin in its potential for abuse, with no federally recognized medical benefits, despite national polls showing significant public support for its legalization. Even CBD is hampered by the FDA, an organization infamous for approving controversial drugs like Zoloft and Dsuvia with little to no clinical testing.

And it isn’t much better here in Virginia. In 2015, the state general assembly passed a special case usage of non-psychoactive marijuana oils to treat intractable epilepsy — making us the 46th state to pass any form of cannabis legislation. The Commonwealth also allows prescribed marijuana and THC, but only for alleviating effects of chemo treatment in cases of cancer and glaucoma. 

Aside from that, all other cannabis legislation — six bills thus far, under the recommendation of law enforcement, Governor Northam and researchers alike — have died in committee.

“It’s not the governor, it’s not the bill sponsor themselves,” Virginia NORML (National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws) Executive Director Jenn Michelle Pedini told RVA Magazine. “It really comes down to the Senate Courts of Justice Committee and the House Courts of Justice Committee. That’s where marijuana reform goes to die.”

Just this past January, the Virginia House’s Courts of Justice defeated HB 2317 in a 5-3 vote, a bill that proposed legalizing cannabis for those over 21, decriminalizing simple possession of cannabis and reducing maximum jail time for those underage. The Virginia state Senate’s Courts of Justice also defeated SB 997, a similar measure proposed by Sen. Adam Ebbin. A first offense for simple possession of marijuana (under 14 grams) remains a Class 1 misdemeanor, punishable by a fine of up to $500 and jail time of up to 30 days. 

“I will continue to fight for Virginians of all walks of life, from all political backgrounds, who believe as I do, that marijuana prohibition has been a failure,” said Sen. Stephen Heretick (D-Portsmouth), who proposed the bill. “From the bottom of my heart, I thank you for your support and for standing with me.”

Many argue that jail time served on marijuana charges is a financial waste disproportionately affecting African Americans. According to a report by the Virginia Crime Commission, African Americans constitute a majority of small possession cases, despite the fact that only 20 percent of Virginia residents are black.  

The report also stated that a first-time marijuana offender with court-appointed counsel can “expect to pay approximately $400 to $800 in costs and fees depending on the type of probation ordered.”

“Studies show that blacks and whites use marijuana at about the same rate,” said American Civil Liberties Union-Virginia executive director Claire Guthrie Gastañaga. A 2017 ACLU report concluded black Americans are 3.73 times more likely than whites to be arrested for marijuana possession.

“It is not surprising that the War on Marijuana, waged with far less fanfare than the earlier phases of the drug war, has gone largely, if not entirely, unnoticed by middle- and upper-class white communities,” stated the report.

A 2017 Virginia State Police report shared similar results, reporting that African Americans are more likely to be jailed for marijuana possession, despite using the drug at the same rate. Black defendants are also more likely than white defendants to be found guilty, rather than have their charges dismissed, according to state court records. 

Crime analyst and former detective Richard James told WKTR that law enforcement can still cite you for possession of marijuana, and explained what could happen in that case. 

The evidence is clear that there are racial biases in the enforcement of marijuana,” said James.

Democrats argue it is a Republican-controlled assembly that has stalled marijuana reform. 

“If we elect a Democratic majority, I think you are looking at a clear, distinct possibility marijuana will be part of a new Virginia economy, along with clean energy,” said Kathy Galvin, a 2019 Virginia delegate candidate, according to news reports.

Yet, sympathy for cannabis has even come from Republican legislators, like the case of former Speaker Of The US House of Representatives John Boehner, who sees the plant, under the appropriate supervision, as a cash crop and a personal liberty. 

“It can be used to excess, and likely will,” Boehner told NPR. “But that doesn’t mean that we should take wine or liquor off the market, or beer or cigarettes for that matter. And I do think that by decriminalizing, you’re going to open up a lot more research so we can learn more about the 4,000 year history of the use of this plant.”

In 2018, the Virginia Senate authorized the first five medical cannabis dispensaries for non-psychoactive CBD and THC-A oils, most of which will be open by the fall 2019. In the next session, Del. Glenn Davis, R-Virginia Beach, filed HB 2245, a bill to double the number of medical cannabis dispensaries. 

An estimated 1.1 million jobs could be created by 2025 if marijuana were legalized, according to an analysis by New Frontier Data. Dalitso, a Manassas-based investor group that owns one of the first five dispensaries licensed in Virginia, began with an initial staff of 50 and has significantly grown, based solely on projected sales within the state.

Photo by Marijuana Pictures

“The cannabis industry is growing, and Virginia is growing along with it,” said Greg Kennedy, a partner with Dalitso, according to news reports.

In contrast, some Virginia Republicans have merely paraded legislation under the banner of reform. In 2018, state Senate Majority Leader Tommy Norment proposed his own marijuana legislation, SB 954, at first touting it as cannabis legislation, only to later restate that the bill would only offer a chance for expungement of records and negation of possible jail time to first offenders.

“Legislative change is about the possible,” said Jeff Ryer, a spokesman for Norment. Ryer told the Richmond Times-Dispatch that Norment removed measures to decriminalize because with those measures in place, the bill would have no chance of passage.

The problem is, Virginia does not allow expungement. Norment’s bill would have simply created a separate registry apart from the national criminal database, though offenses would still show up in background checks. Tickets and fees issued through the program would be funneled into a separate fund for the state police, who would have been required to run the registry.

“Senator Norment’s bill is an expungement measure not sharing a freckle in common with decriminalization,” Bill Farrar, ACLU of Virginia public policy and communication director, told the Richmond Times-Dispatch. “This is an urgent criminal justice and racial justice issue in Virginia that lawmakers should be taking more seriously.”

The bill passed the Senate by a near unanimous 38-2 vote, but others involving marijuana died in the House Courts of Justice Committee. And though Norment said he favored decriminalization, he later voted against Senator Adam Ebbin’s 2019 decriminalization bill, SB997, in the Senate Courts of Justice Committee.

“Virginians want marijuana possession decriminalized, not to be charged three times as much as a regular expungement in order to be tracked on a ‘marijuana offender’ list,” Pedini said.

“The primary impediment to meaningful marijuana law reform in Virginia is the leadership of legislative committees,” Pedini said. “While the overwhelming majority of Virginia lawmakers may favor decriminalizing marijuana, or even legalizing responsible adult use, unless those bills can advance through committee to the floor for a vote, they simply cannot succeed. ”

The main contention over marijuana legislation today is where the road ends; Herring and many Democrats want eventual legalization, while many Republican legislators don’t want anything beyond decriminalization. Though some GOP legislators have humored small measures toward weed reform, short sporadic bursts will never be enough to break up the party’s closed front; concrete changes in Virginia will require the unanimous assent of Republican leadership. Until then, any efforts to pass cannabis legislation will be crippled by the very saboteurs that have gone to battle where other issues are concerned over GOP-endorsed virtues of personal liberty, limited government, and free markets that, where marijuana is concerned, they stand firmly against.  

If Virginians want fairer and safer marijuana laws, they must elect those candidates who will support such measures,” Pedini said.

And despite a public that supports reform at historic highs, politicians are prepared to vote along party lines rather than the wishes of their own constituency. It’s true that the war on drugs was a failure; so why are so many Virginia lawmakers still fighting?

Herring Calls For Marijuana Decriminalization

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In a Daily Press Op-Ed published on Sunday, Virginia’s Attorney General made the case for decriminalizing possession of marijuana.

In a move that pleased cannabis advocates and made headlines around the state, Virginia Attorney General Mark Herring wrote an op-ed in Sunday’s Daily Press calling for the decriminalization of “minor marijuana possession.”

“Virginia should decriminalize possession of small amounts of marijuana, address past convictions and start moving toward legal and regulated adult use,” Herring wrote in the op-ed.

Herring cited a massive increase in arrests and first-time convictions for marijuana possession in Virginia between 2008 and 2017. According to Herring, arrests have increased 115 percent, from 13,000 in 2008 to 28,000 in 2017, while first-time marijuana convictions have risen in the same time period from 6,500 to 10,000.

He also pointed out that those affected by arrest and prosecution for marijuana possession are disproportionately African-Americans and people of color. “The Virginia Crime Commission found that African Americans comprised 46% of all first offense possession arrests from 2007 to 2016, despite comprising just 20% of Virginia’s population and despite studies consistently showing that marijuana usage rates are comparable between African Americans and white Americans,” Herring wrote in the op-ed.

As Attorney General, Herring’s position at the state level won’t have an impact on prosecutions, which take place at the level of local government. He did praise Commonwealth’s Attorneys who have made moves to reduce the number of marijuana possession cases moving through the courts, but said that “locality-by-locality action is no substitute for a rational, unified statewide policy.”

In order to make any sort of practical change on this level, Herring will need his cause to be taken up by members of the General Assembly. The state legislature, which has been Republican-controlled for nearly a decade, has previously blocked any attempts to reform the commonwealth’s marijuana laws. However, Delegate Steve Heretick of Virginia’s 79th District, which includes parts of Norfolk, Portsmouth, and Chesapeake, told 13NewsNow that he intended to introduce legislation to decriminalize simple marijuana possession in the 2020 General Assembly session.

“Over 36 states and U.S. territories have regulated marijuana use by adults, so Virginia is not new to this,” Heretick said to 13NewsNow. “We have been looking at criminalization and legalization for some time now.”

Jenn Michelle Pedini, who is the Executive Director of the Virginia chapter of NORML (National Organization for Reform of Marijuana Laws), saw Herring’s statement as a positive and helpful step.

“The public’s response to Attorney General Herring’s statement not only supporting decriminalizing but legalizing and regulating adult use of marijuana has been overwhelmingly positive,” Pedini told 13NewsNow. “What this does is moves this issue to the front burner of Virginia politics.”

In November, all 140 members of the Virginia General Assembly will face elections. With Republican control of both houses held by an extremely narrow margin (21-19 in the Virginia Senate, 51-49 in the House Of Delegates), Democrats will be working hard to gain control and have an opportunity to pass a variety of legislation long blocked by Republican lawmakers. If Democrats do regain control of the General Assembly, it seems very likely that marijuana reform will be one of the first issues on the docket.

And for Herring, it’s high time. “We can’t avoid the conversation any longer,” he wrote in the Daily Press. “It is time for Virginia to embrace a better, smarter, and fairer approach to cannabis.”

Advocates Seek More Access To Medical Marijuana In Virginia

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Virginians with a variety of medical issues are hoping the state will make it easier for them to access medical marijuana.

RICHMOND, Va. — As other states have relaxed their laws against marijuana, citizens across Virginia gathered here Saturday to discuss how to persuade the General Assembly to legalize medical and recreational marijuana in the Commonwealth.

About 150 people, including health care providers and attorneys, attended the Virginia 2019 Cannabis Conference, held by the Virginia chapter of the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws.

Virginia NORML advocates decriminalizing possession of marijuana and regulating medical and recreational-use production and sales of the substance.

Members of NORML are hopeful after Gov. Ralph Northam voiced support for decriminalizing possession of small amounts of marijuana during his State of the Commonwealth speech on Wednesday, the first day of the General Assembly’s 2019 session.

“We want to keep people safe. But we shouldn’t use valuable law enforcement time, or costly prison space, on laws that don’t enhance public safety,” the governor said in his speech. “Current law imposes a maximum 30 days in jail for a first offense of marijuana possession.”

So far, lawmakers have proposed six bills to decriminalize simple marijuana possession. For example, HB 2371, sponsored by Del. Steve Heretick, D-Portsmouth, and HB 2373, by Del. Lee Carter, D-Prince William, would legalize marijuana for Virginians 21 and older and have the state operate retail marijuana stores. Under such proposals, Virginians under 21 who are caught with marijuana would have to pay a civil penalty.

Most attendees at the conference, held at the Delta by Marriott hotel, seemed particularly interested in medical marijuana and how to access it without traveling to another state.

Lorene Davidson of Richmond works in anesthesia as a nurse practitioner. She came to the conference because of her ongoing struggle with antidepressants, which she found were bad for her liver.

“I’m looking mostly for a way to find out more about getting a medical card and furthering getting that taken care of,” Davidson said.

As a speaker at the event, Melanie Seifert Davis of Richmond shared the story of her 10-year-old daughter Madison, who was diagnosed with ependymoma brain cancer in 2014.

“Although I’m not new to the world of cannabis, I’m brand new to the world of cannabis reform,” Davis said.

Madison is on four different cannabis-based products including CBD, THC, THCA and FECO (full extract cannabis oil) to help with seizures and the cancer itself, Davis said.

“Today and for every tomorrow I’m given, I will fill seven capsules with high doses of four different cannabis medications and watch as Madison swallows each one,” Davis said. “Science, research and experience in my heart all know that it can and will and has helped her.”

At the conference, Davis said the family recently received good news about Madison’s cancer: Four of the five tumors were gone.

“Cannabis is an important and essential part of why she is still here and still her, five years into this battle for her life,” Davis shared. “Cannabis is why she has never, not even once, suffered from the nausea, vomiting or seizures that are expected side effects of her chemo.”

Not only does Davis’ daughter suffer from cancer, but her son, Aiden, has Crohn’s disease. Aiden also uses cannabis to ease the pain of everyday life, Davis said.

“I fight because when I told my son about today, the first thing he said with legitimate fear in his voice was, ‘Mom, you can’t tell them those things. You can’t tell them about Maddie’s medicine. Cannabis is illegal. I need you; you can’t go to jail,’” Davis said.

Madison has been on cannabis products since June 2017. Davis said she gets Madison and Aiden’s cannabis from a licensed doctor in California.

Jenn Michelle Pedini, the executive director for Virginia NORML, said progress had been made in getting the state to expand access to medical cannabis.

According to the Virginia Board of Pharmacy, patients and their legal guardians can register to obtain such products if they have a certification issued by a physician.

“In 2016, we passed a bill that let us go forth and write a regulatory program that was based on Connecticut’s then-program, which was also low-THC, extraction-based products only and served to a small set of patients,” Pedini said.

In 2018, the General Assembly passed a law allowing practitioners to issue certifications for the use of cannabis-based products to alleviate symptoms “of any diagnosed condition or disease determined by the practitioner to benefit from such use.”

The Board of Pharmacy has given approval to pharmaceutical companies to open five dispensaries across the state where CBD and THC-A oils will be sold to authorized patients.

Del. Glenn Davis, R-Virginia Beach, has filed a bill (HB 2245) to double the number of medical cannabis dispensaries.

Written by Madison Manske, Capital News Service. Image via Facebook

Despite High Costs & Unequal Enforcement, Decriminalization Remains Out Of Reach In VA

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While most of Virginia may be enjoying some good, old-fashioned reefer madness today, at least 22,000 people will be left out this year, paying fines and sitting in jail as decriminalization efforts have failed to take effect. Most of them are Black.

Sorry to bring down your high.

“[Decriminalization] is an urgent criminal justice and racial justice issue in Virginia that lawmakers should be taking more seriously,” said Bill Farrar, director of strategic communications at the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU).

According to a study conducted by ACLU, 8.2 million arrests are made each year for marijuana possession, while people of color are 3.72 more likely to be arrested for possession. Farrar stated that in certain areas of Virginia, they are eight times as likely to be arrested. Those arrested are most often carrying less than an ounce of marijuana, yet have exorbitant fees and often spend time in jail. Currently, being caught with less than half an ounce is a misdemeanor, but anything over a half ounce is considered a felony.

“The commonwealth spends nearly three quarters of a billion dollars each year enforcing a law that dramatically and disparately entangles people of color in the criminal justice system, while neglecting to fund programs to help people with mental illness or directly address the growing opioid problem,” Farrar said.

This past General Assembly session, two senators presented bills with decriminalization efforts and both failed at the Courts of Justice committee level, meaning they never reached the floor for a general vote.

“It’s important to note that African-Americans only make up 20 percent of Virginia’s population yet are arrested three times more than whites for marijuana possession when use is equal between races,” said Jenn Michelle Pedini, executive director at Virginia NORML (National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws) who assisted Senator Adam Ebbin in writing Senate Bill 111, which would decriminalize marijuana and reduce charges to a simple $50 fine on the first offense with subsequent fine increase to $100 and $250 for second and third offenses.

“You have to work with intent to suss out 20 percent of your population and target them three times more,” Pedini said. “That’s not unique, we see it play out throughout the country, and it’s not to say that law enforcement is inherently biased against African-Americans, or explicitly biased, more likely it is them exercising their implicit bias. This is how systemic oppression plays out in America.”

In addition to this systemic oppression, both Farrar and Pedini cited gross spending habits by the Virginia state government to continue arrests for marijuana possession. According to a study by the Drug Policy Alliance, Virginia spends $70 million annually on marijuana possession arrests and prosecutions alone.

“That is more than the Commonwealth has budgeted for the current fiscal year for statewide capital improvements to transportation and natural resources combined, and 14 percent more than the amount of general funds budgeted to support the Department of Behavioral Health and Developmental Services – which deals with mental health and substance abuse treatment, among other things – for the entire 2016-18 biennium,” Senator Ebbin said in a statement to the General Assembly in February.

In 2016, many activists and politicians worked to find money for processing thousands of backlogged rape test kits and struggled to find it. “We didn’t have a few thousand dollars to see who had raped someone, then had to waste time and money arguing about how to find a couple million dollars to process those backlogged kits,” Pedini said. “Meanwhile, pot possession, which has little or no public safety impact, we have $70 million for.”

A portion of this spending is for programs like the Virginia Alcohol Safety Action Program (VASAP), a court-ordered addiction clinic. Twenty-one percent of those ordered to VASAP are there for marijuana possession, equal to the percent sent in for opioid and heroin.

“If we stopped this waste of taxpayer dollars and instead decriminalized, removed that six months to one year rehab requirement, you would immediately double access to treatment for opioid and heroin addiction,” Pedini said.

Senator Tommy Norment promised during his campaign to put forward a decriminalization bill as well, but later reduced it to an expungement bill. Both Farrar and Pedini were disappointed in this change, and Senator Ebbin openly objected to it on the Assembly floor.

“The members of these subcommittees are primarily prosecutors, and they’re not interested in passing legislation that limits or reduces their prosecutorial discretion,” Pedini said.

In a 2018 poll released by Virginia Commonwealth University, eight out of ten Virginians said they would prefer reducing the marijuana possession misdemeanor conviction to a fine and are in favor of reform.

“Virginians want us to decriminalize marijuana possession, not to create a new fish trap that doesn’t do anything to address the racial disparities in our current criminal justice system nor address the high costs of continuing to criminalize simple possession,” Senator Ebbin said.

Pedini and Farrar are hopeful that Senator Ebbin’s bill will pass in 2020 after the 2019 elections.

“We’re ruining people’s lives with this… We don’t need some tiny half step to pretend like that’s reform,” Pedini said. “We need real reform, and that’s decriminalization. This criminal charge is going to follow people for the rest of their lives, can lead to them losing their children, being evicted, losing their job, losing their scholarships.”

Image by Vivienne Lee

Opinion: Time to Legalize Medical Marijuana to Help Virginia’s Chronically Ill

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Charlotte Figi was three months old when she first started having seizures. By age two, she began having seizures so severe it resulted in the loss of motor ability. After a series of grueling and rigorous tests, she was diagnosed with Dravet Syndrome, a rare and severe form of intractable epilepsy according to CNN’s report. Charlotte’s family, based in Colorado, was on the verge of giving up before a specific treatment became available one offered the chance for their daughter to live a normal life.  

After a change in medicine at the age of six, her attacks decreased to two to three times a month, down from 300 a week, and she was even able to ride her bike and feed herself. And what was the medicine that helped Charlotte so much? The oil extracted from cannabis or marijuana.  

Here in Virginia, as the laws currently stand, only patients with intractable epilepsy are able to offer their illness as an affirmative defense in court. For everyone else who could potentially benefit from cannabis extracts — those with cancer, multiple sclerosis, and Parkinson’s, the use of cannabis oil as a medical treatment is still deemed a criminal offense.

“We had pieces of legislation in 2017 that sought to expand patient access and all five of them were tabled in the House Criminal Law Subcommittee,” said Jenn Michelle Pedini, Virginia’s NORML Executive Director.

Recently, though, on Oct. 17, Virginia’s Joint Commission on Health Care released a 93-page report on the medical use and health effects of cannabis. This report was issued in response to a request for scientifically-based clarification about the healing properties and psychoactive effects of cannabis extracts, which can now be legally manufactured by pharmaceutical companies with the passing of Bill SB 1027. This bill authorizes, “…a pharmaceutical processor, after obtaining a permit from the Board of Pharmacy (the Board) and under the supervision of a licensed pharmacist, to manufacture and provide cannabidiol oil and THC-A oil to be used for the treatment of intractable epilepsy.”

However, until the Board of Pharmacy amends the licensing processes for this to take place, these patients will still have to travel to states where it is legal – potentially committing “drug trafficking” offenses to obtain them.

Now I’m not making the claim that smoking marijuana is a “cure-all” for all illnesses as some die-hard enthusiasts claim. What I am claiming is that extracts from marijuana have scientifically proven medicinal benefits, and that must be considered by our policy makers and legislators.

Marinol, which is a full strength synthetic THC — THC being the primary active chemical in marijuana — comes with some side effects, including dizziness, confusion, and the “high” feeling one gets when normally smoking cannabis. Yet, it is available by prescription in the state of Virginia.

The reason for these undesired effects is that it doesn’t have the terpenoids – chemicals that are responsible for giving the plant its distinct scent – and complementary cannabinoids – like THC, there are 113 of these active chemical compounds that are responsible for interacting with neurotransmitters exhibiting the psychoactive effects associated with cannabis.  Both of these naturally occur in marijuana and are able to mitigate these side effects. Without them, Marinol can present more harmful side effects than actual CBD and THC-A oils.

And if a synthetic version of an extract has been proven to be more harmful than the actual substance, there should be no logical reason to make that substance illegal.

This issue of medical marijuana derivatives has been polarizing in the past. However, a recent Quinnipiac poll shows that an overwhelming 92 percent of voters support medical marijuana when it is prescribed at a doctor’s discretion. Hell, 64 percent of the nation even supports recreational use of marijuana.

So what’s the hold-up?

Pedini relayed to me a variety of information on the current state of Cannabidiol Oil Laws (COL) in the Commonwealth. According to her, the delay in legalizing the wider medical use of cannabis oils is due to the those who profit from archaic and failed views on the war on drugs.

“There are certain industries that benefit from maintaining the status quo,” said Pedini. “That is primarily {those} who lobby not only against marijuana reform, but other types of criminal justice reform [as well],”

Specific industries she’s referring to here include the substance abuse management industry, law enforcement, and some legislators that take campaign contributions from these industries. Pedini went on to say, “A lot of these legislators are prosecutors or criminal defense attorneys, and they view marijuana law infractions in a much different context than someone who concerned about medical access does.”.

It’s disappointing (to say the least) that these individuals fight to retain control over a system they helped create, even when it means preventing chronically ill people from receiving much-needed care and relief. A common claim by the opposition is that these oils can be used as an excuse to get high. However, the JCHC report admits from the outset that CBD contains no intoxicating properties.

It is psychoactive by nature, as are most drugs, but psychoactive merely means altering your brain function. With CBD oil, that’s as far as it goes, stopping well short of any intoxicating effects. THC-A also does not have intoxicating properties on its own, but a normal 15 percent THC-A dose can be overheated to reach 5 percent THC. This sounds like a cause for concern, but SB 1027 already allows up to 5 percent THC in medications for children with intractable epilepsy.

“There’s no particular need for Virginia to roll it’s already hyper-restrictive program backwards. That doesn’t serve patients, it doesn’t serve public safety — it doesn’t really serve anyone,” said Pedini.

This is not to mention that obtaining THC-A just to get that 5 percent of THC would be an overly expensive process; doctors’ visits, prescription costs, and deductible payments costs would add up to far more than such drugs would cost on the street.

Besides, these substances won’t fall into the hands of your stereotypical drug dealer anyway; most advocates, including NORML, are in favor of legal medicinal cannabis extracts being treated as any other prescription and requiring a doctor to sign off on its use.

Pedini reinforced this sentiment by saying, “Health care should be practiced by trained medical professionals, and in conference with the actual patient and the provider — not between a state senator.”

Sentiments were expressed by opponents of decriminalization at the recent decriminalization meeting held by the State Crime Commission, however – to the effect that “the leniency on one marijuana-related law will pave the way to full-blown legalization.” With the current makeup of the General Assembly, though, the fear of legalization has no merit, even after the recent shift bringing about a 50-50 split in the House of Delegates.

Statistics also have shown that in states with COL laws have no significant increase in marijuana use for both youth and young adult groups. A study in the journal Addiction recently found that increases in the use of marijuana amongst Oregon college students mainly occurred with students who were already likely to binge-drink. Students likely to abuse one legal drug may be likely to abuse another, but it seems everyone else’s usage stays about the same.

Make no mistake, I do believe that legalization for recreational use should occur. But this is an argument for another day.

It’s also intriguing to note that the report by the health commission features statistics showing that states with medical cannabis laws in place have a 25 percent reduction in opiate overdoses. “It is not a silver bullet to the opiate crisis, but it can play a very meaningful impact,” said Pedini.

Come November 21, the JCHC will meet to discuss policy options and bill options for the 2018 General Assembly. With the reports from both the JCHC and the State Crime Commission, Gov. McAuliffe signing SB 1027 allowing for the manufacturing of these extracts in-state, and Governor-Elect Ralph Northam — a former doctor- has expressed an “open mind” to marijuana reform — the ball is in our court.

“By decriminalizing it, our researchers can better study the plant so doctors can more effectively prescribe drugs made from it,” said Governor-Elect Northam on his campaign website.

Virginia, we need to let the JCHC know that extracts are just as safe and effective as most traditional medicines and pave the way for patients to at least have this as an option.